GREAT SPEECH!!!!!!

Neal Boortz is a Texan, a lawyer, a Texas Aggie (Texas A&M) graduate,
and now a nationally syndicated talk show host from Atlanta . His
commencement address to the graduates of a recent Texas A&M class is
far different from what either the students or the faculty expected.
Whether you agree or disagree, his views are certainly thought
provoking.

"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 up your bloomers 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 pilot's 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 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, I
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 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, but in 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's 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 its 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 is that favorite buzz word of the media 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 person's 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 60% -75% 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, President Obama said so, didn't he? 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 person's 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 outdoors men (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 outdoors men? That phrase is a
favorite of the Left. Think about it, and you'll 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 Liberal 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. Former
Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-
achievers as "people who have won life's 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.

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 the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer. Interestingly enough, our government's 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 explanation — a 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. So,
you need to know that under our government's 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 a 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 thing — just one thing. Income.

It doesn't 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
government's 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 Charles Gibson 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 PhD. 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
country. 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 people's pockets. You have no business there.
What they earn is theirs. What you 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 out of here
and never come back. Class dismissed"

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