Boortz: Faced with an impending national disaster, "we should save the rich people first"
On the October 14 broadcast of his daily radio show, right-wing radio host Neal Boortz stated that if the country is faced with an impending national disaster, it should make it a higher priority to save rich Americans rather than poor Americans.
An October 13 New York Daily News article spurred Boortz's comments. The front-page story, headlined "Rich Got Terror Tip," reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has launched an investigation into whether its officials alerted certain New Yorkers of a terror threat to the city's subway days before the rest of the city learned of the possible plot. According to the article, the probe was launched after the discovery of two emails describing the bombing plot that "had been sent early last week to a select crowd of business and arts executives by New Yorkers who claimed to have close connections to Homeland Security."
After summarizing the story, Boortz responded, "This is as it should be." He went on to imagine a scenario in which the country is forced to "set some priorities" regarding who will be notified of an impending disaster. "We should save the rich people first," Boortz declared. "You know, they're the ones that are responsible for this prosperity." Boortz described the poorest Americans as "a drag on society" and stated that they "don't achieve squat. They sit around all the time waiting for somebody else to take care of them. They have children they can't afford. They're uneducated. They can barely read."
From the October 13 broadcast of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show:
BOORTZ: OK, I've got an insensitive thought, folks. There's a news story out there -- there's a news story out there that rich people got some sort of an email notification of the terrorist threat against the New York subway before poor people did. OK? They're making a big deal out of it. Let me see if I can find it on the Drudge Report here. Let's see. There's a guy strangling a goose. That's a pretty good -- that's a pretty impressive picture. It's something about bird flu. So he's got this goose and he's just wringing its neck. You can -- oh, who tipped off the big shots? OK, now here's the story. And it says, "The Homeland Security Department launched internal probes yesterday into whether its officials tipped off friends and relatives to a possible subway terror plot days before average New Yorkers were alerted." So the real gripe here is that it seems that some wealthy people got notified of the terror plot before the great unwashed, before the others. Now, the Daily News in New York has a headline: "Rich got terror tip." Rich got terror tip. OK, let's get logical about this, folks. Let's play logic with this. This is as it should be. OK? If we are faced with disaster in this country -- let me ask you this, OK? You just be logical. Get all of the emotion out of this. Get all of the emotion out of this. But if we are faced with a disaster in this country, which group do we want to save? The rich or the poor? Now, if you have time, save as many people as you can. But if you have to set some priorities, where do you go? The rich or the poor? OK? Who is a drag on society? The rich or the poor? Who provide the jobs out there? The rich or the poor? Who fuels -- you know, which group fuels our economy? Drives industry? The rich or the poor? Now if you -- all of a sudden, somebody walks up to you and says, "Hey, Boortz listener. You're gonna have a -- you have to make a choice. You're going to -- we're gonna move you to another country. And you're just gonna have to make your way in this other country. We have a choice of two countries for you. In this country, people achieve a lot and they are wealthy because of their hard work. In this country, people don't achieve squat. They sit around all the time waiting for somebody else to take care of them. They have children they can't afford. They're uneducated. They can barely read. And the high point of their day is Entertainment Tonight on TV. Which country do you want to live in? The country of the high achievers, or the country of sheep, the country of followers?" You know what you're gonna do. I don't see what the big problem is. I just don't. I mean, if you -- who do I want to save first? The rich. Save the poor first. Then, when everything's over, where are you gonna go for a job? OK, hey, if I get a tin cup, can I sit next to you and sell pencils too?
[...]
I'm serious about that, folks. You see, that's the kind of thing that's going to end up in news stories: "Neal Boortz said that in times of disaster we should save the rich people first." Well, hell, yes, we should save the rich people first. You know, they're the ones that are responsible for this prosperity. I mean, you go out there and you look at this vast sea of evacuees, OK? You want to get an economy going in some city? Well, who you gonna take back? The people who own businesses? Or the people that sit around waiting to get their minimum wage job, work 'til Friday, get a paycheck and then not show up again until the following Wednesday? Come on. Just put a little logical thought into this, folks.
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But....wait....I thought Rich people were self-sufficient and didn't need help from the government? Can't they save themselves?
Everyone in trouble is a socialist. Corporate bail-outs/welfare to social welfare. It appears to be human nature.
A prime example of Social Darwinism if I've ever heard one -- "The fact that I'm rich proves that I'm a better person than you are, therefore I deserve to get even more even if it's at your expense."
Hmmmmmm...there sure do seem to be more than a few people on the right who embrace this philosophy and who also claim to be Christians. What would Jesus think of this, I wonder...?
Interesting analysis.
How do we tell who is rich and who is poor when disaster strikes? An easy way to do this is charging on a per-incident basis to rescue people in disasters. Those that can pay to be rescued will be rescued and those that can’t… well what can you say.
Firemen and other rescue workers could take cash or credit cards. I am sure we can come up with some kind of monetary scale. Perhaps something like $1000 to be pulled from a collapsed building or rescued from a flood.
I sure hope Boortz carries a lot of money around on his person, just in case.
Why bother telling the rich people first about a subway attack? Do they actually use the subway? Why would they need to know when they drive their Hummers to work?
I never heard of Boortz before this little tidbit. All the more proof of the right-wingers' grand vision for America is a society full of nothing but 'haves' and 'have nots'.
Boortz drives the stake in even further by saying that the worth of a person's life is prportional to the size of their wallet. What despicable man this is.
The last sentence of Boortz's idiocy was "Just put a little logical thought into this, folks."
Obivously, Boortz put a little thought into his comments.
Very little.
Since all these "wrong" winged wackos speak the same language regarding everyone who is not just like them, I am concluding that they all share the same numb brain. They must rent it out when they need to use it. There just couldn't be that many "divine mistakes" all gathered in the same time period of history. I hope that this idiot is one of the first to go, come the revolution when the poor rise up to claim what is rightly theirs, which these low-lifes have stolen from them in the name of their profit margins.
Christians should finally look at this and realize that Boortz and his ilk are using them to achieve their greedy desires. It's not Christ that would argue we should save the rich and kill the poor, but Boortz's philosophical mentor, Ayn Rand. Wake up!
I’ve read Ayn Rand’s “We the Living” and I have to say what a naive soul. While espousing “laissez-faire capitalism” and condemning communism, she ignorantly ignores that the very corruption of the now defunct USSR bears a striking resemblance to the corruption of the USA.
A ruling class that owns the means of production. Check. Rampant corruption at all levels of government. Check. Social stratification and a severely lacking upward mobility mechanism. Check.
Anyone who believes such ignorant things as “laissez-faire capitalism” as the only way for people to make the most of their lives is either already rich or has never read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”, a nice slice of how capitalism acts in the “wild”. Unchecked by government regulation, corporations devour and their appetite is insatiable.
And to keep this on topic, being rich is not a virtue and being poor is not a sin. But suggesting that rich people’s lives are superior to anyone else’s lives is disgusting and arrogant. And if Boortz gets his moral advice from Rand, this attitude makes sense.
du-u-u-mb.
first of all, lets say you have a serious enough disaster, say avian flu, who is rich person going to turn to powder their shiny hiny?
but, seriously, his assumption is that money is all that is needed to sustain a community. not workers, people who know how to fix things, people who know how to grow food ... hell, people who know how to drive!! it isn't as if our favorite symbol of useless rich protoplasm, paris hilton, would ever be able to lift a finger on her own behalf.
rich people always seem to think they can eat money. nope, can't do it. geez.
"His assumption is that money is all that is needed to sustain a community. Not workers, people who know how to fix things, people who know how to grow food..." -- Ellezeebub
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Exactly. When Congress briefly shut down the federal government a number of years ago because of the disagreement over the budget, resulting in the temporary layoff of many federal employees, I became absolutely incensed with Andy Rooney over an opinion piece he did on "60 Minutes". I wish I could find the text so that I could include it in here -- to this day, I still consider what he said to have been unbelievably callous and asinine -- especially given the fact that even some of the federal employees who had not been laid off would not be getting paid, despite the fact that the members of Congress were still receiving their pay despite the fact that they had basically decided not to work. He said something to the effect that if everyone in the United States who made over $100,000 per year were prevented from going to work, the country would encounter serious problems. As a result, I penned an outraged missive to the point that if everyone in this country who made under $100,000 per year were prevented from coming into work, the country would collapse into utter catastrophe within less than a week -- particularly since that total would probably represent over 75% of the population.
They just cant help themselves from saying this kinda crap. With liberty, and justice for ...... $$$$$$
Yet another example of someone who almost makes me hope that there is an afterlife, so he can be judged and found wanting. The only differences between Boortz and poor people are [a] he has more money and [b] they're not as arrogant and heartlessly evil. Not that he'll ever remember, or deserve, his membership in the human race.
If I were to pick and choose who I saved, I'd end up saving fewer people than I were capable of. I understand what Boortz was getting at, but he's missing an important factor. When saving lives, just save lives. If you so happen to save a rich person, so be it. Same with a poor person. The value of a person should not matter. To ask me who'd I'd save first? I'd save the first person I can get to.
It's comments like Boortz's that make me very skeptical of the libertarians. With all of their talk about preserving personal freedom,they're really just right-wing free-market worshippers in disguise. Sure,they think people should be able to do drugs if they want to and screw around,but if you aren't well-off,they're like,"to hell with you". They're almost Satanic.
I agree.
I've always called libertarians "pro-choice Republicans." They hate it when I do that at parties...
As a libertarian, believe me, I've been called a lot worse.
I do think your comment is instructive, though, because it seems to imply that your ideas about the economic sphere, where you disagree with the libertarian and think the state should intevene, are (with the possible exception of the Abortion question) more important to your political identity than your ideas about the social sphere, where you agree with the libertarian that the state shouldn't intervene.
When talking to left-wing people, I often get the impression that this is the case. And when talking to right-wing people, I often get the impression that the interference of the state in the social sphere is more important to them than its non-interference in the economic sphere. I fear the day that the left-wing and right-wing realize that their strongest interests are compatible, and proceed to use the power of the state to ram their values down other people's throats in each of their seperate, favorite spheres.
P.S. I have no interest in defending Boortz' comment. I don't think it's decent and I don't think it's libertarian.
P.S. I have no interest in defending Boortz' comment. I don't think it's decent and I don't think it's libertarian.
by ichbin - Saturday October 15, 2005 01:08:28 AM EST
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Would the more libertarian point be that the government should not save anybody? Or would they tend to believe that the government should save people as the opportunity arises, without regard to characteristics of the person? I'm not trying to be funny here, just curious. My assumption of what libertarians would think is that people would use their own resources and not depend on the government, but I may be off-base on that. Do most libertarians believe that the government should be involved in rescuing people during a disaster? Or do they believe government intervention should stop at military and policing?
Thanks for your considered reply, wanderwoman.
I suppose you could make an argument that doing nothing is libertarian, but I don't think libertarian ideals require it. For me, libertarianism is about the state not interfering in activities in which people freely participate. Most people caught in a natural disaster don't freely choose to participate.
There are ways in which government intervention before Katrina made things worse. The government subsidizies flood insurance, which allows people to build and buy houses in flood-prone areas without bearing the real cost of the risk they are taking. Federally maintained flood-control systems have a similiar effect.
(I live near a lake, but couldn't afford a house on the waterfront. Perhaps I should build a house in the water and then ask the government to build and maintain levees and pumps to keep my house dry. That way I could get waterfront property at taxpayer expense.)
I would have been happy to see a bigger and more effective governemnt response during the Katrina disaster. But now that the disaster is over, I'd prefer to watch New Orleans sink into the swamp, unless the people who live there are willing to pony up the costs of having a city there.
Dont you need the "poor" to work when its all over...if not your stuck with to many chiefs not enough indians...where does the line get drawn? How do they decide who is really rich and who is just kinda rich....OMG that would start a new class war!!!!Boortz is a genius!!! I wish I can learn at the feet of this idio....i mean genius.
doesnt greed and these "rich" elites actually create more poor people in our society...seems to me when there is less regulation like there was in the 80's for example the gap between rich and poor grew....am i wrong?
I wonder if Boortz realizes that many great men and women who have contributed to society have not always come from a rich background . At least not materialistically anyways . If you are to determine the value of a person's life there are a many different ways of determining that value . Someone who is not wealthy may contribute more to society by donating a number of hours a week to a charity like the United Way the Salvation Army Big Brothers/Sisters World Vision etc. I wonder if the life of some executive who has scammed millions of dollars or a porn magazines publisher who is rich deserves to live more than the bulk of the population who are not rich . Perhaps Boortz would rescue Larry Flynt over Johnnas Salk Ludwic Von Beethoven or John the Baptist .
Wanna bet he considers himself a Christian...maybe even a compassionate conservative? And I'll bet he gets all lathered up over issues like "class warfare." Imagine that. Boortz makes comments like this and people actually have the nerve to bring up the divide between the rich and the poor.
Boortz has shown his true colors. Logic? Not from this crowd.
How much does Boortzy make a year?
Isn't that kind of attitude the whole reason for the French Revolution? I guarantee that if you jettisoned every millionaire on Earth into space, the world would work just fine without them. Let them eat cake, indeed.
I'd love to see it. A world with only rich people. What a trip that would be. Who's going to mow their golf courses, serve them by the pool at their resorts, clean their cars, take care of their trash, work in their factories, build their roads, clean their houses, water and keep up their luxurious gardens, pick the grapes needed for their wine, make their clothes, and serve them at their posh restaurants? Certainly Boortz has it right when he suggests that the poor don't do squat. After all can a poor person ever be as productive as Paris Hilton? They're too busy being unproductive, not doing squat, working in checkout counters at Walmart while she's being productive on her worldwide shopping trips? By the way, if the rich are saved, they won't have to worry about taking the subway because its the poor people who run it.
None of this should suprise anyone who has listened to TALK RADIO for the past 15 years since Limbaugh began his rise to prominence! Any more than anyone should be surprised by the way things are heading in America today! Savage, Coulter, Hannity, O'Lielly, and the others has just refined and made nastier his original message. This wannabee is trying to do what they all do and ratchet up the commentary so he'll be noticed...I'm saying PUT HIM ON THE FRONT PAGE OF EVERY PAPER and on all news shows...have him continue spewing this hate and you MIGHT, I say MIGHT, get a convert or two...but actually there are way too many people that agree with him. We used to have a neighbor who was a lawyer...he thought manual labor was a Mexican (course, sadly, today that's nearly correct) and took great pride in telling us he didn't need to mow his lawn, for example, cause he could afford to PAY someone else to do that! Long a proudly held American point of view! MAKE BANK DEPOSITS NOT WAR (now it's okay to make the war to make the bank deposits)THAT'S THE AMERICAN WAY!
This is a guy straight from the Soviet propaganda.
:-)
Could Boorz possibly mean to say "Save the White People First"?????
Nah, not really, right?
Besides being just plane stupid, this man, whether poor or rich, is advancing one of two scenarios: The first would be if you are rich, in the one percent of the population, the masses, who you in the one percent don't care enough to save, will save your butts first, so you can give them jobs. The second would be if you are in the ninety percent of the masses there would be an agreement, for the sake of jobs and superior intellect, to save you first because the masses are too stupid take the wealth and divide it among themselves. I think this racist is just trying to get on Media Matters because Russ Limbaugh is getting high rating for saying the same kind of stupid stuff to the same masses that are not good enough to be saved. What does this racist think of the listeners he has? What he really wanted to say is America should care less about the Blacks in New Orleans because they are a "drag" on his rich.
Joseph
My answers to Boortz's questions:
"But if we are faced with a disaster in this country, which group do we want to save? The rich or the poor?"
You save those in most danger first regardless of social or monetary status.
"Now, if you have time, save as many people as you can. But if you have to set some priorities, where do you go? The rich or the poor?"
If you truly want to set some priorities, and had to save one person and leave another, then choose the person with the most skills. It won't always be the rich person.
"OK? Who is a drag on society? The rich or the poor?"
There are a lot of rich people that are much more of a drag on society than a lot of poor and middle class people. The reverse is true too.
"Who provide the jobs out there? The rich or the poor?"
The rich and middle class.
"Who fuels -- you know, which group fuels our economy? Drives industry? The rich or the poor?"
The middle class and poor.
>> "Who fuels -- you know, which group fuels our economy? Drives industry? The rich or the poor?"
>> The middle class and poor.
True that. The biggest retailer in the world caters to the lower-middle class and the poor.
One more thought. When the catastrophe comes, well let's use a little logic. Who should we save, the rich radio talk show hosts who has a mouth and can't do squat or the poor farmer who can grow us some food? The answer is obvious. Throw the blabbermouth Boortz overboard, drown him, sink him, get rid of him. Then let's go talk to the poor farmer and see if we can get something to eat. It's just good logic.
--Is he assuming that the people who are rich got that way by being productive and hard working? What about the ones who simply had rich parents? What about the ones who got rich through illegal or immoral means? How the hell would one be able to tell the difference? (I guess they can tell by the skin color, if you know what I mean..)
I agree with those posters that, using this man's logic, we should save masons, engineers, electricians, farmers, etc. People that inherited money and have not acquired a history of contributing should not be saved. And pundits should not be saved. If a city must be rebuilt, what purpose would a pundit serve? Or the elderly? Or children?
Zeig Heil, Herr Boortz?
holly:
Boortz employs a variation of the "LIFEBOAT" quandry used in moral and ethics discussions, the hypothetical where in order to save the many, a few must be sacrificed. On what basis does a group on a lifeboat choose who goes overboard in order to allow the rest to live?
Boortz says MONEY should be the consideration; save the rich.
In reality, people in the real world don't value wealth as much as Boortz would wish. In a lifeboat with children, a nurse, a mechanic, an athelete, a sailor, and Ken Lay, Kenny-boy would either be the first tossed out, or he'd be on the menu. Money-making skill and "knowledge" of how to turn other people's capital into your own is not a skill that is valued in survival instances.
Boortz, the elitist social Darwinist, hates that this is true. Tough tiddy, Neal. You can't take it with you, and having it doesn't make you an automatically superior being. Jesus had little use for the money lenders.
When any society caves in on itself through outrageous arrogance and inequality, revolution is impregnated into the souls of the average man or woman. Time after time this has proven to be true. We are no different than any other peoples in place or time. This is a clear caution, to petty dictators and elitists. Let them eat their cake. The downtrodden prefer to wash outrage down with blood. Have we learned nothing as a species?
re: Boortz: Faced with an impending national disaster, "we should save the rich people first"
It's eugenics folks, pure and simple. That is what the right is about those they can not use or do not support them must be eliminated.
It's what they are always about, even my right-wing friends, who it seems I have more of than I care to admit, can always find a reason not to save you -- unless you're rich, a corporation, or a Bush alley. Can totally blame them? I guess it is a form of survival practice, with everyone else dead you win. The right and the rich take care of the own first and damn everyone else. As a family I can see it, as a democracy it is a death knell. As soon as the rich has bought the last one of us as serfs, the right is in for a surprise, they'll be sold like the rest of us -- unless they are the uber-rich. Remember folks the reason most people are and remain rich is they found a way to get the government to care for them first. Corporate welfare and tax relief outweighs social welfare dramatically. Without a government or a social system the poor are still just scrapping by, it is the rich that need to be saved without social, economic, or political conventions they are just a poor person with worthless papers and plastic in his/her Italian leather wallet.
This is nothing new with Boortz. He rants about how Islam is a violent religion and demeans the poor regularly. The worst I've heard from Boortz was when he called Bethany Hamilton, the 13-year-old Hawaiian surfer who lost her arm to a shark, "stupid," "inarticulate," and "shark food," and joked that she'd "never be a typist." When US pilots clipped a ski lift line in Italy and sent dozens of innocent skiiers to their deaths, Boortz joked that the pilots had made some "good lasagna." When US bombers apparently hit a wedding party in western Iraq, Boortz called it "40 funerals and a wedding." No wonder so many hate us. The man is shameless. His direct email is highpriest@cox.com. Tell him Preston the Jerk sent you.
I thought there was nothing else these people could say that could leave me speechless anymore, I stand corrected.
Bless Boortz's heart.
He gives the rightwing rationale that explains EVERY SINGLE Republican-formed policy in history. All advantage to the rich. All government favoritism to the rich. Every break for the rich. No policy that doesn't result in boosting the rich (and shafting everyone else).
I admire it when a rightwinger has the guts to pull aside the veil for a moment and reveal the TRUTH about rightwing core values. Most rightwing politicians expend most of their time and money concealing their true beliefs behind crafted rhetoric like "compassionate conservativism", to hide their black hearts.
Boortz isn't afraid to state an undeniable truth, one which is shared by (but denied by) every Republican in recent history. Bravo, Neal!
The really sad thing is that a huge majority of the Republican base is NOT rich, yet laps up this nonsense like gravy. Can someone explain that? Is it just that they are so desperate to get prayer back in public school and overturn Roe v. Wade that NOTHING ELSE MATTERS?
The Republicans are selling a llifestyle. Their PR spin is if you vote for them, you can live in pretty wholesome communities where everyone goes to church and flies the flag, taxes are bad and everyone becomes rich. Unfortunately once you vote for them, your job is sent overseas, the federal money that made your community nice is rescinded and state and local taxes soar to make up for shortfall from the feds. The average Joe is just vote fodder to them.
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of those old cigarette ads where doctors recommended smoking "for your health".
Yes, I was wondering some of the same things.
I think it's a good thing that Mr. Boortz stated his views so baldly. Maybe this way, some of his listeners will be turned off. Some of them, I'm sure, have made minimum wage at some point in their lives; that's a starting point for an awful lot of successful, productive people. Some of them should remember that minimum-wage workers are not the lazy illiterates that Mr. Boortz portrays, but a mixed group, everyone from high school students to young people starting their lives to mentally impaired people who have the persistence and work ethic to overcome their disabilities. In fact, from what I can tell the lazy workers are a fairly small fraction; McDonalds does not have a tenure system, nor does it have to give you thirty days notice.
I can only conclude that Mr. Boortz is so far removed from the rest of us that he doesn't realize who grows his food, drives the trucks which supply the stores, or assemble his car in the factory. I hope most of his listeners are wiser than this.
Irene
Wow. This is really EVIL.
OK BOORTIZ
Business Do I pick Donald Trump or some guy who can drive heavy machinery?
Religion Do I pick a Jerry Farwell or some priest who has taken a vow of poverty?
Politics Do I take lobbiest Jack Abernove (sic)or the head of disaster relief for any major or minor city?
Education Do I take Neil Boortz or a high school science teacher?
Medicine Do I take a Plastic surgeon or do I take an emergency room doctor?
Please Neil explain to me why the former would be better than the latters