Money and the Right-wing Radio Talk Show Host


Not long ago I heard a right-wing talk show host talk about how we in the U.S. might call ourselves a free country, but if he decides not to pay his taxes, men with guns will come to his house to put him in jail, which doesn't seem very free to him. Not knowing this host too well, I have to wonder if he has any idea what men with guns might do to him if he makes it a habit to drive down the streets of his neighborhood very very fast after having finished off a couple of 6 packs. The radio talker's point, though, is that the government has no right to come and take his money from him. I'd love to hear him tell me about a country or society that exists without taxes, because I'm not aware of any, and I do know of some where the government simply takes whatever it wants, without trying or even pretending to be fair.

And the radio talker -- did he invent the radio? No. Did he start up a radio station? No. Did he at least offer a helping hand in building the broadcast studio? No. Did he do anything to help create any part of the radio broadcast network that carries his show? No. Did he invent the idea of talk radio? Obviously not. All he did to make his money was to do something someone else had already done, but in his own unique and personal way. For this stroke of genius, this radio talk show host thinks he owes not a penny to the society that provided him with such an easy way to make such a comfortable living, to say nothing of the other services it provides for him, such as the clean water that flows from his faucets, the roads he drives on, the stable currency that he loves so much, and a thousand other things that he mostly takes for granted while claiming not to need or care about.

And so this radio talk show host goes on, saying that the government should stop doing all these things. Of course, there are many countries on the planet who don't do most of what the U.S. government does for its citizens. Perhaps the talk show host should move to, say, Niger. And if he did, would he continue making the money he does now? I'd love to see him try, but somehow I feel certain that if he'd been born in that country and had tried to do there what he does in the U.S., he never would have collected a 7-figure salary.

Since the talk show guy can't seem to see any of the thousand things the government does for him every day, he resents that government's efforts to make him pay for his share. He reminds me of teenagers who resent their parents' attempts to guide them. A few feel that resentment so strongly against their parents "telling them what to do or not to do" that they dream of killing their parents, with no second thoughts about how they would feed themselves or keep a roof over their heads if they did that. And so I think it is with the talk show host -- he would put an end to all the good things the government does for him, without a clue as to how to get by if his wish ever came true.

And what has the government done for him lately? Well, a good friend of mine told me that every summer at least 2 or 3 hikers get bitten in the High Sierra back country by animals infected with bubonic plague. Park rangers are taught to recognize the signs, and to call the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in Atlanta, who will immediately fly someone in with an antidote. The U.S. government does this not just for its own citizens, but for everyone around the world. And why? Because, as it turns out, it's in the best interest of the citizens of the U.S. to prevent any and all outbreaks of plague, no matter where in the world they may occur.

For those, such as the right-wing talk show host, who say the U.S. government can't do anything right, in this case it succeeds so well in preventing a problem that most people have no idea of the potential trouble that the government has prevented. An old saying reminds us that an ounce of prevention weighs more heavily on the balance than a pound of cure, but those who prevent problems usually don't get the credit that those who provide cures do, mainly because you have to pay attention to notice prevention, and right-wingers usually don't want to bother. Besides, a right-wing radio talk show host almost always knows what he believes, regardless of facts or logic.

I saw "The Plague" a few years ago, which is a 1992 movie of the Camus novel by the same name. In that movie, a modern-day outbreak of plague takes over a South American port city, and the one line I remember from the movie said something about how little we understand about plague. One thing the screen writer clearly didn't understand about plague was how hard the CDC works at keeping it under control, and how little credit they get for it -- the writer gave them none, and may not even have known about what they do. As another old saying goes, the pros make it look easy. In this case, I'm pretty sure that it's actually not so easy. I'm also sure that if the CDC did not exist, and the bubonic plague was ravaging western culture as it has in the past, this right-wing radio talk show host would be one of the first and loudest voices wanting to know why someone wasn't doing something about it -- not that he'd want to pay for it.

9/3/09