Neal Boortz's Texas A & M Commencement Address:
I am honored by the invitation to address you on this
august occasion. It's about time. Be warned, however,
that I am not here to impress you; you'll have enough
smoke blown your way today. And you can bet your
tassels I'm not here to impress the faculty and
administration.
You may not like much of what I have to say, and
that's fine. You will remember it though. Especially
after about 10 years out there in the real world.
This, it goes without saying, does not apply to those
of you who will seek your careers and your fortunes as
government employees.
This gowned gaggle behind me is your faculty. You've
heard the old saying that those who can - do. Those
who can't - teach. That sounds deliciously
insensitive. But there is often raw truth in
insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good
falsehoods and lies in compassion. Say good-bye to
your faculty because now you are getting ready to go
out there and do. These folks behind me are going to
stay right here and teach.
By the way, just because you are leaving this place
with a diploma doesn't mean the learning is over. When
an FAA flight examiner handed me my private pilots
license many years ago, he said, "Here, this is your
ticket to learn."
The same can be said for your diploma. Believe me, the
learning has just begun.
Now, I realize that most of you consider yourselves
Liberals. In fact, you are probably very proud of your
liberal views. You care so much. You feel so much. You
want to help so much. After all, you're a
compassionate and caring person, aren't you now?
Well, isn't that just so extraordinarily special.
Now, at this age, is as good a time as any to be a
Liberal; as good a time as any to know absolutely
everything. You have plenty of time, starting
tomorrow, for the truth to set in.
Over the next few years, as you begin to feel the cold
breath of reality down your neck, things are going to
start changing pretty fast .. including your own
assessment of just how much you really know.
So here are the first assignments for your initial
class in reality:
Pay attention to the news, read newspapers, and listen
to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to
promote their causes. Then compare the words of the
left to the words and phrases you hear from those
evil, heartless, greedy conservatives.
From the Left you will hear "I feel." From the Right
you will hear "I think."
From the Liberals you will hear references to
groups"The Blacks, The Poor, The Rich, The
Disadvantaged, The Less Fortunate." From the Right you
will hear references to individuals.
On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the
Right, individual rights.
That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel. Liberals
care. They are pack animals whose identity is tied up
in group dynamics. Conservatives and Libertarians
think and, setting aside the theocracy crowd, their
identity is centered on the individual.
Liberals feel that their favored groups, have
enforceable rights to the property and services of
productive individuals. Conservatives (and
Libertarians, myself among them I might add) think
that individuals have the right to protect their lives
and their property from the plunder of the masses.
In college you developed a group mentality, but if you
look closely at your diplomas you will see that they
have your individual names on them. Not the name of
your school mascot, or of your fraternity or sorority,
but your name. Your group identity is going away. Your
recognition and appreciation of your individual
identity starts now.
If, by the time you reach the age of 30, you do not
consider yourself to be a libertarian or a
conservative, rush right back here as quickly as you
can and apply for a faculty position. These people
will welcome you with open arms. They will welcome
you, that is, so long as you haven't developed an
individual identity. Once again you will have to be
willing to sign on to the group mentality you embraced
during the past four years.
Something is going to happen soon that is going to
really open your eyes. You're going to actually get a
full time job! You're also going to get a lifelong
work partner. This partner isn't going to help you do
your job. This partner is just going to sit back and
wait for payday. This partner doesn't want to share in
your effort, only your earnings.
Your new lifelong partner is actually an agent. An
agent representing a strange and diverse group of
people. An agent for every teenager with an
illegitimate child. An agent for a research scientist
who wanted to make some cash answering the age-old
question of why monkeys grind their teeth. An agent
for some poor demented hippie who considers herself to
be a meaningful and talented artist ... but who just
can't manage to sell any of her artwork on the open
market.
Your new partner is an agent for every person with
limited, if any, job skills ... but who wanted a job
at City Hall. An agent for tin-horn dictators in fancy
military uniforms grasping for American foreign aid.
An agent for multi-million-dollar companies who want
someone else to pay for their overseas advertising. An
agent for everybody who wants to use the unimaginable
power of this agent for their personal enrichment and
benefit.
That agent is our wonderful, caring, compassionate,
oppressive government.
Believe me, you will be awed by the unimaginable power
this agent has. Power that you do not have. A power
that no individual has, or will have.
This agent has the legal power to use force deadly
force to accomplish its goals.
You have no choice here. Your new friend is just going
to walk up to you, introduce itself rather gruffly,
hand you a few forms to fill out, and move right on
in. Say hello to your own personal one ton gorilla. It
will sleep anywhere it wants to.
Now, let me tell you, this agent is not cheap. As you
become successful it will seize about 40% of
everything you earn. And no, I'm sorry, there just
isn't any way you can fire this agent of plunder, and
you can't decrease it's share of your income. That
power rests with him, not you.
So, here I am saying negative things to you about
government. Well, be clear on this: It is not wrong to
distrust government. It is not wrong to fear
government. In certain cases it is not even wrong to
despise government for government is inherently evil.
Yes ... a necessary evil, but dangerous nonetheless
... somewhat like a drug. Just as a drug that in the
proper dosage can save your life, an overdose of
government can be fatal.
Now let's address a few things that have been crammed
into your minds at this university. There are some
ideas you need to expunge as soon as possible. These
ideas may work well in academic environment, but they
fail miserably out there in the real world.
First that favorite buzz word of the media, government
and academia: Diversity!
You have been taught that the real value of any group
of people be it a social group, an employee group, a
management group, whatever is based on diversity.
This is a favored liberal ideal because diversity is
based not on an individuals abilities or character,
but on a persons identity and status as a member of a
group.
Yes, it's that liberal group identity thing again.
Within the great diversity movement group
identification - be it racial, gender based, or some
other minority status - means more than the
individuals integrity, character or other
qualifications.
Brace yourself. You are about to move from this
academic atmosphere where diversity rules, to a
workplace and a culture where individual achievement
and excellence actually count. No matter what your
professors have taught you over the last four years,
you are about to learn that diversity is absolutely no
replacement for excellence, ability, and individual
hard work.
From this day on every single time you hear the word
"diversity" you can rest assured that there is someone
close by who is determined to rob you of every vestige
of individuality you possess.
We also need to address this thing you seem to have
about "rights."
We have witnessed an obscene explosion of so-called
"rights" in the last few decades, usually emanating
from college campuses. You know the mantra: You have
the right to a job. The right to a place to live. The
right to a living wage. The right to health care. The
right to an education. You probably even have your own
pet right - the right to a Beemer, for instance, or
the right to have someone else provide for that child
you plan on downloading in a year or so.
Forget it. Forget those rights! I'll tell you what
your rights are!
You have a right to live free, and to the results of
your labor. I'll also tell you have no right to any
portion of the life or labor of another.
You may, for instance, think that you have a right to
health care. After all, Hillary said so, didn't she?
But you cannot receive health care unless some doctor
or health practitioner surrenders some of his time &
his life - to you. He may be willing to do this for
compensation, but that's his choice. You have no
"right" to his time or property. You have no right to
his or any other persons life or to any portion
thereof.
You may also think you have some "right" to a job; a
job with a living wage, whatever that is. Do you mean
to tell me that you have a right to force your
services on another person, and then the right to
demand that this person compensate you with their
money?
Sorry, forget it. I am sure you would scream if some
urban outdoorsmen (that would be "homeless person" for
those of you who don't want to give these less
fortunate people a romantic and adventurous title)
came to you and demanded his job and your money.
The people who have been telling you about all the
rights you have are simply exercising one of theirs -
the right to be imbeciles. Their being imbeciles
didn't cost anyone else either property or time. It's
their right, and they exercise it brilliantly.
By the way, did you catch my use of the phrase "less
fortunate" a bit ago when I was talking about the
urban outdoorsmen? That phrase is a favorite of the
Left. Think about it, and youll understand why.
To imply that one person is homeless, destitute,
dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and
generally miserable because he is "less fortunate" is
to imply that a successful person - one with a job, a
home and a future - is in that position because he or
she was "fortunate."
The dictionary says that fortunate means "having
derived good from an unexpected place." There is
nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work.
There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery
from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street.
If the Left can create the common perception that
success and failure are simple matters of "fortune" or
"luck," then it is easy to promote and justify their
various income redistribution schemes. After all, we
are just evening out the odds a little bit.
This "success equals luck" idea the liberals like to
push is seen everywhere. Democratic presidential
candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as
"people who have won lifes lottery." He wants you to
believe they are making the big bucks because they are
lucky.
It's not luck, my friends. It's choice. One of the
greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og
Mandino, entitled "The Greatest Secret in the World."
The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of
choice."
That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a
wharf rat? He's there by choice. He is there because
of the sum total of the choices he has made in his
life. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for
some people to accept, especially those who consider
themselves to be victims of something or other -
victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system,
capitalism, whatever.
After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for
his or her position in life. Not when it is so much
easier to point and say, "Look! He did this to me!"
than it is to look into a mirror and say, "You S.O.B.!
You did this to me!"
The key to accepting responsibility for your life is
to accept the fact that your choices, every one of
them, are leading you inexorably to either success or
failure, however you define those terms.
Some of the choices are obvious: Whether or not to
stay in school. Whether or not to get pregnant.
Whether or not to hit the bottle. Whether or not to
keep this job you hate until you get another
better-paying job. Whether or not to save some of your
money, or saddle yourself with huge payments for that
new car.
Some of the choices are seemingly insignificant: Whom
to go to the movies with. Whose car to ride home in.
Whether to watch the tube tonight, or read a book on
investing. But, and you can be sure of this, each
choice counts.
Each choice is a building block - some large, some
small. But each one is a part of the structure of your
life.
If you make the right choices, or if you make more
right choices than wrong ones, something absolutely
terrible may happen to you. Something unthinkable.
You, my friend, could become one of the hated, the
evil, the ugly, the feared, the filthy, the
successful, the rich.
Quite a few people have made that mistake.
The rich basically serve two purposes in this country.
First, they provide the investments, the investment
capital, and the brains for the formation of new
businesses. Businesses that hire people. Businesses
that send millions of paychecks home each week to the
un-rich.
Second, the rich are a wonderful object of ridicule,
distrust, and hatred.
Few things are more valuable to a politician than the
envy most Americans feel for the evil rich. Envy is a
powerful emotion. Even more powerful than the
emotional minefield that surrounded Bill Clinton when
he reviewed his last batch of White House interns.
Politicians use envy to get votes and power. And they
keep that power by promising the envious that the
envied will be punished: "The rich will pay their fair
share of taxes if I have anything to do with it.
The truth is that the top 10% of income earners in
this country pays almost 50% of all income taxes
collected. I shudder to think what these job producers
would be paying if our tax system were any more
"fair."
You have heard, no doubt, that in the rich get richer
and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough, our
governments own numbers show that many of the poor
actually get richer, and that quite a few of the rich
actually get poorer.
But for the rich who do actually get richer, and the
poor who remain poor .. there's an explanationa
reason. The rich, you see, keep doing the things that
make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things
that make them poor.
Speaking of the poor, during your adult life you are
going to hear an endless string of politicians
bemoaning the plight of the poor in .
So, you need to know that under our governments
definition of "poor" you can have a $5 million net
worth, a $300,000 home and a new $90,000 Mercedes, all
completely paid for. You can also have a maid, cook,
and valet, and $1 million in your checking account,
and you can still be officially defined by our
government as "living in poverty."
Now there's something you haven't seen on the evening
news.
How does the government pull this one off? Very
simple, really. To determine whether or not some poor
soul is "living in poverty," the government measures
one thingjust one thing. Income. It doesnt matter
one bit how much you have, how much you own, how many
cars you drive or how big they are, whether or not
your pool is heated, whether you winter in Aspen and
spend the summers in the Bahamas, or how much is in
your savings account. It only matters how much income
you claim in that particular year.
This means that if you take a one-year leave of
absence from your high-paying job and decide to live
off the money in your savings and checking accounts
while you write the next great American novel, the
government says you are living in poverty."
This isn't exactly what you had in mind when you heard
these gloomy statistics, is it?
Do you need more convincing? Try this. The
governments own statistics show that people who are
said to be "living in poverty" spend more than $1.50
for each dollar of income they claim. Something is a
bit fishy here.
Just remember all this the next time Peter Jennings
puffs up and tells you about some hideous new poverty
statistics.
Why has the government concocted this phony poverty
scam? Because the government needs an excuse to grow
and to expand its social welfare programs, which
translates into an expansion of its power. If the
government can convince you, in all your compassion,
that the number of "poor" is increasing, it will have
all the excuse it needs to sway an electorate
suffering from the advanced stages of
Obsessive-Compulsive Compassion Disorder.
I'm about to be stoned by the faculty here. They've
already changed their minds about that honorary degree
I was going to get. That's OK, though. I still have my
Ph.D. in Insensitivity from the Neal Boortz Institute
for Insensitivity Training. I learned that, in short,
sensitivity sucks.
It's a trap. Think about it - the truth knows no
sensitivity. Life can be insensitive. Wallow too much
in sensitivity and you'll be unable to deal with life,
or the truth. So, get over it.
Now, before the dean has me shackled and hauled off, I
have a few random thoughts.
You need to register to vote, unless you are on
welfare. If you are living off the efforts of others,
please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up
until you are on your own again.
When you do vote, your votes for the House and the
Senate are more important than your vote for
president. The House controls the purse strings, so
concentrate your awareness there.
Liars cannot be trusted, even when the liar is the
president of the United States. If someone can't deal
honestly with you, send them packing.
Don't bow to the temptation to use the government as
an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you to
take money from someone else who earned it to take
their money by force for your own needs then it is
certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the
government step forward and do this dirty work for
you.
Don't look in other peoples pockets. You have no
business there.
What they earn is theirs. What your earn is yours.
Keep it that way. Nobody owes you anything, except to
respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you
the hell alone.
Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is
for losers.
Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the
maximum. You don't see highly successful people
clocking out of the office every afternoon at five.
The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon
rush hour.
The winners drive home in the dark.
Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech.
Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.
Finally (and aren't you glad to hear that word), as Og
Mandino wrote,
1. Proclaim your rarity. Each of you is a rare and
unique human being.
2. Use wisely your power of choice.
3. Go the extra mile ... drive home in the dark.
Oh, and put off buying a television set as long as you
can.
Now, if you have any idea at all what's good for you,
you will get the hell out of here and never come back.
Class dismissed.
God, I love a good war story.... 
