Dumbass Voters, Part II

Ok, it's time to rag on Neal Boortz again.

I listened to him the other night and he was elaborating on his theme that some people ought to be prevented from voting. (See my post, "The Dumbass Voter".)

In his most recent rant on this topic, he lamented that so many "non-achievers", whom he also referred to as "losers", "dregs", "worthless", and "useless", were allowed to vote, mainly because they would likely vote for Democrats.

He stated his wish that only "achievers" be allowed to vote. An "achiever", according to Boortz, is not simply a person who has a regular job. And full-time parenting or volunteer work is entirely off Boortz' radar. I'm sure he also cannot conceive of achievement that does not involve making money. Rather, an achiever in his book is a workaholic who works 60+ hours a week, at a high-paying, high-status job. People more likely to vote Republican, that is.

Boortz even complained about voting day being on Tuesday -- he saw this as a conspiracy against "achievers" who cannot leave their jobs in order to vote on a work day, despite 12 hours being available for that purpose.

This is all part of his continuing lament that rich people are badly done to in our society; that "losers" are simply "insanely jealous of rich people", when they suggest that not all rich people are hard-working paragons who deserve every penny of the money they have. Apparently inheritance, dirty business practices, favoritism, and nepotism do not exist in Boortz' world. He is ready to believe any negative stereotype as being typical of all poor people, without exception, but woe to the person that even suggests that even a fraction of rich people are rich because they inherited the money or got a good job because their golf buddy down at the country club put in a good word for them.

And of course, middle class and poor people are "ignorant losers" to him when they dare to vote for their own interests instead of voting to favor the rich or big business.

He also continued with his ongoing assertion that poor people are poor because they "choose" to be poor; that they're just simply too damned lazy to be rich. In his world, every person who works hard will become rich and, presumably, start voting Republican. And he believes they can do it all by themselves with no help from anyone or the government. Of course, it's completely out of his ken that some people might be satisfied with making a moderate amount of money and value things other than making the most amount of money possible.

My father grew up desperately poor during the Depression. His father was a tenant farmer, which is one small step above a sharecropper. After serving in World War II, he got an office job with a major oil corporation and, over the years, made his way up the ladder to a respectable mid-level executive position, after getting his BS in Business Administration. My father never became rich, but achieved a solid upper middle class position. But compared to his childhood origins, he was rich indeed.

But he didn't do it all by himself, with no help from people or the government. First, he had parents who believed in him and allowed him to finish high school, in a time and place where most lower-class children quit school as early as possible to help support the family. Secondly, he got his job with the oil corporation in part because my mother's father put in a good word for him. Third, he'd have not been able to go to college at all if not for the government and the GI Bill.

And my father, though an "achiever" in Boortz' book, never once voted Republican. Though he traveled far from his humble roots, he never forget where he came from and how it was for those left behind. Grateful for the help he got along the way, he realized that many good, hard-working people weren't fortunate enough to get the breaks that he'd gotten. When I was a kid, he told me that Democrats looked out for the little guy, while Republicans helped the rich get richer. He said he'd cast his first vote for Harry Truman in 1948 and he'd seen no reason to switch parties as the years went by.

If Boortz had his way, he'd have us return to when our country was new and only propertied white men -- the rich of that time -- were allowed to vote. And a country like that would be little more than serfdom for the rest of us.

Do you want to live in a world like that? I don't. I might hate when dumbasses vote for candidates I don't like, but I think it's a small price to pay for a free society.