On his nationally syndicated radio show this week, right-wing talker Neal Boortz attacked victims of Hurricane Katrina, saying that “the disaster that followed” was not “George Bush’s fault” because, in Boortz’ mind, “the primary blame goes on the worthless parasites who lived in New Orleans who you ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ couldn’t even wipe themselves, let alone get out of the way of the water when that levee broke.” Earlier in the same show, Boortz claimed that “when these Katrina so-called refugees were scattered about the country, it was just a glorified episode of putting out the garbage.
It would be difficult to come up with a more thoroughly wasted piece of humanity than Neal Boortz. This diatribe is not even his most offensive assault on basic human decency, merely his most recent.
An inveterate DUMB@$$ of the first order, Boortz is an intellectuall midget capable of stunning degrees of hatred, racisim, and misogyny…and yet he still has a radio gig that draws a sizable audience…which really only proves that like attracts like. There are apparently an awful lot of intellectual midgets willing to buy into Boortz’ simplistic all-encompassing hatred of Others, because THEY are the ones responsible for the mess this nation is in. If only America was more…well, White, Male, Christian, and arch-Conservative, this would be a MUCH better place. Well, yeah, this country would be Idaho writ large.
I could write Boortz off as merely another ignorant, knuckle-dragging troglodyte…but I can’t escape the fact that this sort of unadulterated hatred and demonization of those who don’t think, believe, or live as you do has happened before. This is exactly the sort of hatred that brought Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin, and many others to power. It’s what led to violent, bloody pogroms in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Kenya…and other countries too numerous to mention. Yes, our strong tradition based on the rule of law may insulate us from the worst excesses of hatred and mob violence, but how long will that continue to be true?
I understand Boortz’ (misplaced) anger and frustration, but wouldn’t it more helpful to think about how we might change things?
Rather than inveighing against the “parasites”, wouldn’t it be more useful to examine why those folks are the way they are? Wouldn’t it be more useful to look at our role in both creating and perpetuating this current sorry state of affairs? We have the power to create and enforce change, but only if we determine that this is what needs to be done…and only if we display the resolve to follow through.
For the past five or six generations, we’ve thrown money at poverty, assuming that this would fix the problem. What’s actually happened, though, is that we’ve created an underclass with a sense of entitlement and no incentive to get off their collective ass and create a better life for themselves. If you doubt me, come spend some time in southwest Houston, where so many thousands of Katrina refugees still live. You’ll find good and decent people who truly want to make a better life for themselves and their families. Unfortunately, you’ll find even more people who lack the tools and the motivation to pick themselves up. If all you’ve known is welfare, why would you want anything different? How could you know that there’s anything different and/or better out there for you? Not surprisingly, people who grow up surrounded by ignorance and sloth tend to perpetuate that cycle. If no one models anything different for you, if no one pushes you to look outside yourself, how can we reasonably expect anything to change for you?
Until the current welfare system is changed, people like Neal Boortz will continue to spew their ignorance, frustration, and prejudice across the airwaves. Yet even with all of this, you’d think that Boortz could come up with proposals that might just hold out the promise of change. Of course, that would require some honest-to-God thinking, which for most Americans is just too damn much work. Of course, it is a lot easier to tear something down that it is to build it up, no?
For generations, we’ve thrown ever-increasing amouts of money at the problem of poverty, primarily because it’s been the easiest thing to do. We can throw money at a problem and feel as if we’re solving it. The down side is that money changes nothing. You can give a man a fish, and you might feed him for a day. If you teach that same man how to fish, however, you just might succeed in teaching him how to feed himself and his family from there on. Pretty simple, eh? And yet we do little to create a sense of urgency so that the poor will feel the need to learn how to fish.
We as a nation do a damn poor job of talking about what our responsibility is to those less fortunate than ourselves. I’ve always been a big believer in John Locke’s social contract theory. I do believe that those who have indeed have an implied responsibility to assist those who do not. This assistance need not be a “hand out”; it can, and should, be a “hand up”- temporary help provided to set a person on their feet and make them self-sufficient whenever possible.
Our current welfare systems exists largely to perpetuate the underclass. Many of those on welfare have little incentive to improve their situation simply because they not only count on government assistance, they believe they are ENTITLED to it. We as a society have only perpetuated this over time by our refusal to do anything more than throw money at the problem.
If we are to help pull the poor out of poverty, we MUST work to convince people that they are no more entitled to government assistance than they are a big-screen television. I believe that we must make the tools available- education, job training programs, etc.- to provide the poor the means with which to be successful. In doing so, however, we must also make it clear that this benevolence has it’s limits, and that it cannot and will not be open-ended. Until we make it clear that our patience and benevolence is finite, and until we enforce that, we cannot reasonably expect the poor, uneducated, and unmotivated to roust themselves from their collective slumber. IF we provide the tools, the training, and the financial support for a person to improve themselves, and if they still refuse to avail themselves of the opportunities, then it should be made clear to them that society is under no obligation to support them.
This may not be a perfect solution, but it’s a start, and until we start discussin how to change the status quo, we will remain exactly where we are, and intellectual midgets like Neal Boortz will continue to hold sway. I would certainly agree that the old Liberal-inspired welfare system is broken, but we do have the power to fix it and/or replace with a system that does what we want it to do. What will that system ultimately look like? That’s an answer I don’t have at the moment, but if I can at least spark a discussion, then I will have accomplished something positive- which is more than I can say for Neal Boortz.
