Income ?= Intelligence

Boortz says on January 21, 2008,

The median age of voters in the 2008 election will be 44 ... and for Hillary voters, they will be single women and the uneducated. How does that make you Hillary supporters feel? Every study that's been done has shown that Hillary supporters make less money .. that mean's they're less successful than the supporters of other candidates. I think it's fair to say that they're less intelligent as well.

I think it's fair to point out that Boortz makes oodles more money than the average voter for any candidate, but gives every indication in his writing that he is far less intelligent than the average voter... for any candidate.

I'm not sure how to link to him these days... Here is his main page, and the relevant quote is in the "Required Reading Section". After today, I'm sure today's page will eventually be added to an archive of some sort.

Reply to NB

Google isn't so bad... I guess I'm still able to post to this dinosaur. I noticed another mention of this blog on the Nuze page lately (way at the bottom of the reading assignments on November 14), wondering why nobody updates this any more. I thought I explained it in my farewell posts of 2... what? ... 3 ... what? almost 4 years ago. Yes, I am still blogging, at least occasionally. With a friend who I met when Neal directed his listeners here the first time - about 4 years ago. We are now at Tete-a-Tete-Tete (Hi Buck!). We even still keep up with Neal Boortz from time to time, and post about something he wrote.

So, this post is for Neal, who wanted to see something new here. Next question is why? Mr. Boortz, if you read this & are interested in having a nemesis out here on the internets, post something to let me know what you are looking for. I'm too busy to be a one-man paparazzi for a full-time radio host, but maybe I can find time to do a digest post once per week or so.

One Last Thing

I've gone ahead and set up the Best of Boortz archive at the new complex. Hope to see you there.

Hello, goodbye, hello.

I've enjoyed doing the anti-boortz blog. I will continue to enjoy policing the more outlandish Bootzisms I run across, but it will not be here anymore. Nor will it be at my other blogspot page. From now on, I will run one (1) blog. It's address is http://www.smijer.com/blog/. I will be doing a "Best of Boortz column there fairly often. Powered by Moveable Type, I will be able to keep those posts categorized together. I hope the readers and antagonists I've picked up from Neal's link to me will stay around and watch the new blog. I'll see you there, I hope.

Don't Read This Blog Entry (or "One time, at Band Camp...")

Don't read this. I really don't want you to know it. This one guy I know (and you can trust him: he's a trusted friend of a trusted friend. And you trust me, right?), anyway... this one guy I know told me an fantastical and imaginative story. I'm not that gullible, but I wonder how many of you will go repeat it to your friends, just because you "heard it from somebody". As if real torture wasn't bad enough...

Without the particulars, the above represents Neal's story in Today's* Nuze page about Saddam's special imaginary form of torture. Neal probably doesn't believe it. But he doesn't have enough respect for his audience to expect them to see it as a ridiculous invention. And the whole reason for telling it is to set up this statement: this is the man that Howard Dean wishes was still in power in Iraq. No ... don't give me any flack on that statement. If Dean was opposed to the action that ousted Saddam .. then that means he necessarily wishes Saddam was still in power.Let me paraphrase that. "Dean wishes Saddam was still in power. No, don't hold me accountable for that statement. I shouldn't have to defend the more moronic statements that I make. I said it. You believe it. That settles it."

Neal Boortz is on record opposing Clinton's action in Kosovo. I say this because I want to point out that the same logic applies to him. He opposed the action that ousted Milosovic and stopped the genocide. By the same logic Boortz uses to support his ridiculous contention that Howard Dean would prefer Hussein to remain in power, we must conclude that Neal Boortz would prefer it if Milosovic were still in power in the Balkans, and still committing genocide. Shame on you, Neal.

Jobs

Mike in the comments mentioned that he would like to hear my perspective on the view Boortz expressed on jobs today. I'm sorry, I only have about 5 minutes to post, and I have to turn my attention to other things. So this is the abbreviated take:

Boortz says that the jobs don't belong to the workers: they belong to the employers, and the employers should therefore be free to export them at will. I'll let that stand, even though I believe it is a poor metaphor for the contract between employer and employee. For my purposes, I can agree with him: the jobs belong to the employer, but, if the employer chooses to outsource those to other countries so that the business does not benefit American workers, American workers should be free to treat that business's products as an import, and to apply import tarriffs. If you are going to export the jobs, you'll have to import the products if you want to sell them here. The American marketplace is, after all, our marketplace.

Creeping Socialism McCarthyism

I'm not sure that I will have an opportunity to post an anti-Nuze entry today, but I want to quickly address a common theme I find coming up in my comments. I am finding that a lot of Boortz listeners are worried about the possibility of progressive politics in America clearing the way for "creeping socialism." I think that this worry is probably being planted by pundits like Boortz, who try to blur the line between a "small s" socialistic spending program, and "big s" Socialist political movement. I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence, but I would like to give everyone a chance to reflect on what socialism really is, and to remember that no-one who is taken seriously in American politics advocates for a truly socialistic society under which private ownership of business would be abolished. There is a lot of daylight between populist spending programs and state ownership of business. To this end, I would like to post an entry from the ever useful American Spirit Political Dictionary:
socialism - a political system in which the means of production, distribution and exchange are mostly owned by the state, and used, at least in theory, on behalf of the people. The idea behind socialism is that the capitalist system is intrinsically unfair, because it concentrates wealth in a few hands and does nothing to safeguard the overall welfare of the majority. Under socialism, the state redistributes the wealth of society in a more equitable way, with the ideal of social justice replacing the profit motive. Socialism as a system is anathema to most Americans, although many social welfare programs like Medicare and Medicaid (once derided by their opponents as "socialized medicine") and Social Security are socialistic in effect, since they are controlled by the government and effect a measure of income redistribution that could not happen if market forces were the sole factor in the economic life of society. See also communism; Leninism; Marxism.The following comment was contributed by Fast Times reader Blake Thomas: Socialism - an economic system where the means of production are owned by the workers (understood to be all of those people who do not own the means of production under our current system). This has been proposed in many forms, but worker ownership of the means of production is the most important feature. Another important distinction from capitalism is that the economy is not profit-driven, but is instead run for the fulfillment of human needs. Socialism is not mutually exclusive with democracy, asis commonly understood. Socialism actually requires democracy if it is to be a genuine socialist society. Along these
lines, it also does not wish to inhibit our civil liberties. In genuine socialism, protection of civil liberties is vital as well. Socialism holds that people can run the economy as well as society. In that
sense, it is sort of an economic democracy. Another common misconception about socialism is that it requires a large government. It can, theoretically, just like democracy can. Another misconception
is that the former Soviet Union was actually socialist and that China is as well. Both of these were/are dictatorships run by powerful elites that were alienated from the will of the people. (Communism is where all property is owned by the community. Just like socialism, communism actually requires democracy
if it is to actually be real communism.)A bit of trivia for those of us who did not grow up under threat from the "red menace", the distinction between communism and socialism is that, under communism, private property is abolished altogether, and - in theory - everything is held in common: not just business.

Socialism isn't the way for America, but one need only to look back to the lessons of the Great Depression and the "dustbowl days" to find that some liberal policies (at least) are good for all of America.

Pass the tin foil, Ma, the Clintons Are Controllin' Our Brains

I don't want to nit-pick, so I won't spend a lot of time talking about self-employed individuals in the service and building trades, and why government regulation of them does not have interference with customer service as its goal. I'll just mention that many voters believe that the protections for communities, individual consumers, and the self-employed service providers themselves are worth a small trade-off in terms of fast customer service, and be done with it.

And I don't want to nit-pick, so rather than asking Neal to break a personal rule and divulge the sources he uses for deciding what Hillary Clinton's college professors thought about her (or what their own political inclinations are), I'll just mention that Neal seems to be obsessed with Hillary.

Actually, with both of the Clintons. This is what makes me wonder why anyone with a reputation to protect would advertise on Neal's show. Read this:
I've been telling you that Weasley Clark is the Clinton hand-picked candidate. Remember, Clark was fired from his Army command while Clinton was Commander in Chief. Clinton knows why he was fired. This gives Clinton the ability to torpedo Clark's candidacy when he chooses. Clark is to politically ignorant to realize this ... thus he plays along with Clinton, even using Clinton in a television ad. Bottom line: The last thing the Clintons want is for a Democrat to win in 2004.More news for you, Neal: that's not the real Wes Clark. The real Wes Clark is in an underground research facility in Roswell, NM. Bat-boy has succeeded in cloning him and extracting the alien half of his DNA. He's still having difficulty with the Elvis half.

Seriously, I'm giving consideration to phasing out this blog and consolidating the "anti-boortz" with other projects. It's difficult to create a serious critique when the subject is going off into wack-o conspiracy land for material. A weekly "best of Boortz" column on smijer may be a better approach. Let me know what you think.