Boortz - Somebodys Gotta Say It

This book is dedicated to my loving wife, Donna, and my daughter, Laura, as thanks for the decades of abuse they have suffered due to my chosen career as a radio talk-show host. For every time they stood up proudly to someone wishing to vent about something I said on the air, for every interruption my wife endured while we were simply trying to enjoy a quiet night out, and for her compassionate understanding every time I felt bowed by the events of the day, my most heartfelt thanks.

This book is also dedicated, with my deepest gratitude, to the millions of listeners who have remained loyal, even though I might say things that they vehemently disagree with. I trust you have been entertained along the way. If not, why are you still listening?

You hold in your hands a book by a radio talk-show host.

How special.

What can I possibly say that you havent thought a thousand times already?

Well, something, I hope. After all, its my job to come up with things to saythings to get people talking. If youre like most people, on the other hand, you probably spend most of your time every day watching what you say, for fear that blurting out your insensitive thoughts might bring about adverse repercussions, whether at home, at work, or in your social life.

After alleverybody has to get along. Right?

Nopenot me!

You see, Im one of the rare people you know who has a job perfectly matched to his personality type. It appears that I somehow failed to develop the convenient social skill of keeping my yap shut. Even before I knew I had a mind, I had a penchant for speaking it. And Ive been developing my skills in that department ever since.

Of course, in a lot of ways, were alike, you and I. When you wake up in the morning and listen to the news or read a newspaper, you probably think, What in the hell are these people thinking? The only difference is, you then cruise off to work and make a studied effort to keep your ill-tempered thoughts to yourself for the rest of the day. When I wake up, hear those same news reports, and think the same thing What in the hell are these idiots thinking? Im lucky enough to be able to do something about it. Right away Im making plans to rip them a variety of new ones as soon as I get to work. I dont have to worry about the consequences of having opinions. For me, its part of the job description.

Such is the life of a radio talk-show host.

I am, it is said, an equal opportunity offender. If I come to the end of my four daily hours on the air and Im not sure I have gravely offended at least one groupsocial, racial, socio-economic, ethnic, political, generational, regionalthen I consider my work that day an abject failure.

I begin each show with a simple basic truth running through my mind. These people out there doing these dangerous, stupid, sometimes hilarious, and often strange things have no right not to be offended, and Im here to see that these non-rights are recognized and respected.

There are no taboos on my show. Race, gender, religion, national origin, political persuasionits all fair game. No political correctness here.

People may be able to hide their illogical, sometimes downright moronic behavior behind the shield of a convenient group identity in their everyday lives. But not from me.

Theres only one real requirement for someone to land in my crosshairs: that you do something, either intentionally or through ignorance, that will contribute to the destruction of the greatest experiment in self-government this world has ever knownour country, the United States of America.

Many of my diatribes, of course, are aimed at liberals. These people actually think that America is great because of government. Such easy targets.

But theyre not the only ones. Theo-cons, for instance. Religious faith is fine, even admirable. But when you decide that your ideas on religion are so indisputably correct that everyone ought to live by them, its time for a little talking to.

The earth is only six thousand years old? Just spare me.

Then there are the suburban soccer moms blissfully driving their urban assault vehicles adorned with those My child is an honor student bumper stickers to the repair shop to get the tires rotated on their riding vacuum cleaners. Someone needs to have a serious talk with these women about the wisdom of turning their children over to the government to be educated, and since nobody else seems to be stepping up to the plate, Im happy to do it.

(And whats this fascination with soccer anyway? Are these over-protective parents afraid to let their precious little cutest-child-in-the-entire-world play a game where they might get hit, or where someone might throw something at them?)

Not to mention the men who are afraid to venture out of their homes for fear that they might actually come face-to-face with (gasp!) one of them homo-sexual guys out on the street someday. I mean, really.

And Im just getting warmed up. In the pages that follow, youll encounter:

• Welfare artists
• Screaming car commercials
• Parents who allow their child to trick-or-treat for UNICEF
• People who leave dealer tags on the trunks of their new cars
• Abortocentrists (youll figure it out)
• The Im not interested in politics sheeple
• People who dont know what they dont know (a particularly vexing species)
• People who have no business waving an American flag on the Fourth of July

And that just scratches the surface. The life of a no-holds-barred talk show host is richly rewardingthanks to the listeners, callers, columnists, editorialists, and just ordinary red-blooded Americans who make it so.

While writing this book, it occurred to me that I may have been blessed to grow up and to spend most of my life during the best of Americas years. As much as I love this country, its certainly hard to be optimistic about her future.

Weve become a nation of people who care little for their freedom and whove grown completely dependent on their government. We stand ready to trade away almost all of our precious liberties in exchange for a slender slice of security, courtesy of the federal government.

Ive been around long enough that Ill probably weather any foreseeable disaster our power-hungry political class and our complacent, dependent voters might visit upon us. The generations that follow wont be quite so fortunate.

Just look around you! Open a newspaper for once. They dont hurt, you know. Try reading something other than People, Sports Illustrated, or Cosmo. Flip the channel to something besides Extra or Entertainment Tonight.

Things arent going all that well, folks, and if we dont wake up and smell the tyranny, our children and grandchildren will grow up robbed of their individual identity, marching in lockstep with their fellow poorly educated, complacent, government-dependent friends, toward that great socialist Valhalla dreamed of by the great thinkers of the political left.

The hardest thing about writing this book was deciding when to stop. Since I finished the main text (I wrote this introduction last) weve:

• Seen a government school have a twelve-year-old special education student arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for wetting her pants;
• Learned that the Mexican government is providing GPS devices to Mexican citizens to help them avoid American law enforcement as they illegally cross our border to become part of the Mexican invasion force;