Neal Boortz vs democracy

Yesterday I flipped to the second daily broadcast of the Neal Boortz radio program to hear him in the midst of again ranting about a subject that is very dear to his heart: eliminating from the voter ranks anyone who might vote differently than he does.

According to Boortz, if you think that America is a democracy you should not be allowed to vote. Well, I'll give him this: if only people who think America is not a democracy vote, then America most probably will not be a democracy anymore.

Boortz went onto to state that we're a republic and not a democracy. This is the most typical trait of Boortz. He has a juvenile understanding of some issue and then acts as if he's making some profound statement when in reality he's saying something trite that should have been corrected before he got out of elementary school.

Yes, we are a republic. Yes, we are not a pure majority rules democracy. But what form of a republic are we? We are a representative liberal democracy. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

It is telling that Boortz cites one of the worst aspects of the founders - that they did not allow everyone of age to vote - to buttress his argument in favor of creating a class of second class citizens. Why doesn't he just come out and say what he really means? That he should get to appoint every political office because anyone who disagrees with him is a communist or a fascist. Like other kinds of 100%ers, Boortz thinks he has access to Truth and anyone who doesn't see it his way must have some defect.

Today Boortz told a caller who said the Democrats are bringing socialism to America that it's actually fascism they're bringing. Boortz said that he is currently reading a book on the subject, which no doubt means he's reading Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.

And it's a bit ironic that Boortz has supported an administration that has done more to erode our constitutional republic than any other adminstration in US history (e.g. via stuff like this) and supported in this election the candidate (Huckabee) who believes that the Constitution should be rewritten to make America a theocracy.

Meanwhile, last night Bill O'Reilly did another segment on his show about Arianna Huffington being a Nazi because his staff - who are apparently now on duty 24/7 searching the HuffingtonPost comments section - found 3 or 4 comments out of thousands calling Hillary Clinton a bitch, with one saying that she should be punched in the nose or something. The comments were objectionable and demonstrate and irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton but they are still qualitatively different than the sort of tribalistic hatred of the Nazis. What O'Reilly has uncovered is run of the mill ... you're going to find that kind of stuff on any give issue that people care about if you look for it. Plus, I'm not certain how it is that a commenter saying punch H. Clinton in the nose means Arrianna Huffington is a Nazi, but Bill O'Reilly saying that George Soros should be hanged doesn't make himself one.

One of the comments cited asked why Obama supporters are such right-wing tools. 1. That doesn't make any sense 2. How is that remotely like Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda?

But more importantly, why does Bill O'Reilly care about what a few commenters - not the actual bloggers there - at HuffingtonPost are saying when Glenn Beck is wondering on CNN HN if Obama is the anti-Christ and Boortz is telling his audience of millions that Obama and Clinton are fascists while simultaneously advocating for dinenfranchising people who vote for Democrats?

Answer: O'Reilly isn't interested in Boortz or Beck because they aren't on his radar. They aren't on his radar because they haven't said critical things about him (that he knows of.)