Last night hubby and I were driving home through the mountains from Tennessee, so I sought a radio station that would actually come in despite the interference. That turned out to be FoxRadio, the Neal Boortz show. Being as it was Halloween, I figured hate-radio would be appropriately scary, and it sure enough was.
Seems this nut has a great idea for how to make sure the "little people" don't get to elect leaders to office that he doesn't approve of. Boortz said he'd support a "constitutional amendment" that would give citizens the vote, which made us laugh. No amendment needed, dear. We already have the right to vote, despite the best efforts of recent Republicans to interfere. Then he added that rich people should have more votes than poor people, up to five per rich person! I nearly choked on my fountain drink.
I actually do understand why bigots like Boortz would want to have more votes than 'lesser' citizens, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell such an idea would make it past the one-person one-vote situation we now enjoy, because he's only got one vote, just like me. But what really got to me was his rationale...
Seems he believes that rich people somehow "work harder" than poor people. Which of course is blatantly ridiculous. There are 24 hours in a day. Most people work for 8 of them, some people work 16 of them. Apart from short stints (which must be short because it'll kill ya quick), nobody works 24 hours a day. Because of institutionalized inequalities in education and earning ability, some people make less than $10 an hour for their labor, others make $100,000 a month (or more) in salary for just taking up office space. Same or similar hours, though the low end of that comparison usually works much harder for what little they get.
See, you can't determine who "works harder" just by looking at income. Especially not in the US of A, where income inequality is more significant than in any other so-called 'first world' country on the planet. Therefore, it's not a question of rich 'workers' versus poor 'deadbeats', and such a lie could not be sold on these deceptive terms to anyone but pitiable idiots.
I hear a lot of senseless blabbering about "socialism" lately - Boortz used for his example public education. IOW, Obama would support public education if he got to be President, which makes him a scary "socialist." Yet the plain fact is that universal public education has been in place in this country since 1918 (90 years), the first mandatory public education laws were passed in Massachusetts in 1852. Thomas Jefferson first suggested the idea, supported by George Washington, Noah Webster and other luminaries of the new nation. Thus the United States has been certifiably "socialist" on this issue for a long, long time. Big Fail, Boortz.
Then Boortz added the idea of taxation as "socialism." While it's true that our ancestors fought their revolution against Britain partially over the issue of "Taxation Without Representation," but they had no problem with the idea of taxes paid to the government to support its functions. At this point the taxation of 'average' workers (local, state and federal) amounts to 40% of income. Until income taxes on the wealthy were instituted in 1861 (and extended in 1913), most tax income to the government came from trade tariffs - which predominantly hit businesses. Until 1964, the top marginal tax rate was as high as 90%. [Taxation in the United States]
So this is a Big Fail too, Neal. Taxing rich people and businesses has a long and complex history in the United States, from day 1. If that is "socialism," the US has been a socialist country since its inception.
Now, I do realize that the hate-radio pundits get paid to spew "talking points" to an audience of ignorant citizens who know basically nothing about anything, thus are easily led by the nose to believe whatever the pundits are paid to sell them. But for most Americans who can at least find California or Afghanistan on a map, this crap will never fly. There are a lot of people out there with double-digit IQs who are unfortunately unable to learn much, but they are NOT a majority of citizens and do NOT wield the kind of power it would take to eliminate the US Constitution or wage your elitist revolution as unpaid, throw-away mercenaries.
P.S. To Boortz, Limbaugh, Savage and the rest of the winger pundits - almost all of those dummies you're trying so hard to whip into revolutionary frenzy work hard for their meager livings and don't have much left after paying 40% of it in taxes. They're too tired at the end of the day for anything but wallowing in the hate you spew. They don't know why they hate, they just know it makes them feel better about themselves to believe they're better than someone else. This is why the Judgment Jesus promised is graded on a curve - weighted against shepherds more than sheep.