Saturday, October 15, 2005

Today's worst person in the world

Borrowing a feature from Keith Olbermann's Countdown, the honor of today's worst person goes to talk radio host Neil Boortz for his comments Friday in response to a story about how rich New Yorkers were tipped off about the subway terrror alert before even the Mayor had been given the information stating that in the face of a disaster, rich people should be saved before poor people.

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.
Logic, right. Logic like portraying this as a black and white dichotomy, with rich people being good and hard working, and poor people bad and lazy, and nothing in between. Logic like ignoring the fact that the people who were tipped off in New York were tipped off because they were connected, not because they had made superior civic contributions to society. Logic like creating a hypothetical doomsday scenario to justify the protection of privelege in scenarios which aren't doomsday scenarios. Logic like ignoring the fact that privelege of wealth and power would save a Paris Hilton before it would save a local librarian.

Congratulations, Neil, you're today's worst person in the world.

3 comments:

John Lombard said...

I chimed in on my blog.

gawker said...

The question is do these people actually believe in what they are saying? Or are they just pandering to their audience? Because America is in serious shit if it's the first case. And only marginally better off if it's the second.

Hume's Ghost said...

Believe it, I think. Several of my freinds are big Boortz fans and they certainly believe it, as they've expressed this sentiment even before Boortz voiced it.