Are Glenn Beck’s Most Recent Critics Correct? Beck, Skousen and the Constitution
Glenn Beck has done a lot of good; he is a defender of Israel and an opponent of Islamic radicalism, and he has exposed many of the worst far left appointments made by the Obama administration — most notably, that of Van Jones. He has also unfairly been accused of anti-Semitism, of being a modern day version of Father Coughlin, and much worse. These charges are so out of whack that even one honest liberal has come to his defense on some of these charges. On the website of the New Republic, writer Peter Duffy explained that despite the charge made by the likes of Al Hunt, Keith Olbermann, NYRB writer Mark Lilla, and Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, “Beck is no Coughlin.” Being a left-liberal, Duffy doesn’t thinks much of what Beck says is defensible, but he writes that “the comparison to Coughlin is not only flawed — it is historically illiterate, denying Coughlin, pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan, his rightful place as one of the most odious characters in American history.” Odious Coughlin was, and as Duffy acknowledges, Beck himself has spent much time letting his viewers know the truth about Coughlin, and why he despises him.
So one has good reason to be suspicious when leftists take after Glenn Beck, and one has to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Nevertheless, sometimes even a person on the political left can be correct in some of the charges he makes. Such is the case to be made for Beck’s dependence on the views of the late W. Cleon Skousen, a name still rather unfamiliar to many Americans — although thanks to Beck, many Tea Party groups have adopted Skousen’s old books and taken them to heart.
The first writer to most recently take on Skousen in a major way and to criticize Beck’s endorsement of him is a leftist writer from the webzine Salon.com, Alexander Zaitchik. In his columns and his book, Common Nonsense, Zaitchik convincingly reveals the conspiratorial mind of Skousen, and shows in meticulous detail how Beck relies upon his analysis for many of his own theories. Yes, I fully realize that the author is a man of the left, and his book is marred by the invective and nasty tone that he constantly uses against Beck. But his reporting on Skousen is first rate. If you are the type of person who insists on dismissing every argument and analysis offered by someone on the left, and believe that there is absolutely nothing you can learn from a political opponent, you are ignoring his data at your own peril.
Next was conservative writer Mark Hemingway, previously at National Revie, and now a columnist for the Washington Examiner. Writing three years ago in NR, Hemingway pointed out the following:
Skousen had written a book entitled The Naked Communist, which even for 1958 is so irrational in its paranoia that it would have made Whittaker Chambers blush. According to Skousen, The Manchurian Candidate was a documentary — he earnestly believed Communists sought to create “a regimented breed of Pavlovian men whose minds could be triggered into immediate action by signals from their masters.”
Hemingway also points out that Skousen “was active with the John Birch Society throughout the 1960s, even going so far as to write another book titled The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society, accusing those that criticized Birchers as promoting Communism.” Since critics of the Birch Society included none other than William F. Buckley, Jr., you can finish the thought for yourself. Then in the 70s, in an analysis that is eerily similar to Beck’s thoughts on matters today, “Skousen accused the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefellers of puppeteering the election of Jimmy Carter to pave the way for One World Government, his new favorite topic. Things got so bad that the Mormon Church eventually issued an official communiqué distancing itself from Skousen’s organization, the Freemen Institute.”
Now, in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, law professor and author Jeffrey Rosen writes about Skousen’s view of the origins of the U.S. Constitution and how Skousen’s views have been adopted in a full-fledged endorsement by Glenn Beck, and from him to various members of the Tea Party. Rosen writes about the newly elected Republican (and Tea Party) senator from Utah, Mike Lee, who will replace the defeated Democrat, Sen. Bob Bennett. Lee, he argues, “has a truly radical vision of the U.S. Constitution,” one that “sees the document as divinely inspired and views much of what the federal government currently does as unconstitutional.”
Thus Lee proposes getting rid of HUD and the Department of Education, and favors the phasing out of Social Security. As I argued recently at the panel on the future of conservatism at the Restoration Weekend (see the addendum at the blog’s end), conservatives should support a fiscally responsible and necessary safety net that includes Social Security — paid, after all, out of taxpayers’ contributions taken out of their paychecks. We should be for a less powerful and bureaucratic federal government, but not, as Lee evidently believes, taking away almost all of its powers.
Rosen says that Lee mixes together social conservatism and extreme libertarianism, and supports “tearing down the wall of separation between church and state.” What is important is that Rosen attributes Lee’s views to Skousen. Skousen, he points out, “sees the Constitution as divinely inspired and on the verge of destruction and the Mormon Church as its salvation. Skousen saw limited government as not only an ethnic idea, rooted in the Anglo-Saxons, but also as a Christian one, embodied in the idea of unalienable rights and duties that derive from God, and he insisted that the founders’ ‘religious precepts turned out to be the heart and soul of the entire American political philosophy.’” Lee also believes, he points out, that no president has the right to “lock up large blocks of land within a state as a ‘wilderness reserve,’ or to set up national forests or national parks within the confines of a state — an eccentric view the Supreme Court has rejected.” I think that most Americans cherish and value our national parks, something borne out by the thousands of citizens who flock to them each year. Conservatives may dismiss much of the Progressive Era legislation as statist, but few include the national park among the era’s great mistakes.
Rosen, of course, seeks to undermine the Skousen-Lee-Beck view in order to challenge his growing fear that the Supreme Court might indeed agree that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. The new health care legislation is not akin to the national parks or to the Social Security Act. I believe that it is one thing to argue against admitting the John Birch Society back to respectability as a part of the modern conservative movement — decades after Bill Buckley pushed them out — and adopting Skousen’s extremist Mormon view of history, and yet another to oppose the statist and leftist social agenda of the Obama administration. We can do the latter without adopting the late W. Cleon Skousen’s view of our past, and Glenn Beck’s endorsement of it.
Finally, in the New York Review of Books, Mark Lilla writes in his essay, “The Beck of Revelation,” that Beck “is trying to sketch out some kind of prophetic vision for his Tea Party followers, linking the libertarian politics they say they want to the individual spiritual transformation he now says they need.” Lilla does not see Beck in the highly oppositional view of writers like Zaitchik and Milbank. He agrees, however, that Beck:
[takes] many of the ideas found in Willard Cleon Skousen’s Mormon political catechism, The Five Thousand Year Leap, and in the dubious historical research of David Barton, an influential, self-taught evangelical minister who was on stage with Beck during the [Aug.29th rally in D.C.] event. But when Barton, who runs a Christian nationalist organization called WallBuilders, repeated his group’s dogma that “most of our presidents and founding fathers thought of this as a Christian nation,” Beck objected, took the mike, and stated flatly that “one thing that cannot happen: religion and politics must not mix. … That’s what happened in the Weimar Republic.” Barton backed off.
Beck believes America should be a religious nation, but not a purely Christian one.
What is interesting about Lilla’s essay, however, is his dissent from the no-holds barred attack on Beck taken by others, and indeed, his seeming support of Beck on certain issues. What, one may ask, leads a leftist intellectual writing in the NYRB to look kindly in any way on Glenn Beck? The answer is that Lilla points out that at his rally, Beck attacked slavery and its aftermath as one of our country’s great evils that needed correction, and secondly, that Beck attacked the great evils, which include “imperialism” and “Manifest Destiny.”
Beck, in other words, is in this regard something of a 1960s historical left-wing revisionist, and a man who puts on his list of recommended reading the non-interventionist opponent of U.S. foreign policy, Andrew Bacevich, who writes for both The Nation and The American Conservative, the Buchananite isolationist publication. As Lilla writes favorably, Beck “is hostile to expansionist foreign policies, the influence of Wall Street, and what he sees as a growing national security state.” Will we soon see The Nation running a favorable cover story on Beck, as it once did on Lou Dobbs when he was in his populist phase?
Lilla reprints the following paragraph from Beck’s Common Sense:
Under President Bush, politics and global corporations dictated much of our economic and border policy. Nation building and internationalism also played a huge role in our move away from the founding principles. … Through legitimate “emergencies” involving war, terror, and economic crises, politicians on both sides have gathered illegitimate new powers — playing on our fears and desire for security and economic stability — at the expense of our freedoms.
That paragraph reads like none other than David Horowitz; not the Horowitz of 2010 — but the Horowitz of 1969-1971, in books like Corporations and the Cold War, Empire and Revolution, and Free World Colossus. Will Beck soon add these relics to his reading list, and remove books like Horowitz’s Radical Son?
At any rate, Lilla is happy that Beck is “test-driving some fairly isolationist ideas,” and, as he notes, is moving from being a “hawk” to being closer to Ron Paul. Only a periodical like the NYRB and its brethren and writers for it would see this as something positive. I urge my readers to read Lilla’s summary of Beck’s novel The Overton Window, and see whether or not you agree that Lilla is correct when he writes that Beck opposes:
[p]residential national security directives, spying on domestic dissenters, the privatization of the police and military, the preventative detention and torture of potential terrorists, undeclared wars, the internment of Japanese-Americans, the overthrow of Latin American governments, the disproportionate incarceration of young black men, corporate campaign contributions, and the bailout of Wall Street millionaires.
As Lilla facetiously writes, “Oliver Stone, you’ve got mail. Dick Cheney, you don’t.” And yes, Beck — much to the dismay of social conservatives — “has even gone on record as saying he sees no threat to the family in gay marriage.” Get that, Andrew Sullivan?
Of course, Beck seems to change course and move in a new direction each week. One does not know where he will end up and what he will say next. But that in itself is reason for conservatives to hold him at a distance and to not be so squeamish about criticizing him when he deserves tough criticism. That the left hates him is not enough reason to do the reverse and support him uncritically. Americans, Beck says, need God in their lives. Many will say “Amen.” But that does not mean we, and conservatives, need Glenn Beck.
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Last week, I participated in a discussion at the Restoration Weekend. You can read about the presentations there, and see the videos of all the speakers, in this report by David Swindle, editor of NewsRealBlog.com. Those interested can see my comments and watch the video of my talk here. I am at no.7 and my comments come on at 10:50 on the video count.
“…Mike Lee, who will replace the defeated Democrat, Sen. Bob Bennett. Lee, he argues, “has a truly …”
Bennett is a Republican.
“Bennett is a RINO.”
fixed
Someday we are going to need an agreed upon definition of “RINO”. Bennett was considered quite mainstream not that many years ago.
Someday we are going to need an agreed upon definition of “mainstream”.
While I don’t know how old Mr. Radosh is, I believe it is safe to say he received most if not all of his education without the existence of the Federal Dept. of Education. Abolishing that Dept. is not the least bit radical it’s utter failure to meet any of it’s goals is self evident. If conservatives require more than five minutes discussion to arrive at the conclusion that the Education Dept. should be abolished we are truly doomed.
Too true. However I can largely avoid the Dept. of Education but for their robbing my pocket. It’s the EPA I hate with true revolutionary zeal. This monstrosity is nothing more than an instrument of repression and dictatorial control. The very existence of this army of enslaving pencil pushers gives us twice the license to revolt than our forefathers ever had to go to war with England.
Bennett is a Republican.
That is true but calling him a Democrat is an easy mistake to make
Hi Ron, Thank you for your comments. My dad is W. Cleon Skousen, and the family is just sick about this enormous smear campaign going on right now.
What never gets mentioned is that dad was simply reporting what he found, not something he made up. When Karl Marx or Stalin or Khruschev announced threats and plans in black and white, that’s what dad was bringing to people’s attention. He didn’t interpret them, he quoted them directly. Most people don’t take time to do that level of digging, but dad did.
I hope you’re noticing the current smear campaign is leaving out obvious details and considerations, such as where this negativity is coming from. A crooked mayor fired my dad as Chief of Police after the mayor was in office only 5 months because dad wouldn’t let up on prostitution, illegal gambling and drinking. For 3-1/2 years prior (under a different mayor), Dad had built a national reputation for Salt Lake City’s police force (late 1950s), even Time magazine called it “A model police force.”
It’s THAT mayor who called dad all those names used in the various smear articles you saw. The mayor was crooked and when the whole city exploded after he fired dad, the mayor blasted all those untruths out there … this is 1960, HALF a century ago. That’s how far back in time those writers have to go to do their character assassination. Those writers never bothered to search out the tremendous respect dad received from across the nation, back in those days.
His Naked Communist book is simply a collection of origional source quotes (from The Commmunist Manifesto and Das Kapital, etc.), trying to show what the founders of communism set out to achieve, and how they said they’d do it. Dad wasn’t leaping to conclusions, anyone can go read it themselves and decide.
Of the 45 communist goals that dad listed back in 1960, nearly ALL of them have been met, vindicating dad’s analysis, scholarship and warning.
As for the Mormon Church, those smears come from an intellectual cluster of liberal Mormons (Harry Reid is a Mormon, by the way, so yes, liberals do exist among the LDS folks). As for that announcement from the Church administration, did you know they sent it to dad first? He made a fix so it wouldn’t be too offensive to other Mormons taking his constitution seminars, and said “go with it.”
At issue was that LDS (Mormon) people sponsoring his seminars would stand up in Church on Sundays and invite others to attend. Some people considered dad’s seminars to be conservative gatherings, and since the LDS Church is non-partisan, some members were highly offended by these announcements in Church.
Dad was highly embarrassed by these supporters taking unfair liberities to announce places and times in Church, and he repeatedly asked supporters to follow rules for their various churches. But how do you control thousands of newly-concerned patriots looking to enlarge attendance at meetings in their homes? So dad was 100% supportive of that Church announcement going out. It was no “distancing” from dad at all. Even at his funeral two leading figures in the LDS Church administration gave a keynote address, and you don’t do that for somebody you consider an embarrassment.
I apologize for taking so much space, but if I had more room I’d show more falacies in the smear tactics in those very articles you cited. Our country has been under attack for a long, long time. Dad was around during a period where the country’s appetite for answers was pretty high. And for that, he’s being maligned. Liberals, socialists, and even a few misunderstanding conservatives have been after him for ages, and now that he’s passed on, they find it much easier to attack him.
To retain the socialist powers that be, those smearing dad get to the Tea Party folks and other pro-Constitution Americans by undermining Glenn Beck by undermining the people Beck recommends.
Before dad died, he taught the Constitution to more than 3 million people in every state of the Union. Regarding religion, dad quoted the Founders themselves saying God’s hand was in the whole process. Dad didn’t make that up, he quoted them. What else are we supposed to think, that the Founders were playing a hoax when they said those things?
Everyone can read the volumes of discussions and quotes themselves. Separation of Church and state is clearly not separation of religion and state. The Founders clearly wanted religion to be a mainstay of our core belief system, they just didn’t want specific religions to be forced on a free people. That’s all dad tried to show and emphasize in his books.
Thank you for the chance to respond, and much success to you, –Paul (7th of 8 children of W. Cleon and Jewel Skousen)
I am sorry for the way your father’s memory is being abused by the element that is out to destroy America and it’s christen roots. I watch Glenn Beck, and anyone can see his goal is to save America, by relating the stories of your dad, and other people of good faith, honesty, integrity and principal My Dad, was also an honest policeman,he died a poor man, but his conscience was clean.
I am gonna have to look into this Senator Lee guy. He sound like my kinda guy too.
In reply to Paul Skousen messages above (#2 and #4):
Paul says that his dad “was simply reporting what he found, not something he made up” and “Of the 45 communist goals that dad listed back in 1960, nearly ALL of them have been met, vindicating dad’s analysis, scholarship and warning.”
As I am sure Paul knows, the CPUSA sought to insinuate itself into all sorts of legitimate organizations and causes. It often promoted ideas or public policy proposals which were designed to make it appear that the CPUSA was a “progressive” force and a legitimate alternative political party.
Paul’s father wrongly identified certain ideas or positions as “Communist goals” — as if nobody but “a Communist” or “Communist sympathizer” could adopt those ideas or positions.
For example: “Communist goal” #13, i.e. “Do away with all loyalty oaths.” There are many decent, honorable, principled and entirely loyal Americans who opposed loyalty oaths.
Some of the alleged “Communist goals” cited by Cleon Skousen are quite absurd and cannot even be precisely defined such as #22 i.e. “continue discrediting American culture” or #24 “eliminate all laws governing obscenity”.
As J. Edgar Hoover warned (and people like Cleon Skousen and groups like the JBS often completely rejected):
“Knowing what communism really is and how it operates will also help us to avoid the danger of confusing communism with legitimate dissent on controversial issues. Communism feeds on social ferment. On both the local and national levels, the Communist Party USA is continually exploiting social, economic, and political grievances for its own tactical purposes. For this reason, the party line will frequently coincide with the views of many non-Communists on specific issues. We must not, therefore, indiscriminately label as Communists those whose opinions on a particular question may, on occasion, parallel the official party position. We must also guard against the tendency to characterize as Communists those who merely disagree with us or whom advocate unorthodox or unpopular beliefs. When anyone is erroneously branded a Communist, it not only constitutes an injustice to the individual, but also helps communism by diffusing the strength of anti-Communist forces.”
It is important to keep in mind that during his FBI career, Cleon Skousen never worked in the FBI Division which had the primary responsibility for internal security investigations, i.e. the Domestic Intelligence Division (formerly known as the Security Division).
Furthermore, according to documents in his FBI personnel file, Skousen never was assigned to do research on communist-related matters.
Apparently, Cleon Skousen never even read any of the very detailed monographs prepared at the Bureau — some of which were updated quarterly and others semi-annually, such as:
“Communist Party Line”
“CPUSA – Semiannual Intelligence Digest”
“Communist Strategy and Tactics”
“CPUSA–Summary of Activities”
“Communist Propaganda in the United States” (7 parts)
The reason I mention these reports is because they DO NOT support Cleon Skousen’s contentions regarding “Communist goals”.
Lastly, if the analytical skills revealed by Cleon Skousen in his 1963 pamphlet entitled “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society” are considered indicative of his ability to carefully examine, analyze, weigh, and interpret evidence — then it is quite clear that Cleon Skousen was quite ignorant regarding actual “communist” tactics, goals, or strategy.
Paul’s father wrongly identified certain ideas or positions as “Communist goals” — as if nobody but “a Communist” or “Communist sympathizer” could adopt those ideas or positions.
If a Communist group declares such and such a thing to be a goal then such and such a thing is a Communist goal whether other groups adopt them or not, or whether they are beneficial to society in general or not.
No, Bill, you have to distinguish between the Communist Party Line which was designed as fly paper to attract non-communists versus what were actual Communist goals.
There is a profound difference between what ideas or policy proposals Communists endorsed, for tactical purposes, (i.e. the Communist Party Line), versus what they ACTUALLY believed in and wanted to achieve.
More importantly, it is morally flawed and factually wrong to attribute to a person adoption or acceptance of what is characterized as a “Communist” goal — when, in reality, the “goal” may be a legitimate idea which intelligent and totally loyal, decent, honorable people could adopt and promote.
Insofar as somebody correctly identifies a “Communist goal” — what, precisely, is that supposed to mean for Americans? Are we supposed to make all of our decisions based upon what Communists think or propose or favor?
For example:
** if the official CPUSA position is in favor of an increase in minimum wage laws, — then does that mean that every patriotic American must OPPOSE an increase?
** if the official CPUSA position is in favor of enforcement of civil rights and voting rights laws — then does that mean that every patriotic American must OPPOSE such enforcement?
** if the official CPUSA position is against outlawing the Communist Party in the U.S. — then does that mean that every patriotic American must FAVOR outlawing the Communist Party?
** if the official CPUSA position is against the existence of the House Committee on Un-American Activities — then does that mean that every patriotic American must FAVOR its existence?
** if the official CPUSA position is that the John Birch Society is a right-wing extremist group — then does that mean ALL Americans must subscribe to JBS beliefs, conclusions, and positions?
Within our current context I think you missed the point. For example:
“if the official CPUSA position is in favor of an increase in minimum wage laws, — then does that mean that every patriotic American must OPPOSE an increase?”
No – of course not.
But if one does oppose an increase in the minimum wage, does make them a racist and a fascist? I am sure you see the answer here also is no, of course not.
But the fate of anyone who wants a robust, productive country for all (EVERYONE) and who knows the schemes of minimum wages works against this, is to be branded a racists, fascists, and right wing radicals.
Here is the point. To what do you attribute these attacks and these lies? This is not to say that there are Communists under every bed, this is to say that those making these attacks owe too much to the left.
By too much owed to the left, I mean this – What would one believe if one saw this country as a Conservative Constitutional Republic that owed nothing to the left? Where would Skousen be positioned? He would not be seen as a monster, a threat, nor a loon? He would be seen as a witness (personal) and a reporter (public). Which he was.
Skousen was one man who was part of a very broad anti-Communist movement in America whose methods and beliefs have been smeared by snobs and by competitors for the public ear. That these anti-Communists are considered naive by academicians means naught.
Paul, thank you for your comments on your Dad. My Mother was a great admirer of what I thought of as “Uncle Cleon”, as my Aunt was married to Ervin, his brother. Just met him a few times on summer visits, probably met you also. It is hard to tell who are actual blood relatives in those family gatherings. I took the 5000 Year Leaf class with a Tea Party group. No one who has read anything Cleon Skousen wrote would consider him a radical. He was a great man and brilliant. I feared that in an effort to discredit Beck, they would smear Cleon and they have but the truth is the truth and no one can make that different. Just know that me and many other where proud to have known him. Pam in MO
I stand up and applaud Paul for taking the time to set the record straight. Some conservatives seem to be quite happy to look in the wrong places for opponents.
To get anywhere, we’re going to have to chip away at the opposition…like they’ve been chipping away at us for the last five decades and more. So pick some sort of a positive change, however small, and prove we can deliver. When the world doesn’t end, the public will see that we’re ok to trust. Many small steps, fully and publicly debated, not tricks. Win or lose. Just like grown-ups.
The other question is whether Mr. Beck is actually Nehemiah Scudder.
I’m sorry, I forgot one other comment. The new senator from Utah, Mike Lee, supports the abolishment of those federal programs because the Constitution never authorized the Federal government to establish them in the first place.
It all dates back to 1936, the so-called Butler case when the Supreme Court declared Article I Section 8 of the Constitution (general welfare clause) to mean Congress can declare anything it wants to be a “general welfare” issue. But that very clause in the Constitution lists about 17 items the Feds were authorized to do—and NOTHING else. It fell to the states to do the rest. Powers to the Feds were few and itemized. Powers to the States were many and undefined.
When the Supreme Court broke those chains on the power of the Federal Government back in 1936, the federal budget exploded from $6 billion back then to $600 billion in 1980 to $3.7 Trillion by 2010, and growing. Our Federal government has become exactly what the Founders feared it would, and it’s crushing us to death.
The principles of socialism are present in our social security system, in these bloated government agencies that take from the haves and give to the have nots—that’s Marxism by definition, and we’re doing it here in America.
Is there any wonder why things are such a horrible mess? And any OTHER Federal system where force is used is part of the same package. If we want voluntary social security, that’s fine. But using force to make us do that? No, it’s wrong. That is where freedom loses and socialism wins.
And, as many people are beginning to realize, socialism fails time and time again, and that’s all our big government is nowadays—top down control when the Founders gave us “from the people upward” control. We must spread that understanding to all of America if we expect to retain the freedoms that built this nation in the first place.
Thanks,
Paul
I can’t really listen to and respect people like Beck and O’Reilly who a few years ago, in the fashion of the One, knew nothing about the subject they’re preaching to the public.
It so evident that they read the book/news just prior to the broadcast like any ignorant talking head using the teleprompter. How ignorant are their audiences?
I agree that Beck has done some good exposing the One’s buddies, but this God pushing is a bit too much for my liking.
That millions follow him like he was a semi-god is scary.
Maybe Beck didn’t know a lot about this a few years ago…that by NO means shows he doesn’t now.
A person goes to university to be a doctor..goes in knowing nothing..comes out a few years later knowing how to operate on your heart. Same with Beck. he gives you chapter and verse where to find what he is saying…chapter and verse Tim, not supposition, guessing, groundless gossip..
We like Beck. There will always be detractors. As long as Beck is honest, tells us where he gets the information, we will continue to watch and believe.
If you can show us where he has mislead us, lied to us etc, please point it out and we will look it up and review it.
I’m sorry; do Americans really require an ignorant ‘comic’ to educate them on the history of the United States? If so, what does it reveal about Americans? This reminds me of the morning news’ advise to parents how to clothe their kids for school. Are we really that stupid?
Mr. Beck has succeeded to carve out a niche for himself among uninformed Americans starving for leadership and anti-O message. Good for him, it’s a free country; however, anyone with functioning neurons is able to construe that he is a clown spewing clichés and paranoid theories in addition to “information” researched by a team of professionals.
I’ve been studying (and living) in many countries. I distinctly recall that students in Europe, for example, thoroughly studied American history in addition to their own. Maybe this explains why the US always trails other western countries in international education statistics?
I’m glad the Beck worshipers get their moneys worth. We do need a well-educated population.
To Tim Ackeman who says
“I’m sorry; do Americans really require an ignorant ‘comic’ to educate them…”
Does “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” sound familiar?
Tho it would be easy to call you a few choice names that would seem to describe you and your “ignorant” attitude, I will refrain (there must be a million “ignorant comic” adjectives that would fit).
And I feel that the civility will be lost on you…
Mr. Ackeman, Abi invited you to show where Mr. Back has misled or lied to us. I get that you think he’s an “ignorant ‘comic’” but your response dodged Abi’s invitation. In what way is Beck ignorant?
I’m impressed by your having studied abroad while simultaneously living abroad. Since you’ve been exposed to superior education your list of Beck’s intellectual failures should put the kibosh on his too-long comic career.
If only long held beliefs are valid, what’s the cutoff? With the Internet, it should be easy to establish how long someone has held a position.
Continuing my devil’s advocacy, do we allow new information to change opinions?
You have got to be kidding.
I expect my ‘gurus’ to posses deeper knowledge, but I’m all for your freedom to sit and listen while the guy is preaching the ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ while reading the book for the first time.
At first I was uncomfortable with Glenn being so forthright about the need for God in our lives and in the effort to get our country back to honor and sanity. But, each person needs to ask himself deep down inside what really causes the discomfort.
If the founding fathers were still alive today, expounding in public some of the ideas that they did back in the 1700′s, a lot of people would be “uncomfortable”. It’s not that the truth has changed, it’s that our society has changed.
Given the choice of trying to restore sanity to our country *with* God or *without* God, *with* is the correct answer.
Glenn Beck’s history lessons can be quite interesting and informative, but he’d be a lot more watchable if he didn’t get so preachy. If I want to hear that noise, I’ll let the old folks drag me off to church.
Whether you like Beck or not, at least he’s giving people hope.
Is Beck ordering people to turn to God? No.
Is Obama trying to change the country into a banana republic? Yes.
Wake up and smell the Communism.
What is the point of his article? Jealously? Yes.
could be, could be.. shouldn’t be, but it could be
Jealousy, not so sure, as for the preachiness, it’s not preachy, but it IS hard to hear about God when you don’t want Him to be real…
I think it’s the challening of an established view that was working pretty well in some fashion for the author. So challenging someone’s world view always gets uncomfortable, so one goes looking for an answer to continue thinking the same way.
As for the person who put O’Reilly and Beck in the same hole, they don’t watch either often, as both men have very clear views and poke fun back and forth at the other…
I think this article could be taken a way to get to people to think about what is being said by anyone on any side of an argument. We live in a time where information is free, so use your own powers to think things through and search for yourself…Beck does tell people that, that is one of the reasons I like watching him.
I think the most important contribution Beck has made to America is to re-awaken people’s interest in history, especially American history. It is shocking how little most Americans know about the history of this nation, let alone the history of the Founding Fathers and how this country was created. It is also shocking how little interest people had in American history, until Beck came along. One guy with a blackboard at 5:00 PM has turned millions of people into fanatics who are hungry to soak up as much history as possible. Think about that. With no special effects, no major graphics, just a blackboard, some books, and the occasional guest, Beck has stimulated massive interest in people like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and lots of other important Americans who literally shaped this nation. This is a good thing because we not only need to know about all of these great individuals, but we also need to know HOW they did what they did and WHY. For that alone, this nation owes a great debt to Glenn Beck.
As for the whole obsession with God, well, you can take that or leave it. Nobody is forcing you to listen to it, let alone follow it. Isn’t that what liberals always say to conservatives? Whenever conservatives scream about bad things on television, liberals say, “Well then don’t watch or change the channel.” Whenever liberals scream about what’s on television, they say it’s a “Danger to our civil liberties and should be either boycotted or pulled off the air.” Hypocrisy aside, liberals really need to get a life. If they don’t like Glenn Beck, then don’t watch him. Simple, right? After all, today they only have about 400 other cable channels to choose from.
Personally, I think I’ll do more reading about George Washington. After all, I heard so many good things about him on Glenn Beck!
Agreed Liberty – a commonsensical post that spells out the obvious truth.
Personally, I thank Beck for addressing the issues that secular media and Ron Radosh fear to tread. Beck has done more to expose the lies of the Left in Beck’s simple yet incredibly effective forum than anybody of current record.
In comparison, nobody else is even close.
As you’ve mentioned, Beck’s greatest servicxe has been to wake people up. He’s rather like the guy next door who sees his neighbors house on fire. He may not be a fireman, but if no one else is paying attention… I’ve also heard him insist that people not take him at his word. He demands that his listeners discover the truth for themselves. Adn he does so repeatedly.
My take on Beck is that he’s a major contributor to the effort to overturn the outcomes and the effects of the Gramscian long march through the institutions. And for that, I am grateful.
From a British perspective it is hard to see why people take his ideas seriously. He is an engaging chap and quite amusing but mormonism is a joke isn’t it,albiet highly financially productive?
He calls himself an entertainer rather than anything else.I suspect that like many of us he had a pretty basic education but is very curious and interested in ideas. He also falls into many of the traps that we may have fallen into ourselves (an excess of enthusiasm and a deficit of analysis?) He displays a characteristic of many who were alcholic or drug dependent but were “cured”. He thinks we all should be impressed by his recovery rather than his initial weakness in becoming an addict. That is a very pentecostal idea in itself.
He is a great character though so its hard to dislike him,better treat him as a jester rather than an ideas man though!
David Stanley – Thanks for your profound insights from across the pond. Actually, we are just trying our damnedest to avoid the trap you superior beings fell into, and Mr. Beck is doing a seminal service in showing us a way out! Please don’t distract us.
David,
Not quite sure where you are coming from, politically. You have dismissed “Mormonism” as a crock, fantasy…and I highly doubt whether you have investigated it from other than a superficial and secular perspective. Beck is LDS, but not all that he espouses is Mormon doctrine. I, as a Latter-day Saint don’t agree with all he says or the way he says it, but much is valuable. What I would encourage however, is to drop your knee-jerk reaction to “Mormonism” and look a little deeper. Respectfully,
Mike, I have nothing against Mormons at all as people and sorry if I offended you.I admire many values they adhere to and that “seven habits” guy writes some good books. I do find the mythologies behind it absurd though. That is just honesty. Thats what I love about the U.S,free speech. And I certainly don’t feel superior to Gelina. I said I like Beck and think he is clever to say he is only an entertainer. That makes what he says more effective. I know we Brits come across as stuck up but most of us ordinary folk feel at lot more affinity to you than to Europe. I would love to see Palin stand as well as she winds up the lefties so much! She won’t be President though will she?
quite amusing but mormonism is a joke isn’t it,albiet highly financially productive?
It’s a lot like Anglicanism in that its founder was violent and horny but left an institution that inspired strength and decency in many.
The Brits would be better off adopting Mormonism.
Or Anglicanism for that matter.
Why?..soon they’ll be completely ruled by Islam. Because the brits are like Americans, they don’t want to step on toes, and won’t wake up until it’s waaaaaaaaaaaaay too late. Enter, Sharia. Grand slam for Mohammad.
Don’t you know he’s off somewhere laughing his head off that people actually follow his rantings????
“[T]hat no president has the right to ‘lock up large blocks of land within a state as a ‘wilderness reserve,’ or to set up national forests or national parks within the confines of a state — an eccentric view the Supreme Court has rejected.’” It might be an “eccentric view” in the eyes of the Supreme Court, but this power is not enumerated anywhere in the Constitution.
I would also add that Mike Lee’s opposition to Presidential declarations of National Parks, in particular, is a popular view here. We still remember how Bill Clinton just grabbed the Escalante area, made it into a park, and immediately locked up a huge reserve of clean-burning coal that various Utah counties were planning on mining, so that the proceeds could go to schools (since the coal reserves were on land specifically reserved for schools).
Utahns are still bitter about this, so it would only be natural that Mike Lee would oppose such actions from the President–even if they were declared Constitutional by the Supreme Court.
To which I would add: Just because a Supreme Court declares that something is Constitutional, doesn’t mean that it is!
Precisely.
Who’s this “we” you speak of, Ron? Glenn has done a lot more than you have (no offense) to unite and educate Americans. For that we need him in the public discourse. You…
We agree! There is not another tv/radio etc personality that has helped us as much as Beck. He has given us facts, told us where to go and check for ourselves.
His critics get excited as he throws their own words back at them. He may have just gotten into this , but he is versed better than anyone we have heard from.
Don’t like hearing about God? don’t like the “prepare” chant, don’t like knowing what liberals are up to?, don’t like hearing about our consitution? HEY!!! don’t listen…I don’t like the fact that there is no morality in so much that we do and see these days in our country. Maybe we need a solid center of morality and respect for each other. Madeline Murray O’Hare seems to still rule supreme.
On Skousen: If some leftward writer can be wrong on most things but supposedly right on this… why can’t Skousen be wrong on most things but right as far as The 5000 Year Leap?
And, you must have missed the show this past week – Beck mentioned Skousen, pretty sure my memory is correct that that he said he hadn’t even read his other books.
A thoughtful article, which illustrates what distinguishes the right from the left, and that is the willingness to look at both sides, wherever evidence and reason lead us. Just as there is danger in putting uncritical faith into someone like Barack Obama, there is danger in uncritically following Glenn Beck. There is a danger of demagoguery whether from left or right. We need to be aware and maintain the standards of conservatism.
this is true…always question. As we keep saying…Beck tells you not to believe him..go check it out yourself. he quotes, tells us where to find it, makes a commentary.
people that make comments on lies, mormons, cults, misleading…obviously do not pay attention the beck program and get irritating..
Getting rid of HUD and the Department of Education are hardly extremist views. Ronald Reagan wanted to get rid of the Department of Education, and perhaps other departments. He couldn’t do it because he couldn’t find any member of Congress to sponsor legislation. Perhaps it might be possible to do it now, as well as get rid of the Department of Energy and perhaps a couple more. The Department of Education does nothing to help the education of children; it simply imposes a huge burden of paperwork, imposes national standards that are often irrational, and takes away the local control which worked very well for many years.
The whole idea of looking at the federal government with an eye to what is constitutional is something conservatives have done for decades. If Beck talks about it because of what Skousen wrote, that doesn’t put him outside that longstanding conservative tradition. Ron, you’re afraid the Tea Party will frighten the rest of the people, so they shouldn’t venture outside of what you consider mainstream thought. But thanks to the Tea Party, and Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and many others, a wider range of thought is now allowed in the mainstream without causing public hysteria.
The Rep party is making a big mistake by aligning and even defining itself with radio and TV personalities. Such people make a living being “professional againsters” and sell that stance to an audience; it is entertainment, not reality. You cannot create law and lead by defining yourself solely by what an idiot those who hold other views are. Demonization is not leadership. Nobody’s voting for Beck or O’Reilly and the ‘truth’ is not something they are necessarily interested in but ratings. I understand that elections have long since become a beauty contest, one need only look at the current President who was elected by skin color and with no demonstrable Presidential skills to see that, but we don’t need to make it worse.
Sorry James,
All of the community organizers were already taken.
“the ‘truth’ is not something they are necessarily interested in but ratings.”
..Please show us, tell us where to find it, where Beck has lied. Even where he has exaggerated the liberal position.. Seriously, I would like to see it myself.
Critics have a difficult time with the fact that Beck tells us where to find the things he is telling us. The fact that he gives their exact words and actions back to them. Something no one else has done for the American public before.
…?So please help us with ? “the ‘truth’ is not something they are necessarily interested in but ratings.”
Glenn Beck lied when he said the following:
• “We now for several days have done research on [the supposed FEMA camps]… I can’t debunk them.”
•Forty-five percent of doctors “say they’ll quit” if health care reform passes.
•“You don’t know if this (the H1N1 vaccine) is gonna cause neurological damage like it did in the 1970s.”
•John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, “has proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.”
•“Why do we have automatic citizenship upon birth? We’re the only country in the world that has it.”
@TRUTH TIME
• “We now for several days have done research on [the supposed FEMA camps]… I can’t debunk them.”
Perhaps you missed the hour long episode where he did just that.
•Forty-five percent of doctors “say they’ll quit” if health care reform passes.
Quoting a poll that ends up right or wrong makes you liar? Interesting. You know, 45% of liberals promised to leave the country if Geroge Bush was elected – But then, we knew you all were liars already.
•“You don’t know if this (the H1N1 vaccine) is gonna cause neurological damage like it did in the 1970s.”
Please explain how a sentence that begins ‘You dont know if’ is a lie.
•John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, “has proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.”
Perhaps you missed his book.
•“Why do we have automatic citizenship upon birth? We’re the only country in the world that has it.”
Probably not entirely accurate, but please name for us dolts the first world country that does it.
Is that really all you have? Golly it’s as though the guy hasn’t exhaustively (and accurately) laid out how you progressives are trying to turn this country into a communist wonderland.
Thanks nunya.
We had time to come back and answer this and found the job done. You did a better job than we would have .
Beck did an ENTIRE episode DEBUNKING the FEMA camps. Got it–DeBUNKING the camps.
Beck is an entertainer who has an agenda because he targets an audience. What is hard to understand about that? You may as well get your “news” from Ernest Borgnine. Look up disengenous, disengeues, disenginouse, disengenious, oh, never mind.
Your list of mis-truths is incomplete. If all his words were included these statements would become true.
James old buddy- Who do you clowns on the left get your news from? You are so holier than thou spouting off about Beck and FOX, but how many of you lefties get your news from Huffington Post, MSNBC, Comedy Channel, Hollywood, CBS, ABC, and CNN. How about the NY Times? How many times have they been proven to be either flat-out wrong, or have they been shills for communist regimes. Go back in to your little lefty bubble, and keep pretending your are so much smarter than the rest of us poor conservatives.
Just like people against illegal immigration are called racists and people who don’t like a singer’s undeserved recognition are called ‘haters’, I am now a Lefty. If you don’t watch the Lefty new services then how do you know they are Lefty? If you DO watch them, does that constitute “getting your news”? I would never vote for Obama unless tortured. Instead of painting me as something I’m not, listen to what I’m actually saying.
Beck is PAID to say the things he says. He is addressing a specific audience. He no more would go on the show and pillory the Republicans than would Rush Limbaugh. If you like your propaganda with a nice dash of reality, fine, but don’t think that reality is not subservient to a pay check and selling commercial time to a demographic.
No one is ‘spouting off’ anything, merely belaboring the obvious for the mentally disenfranchised who hate MSNBC but act like MSNBC by siding with Beck as a default position and not a position on issues. Last time I checked that was called not thinking for ones self. Hello TriMaddow.
james May, you have never watched Beck, more than a few minutes once…Beck actually doesn’t support the Republicans anymore than the Dems…you’re spouting to sound like you are more open minded therefore superior…
Yes Beck is an entertainer, he also makes mistakes, and probably spins things to fit into an hour long show. Welcome to the year 2010, who doesn’t do that? The man also reads voreciously (spelling), and so he suggests that other Americans do just that; read for themselves, think for themselves, Beck also says “Don’t just believe it because I said it…find out for yourself, look on internet, search and read. inform yourself”
I who read sites like Huffington Post (I also know some people that post there. I read their posts, as I care about those people, and what they have to say.), have never seen anyone from those sites challenge anyone to research beyond what they are spinning, like I said above, there are challenges to certain world views that are just not used to being challenged, Mr J. May, please go a out learn one new thing from outside of your own box everyday…and watch a program at least two three times before you make yourself too obvious…good luck
Mr. May, Mr. Beck acquired an audience because he has proved to be compelling in his arguments, factually accurate, and frequently entertaining. He FIRST came to appeal to a demographic much sought after by broadcasters — technically known in that industry as “lots of people.” THEN, as a consequence, he started to command a substantial income. You appear to believe that nefarious broadcasters with a, gasp, agenda, pay Beck lots of money and he then goes out an snares unsuspecting dupes. The MSM: agendaless objective truth!
I’m always amused by people who dismiss persuasive (content, manner of expression) and insightful commentators as “entertainers” as though they are jumped up apes who pounded on their keyboards long enough so that they garnered huge audiences of slackjawed rubes. Rasputin, call your office!
Glenn Beck does far more good than harm. Sometimes he does get a bit weird. I well remember once he openly wondered if America was on the wrong side in WWI! W. Cleon Skousen, the John Birch Society, and other conspiracy advocates have done enormous damage. The “elites” are not explicitly conspiring against the common folk. Bill Buckley never discussed with John Kerry, for instance, how best to split up the spoils. These are people who instead lie to themselves and gravitate toward soft totalitarian ideologies that greatly flatter and reward them. They love hearing from statist thinkers like John Maynard Keynes, John Rawls, and others that the world requires near dictatorial control.
The “elites” are not explicitly conspiring against the common folk.
Soro’s comes to mind, I don’t think he is the only one.
Glenn Beck is a vital and important voice in America. He informs the public, providing a wealth of background on both historical and current situations – and then, repeatedly insists that the audience do further research and make up their own minds. And repeatedly insists that you, the audience must not take his word for it, but must do the research and think for themselves.
His exploration of what is constitutional is important because he uses the Constitution as it was meant to function: as a basic foundation of the Republic. Therefore, contrary to Mr. Radosh’s view, Beck does NOT ‘change course and move in a new direction each week’. He’s actually completely consistent. His primary focus is on what is constitutional.
His other focus ties in with this acknowledgment of the limits of government and a rejection of a statist welfare government – a mode of life that saps enterprise, initiative and freedom from a people. This other focus is on the role of the individual within a society. First, like a government, Beck considers the limits of humans. That is, mankind is not the ruler of the world – there are higher powers. Whether this higher power is ‘god’ or whatever, Beck leaves to you. His focus is to reduce the ‘hubris’ or arrogance of mankind. Then, he considers that each individual is responsible for themselves, for their decisions, for their thinking…and must not leave such decisions to others. This too is a basic axiom in the Constitution (free and equal).
The focus by Beck and others like him, on the key referential point of the USA – its Constitution – is vital.
Beck is often thought provoking but he mostly bores me. Way too preachy. I cannot take seriously anyone who adheres to the cult of mormonism. A house built on worse than sand. Quicksand.
Being a mormon does not change the program factual content. You seem to be looking for an excuse. I ‘m not mormon, catholic etc..yet I don’t allow that to cloud my view on facts.
He gets a little preachy sometime when he’s really upset on what is going on, but the program is worth picking through
Beck has done much to make Americans aware of the danger the Obama administration poses to our freedom, prosperity and way of life. He does his homework and relates facts.
That said, wise folks will keep their distance from his Mormon religion. Mormonism is a cult with a completely different concept of who Jesus Christ is. Mormonism is NOT Christianity.
there are millions of mormons that will disagree with you on that.
please show us your information/facts that prove the statement you have made.
No, we are not mormons. however, we have lived in a mormon state, city, neighborhood for 50 years and know and understand a lot.
So, please help us understand your point of view with some facts.
Ahhhh , the ‘millions of flies can’t be wrong argument’.
It takes a few hundred pages to explain the cult of mormonism and this has been done by several ex-mormons. Just google it. Hang out on freerepublic and read the ongoing-nearly-never-ending-debate.
Mormonism is an assault on Christianity plain and simple. It is the very sort of attack that St. Paul and Christ Himself warned us would come. Mormons are mostly decent folk as they have a strong ‘works doctrine’ they must adhere to but they are lost.
The very foundation of their lives is based on a lie invented by the charlatan Joseph Smith. I can never trust them. Those millions you reference are all on their way to hell.
i could say the same about christianity and the bible. i do not believe in either one. ex mormons have an ax to grind i know as we have several in our family that have been excommunicated . point being, they claim to be christians, no matter what you think.
i really dont’ pay attention to what st. paul or jesus was “supposed” to have said in some far off time. ALTHOUGH, i do respect the people for their dedication to a good cause that hurts no one, unlike muslims. As far as hell goes, you don’t know that for a fact, strictly supposition . nothing like a self righteous fanatic to put others down. religion is merely man trying to control others ..
“have you been saved>” hell, i’ve never been lost. i believe in God, not jesus, buddha, smith (and i never said i believed in this relibion. religious fanatics/zealots, even pseudo, are everywhere they become comical to speak with and yet boring. as long as they are trying to help their fellow man, i don’t care what they believe. so don’t get your panties in a wad..go read an anti christian site, as entertaining as anti mormon site.
i really don’t mean to sound rude to you. we just have a difference of opinion
Scott, well said.
Abi, may be you don’t happen to know the core beliefs of LDS. One can have differences of theological opinions (i.e. Jews and Catholics, Catholics and Western Orthodox, etc.) but once someone declares that the native inhabitants of America are descendants of the 10 tribes of Israel who got here after crossing the Atlantic 20 centuries before Columbus… things get a little hard to take seriously, especially when the only proof they offer (against DNA, archeology, etc.) is a book “translated from the Egyptian” (???) original found in “gold sheets” in Upstate NY.
Anyone is free to believe those articles of faith but allow me to raise an eyebrow.
Mr. Beck presents many valid points that he has obviously researched carefully but unfortunately his religious beliefs may generate skepticism among some listeners.
Honestly I think we all suffer from a serious deficit in education (in the classical sense of the word) and the ability to exercise some critical thinking. The British journalist who converts to Islam, the American journalist that converts to Mormonism, the Scientologist… are the same in that respect. They have been shortchanged into believing things that are most obviously recent or somewhat historical religious inventions. There is a long distance from those religious fads (however decent their faithful may be) to the centuries-old philosophical and theological developments of Judaism or Christianity. Brighan Young and Joseph Smith will never make it to the level of Maimonides or Thomas Aquinas. Neither will Mohamed in spite of his numerous followers.
Mr. Beck would do well to apply his considerable research skills to his present religious beliefs.
Um, Barton who was on the show for quite a while, is, from what I can tell ( and I looked, atheists do not like that man) a real live Texas style evangilist type believer (don’t worry, I am perfectly fine with that). I personally grew up Catholic, but couldn’t possibly label what I am other than American believer ( I think that’s what the English here have labelled me). I haven’t seen Beck put forward Mormon beliefs (while at University two very nice Mormons tried in vain to convert me) All I have heard Beck say is pretty basic Chrisitan doctrine things…
Now Scoot how do you know who is saved or not? I am going to leave that choice up to God, and rather than be someone preaching a holier than thou God, just live out your faith, give others Jesus’example, if you are Christian and then leave them to God, you know He is the one who converts people, once they soften their hearts…i am not too worried about Beck’s view of God, being that he has one, Gofd will find him.
Scott and Catino, what man can withstand a close examination of all of his beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge of the world? Granted, the idea that one of the lost tribes of Israel journeyed to the Americas is implausible but is the idea of the immaculate conception the gold standard of plausibility? What about reincarnation? Care to make a case for that?
That said, there is much that is admirable in the Christian faith and the many ways in which humans have found to live that faith. Ditto, for Buddhism. Bill Lawrence here pretty much says all anyone need to know about Mormonism. Having spent some of my high school years in Salt Lake finding ways to act stupidly, I know for a fact that it would have been a great blessing for me to have fallen into the “clutches” of the Mormons then.
However incomplete my knowledge or laughable my beliefs may be, I can still — if I effectively marshal my facts and reason according to the accepted rules — participate in public debates. I don’t need a Certificate of Worthiness before I do. If Beck has the facts and reason on his side, it doesn’t matter in the least that he’s a Mormon.
I’ve given up completely on Beck, O’Reilly, and Hannity. It’s not that I disagree with their views; for the most part I don’t. But they simply can’t stop talking about themselves. It’s like visiting a mental hospital.
I am a conservative too and rarely disagree with them also. But I could care less about O’Reilly going on the View. Who cares?
The View? crap trash. Esp behar. Walters has obviously sold her soul to the Obama’s..gigglegigglegiggle, the woman is getting senile. Why Bill, who I am not crazy about, would even entertain the thought of going on that show is beyond me. Dear god in heaven, Whoopi dresses like she’s about to go crazy and wants to be dressed for it. My granddaughters dress their dogs up something like her.
Good point. Hannity I never listen to any more. Nor watch. He just runs over everyone. O’reily is even worse. Rush has his moments. Wish I could get Dennis Praeger. Mark Stein is refreshing but hardly ever get to hear him. After thirty some years of talk radio listening I broke the habit. God bless em all though. Somebody needs to hear them.
On the radio talk show host thing, I too, have become woefully tired of Hannity & Beck (I still listen to Rush). Highly recommended talk-show lineup can be found on LA’s KFI 640 AM (available on iheartradio). Check them out.
Sometimes I wonder if FOX NEWS is not a fly paper trap designed to prevent the development of a truly conservative media in the style of William F. Buckley’s work.
The lack of depth of O’Reilly, Hannity and Beck is appalling. Can you imagine Bill O’Reilly or Hannity having a conversation with Malcom Muggeridge or Maggie Thatcher?
People like Tom Sowell will never have a TV program, not even in cable at the 2-3am slot.
Man! Do I miss Bill Buckley!
Buckley was so extraordinary, we’re all lucky to have someone like that in our midst once every 100 years.
I remember first hearing Beck on radio while driving through Nashville about a decade ago, when he first was going into syndication. At the time, he seemed to be groping for a style — his ideology was conservative, but his presentation was in flux, and as I remember it, contained lots of pregnant pauses between sentences, as if he were a more casual sounding version of Paul Harvey, Certainly it was far different than the current radio program, which in turn has a different vibe than Glenn’s TV show.
So it wouldnt surprise me if someone who was tweaking his personality on-air to find what worked best with the public would have an ideology that at ties could be equally in flux and under refinement on the run. As long as he maintains the desire to be a media success and doesn’t let his ego start dictating how his show plays out, I think Beck is only going to go so far with his support for sow of the more ‘exotic’ neighborhood of the conservative movement. But that could change, especislly if he sees the upcoming House Repubican majority failing to satisfy many on the right if trhe leadership opts to practice policies that leave conservatives thinking this is simply a return to the GOP’s style from 1999 to 2006.
Gosh, I too, see the Constitution “as divinely inspired,” and I view “much of what the federal government currently does as unconstitutional.” How radical of me!!!
Fear is in the air, and I wonder what can all those high-brow Republican pundits and think-tank gurus reasonably do with the likes of Glenn Beck and the great unwashed Tea Party?
Agreed, I would like to hear more talk about the real changes that need to be made in our government like the total separation of business and state. How wrong is it that any business can go to our legislatures and have laws made (regulations) so as to insure profit? Our border is not secure because our govt. is in collusion with business. Business will pull the strings every time they want
things to change in their favor or to keep a fence from being built. I just wish someone would do a show about how puppet strings get pulled. HEY GLENN YA LISTENING.
Yes. The great unwashed will eventually carry the day since most of the Brahmins have become mere right-wing Liberals. I too believe that God had something to do with the writing of our Constitution. If that is true He may come to defend our country in the final hour. He is not in the habit of doing things for nothing. See Luke 19:40.
Careful, Ron. Don’t carry the enemy’s water bucket.
A rigorous atheist can agree with Beck’s conclusions as to how to interpret the Constitution while blowing off the theological reasoning that got him there. Fundamentally it’s about where the “thou shalt not f@ck with the Constitution” comes from. Beck/and this Skousen guy say “God.” Others might locate the commandment in the plain meaning of the Constitution’s words. Still others might in the well-documented statements and admonitions of the Founding Fathers. Choose your taboo. But what they all have in common is the premise that a constitution that we can make to mean whatever we need or want it to mean isn’t a constitution but a rubber stamp. Conservatives understand that we’re all children and so tend to put very precious things out of reach.
My guess is that the vast majority of Beck’s critics don’t watch his show regularly or tuned in and saw him cry or promote turning to God. I do watch regularly and when I don’t care for the topic or issue he is talking about, I TURN THE CHANNEL.
Lee, he argues, “has a truly radical vision of the U.S. Constitution,” one that “sees the document as divinely inspired and views much of what the federal government currently does as unconstitutional.”
Beck has a top 10 of audio and video outtakes on contempt for the Constitution by elected officials. One of these elected officials was asked, ‘where in the Constitution did he find the authority to impose a mandate on Americans to buy health insurance?’ In his defense, the congressman replied that ‘most of what they did in Congress wasn’t in the Constitution’.
So, really, it’s “truly radical” to believe most of what the Federal Government does is unconstitutional? Actually, it’s plain as the nose on your face.
I hate to say it, but Mr. Radosh is simply wasting his time on Glenn Beck. Mr. Radosh is a serious thinker and Mr. Beck is an excellent entertainer. ‘Nuff said.
A small correction to your article. Skousen’s 1963 publication “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society” was not “a book” but a 12-page pamphlet. You may see it here:
http://www.ourrepubliconline.com/OurRepublic/Article/27
The discussion about Skousen in Alex Zaitchik’s salon.com articles and his book on Glenn Beck relied, in part, upon my research. I obtained Skousen’s FBI files.
For anyone interested in a more detailed account about Skousen, including misrepresentations about his FBI responsibilities, see my 26-page report here:
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/skousen
More info: ernie1241@aol.com
Skousen and his views are a problem. The John Birch Society connections are troubling, because there were some very unhinged people in the JBS, who saw communists under every bed (thanks, Mad magazine parody…). Of course, and this, my dear Prof. Radosh, is the problem, the fact that the Birchers were often nuts doesn’t mean that their nutter views were not based on a fair amount of fact. Indeed, what has come out in the past 20 years or so with respect to China, especially from some of the biographies of Mao, and what has come out with respect to Communist influence in the United States and in our government in the 1940s and early 1950s, suggests that the whole American involvement with China was heavily manipulated by Communist agents.
Moreover, in many respects, Beck is correct about the Progressives and the left, and his emphasis on the study of American history from the pens of historians educated before the current post-modernist wrecking crew became ascendant in the early 1980s is of the greatest importance.
As a lawyer, I’m skeptical of some of the Constitutional interpretations of folks like Lee, but that will play out in the marketplace of ideas more fully. At least the views are worth airing and discussing. And, a much more limited interpretation of the powers of the Federal government is probably a good thing and probably a good deal closer to that of the Founders. The best thing, I think (and have long thought), would be for a vastly larger number of people today (and especially ALL lawyers) to actually read the seminal works that undergird the Constitution, especially Montesquieu, Locke, Hume, and Smith, the works of the French and German Enlightenments that the Founders read, and works of history dealing the European republics from the ancient world through the Renaissance, which the Founders also read. From there, the Debates on the Constitution (Federalist and Anti-Federalist), the writings of the Founders themselves outside of the debate, and Tocqueville. With that background, one is in a position to start reading the Constitution and cases on Constitutional law with a fair perspective on what the Founders were doing in the Constitution. Only then, can one intelligently talk about how the Constitution should be interpreted.
“…read the seminal works that undergird the Constitution…” Amen to that.
Mr. CatoRenasci, one does not need to read all that you suggest to peruse the list of powers granted to the Congress in Art. I, Sect. 8 to see if an action contemplated by Congress is on it. One can profit from such study but the Constitution was not intended to be a recondite text by the Founders. I am allergic to anything that suggests that the Constitution requires the assistance of priests to understand.
Are you saying the government we have today IS CONSTITUTIONAL?? Never heard of Skousen before Beck but I don’t need his thoughts to conclude that much of what you say he said regarding the scope of Fedzilla registers as pretty dead on. The “land grab” now threatens Alaska and much of our natural resources. Still think it’s a great idea? The problem with Beck is that he is becoming a bit too “messianic” in his presentation. It colors the truth and gives too many of his enemies the chance to destroy everything he presents. He should lay off it and stick to what most of America can see with their own eyes: MOST OF WHAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS STUCK ITS NOSE IN SINCE THE NEW DEAL IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. You think not? And all the lefties in the world can try to portray Beck as a knee-jerk acolyte of some far right wack job, but that still doesn’t make the Federal Government acting within its enumerated powers. The left as usual is trying to destroy the messenger because the message terrifies them. You, Radosh, of all people, should not fall for their usual trick.
Bah, unnecessary and contrived piece – but since here, the problem is “what’s wrong with Radosh” than “what’s wrong with Beck” -
Beck is doing a fine job, and his performance cannot be attuned to the taste of absolutely everyone who has a radio -
Further, it is amusing to see here how someone who’s asking for intellectual integrity is using the convoluted notion of “[not]the Horowitz of 1969-1971… but the Horowitz of 2010 [...]” -
But then, aren’t we here listening to the Radosh of 2010, a version of the Radosh of 1960-s, which was anyway a neo-retro-post incubus of the Moscow’s hatchery of the 1930-s?
Ron, clumsy job and bad timing for your call for allignment at the party orthodoxy and punishment the treacherous deviationist Beck – in the age from which you keep extracting your rhetoric you might well have found yourself in the train for Vorkuta -
tv show is better…watch on FOX or tivo. Radio show, stu and folks make for a funnier less informative show.
In answer to the question “do conservatives need Glenn Beck,” the answer is yes, we do.
Glenn Beck makes mistakes. Glenn Beck bloviates. Glenn Beck can, I admit, be rather wearing at times. Nevertheless, he is one of the single most powerful communicators the modern Right has.
Yes, he’s trying to learn history while he’s teaching it, but at least he is trying to learn. He has never claimed to be infallible, which is a refreshing change from the attitudes of many other pundits. He has never been cruel- not even with regards to George Soros.
And because of Beck’s ability to communicate, he draws attention to important issues even when he’s wrong. I’ve learned from many people that attempt to refute Beck’s claims who, in a Beckless world, would never have bothered to speak up.
I do understand why so many people find him distasteful; he seems just like a stereotypical Old Right-winger. One can almost smell the fire and brimstone as he speaks, and for many centrists like myself, this is offputting. Nonetheless, he’s stirred up more enthusiasm on the Right than any other modern speaker. Unless we can dig up an eloquent, persuasive centrist who can also make a genuine emotional connection with his audience (hint: there aren’t many that can) we will have to settle for Glenn.
I’m grateful that he’s on the air.
To look askance at closing down the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and possibly others is akin to ignoring common sense altogether! It is readily evident that the Dept. of Ed. is so incompetent and over bloated with (union loving) radicals that it is totally inefficient/worthless. One look at our children’s current education possibilities in public schools cannot be sugar-coated enough to make anyone satisfied.
Nothing better can be said about the Dept. of Energy – it is a TOTAL waste of good office space, and a huge drain of tax monies. For those of you with a differing opinion, please cite just one thing that this department has accomplished since its inception … There is no energy policy; it hasn’t caused/allowed even one refinery to be built; oil production in our own country has not increased – it has diminished under DOE; this while demand goes up and more money is shipped off to foreign producers.
Please, if you can, give me some positive aspects re Departments of Education and Energy …
And while you’re at it, think of one good reason why government unions should be allowed to continue.
“If you are the type of person who insists on dismissing every argument and analysis offered by someone on the left, and believe that there is absolutely nothing you can learn from a political opponent, you are ignoring his data at your own peril.”
I can afford to dismiss every argument made by the Left because I know that someone on the Right will give their arguments credence, such as yourself, Mr. Radosh. I for one don’t listen to everything Beck says, but, as I pointed out in one of your other blogs, the Skousens and the McCarthies of yesterday were entirely correct in what they saw, but their tactics are Left wanting. You prove that in conservatism there is room for disagreement and much to learn from conservatives who are quite moderate in their views. You try to give an example of a Leftie who is sympathetic to Glenn Beck, but to me Mr. Lilla does so in a condescending manner. What if Glenn Beck were a rock ribbed conservative who believed correctly that the United States is not spying on its citizens and did not support gay marriage and believes America should have an aggressive foreign policy? What Mr. Lilla did was pick and choose things that he agrees with and bash the rest.
Just one more contention. You say that conservatives should be for reducing the powers of the federal government, but that the government should keep some powers. The problem with this is that whenever the government gets an inkling of power it never relinquishes it and that power begins to metastasize beyond the original intent of the pol who gave the government that power. We have seen this time and again: The 16th Amendment was only to target the “rich” but now everyone who has income has to pay taxes; Social Security was only meant to provide relief after a person lost all of their assets in old age, but now it not only is seen as a primary source of retirement income, but also provides for widow’s and disability benefits; Medicare was seen as a stopgap move to provide seniors with secondary coverage, now it is the primary coverage for most seniors and it pays for prescription drugs and it covers renal care; Fannie and Freddie were created to keep the mortgage market liquid, until the government decided that its primary goal was to provide “affordable housing” to “low-income” individuals and became the world’s largest hedge fund for mortgages (and we saw the end result of that). I believe the Founders had it correct when the drew up the Constitution: Defend America, its borders, and its citizens but leave the economics to the states and its citizens. Anyone who believes that the federal government should do things outside of that is supporting the belief that the Constitution is irrelevant in today’s world and thus should be secondary to ensuring a “social safety net” to protect individuals from the risks of living.
Oh, and this proves that we don’t need to listen to the rants of Lefties because there are more than enough conservatives who believe they can take the reigns of Leviathan and control It. But now I’m just repeating myself, in more ways than one.
Excellent.
Historians, including amateurs like myself, find Beck’s version(s) of history to be more akin to “Education by Google and WikiPedia”. And yes, I have watched almost every one of his shows … I am still trying to get through his book “Arguing With Idiots”. Quite the Herculean task when one runs out of room in the margins to correct both his facts and his faulty “logic”.
But why ignore the elephant in the room, Ron?
You call Skousen a “faith-based political theorist”. Okay. Good. Skousen was one of the most vocal MORMONS re: a variety of societal issues most of US find “odious”. The Skousen family is very well known in my former habitat – Mesa, AZ – a Mormon-established énclave east of Phoenix.
The narcissistic ideology that Glenn Beck, Inc. has been pushing lately is a 12-step religious program based upon his intertwining (on purpose) a mish-mash of Judaism and Christianity that fits into The Book of Mormon (glenn’s bible), as an effort to justify his own cultish beliefs.
As one who is educated, and a very conservative/libertarian, I find him so lacking in intelligence and knowledge of history that I truly have sympathy for all those who worship at his pseudo altar.
Glenn Beck, Inc. is a fraud. YOU must “tithe” 10% to YOUR church because HIS demands it. That’s not so “Christian” in my book.
BTW …
The Glenn Beck, Inc. rehab centers welcome you if you convert.
~(Ä)~
Thank you.
We should all totally reject anybody, like Beck, who doesn’t agree 100% with ourselve, 100% of the time. Surely that is the only way to save conservatism and the nation.
Spoken like a true Fox News anchorbitch.
Surely you jest.
That is funny! That is cynical sarcasim right? Only agree with ourselves one hudred persont of the time…thanks for the day brightener!
Oops one hundred percent of the time
one hundred percent of the time oops sorry
Good point.
I don’t understand Radosh’s obsession with Beck. I agree with Tex, Kate and several others in my reaction to this piece. I have watched or listened to Beck for about 150-200 hours, all told, and have enjoyed his spirit, his self-awareness and even his showmanship.
I suppose the problem is that Radosh is uncomfortable with populism and distrustful of the masses who elevate Glenn into some sort of religio-political figure. I doubt that would translate into a Glenn Beck Presidential campaign.
So, what is the problem? The guy inspires people and even educates them. If association with people who fear one-world gov’t makes someone anathema, then most of the people who post here, including me, are anathema to Ron Radosh.
Beck makes people think. And as for the ‘conspiracy theories’, some have validity. The news is full of infomercials and Wolf Blitzer-Boogies. Few internal American political events of past decades have been covered in any accuracy, in part because the ‘elites’ have sufficient control of media and corporate worlds – or symbiosis with them – to stop this. I think you are afraid of the ‘truth’, Ron Radosh.
People with the Ruling Class gene have a particular hatred for Beck.
How dare somebody without an acredited education presume to research issues and educate others about them, particularly an unwashed ignoramous like Beck! And don’t even think about that college dropout Limbaugh. The audacity of them to think they are as capable and intelligent as college educated geniuses. And then, yuk yuk, there’s Palin and her degree from xyz university. Who are these people?
Suppress them!
Is there a certain religious cult that can’t be mentioned?
Beck, Skousen, etc. …
~(Ä)~
The strategy here is clearly to discredit someone (GB) by associating him exclusively with someone controversial (WCS), and specifically by citing out-of-context the latter’s most extreme views or acts (membership in JBS, LDS-Church, &c).
What context? Skousen was a prolific author and otherwise prominent figure for decades. However, a cynic from his native Canada could now write that “. . . outside of the Mormon Church, specifically the hardcore, right-wing conservative communities in Utah and Idaho and Arizona and Nevada, nobody really knew who he was . . .”* Check this against [quoted below]. California in 1987 had the same population as all Canada.
——————
In 1987, controversy erupted in California when the state briefly considered using Skousen’s book, The Making of America, as a textbook for California schools. Statements in the book regarding slavery, and its use of the term “pickaninny” as a label for slave children engendered a heated debate as to whether the book was appropriate. The state commission’s Executive Director, a former colleague of Skousen at the National Center for Constitutional Studies, asserted that these statements were “largely taken out of context” from a 1934 essay on slavery by the historian Fred Albert Shannon that Skousen had included in his book.[34][35] Skousen highlights the global history of slavery as independent of color or race in The Making Of America claiming that “… the emancipation of human beings from slavery is an ongoing struggle. Slavery is not a racial problem. It is a human problem.”[36]
—— source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Cleon_Skousen ———
Further, re the sect-slandering post [is there adult supervision on this site?], here are a few LDS-adhering political’prominents’ to consider:
1. Harry Reid, US Senate Majority Leader
2. Mitt Romney, pres-candidate ’08; former governor (Mass); head of Winter Olympics (Utah 2002)
3. All those Udalls in the Southwest (on both sides)
Of course there’s G Beck himself, but he is a recent Convert who speaks only for himself & his overwhelming non-LDS audience. So, what exactly is The Problem here? [waiting . . .] That’s right: It’s his political philosophy (specifically Contitutionalism), not his religion that is so ‘objectionable’.
*http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/11/02/alberta-mormon-gains-notoriety-thanks-to-tea-party-movement
People need to wake up the fact that Glenn Beck is simply another opinion pushing charlatan who is a product of mormon cult theology that he mixes with parts of Catholicism and his personal core as a dry alcoholic. And for the record, he is a Mormon and not a Christian. The two are not the same as one is a cult and the other is a religion. This makes Glenn Beck one very twisted screwed up moron who sold his soul to the lowest common denominator of personal stupidity. The religion of Islam has more in common with Christianity than the mormon cult.
The truth about Beck is that he a dry mormon alcoholic who never got the counseling required for alcoholics. Because he does not possess a single ounce of journalistic integrity, this makes him the perfect abortion poster child for Fox Network. Considering the fact that Beck’s personal views are extreme Marxist Libertarian, his form of patriotism is false and he is a person who has no real substance or depth. As such, I would never allow myself to be one of Beck’s many free right wing extremist blow job recipients!
Glenn Beck consistently demonstrates all the unstable behaviors of a dry alcoholic which include grandiosity, judgmentalism, intolerance, impulsivity, ADD, indecisiveness and blindness to truth. In short, Beck, Limbaugh, O Reilly, Hannity, Palin, O Donnell, Coulter and others like them frequently pervert truth, history, facts, religion and the US Constitution when they open their big mouths. Beck is simply part of a national league of pseudo-conservative idiots who make big money by selling lies and half truths to impressionable fools that occupy the lowest levels of society. Basically…tea baggers and registered republicans who are condemned to repeat the mistakes of history.
We’re supposed to take seriously a guy who calls Himself “Truth”?
And this guy thinks Beck is guilty of “grandiosity, judgmentalism [sic], intolerance”.
Johnathon—are you sure? It’s usually Jonathan—check out Matthew 5:7 (That’s in the Bible): “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Wow, you almost had me, right up to that “teabagger” slur.
Odd, the folks you slander as perverting truth have simply reiterated to millions what any free thinking person had already known: namely, our rights come from God, not government. Top that off with the fact that communism (socialism imposed without the mask of “caring”) has murdered more people in the last century and the concepts of socialism and communism spring from the same poisonous weed. And, sorry to say, they are false. The left has no problem lying to acheive its ends as they entire premise is based upon a lie: that man can be perfected here on earth. Another give away is the demand to replace faith in God for faith in the state as god. Nice try, why don’t you get a real education instead of a schooling?
Go away. You need to get a real life, learn a few home truths.
You are showing signs of being a “dry nut”..grandiose crap you are trying spew is typical. You and your “dry nut” cult need to shine some lights in your closet.
I hope your troubles will soon be over, Johnathon.
Seems to me that this author does not understand the Constitution to be a limit on the functions available from the Government.
If you want your social security, there are other places to get it than the current Constitution. 1) the states could provide it. 2) you could call for a constitutional amendment to grant that power to the federal government.
The thing that is distressing is that people want a constrained government without a constrained government. Seems to me that the person that is screwed in the head is the author of this piece.
@40, “2) you could call for a constitutional amendment to grant that power to the federal government.”
Exactly correct. Before the progressives began to actively put into practice their theory of the Constitution as a “living” document they actually used the parameters of the Constitution to get their ideas enshrined in it. That is how we ended up with 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th Amendments. Nowadays, progressives believe that all of their ideas should be implemented extraconstitutionally, so that all of their ideas are inherently unconstitutional.
Actually Mr. Bolts….99.999% of all the socialist-progressives advances has come through the Constitutions Article I, Section 8, Commerce Clause. If you read all the archived documents and communiques surrounding that clause you will come to understand how very narrow and limited their intent of that clause was…directed at [non duty] commerce between the many States.
Unfortunately, the federal government and judicial has routinely ignored the narrow intent of the clause, allowing for the gross expansion of authority by the federal government into all the nations private sector commerce…and even inventing new definitions of what “commerce” is. Virtually every department and agency has somehow become tied to its authorization through the redefined commerce clause…..health care, labor, EPA, OSHA, USDA, FDA, SBA, HUD, Education and on down the line.
The commerce clause as redefined, has become the mechanism of most of the governments coruption by special interest. Amending the commerce clause WILL stop AND reverse the
socialist-progressive march and trail of destruction. It would also reduce the size of the federal government back down to essentially the constitutional intent.
You have NO idea the numbers of legislation existing that is founded around the misuse of the commerce clause…thousands upon thousands…not counting bad judicial rulings around the misuse of the commerce clause. Even the Row vs. Wade ruling was founded inpart in the commerce clause!
“Actually Mr. Bolts….99.999% of all the socialist-progressives advances has come through the Constitutions Article I, Section 8, Commerce Clause. If you read all the archived documents and communiques surrounding that clause you will come to understand how very narrow and limited their intent of that clause was…directed at [non duty] commerce between the many States.”
Agreed, T.T., however, that doesn’t defeat the fact that progressives did use the Constitutional Amendment process to get Prohibition, elections of Senators, the income tax and the right for women to vote added to the Constitution. All of those amendments were added prior to the use of the Commerce Clause by FDR and his merry band of do-gooders (the 16th – 19th Amendments was passed 1913-1920).
You also, are correct Mr. Bolts. I’m basing my orange crate evangelism to the measurements of damage assessments to the political and economic processes and mechanisms of government, on the nation and society….by the misuse and abuse of the commerce clause. No other constitutional abuse(s)come close.
It’s not so much that socialist-progressives advances came “through” the Commerce Clause as that they came about by a dishonest interpretation of that clause by the Supreme Court. There was nothing “constitutional” about this process. Mr. Radosh seems to think we should hang onto the good things that came out of this dishonesty and ignore the undermining of the Constitution by the Supreme Court.
The only reason a liberal would defend a non-liberal is to deflect inspection of their other misrepresentations, that and obvious lie exposes.
So Beck is okay because he motivates people even though he is severely factually challenged on some issues?
Does that same standard apply to Leftwing “educators” like Whoopi Goldberg?
At what point is it acknowledged that number and depth of errors is simply too much?
oh good grief read the post man, listen to the show, check out the facts. You ar a day late and a dollar short. blahblahblahn esp listen to the show, then go check out what he says. I seriously doubt you have listened to the tv show and checked out anything.
I have watched the show.
And I have checked the “facts”.
And found numerous errors.
Have you ever checked anything?
Not by reading the sources he cites, anybody can quote accurately, but by checking other sources?
Or did you just hear something that justified your beliefs and accepted it without a second though?
no, we watch the show everyday. Infact he has the top rated show on tv and FOX is the #1 cable channel..so there are more than 2 or 3 people listening, more than 2 or 3 people paying attention, heeding…looking at what he says, he tells you to not beieve him because he says it..check it out for yourself..
//\\
if you think you have a discrepancy…he has a web site..go, complain tell them, check it out.
I’m with Anne, Sam.
Even though I don’t watch Beck regularly, I find him an attractive character, who’s done a real service by, among other things, lifting the veil, so to speak, re the snakes surrounding Obama.
Sam, you seem to be the usual, drive-by, leftie skeptic: your criticism is mere assertion. Sorry, that doesn’t work. Some concrete examples of Beck’s missteps would give you some credibility. (And, as nobody’s perfect, Beck isn’t either. However, one would have to document a pattern of egregious falsehoods to prove your point: you’re not even at the starting line there.)
Anne’s suggestion–that you actually go to Beck, himself, and post your objections at his website–sounds like good advice to me. (But you’ll have to do some homework first.)
Ron Radosh lacks perspective.
It’s not the first time he writes this kind of pseudo clever piece.
I’m not even gonna bother to post any responses.
I think maybe he’s just not very bright.
I freely admit that I don’t watch much of Beck and don’t listen to much of Rush. I rarely listen to talk radio at all, once in a while to Dennis Prager, though.
I am not a fan of Ron Paul and really have a visceral dislike of Pat Buchanan.
Having said that, if the question is: “Do non-leftists need Beck?”, I would answer the same way as I would to the same question, only with Sarah Palin as the subject.
Not MY personal choice, but it would be unwise to flog him/her with the same cat’o'ninetails that leftists pull out every time someone mentions their name.
Beck is a beacon shining awareness on a number of key issues. Palin is a beacon shining light on the New Intolerance.
They each serve a formidable and necessary utility to the dialogue and a voice that has been intentionally held in a chokehold by the lapdog media.
While MY personal preference is for VDH, Michael Barone, Charles Krauthammer, Dennis Prager, …I see value in Beck/O’Reilly/Palin to the overall dialogue. I take some criticism here for also seeing value in Jon Stewart or Joe Lieberman.
When the weaknesses of extremism can be exposed, often the most effective speakers come from the same “side” of the centerpoint on the political spectrum.
Rampant unchecked leftism is the greatest threat to our continued advancement, in my opinion. Anyone who is fighting that battle is on the same side as I am, on that issue.
That does not mean I need to agree with everyone in that battle on every issue. I just need to remember that the first order of business, is defeating it. We can parlor game all the other issues when that business is completed.
We need Beck because we are a lazy people.
\
Our major affliction is Ostrich syndrome .
Some of us have lives, wives, jobs and families.
I don’t watch Beck much if at all, but I would guess that his facts are at least as correct as those of any other TV commentator, left or right. I’m fairly skeptical about most of what I hear, call it experience or a flawed character if you will. It’s kept me from making some serious mistakes.
The value of a Beck, or even a Radosh, lies not in their opinions, but in illuminating subjects that otherwise might go unexamined. The conventional wisdom on McCarthy, Hiss, Nixon, Kennedy et al, is less than the whole truth. If it matters, dig deeper. There are many agendas, and none of them has your interests as their prime objective.
Well said! (and I do watch Beck). I think the best thing against Anne’s head in the sand theory is to not put your head in the sand anywhere, legt or right…learn and think it through for yourself…There is only one God and only one savoir, and we were given the freedom by that Creator to accept Him or not, and if GOd can live with that, then so can I> I think the whole point of the US is we the people were given the freedom to think for ourselves… and if we lose that, we are in trouble.
The author argues that the federal government, as it is, should remain so- abet at a slightly reduced level. I ask the question of him “Why?”. By all means justify the current level of government as to how it benefits our citizenry. We’ve created a permanent welfare class that drains our treasury. We have created a bureaucracy that has crippled, and in some cases killed, the businesses in this nation. So, again I ask why.
Radosh is like the wife who takes the weekly beatings by the abusive husband because he provides a paycheck to feed the children. She has convinced herself there are no alternatives but to continue the circumstances as they are.
Beck has done a yeoman’s work pulling people together, far more than any one person in recent history. Is he perfect or always right? Hardly. But he is a man consumed with the fear that his beloved nation is going to fall under the weight of abusive leadership and the ignorant and greedy populace. For that I’m afraid he cannot be criticized. Sometimes it is what it is.
The minute conservatives get serious about reining in our mindbogglingly bloated government (and yes, Social Security needs to be significantly restructured, nibbling around the edges won’t get the job done) the Ron Radishes of this world can be counted on to sound the alarm that conservatives want to do away with any government. Who are the Ron Radishes? Leftists who have a tactical problem with the virulent and violent Left, but whose endgame is the same: a massive “compassionate” state.
Regarding the constitutionalism of certain parts of the New Deal, I haven’t read Glenn Beck,but I have read a biography of Frances Perkins. In it is a vignette where she tells President FDR what laws she wants passed, and he says something about not very constitutional, and she says ‘it’s not in there at all!” and they laugh.
My dad gave me that book, so I could desire to emulate her. it was chilling, mostly. Frightening and chilling. She was in a residence house with Paul Wolfowitz, when she was old. She had to rely on collegiate kindnesses. Her daughter preyed upon her, her husband died, mentally ill to the end.
So, saying that government programs are not constitutional- the people that put them there knew that, too, and initially had problems with the fact that they were not constitutional.
ari
Mr Radosh,
Obviously you and your really ‘smart’ colleagues in the world of ‘Journo-Listism’ have lived inside your Echo Chamber for last thirty years.
For the last thirty years David Horowitz (The Freedom Center) author of “Radical Son” and former radical lefty has wrriten volumes of what Glenn Beck has spoken of in the last two years.
Goodness gracious, it really will take Israel wiped off the face of the planet for the Journolisted idiots to finally remove the veil from their eyes.
Writing a lengthly essay on whether Beck critics are valid while ‘Rome is burning’ indicates you haven’t a clue about the way the world works.
Ridiculous. I am so happy I do not have to pay to read your waste.
Having read the article and the comments on it made me fell like throwing up – and maybe that’s what the author really intended to do (just like with his last article on Beck, to which my response was censored).
All of you, who call yourselves Conservatives, keep dividing and dissing people in the Conservative movement for no apparent reason for which Main Street America cares much, other than petty little stuff to boster your own ego, show off your self-proclaimed “knowledge of history,” your “brilliant intellect,” and similar assortment of irrelevancies, and at the end let’s see who’s the beneficiary of it all.
That’s what lead to the extinction of the Conservative movement in Europe and elsewhere over the past quarter century or so.
Very smart indeed.
Beck has an obvious fear of the Government that Obama is creating. Many think it is irrational because he sounds so conspiracy-theorist when he talks about how George Soros is financing a lot of it, and possibly making money off Obama’s policies as well. However, Beck is right about a lot of this. Soros IS funding a great deal of the Left’s activities and Obama IS expanding the Government’s power in new and profound ways. Does that mean that people are actively conspiring to bring about a New World Order over the United States? Doubtful, but so what? What Soros and Obama are doing still really sucks, even if there’s no backroom Manchurian-style dealings going on.
And when elected federal officials like Rep. Weiner start going after a media personality, it’s time to watch out. Call me a Beckhead if you want, but it’s hard not to see the McCarthyism in a liberal politician going after a critically conservative media personality.
Beck can often sound crazy, I agree, but I don’t really care either. He serves a purpose in America. His primary message is to turn back to God as an individual and as a nation, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. He preaches nonviolent protests and taking the battles to the ballot box, despite the lies that the Left often try to smear him with about how he’s fomenting violence.
I don’t agree with a lot of what Beck says (like a universally flat tax rate), but I never agree with 100% of what ANYBODY says. Hopefully that goes for us all. It’s Palin that really drives me nuts. I agree with her a lot, but I really wish she’d think before she speaks sometimes.
Sorry for the typos in the last post. Aaron, could you please stop using “McCarthyism” as a slur. McCarthy was right. While maybe a little brash, Joe McCarthy has been one of the most vilified americans of the last century. (I would take McCarthy’s brand of partriotism over that treasonous drunk Ted Kennedy anyday. ) The commie rats had infested everywhere and flourished most profoundly amongst the so-called elites. there were plenty in FDRs administration who people for speaking out against the government’s overreach. Wilson’s administration was also guilty of jailing americans who voiced a dislike for our involvement in World War I.
Yeah, McCarthy was right, to an extent. There were certainly communists is some of the circles he summoned to the Senate. He still went too far and infringed on people’s right to privacy and to their own political convictions. Very few were actuallly spies. Most were just the same stupid statist liberals.
With respect to McCarthy from an old timer of eight decades. The communist party in America was for a long time directed and managed directly out of the Kremlin….a matter of historical records from both the U.S. Party and the directorate in the Kremlin. I’m told that Mr. Beck has covered the [overt] era but never covered the structure of domestic command and control. The [covert] structure that is virtually never spoken of is what McCarty was trying to expose in his strategy. Sadly, the communist structure In America was not then squashed by McCarthy.
In the 50′s the communist had what amounted to open borders with many coming and joining many of America’s most promenient print media and was never disturbed.
Post Cold War era America has become essentially an open border to Communist Russia.
One must remember that socialism, regardless of its few strategic evolutions remains communism Lite. For fun, sometime you need to read the Chinese Constitution! You would think you’re reading the U.S. Constitution or at least the American process in many areas of it…yet is there any dobut in your mind that China remains a communist nation?
Communism-socialism-progressivism is dead serious business here in America and has been for a century….they are on a consistant mission with well planned and highly polished strategies even including [temporary] democratic and capitalist theories….thus, the new identities of Democratic Socialists and more recently Capitalist Socialists. The House of Representatives “Congressional Progressive Caucus” was formed through the Democratic Socialists Party, a sister to Socialists International, of the UK.
Americans still refuse to wake up to the realism of the revolution long taking place in our yards….and by whom.
Absolutely correct. Communism has never been held to account and least of all its followers here in the U.S. Armand Hammer was a bagman for the U.S.S.R. and funneled Soviet money to the C.P.U.S.A. Alger Hiss, FDR’s advisor at the Yalta Conference, was a communist. That one fact by itself ought to turn any patriot’s hair gray overnight. Other Soviet spies in America mentioned in the Wenona intercept transcripts have yet to be identified. Eugene Lyons in The Red Decade describes how active communists were in the U.S. of the 1930s.
A message to PJM:
Keep printing stories by Raddosh dissing Beck, and let’s see what will happen to your readership.
First, I’m not a follower of Mr. Beck and have maybe watched his programs a half dozen times. I’m a simple student of observation for the past eight decades as an American citizen and 30-year servant of the military.
That said, the GOP has become infiltrated by the product of the 60′s and 70′s who are now self proclaimed intellectual elites claiming to be “conservatives”…whatever that really means. This site seemingly is a collective of these type. I think we have seen enough of what these intellectual types have helped or nonetheless allowed to be perpetuated on this once Great America.
If there is any hope for the restoration of a Traditional America in the future, the common sense Traditional Americans needs to flush all the “New Age” (actually old in years) GOP intellects from the 60′s and 70′s down the toilet and start over.
All their intellectual and philosphical ramblings will NOT win this war Traditional America remains in.
What will happen? Maybe more people who like open inquiry and real discussion will come in, and more Johnny-one-note true believers will leave. Sounds like a win-win.
Dwight….with all due respect, there comes a time when rhetoric, especially by all the arm-chair intellectual philosophers, must end and boots on the ground are required to settle the score.
The Traditional GOP has been lost to all the 60′s and 70′s indocrinated intellectuals. What preytel has any of these so-called “conservative” intellectuals done or provided as a [resolve] to any of the problems America faces besides offer their historical and philosophical mumbo-jumbo rhetoric.
Self professed intellectual’s and all their dialog has failed America!
I’m all for your point of dialog if any of it were directed towards [realistic] planning and strategies to restore Traditional America.
When my house is ablaze I’m not about to run to the library and study the evolution of trees and theories of what makes a tree soft or hard wood and how it became lumber to build my house….get the point?
I used to be a fan of Beck. However I have never followed his book recommendations with the exception of Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism” which told me all I need to know about the dangers of progressivism. Virtually all of our current problems are traceable to that odious creed.
What hs turned me off over the past year or so is his astonishing carelessness with the truth (among many things). For example last week he claimed that Rangel owes $1M in back taxes…a claim I believe to be false. Today he said that FDR ordered the slaughter of 8 million pigs because prices were too high but I believe it was because prices were too low!
What skeletons may Skousen have is of no concern to me, Beck has many more! But I do give him at least partial credit for inspiring the tea party and its religious brother the 912 project.
My biggest gripe is that he’s not funny any more!
beck lays his “closet” open. he admits to any and everything. he’s been a scoundrel. he’s also done a lot to rehabilitate himself. he never did the tax evasion thing that we have heard of…and he freely admits to stuff.
and please, never believe all that you think…and above all,never believe what you hear, only half of what you see and check it out either way.
@noahP:
Glenn and his crew still have some funny moments but Glenn does seem to be going down the same path as Rush Limbaugh. What first attracted people to Rush was his humor and brash disregard for political correctness. As soon as Rush developed a large audience and people started taking his commentary seriously, Rush seemed to out less effort into the humorous part of his program. Rush actually is a brilliant analyst, so I don’t fault him too much, but I miss a lot of the good old humor.
Noahp, I think you missed the point. Burton Fulsom’s book New Deal or Raw Deal shows how the New Deal was an attempt to transform American capitalism into a highly-controlled command economy with a heavy burden of regressive excise taxes imposed to fund New Deal programs and an intricate web of industry councils fixing prices and setting standards. It is a minor point whether the 5,000 hogs were slaughtered for a too-high or -low price. The problem — a massive problem — is that the government should not have been involved in the economy at all, there being nothing in the Constitutional that contemplated that role for the federal government. It was the wrong thing legally and a colossal waste of the hogs at the hands of bureaucrats in the Ag Dept. who knew nothing about hog production or market conditions.
Senator Lee sounds like a great guy.
Social Security et al. are crushing us. Ergo, let’s keep the program? That’s just silly Ron. Just a little bit of socialism, responsible socialism, right?
Senator Lee makes more sense in a position you present as unreasonable than does your whole article.
Once again a thoughtful post for which we owe Ron Radosh much gratitude.
The first thing that came to mind reading Ron was a few things I had jotted down this past weekend watching Angela Davis – nearly fifty years removed from her radical entrance on the national stage – seated next to Toni Morrison – indulging themselves in a hatfull of revisionist bullshit @ some academic setting – all on C-Span for the world to view.
Funny thing that there is little or no response from conservatives when such liberal luminaries spin golden thread thru ghosts from our countries recent past – and yet life goes on as if THEY NEVER HAPPENED – either the actual incidents or the revisionism in plain view.
YET…Ron is again posting like his hair is on fire that somehow the John Birchers are back like born again zombies on a hollween fest – only this time they have gathered tens of thousands [according to who - the SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER?] of well armed [thanks to the ban on the former ban of automatic weponds] militia.
Here is another contrast – this same sunday on C-span – Dinesh D’Souza spoke solo – at the invitation of Southern Evangilicals I believe – explaining why he was compelled to write his latest book ROOTS OF OBAMA’S RAGE.
C-Span is the greatest contribution bestowed upon our democratic republic since the halcyon days when the Robber Barrons bestowed great libraries and public universities. Because it as much as the internet is responsible for the Tea Party rise – because of the unfilitered avalibility of information for political consumption.
The obsession that liberal dolts like Dana Milbank have with Beck is every bit the same they have when mocking Palin. The torrid pace of dissent in this country rejecting everything they believe in as the Obama administration continues down the road to surfdom has them doing mental contortions in response.
What other choice other than finding/inventing boggymen like Beck do they have – abandoning their dead ideas and surrendering to the peasants who march against them? Fat Chance if only!
I think Ron Radosh you are missing a seminal event that Beck represents, and which accounts for just why people like Jeffry Rosen are in such a panic.
Try as they will, and in particular this is why I find writers like John Avalon so infuriating, the left cannot tie the link of violence to the Tea Party, BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST ANYWHERE BUT IN THEIR PARANOID MINDS!
That narrative was rife throughout the fifties and sixties in conservativsm, a fundemental element why William F. Buckley Jr took the stance he did. The pervasive violence visited upon Blacks in turn led to the violent rioting later when some semblance of legilsative remedy eventually arrived.
The degree of vitrol and delusional invention demanding the same must again exist just amps up how weakened they are when commanding any power to sell their views.
This false analogy today is just one more reason why the left is killing itself in full public view – bleeding out its relevance with each hyperbolic insistance that the dark underbelly of vigilantism is just a spark away.
Thus it is so infuriating to hear this spew from the lips of an oppertunist like Avalon; when he’s nothing more than a word whore.
I LIVED IN NEW YORK CITY WHEN VIGILANTI COPS RECLAIMED THE STREETS THERE! And a piss ant like Avalon was still in grade school at the time. Guliani [Pre 9/11] didn’t recalim that city with ‘theory’ – he did it by letting loose the likes of Anoine Fuqua’s TRAINING DAY & later BROOKLYNS FINEST – albeit fictional characters – but if you are honest and you were there then these story lines leaned in closer to fact than fiction.
And along comes Avalon who worked for the ‘good Rudy’ – the Rudy who became ‘America’s Mayor’ after all messy aftermath was cleaned up via the courts – and this punk is now the new ‘voice of reason’?
NO Way Ron.
Here is what you are missing, and D’Souza represents it as much as anyone. What is he doing at Kings College? He’s put out a challenge – to come join him – to remake the American College as once again what it was before being over run in the sixties as a one stop shop ideologically.
This is partly why Beck has become a multi-millionair phenom – and ordinary Americans of all ages and backgrounds have become smitten with the Founders and the Constitution.
Of course Jeffry Rosen is agast that someone like Mike Lee would have the temerity of asserting devine inspiration when it comes to the Constitution – such is an anethma to all secularists.
Well that is too bad for Jeff. Believers will not surrender – as is quite evident in the past few summers – their god given rights to American Exceptionalism. NO matter how ‘nicely’ the opposition asks – euphemism’s aside.
And no matter how many times, despite intentions, that Ron Radosh misses the bigger most important issues at stake.
Of course Senator Lee is correct! There is no valid entry in the Constitution, as our Founders meant it to be read, for nearly all that a HUD does, or for those duties (aka rights) retained by each State that a Department of Education does, etc etc.
Under which of the 18 enumerated powers does such Federal authority lie? None. Only by destructive expansion of the meanings of simple clauses of further restraint on the 18 powers such as “necessary and proper”, or “to provide for the general welfare,” or the “due process” clause of the 14th Amendment. Or by equally destructive expansion of specific meanings of the 18 powers such as the power to “regulate Commerce.” Only by such cancerous artifice has such power been claimed as “Constitutional.”
Such severe limits were well known to prior generations closer to the actual philosophy and understandings of the Founders! “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity…. [It] would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded,” said President Franklin Pierce in 1854 when he vetoed a popular measure to help the mentally ill.
“I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit,” said President Grover Cleveland in 1887 when he vetoed a bill to purchase $10,000 in seed to distribute to farmers in Texas beset by a harsh drought.
Why disclaim our History, in order to make light of a good Senator, Mr. Hill, who DOES recollect it and seek to reaffirm it. Our nation’s Federal Government has wandered like a promiscuous harlot for a few generations, that is our history too, sadly. But it is NOT one to build upon. Let us tear down the Bawdy House of federalized political Prostitution that the national government has become. We want to re-anchor to the solid foundation we once had, and then use our newer wisdoms and modern dispositions to put social programs where they best belong, a few built onto the reformed federal foundation, but most outward — in the local precincts and regions where they belong and are most efficiently managed.
Also see Professor Walter E. Williams’ August 2006 article on “Constitution Day”, http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/fee/constitution.html
He writes:
[Imagine that] former presidents James Madison, Franklin Pierce or Grover Cleveland were campaigning for the presidency today. Imagine their saying to today’s Americans they cannot find: “a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents”, “any authority in the Constitution for public charity”, or saying, “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution.” Their candidacy would be greeted with contempt by most Americans. They would be seen as callous, mean-spirited men by a nation of people who have now come to believe they have a right to live at the expense of other people through a variety of federal programs.
Both excellent comments.
Today Glenn Beck went through the things we learned from the recent Wikileaks data dump. He went through a list of things and after each one he said “But, you knew that already, if you watched this,” and showed a clip of a previous show and sometimes added “and you could figure that out if you had half a brain.” (or something to that effect).
Also, he once again said on another topic, “Don’t take my word for it. Do your own research.” as he does in most, if not all, programs.
What collectively has PJM done to fight the Left, Statism, and Progressivism in the USA? Compared to say….Beck or Skousen?
Look, many Americans, myself included, read Skousen’s “The 5,000 Year Leap” without resurrecting the ridiculous JBS. It is a good manifesto for ordered liberty. There may be some disagreements on a couple of things to some people, but on the whole it is a good little working book of 28 simple to understand principles that make sense. It is a big net plus to the movement to reduce the unconstitutional power of the federal government and help us get back on track.
These are the kinds of works that fuel the grassroots uprising against the Obama/Pelosi/Reid/Soros Axis. There are others too. Mark Levin’s book, Palin’s second book, plus numerous others on top of the older excellent works of more intellectual weight as opposed to workable grassroots tomes.
Mr. Skousen at least educated people on liberty and it appears his efforts made a difference. Beck, although you may not like his showmanship, also educates and has made a difference. I know Beck is doing good, because Soros is upset over the platform he has at Fox News. When listening to people, ignore the style and focus on what they are trying to prove. Snag the truths as they come and move on.
We all do our parts, and it is important to understand we ARE in a war. PJM needs to focus MORE on who the enemy really is rather than people who more than 50% of the time are on our side.
Goodness me! You mean Beck doesn’t sip tea with his pinkie properly extended!? He doesn’t pronounce the name of that fancy college in Cambridge as “Hah-vad”? Then, yes, by all means expel him from the fraternity of the like minded elites!
This “friendly fire” hit piece genre is so inherently contemptible that it is hard to know where to begin.
Beck emotes like Oprah then bangs his chosen “text du jour” with the affected fervor of Jonathan Edwards on a sleety winter solstice.
So what?
Sarah Palin’s accent (sorry, “aix-ent”) is so nasal one wonders when she will ever get over that cold she’s apparently had for the past three years. Plus she graduated from Podunk State University (extension branch)!
So what?
Bill O’Reilly of “I could possibly vote for John Kerry” fame is hypocrite of the first order.
So bloody what?!
Such objections have all of the intellectual and practice import of his foolish article. Are we liberals? Do we expel those who deviate the slightest bit from our own personal tastes?
Is this politics or Pygmalion writ large? Is this politics or a fashion show? Good grief!
If you don’t like Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity, Rush, Palin, et al. personally, then get over it, or admit that you’re really a liberal in drag. The kind of petty, pseudo-intellectual sniping epitomized by this article is a greater threat to the present conservative ascendency than anything Obama and his ilk could dream of.
Lay off our own people. I don’t like them all, either, but so what?
Get over yourself, Mr. Radosh. Eye on the prize.
Ever take note of all these intellectual “pundits” (because there are no more real journalists)who are experts of critical analysis of the sujective obvious and irrelevant?
The problem with the new GOP and all the boatloads of their intellectual elite, is that they have long abandoned their party platforms and flail around with NO substantive, comprehensive solutions…much less any strategy of implementation to any of the real root causations of the many problems and national division. They are masters of superficial and irrelevant diversions!
Theres only TWO “causation” problems they should be honed in on.
1. Amending the Constitutions Article I, Section 8, Commerce Clause.
2. Reducing the size of government back to the Constitutional intent.
Somehow, all these intellects seemingly lack the ability to package, sell and come up with a plan of implementation that a majority of the people will understand and agree with.
The destruction of Tranditional America has come through the hands of socialist-progressives (and self prefessed intellectual elites) and they can’t even be openly honest to that fact so, theres little chance they would address the two aforementioned actions that would stop the advance of socialism in its tracks and eventually restore Traditional America for a very long time to come.
This article and some of the comments are as entertaining as anything on daytime TV … as far as the Constitution is concerned, anyone can get a copy at no cost & minimal effort — they can read it themselves and as it is written to be understood even by the unschooled, come to the conclusions any reasoning and reasonable person naturally must, even with the garbaging we see currently ‘so hot’ for our attention and a few lousy dollars.
Reflections from turbulent waters, both shallow and deep.
Sorry, analyzing vomitus yields little useful information, except in the crime scene — this kind of bickering about our country and social framework cannot continue to ignore they were set out for people who would mind their own business and tolerate the non-destructive differences that naturally exist.
A sad waste of the energy & freedom that others have died (and are dying) for; sad too that we are beset with those so blind they cannot see the realities: nothing can preserve a stupid idea, or make it work.
Points and authorities, like smoke, are gone in a moment in the winds of change; what is coming is the restoration of the natural order of things without need of a blast of trumpeters.
One hundred years from now no one will remember much of this, much less if the Constitution is swept away and replaced with trash.
Perhaps there is something of that sort to whisper to your great-grandchildren, if you have any.
No body is perfect.
I do not care for Bible-thumping and politics mixed together. This is why I despise Huckabee and ignore Beck. If we Americans are faithful to the values espoused in the Declaration and the Constitution, we will be fine. I know that the Founders placed their trust in ‘divine providence’ and that generations of Americans continue to do so. I am not opposed to this, and I am not against expressions of faith in any form. But I want to be governed by the Constitution, not by any huckster-politician’s interpretation of Scripture.
I love Jesus- but in church, not in the statehouse.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Problem is that since the 60′s America’s chruches have failed themselves and their flock. Likewise, the nations government leaders of the last many decades have failed the “religious” values of the founding Fathers and their founding documents that were intended to bind the many together….with freedoms from the federal government.
As you so aptly stated, we need leaders who will lead from and by the Constitution and NOT from a church [doctrine) or some other non American traditional ideology….then and only then can this once greatest nation and peoples begin to restore itself.
Beck doesn’t even come close to Bible thumping. What is Bible thumping exactly and what would be an example of his doing that?
It’s tough . . . being me. It really is. But I bless my burden. Because I carry the water for Jesus, for the Founding Fathers, and you do, too. THEY know the value of prayer and food insurance. You do, too.
You. You are the wool, the thread of the wool, the cotton of patriotism that is sewn into the weave of American spirit-ual-iality. Is that wrong? if it is, then I’m wrong. But I’m not sorry. I’m, I’m . . . sorry . . . I just love my chalkboard. And I fear for it. I fear for you. FOR you. For YOU.
Oh, I was talking with Tania the other day. And we had a crisis. A major crisis. I don’t like to exaggerate, but this was BIG. You know what? It’s not important. It’s not MY life you need to know about. It’s YOUR life. Let’s just say it involved her dress and a wedding. Does that tell you anything?
So join me, won’t you. I’ll be at the vanilla coke counter in Dotty’s Diner there in I Can’t Wait To Leave This Dump And Get Back To My Mansion In Connecticut, Ohio. Stop by and say hello, won’t you? Maybe, just maybe – good lord willin and the crick don’t rise as my Aunt Madge used to say – and maybe, just maybe Aunt Madge, we’ll have Christmas. Real Christmas. Not like what they had in Nazi Kenya.
You’ve taken leave of your sensei.
Scenty,
you can make all the fun you want to here..it does not change the fact that despite you, his religion, his hair color, or anything else, Beck has the #1 talk show on the #1 station, FOX.
So, your nasty offerings mean nothing, and change nothing..
Some of you offer up Beck’s religion as a deterrent. It means nothing. He is offering us facts about what is going on in our government. I don’t care if he’s an atheist. Like you and your postings, his religion means nothing
I’ll give you this much, Beck’s religion means nothing . . . to him.
No, it’s that LiarLeaks is taking its toll on The Poor Thing.
Dumping raw sewage frantically in the final throes of an ID’s Fraud Life is nothing new. But then, raw sewage is a way of life for Born Liar sleazits Persons Galore. Cesspool Life is like that.
Persons Galore, any progress? Has the Funhouse Mirror approved it?
The Kick Me sign is in tatters. No worry, a new ID heals all.
Whatever.
Soros paying by by the word again? I hope he doesn’t ask to see what you actually write.
Jealousy, thy name is Trigeek.
“None Dare Call It Conspiracy” – a contemporaneous publication of “The Naked Communist” also enumerates the 45 Communist Goals (for controlling the U.S. within 50 years by peaceful means), A document captured in the former Soviet Eastern Bloc and subsequently read into the U.S. Congressional Record in 1963. In addition, the book explores the strategy and methods developed and employed by Socialists and Progressives worldwide for manipulating public opinion and steering citizens’ consumer, social, economic and political choices – known as “manufacturing consent.” The current status of the (aforementioned) 45 Goals are two-fold: established historical fact; and near daily occurances and news items (reported by a still independent, objective Alternate Media).
In view of the dismissive (and oh-so-predictable), flawed rationales and conclusions on display in Mr. Radosh’s article, the prophetic words of Thomas Paine are especially apropos:
“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives
it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides.” — Thomas Paine
Common Sense, January 1776
Has the concept – let alone use of critical thinking skills become passe and antiquated, considered ‘culturally-insensitive;’ possibly obviated as a ‘capriciously distasteful’ notion? Or perhaps just among the self-aggrandizing, self-appointed ‘elites’ in a collective state of ‘cognative dissonance.’
Ad Axiom: Is it your position that “critical thinking skills” were employed by Gary Allen and are manifested in his book, None Dare Call It Conspiracy?
Tell us precisely how you went about checking his documentation — to establish the accuracy of his commentary.
Let me give you one example for starters (and he shares this with W. Cleon Skousen):
In his 1971 book NDCIC (page 69), Gary Allen wrote:
“According to the New York Journal American of February 3, 1949:
‘Today it is estimated by Jacob’s grandson, John Schiff, that the old man sank about 20,000,000 dollars for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia.’ ”
W. Cleon Skousen wrote a virtually identical comment in his 1970 book, The Naked Capitalist, on pages 40-41, as follows:
“One American source gave Trotsky, Lenin and the other Communist leaders around twenty million dollars for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia. This was Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb and Company. The figure of twenty million dollars is cited by his grandson, Jacob Schiff, in the New York Journal-American for February 3, 1949.”
And Skousen repeated this claim in his March 1971 article, entitled “Home Grown Subversion” published in Law and Order magazine.
Neither Gary Allen or Cleon Skousen cited the page number of the NY Journal American where this comment appeared — for reasons which will shortly become obvious.
When the FBI fact-checked the Skousen article appearing in Law and Order magazine, it concluded:
“Review of microfilm records of the February 3, 1949 New York Journal American failed to locate any article about Jacob Schiff and possible financing of the Bolsheviks as Skousen alleges.”
The reason why the FBI could not “locate any article about Jacob Schiff” in the 2/3/49 issue of the NY Journal American is because it was NOT an article!
In reality, the “quote” appears in that paper’s society gossip column which was written by several unknown persons who wrote the gossip column under the pseudonym “Cholly Knickerbocker”!
This is what passes for high-quality “factual “evidence” in conspiracy circles and this is the quality of “research” which people like Gary Allen and Cleon Skousen foist upon gullible and ill-informed people.
Furthermore, one should consider this interesting data:
Both Gary Allen and Cleon Skousen are on record recommending Dr. Antony Sutton as a reputable and credible historian. For example: in NDCIC (page 75) Gary Allen refers to Sutton’s “monumental scholarship”.
Chapter 9 of Gary Allen’s book, The Rockefeller File, is entitled “Building the Big Red Machine” and Allen writes:
Pg 78:
“A meticulously documented book on this subject was written by Antony Sutton, a research fellow for the prestigious Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. Entitled Wall Street And The Bolshevik Revolution, this book by a respected and fastidiously thorough scholar was almost universally ignored by the mass media. One does not have to be a Quiz Kid to figure out why. Sutton sets the stage for the Bolshevik Revolution with this background.”
Pg 80:
“I highly recommend reading Sutton’s book, Wall Street And The Bolshevik Revolution.”
Pg 81:
“No one has even attempted to refute Sutton’s almost excessively scholarly works. They can’t. But the misinformation machines that compose our mediacracy can ignore Sutton. And they do. Totally.”
So what did “monumental” scholar Dr. Sutton have to say about Jacob Schiff and the Bolsheviks?
Dr. Sutton actually researched primary source documents pertaining to Schiff’s views on the Bolsheviks.
In his book, “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution” Sutton reproduced the text of communications which Schiff sent to the U.S. State Department which clearly reveal Schiff’s animosity toward any American support of the Bolsheviks.
See Appendix II of Sutton’s book, where he describes the Jacob Schiff accusation as representing a “Jewish Conspiracy Theory of the Bolshevik Revolution”:
“THE JEWISH-CONSPIRACY THEORY OF THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
It is significant that documents in the State Department files confirm that the investment banker Jacob Schiff, often cited as a source of funds for the Bolshevik Revolution, was in fact against support of the Bolshevik regime. This position, as we shall see, was in direct contrast to the Morgan-Rockefeller promotion of the Bolsheviks.
The persistence with which the Jewish-conspiracy myth has been pushed suggests that it may well be a deliberate device to divert attention from the real issues and the real causes. The evidence provided in this book suggests that the New York bankers who were also Jewish had relatively minor roles in supporting the Bolsheviks, while the New York bankers who were also Gentiles (Morgan, Rockefeller, Thompson) had major roles. What better way to divert attention from the real operators than by the medieval bogeyman of anti-Semitism?”
Significantly, William Loeb, the ultra-conservative publisher of the Manchester NH Union-Leader, ran an editorial in his paper wherein he described Gary Allen’s book as “anti-Semitic nonsense”.
The well-known conservative newspaper, Human Events, refused to accept advertising for Allen’s book as did the ultraconservative group, Church League of America.
Enough said?
More details about this matter are in my Skousen report at:
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/skousen
Incidentally, I should mention that this false canard about Jacob Schiff is routinely cited by Birch members and endorsers in their publications. For example:
1970: W. Cleon Skousen: The Naked Capitalist [The Reviewer, 40-41]
1971: Gary Allen: None Dare Call It Conspiracy [Concord Press, p69]
1974: Marvin J. Andleman: To Eliminate The Opiate [Zahavia, p. 26]
1988: James Perloff: Shadows of Power [Western Islands, p39]
1988: Larry Abraham: Call it Conspiracy [Double A Publications, p. 77-78]
1995: G. Edward Griffin: Creature From Jekyll Island [American Opinion, p 265]
Gary Allen revealed his ultimate original source for this libel about Jacob Schiff on pages 69-70 of NDCIC:
“One of the best sources of information on the financing of the Bolshevik Revolution is ‘Czarism and the Revolution’ by an important White Russian General named Arsene de Goulevitch who was founder in France of the Union of Oppressed Peoples.”
(1) How does Gary Allen know that DeGoulevitch is “one of the best sources of information on the financing of the Bolshevik Revolution”? he doesn’t say.
(2) What is Allen’s judgment based upon? Why does he recommend DeGoulevitch? In fact, WHO IS DeGoulevitch?
(3) All that Gary tells us is that DeGoulevitch was a White Russian General who lived in Paris and he founded the Union of Oppressed Peoples.
(4) The original edition of DeGoulevitch’s book was published in Paris in 1931. The only English-language edition was published in 1962 by Omni Publications and now operating as Omni Christian Book Club.
(5) Readers may ask: Why would it take 31 years for a book to be published in English?
(6) What type of books does Omni sell? Omni is a one-man book-selling operation that sells radical traditionalist Catholic materials, including numerous rabidly anti-semitic conspiratorial writings. At one time, Omni described Jews as “the first civilization to practice the belief in racial supremacy, and the chief advocate of that practice today.”
Omni’s catalog has included such books as Richard Harwood’s “Did Six Million Really Die?” (published by neo-nazi Ernst Zundel); Henry Ford’s “The International Jew”, Arthur Butz’s “The Hoax of the Twentieth Century” (Butz is another prominent holocaust denier); several issues of the late Father Leonard Feeney’s Jew-bashing monthly newsletter “The Point” (Feeney was ex-communicated by the Pope); and “The Judaic Connection”, which describes a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy against the Catholic Church.
(7) So why would Omni think such an arcane book as “Czarism and Revolution” would be of such interest to their customers that it would be worth translating and publishing in English?
(8) In his book, DeGoulevitch cites, as one his authorities, Boris Brasol–another White Russian (and a former head of the Czar’s secret police). Brasol arranged for the translation of “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” into English and he then distributed copies – including a copy that was used by Henry Ford’s newspaper (Dearborn Independent) in their famous series of anti-semitic articles entitled “The International Jew”. Brasol also arranged for the publication of several anti-semitic books in 1920 and 1921 including: “The Protocols and World Revolution” and “The World at the Crossroads.”
(9) In his book, written in French and subsequently translated into English, de Goulevitch observes that….
“The main purveyors of funds for the revolution, however, were neither the crackpot Russian millionaires nor the armed bandits of Lenin. The `real’ money primarily came from certain British and American circles which for a long time past had lent their support to the Russian revolutionary cause…”
De Goulevitch continues:
“The important part played by the wealthy American banker, Jacob Schiff, in the events in Russia, though as yet only partially revealed, is no longer a secret.”
General Alexander Nechvolodov is also quoted as an authoritative source by de Goulevitch. The General observed that….
“In April 1917, Jacob Schiff publicly declared that it was thanks to his financial support that the revolution in Russia had succeeded.”
Here we have an example of how amateur “historians” (like Gary Allen and Cleon Skousen) use secondary sources without independently verifying the accuracy of the information they quote—even when those secondary sources are making highly defamatory accusations.
(10) So who is Gen. Alexander Nechvolodov? (Actually, his name is Aleksandr Nechvolodov).
He is another pro-Czar White Russian expatriate who lived in Paris. In 1924, he published a book entitled “L’Empereur Nicholas II et les Juifs” (The Emperor Nicholas II and the Jews).
Are you beginning to see a pattern here??
In his book, Gen. Nechvolodov included the complete text of “The Protocols of Zion” and he appended approving commentaries which affirmed the accuracy of the Protocols.
Mr. Radosh…
["Thus Lee proposes getting rid of HUD and the Department of Education, and favors the phasing out of Social Security."]
I’m sure that must be only his short list of federal departments and agencies that should be repealed in conjunction with phasing out [federal] social security, medicare/Medicaid and unemployment.
NO Traditionalist-Constitutionalist American would support anything less!
Amazing how many young’uns from the 60′s and 70′s who today profess to be intellectuals of the so-called “conservative” movement are actually indocrinated with the leftwing socialist-progressive ideology.
Employer and federal government paid employee benefits, is a strategy directly out of the socialist-labor unions playbook. Consolidated and centralized economies and populations is again a strategy of the socialists to accomplish a means to eventual centralized government control. The gross mis-interpretation of the Constitutions Commerce Clause intent, is the major success of the socialist-progressives, as a means to their end motives.
Americans should be [individually] responsible for managing their finances to include all benefits necessary to provide for themselves and their families for the present and future. I have NO problems with [States] legislating minimum requirements for such. I have NO problems with employers [voluntarily] sharing in employee contributions. Let America’s working have competitive options to meet their financial needs of the present and future. The ONLY instance the federal government should have a social benefit role is, for those citizens who are permanently disabled and for all [combat-theater] military veterans and means tested benefits for all other veterans, to include health care, home ownership and education.
America’s private sector free from ALL government interventions excepting legislating criminal and civil commerce laws, can and would prosper to great heights….and once again with fairness and without corruption influences.
The Stock market would return to traditional domestic valuation practices and more working citizen investors than ever before. The size and cost of the federal government would return to its constitutional intent. Consolidated economies and populations would be dissipated. Government fraud would be minimized. Government corruption by special interest would be minimized. Most all intended States Rights would eventually be returned. States and regional investment banking could again flourish. Communities far and wide could again flourish with commerce competing for local, State, regional, national and international markets.
The federal government has historically proven they are not and will not be fiscally responsible with the peoples money and its intended purposes. Furthermore, the labor unions at the granting of the federal government only serves to create and force circular and arbitrary inflated values for goods and services which, becomes an unsustainable cost to all citizens, the marketplace and the government.
GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE WAY!
Well, many of the commenters here have thoroughly destroyed Radosh’s foolish article, his elitist approach, his “government doing good” nonsense, et cetera. I would like to offer a couple more specific items.
Divinely inspired America. Rights coming from God. All so bad!
Really?
“We are endowed by our Creator (That means God, stupid!) with certain unalienable human rights, AMONGST them, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” This is the source of our Human Rights. Without God, we have no human rights. Without God, government is the ultimate authority, and we are merely sheep.
The Bill of Rights enshrined this concept. It is a statement that we get our rights from God, not government. It exists as a check upon the over-reach of government. It says that the government gets its rights and powers from us, not the other way around. No other country has this. In other countries, you have only those rights granted by the government, and they can be taken from you at any time. Only here, do you have guaranteed human rights.
This is the source of our freedom. It is what makes us special. Divinely inspired? You bet! Exceptional? By definition!
One poster rightly named Radosh’s thinking: Limited Socialism. Ain’t no sech thang. Government cannot do good. It cannot. For it to do anything, it must have the power to do so, and those evil men, those who seek power, will always pervert that power. To believe otherwise is to be a naif.
Conspiracies? Those folks who believe in such things are just nuts, right? Except, logic says some of these conspiracies DO exist.
Are there evil men in this world? Of course! Charles Manson. Jim Jones. Various vile dictators. This is beyond dispute! Would such conspire? Of course! When one seeks to do evil, one cannot do it openly. Thus, one must conspire. It behooves one to look up the word in the dictionary!
The question is not if conspiracies exist, but rather, which ones do?
Truther is obviously false, as it would be an unworkable conspiracy.
Birther? Could it be true? Yes. Not insomuch as planning 48 years ahead to Obama becoming President, but as an American mother wanting her child to be an American citizen, as opposed to a Kenyan citizen.
Soros? Could this Nazi actually be conspiring? Well, duh! It’s what Nazis do. “I’m a scorpion. I sting things.” If an evil man became a multi-billionaire, would he use his money (power) to do evil? Again, duh! Would it be impossible, or even hard to do what others ascribe to him? Umm, no, not at all.
Obama? Cloward-Piven? Of course. There is a photo showing him TEACHING it! Cloward-Piven’s “Rules for Radicals” is a handbook for conspiracy. Gramsci’s “long march through the institutions of the West” is also a self-announced conspiracy. How can one deny the existence of such things? Mmm, mmm, mmm!
Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist, founded Planned Parenthood. Was it about eugenics, a sneaky ploy (conspiracy) to reduce the breeding of the “undesirables”? Duh! Possible? Easy. Did it work? Yes. Crime rates are way down since half the pickaninnies are being aborted. Well, the rate is down if you do not consider 50 million abortions to be 50 million crimes.
(Btw, pickaninnies comes from the Portuguese “pequeninos”, meaning small children. Pequeno: small Nino: child)
Communists founded the ACLU. Was it a sneaky ploy to pervert the meaning of our Bill of Rights? Again, duh! Do they sometimes champion the right causes? Yes. These things take on a life of their own. They get out of control. Oops. Its purpose is still the same. Is it possible as a conspiracy? Not hard at all.
Don’t worry, Mr. Radosh. Your limited Socialism will end well… except WHEN IT NEVER HAS!
Another commenter also pegged it right as just another credentialed elitist sneering at the uppity “uncredentialeds”. Nothing more ignorant than an Ivory Tower elitist. There is a reason Beck makes more money than you do, Radosh. His drivel is actually worthy of consideration….
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! All half-baked conspiracy propaganda rolled into one post! It’s like the Readers Digest version of The Overton Window. “Truther is obviously false because . . . well. just because.”
Hosannah! Here’s some rights, folks. You didn’t hear them from me. I didn’t write them down for you. In fact, you gave them to yourselves, but you did it in my name to avoid any responsibility. Well done, my little beige ones.
I notice you did not attempt to refute any of the specifics. The ACLU was founded by Communists, as stated in its initial purpose statement. Margaret Sanger’s goals are a matter of record.
No, you do what Leftists always do when your ill-doings are pointed out. You ridicule. You paint it as some kooky conspiracy theory. You discredit the whistle-blowers. It’s your only defense, because what you do is indefensible.
Awfully catty, Mr. Malone. rarerr. Tell you what, I’ll refute whatever you want me to just as soon as you explain this:
Truther is obviously false, as it would be an unworkable conspiracy.
Knock yourself out.
If we were given our rights by our creator as the Founders asserted, (rhetorically, in my opinion) does the creator enumerate these rights elsewhere? As far as I can see, one would be hard pressed to find these rights in the Bible, at least as applied to believer and unbeliever across the board.
What I think it really means is, “WE are asserting that WE have these rights and the rest of the world can do as they wish and since many of us also believe in the Christian God, we will assert that “our Creator” gave us these rights, which can be read as our citizens prefer. Some will say it is the Christian God, some will say that it is the essence of being human, post Enlightenment. It’s all good.”
Conservatives’ useful function is that they glom onto some older beacon of “truth,” the Bible, the Constitution, and demand that “progress” be limited by its dictates. That is a necessary function, but so is the function of the people who are always trying to create a newer, better world for us. Both groups are filled with scoundrels and all-too-human flawed flunkies. Our system has managed to give both groups a chance to have their say and sway us one way, then the other way.
Praise the Lord, donate money to good causes, and be sure to get your tax deductions lined up by the end of December. You play the hand you are dealt, and overall, we have been dealt a pretty good hand here in these United States of America. If our total pot is diminishing, then one must play one’s hand accordingly.
While I’m at it, I was struck in watching for a second time, (because my brother had not seen it) Michael Moore’s Capitalism movie for a second time, how he is outraged by many of the same things about the bail-out(s) that the Tea Party is.
This, in fact, separates the Michael Moore’s and the Tea Party from the rest of us, including GWB and Obama; we don’t like the bailouts, but didn’t see how we could have risked the meltdown. Moore and the Tea Party don’t have a whole lot of realistic advice to offer, but they do provide provocative entertainment and escapism.
Dwight, this is the most thoughtful post you have ever made here at PJM.
Can we find those rights in the Bible? Yes. Thou shalt not murder. It means God wants us to not BE murdered. Life. Thou shalt not steal. You have property rights. The Bible is filled with moralism, instructions on how to live a good life in order to be truly happy.
I could go on at length and equate the Bill of Rights to parts of the Bible, but perhaps that is something you should undertake for yourself.
Well, thank you for the compliment.
Ironically, I spent the first eighteen years of my life reading the Bible many times. I see some of your points on the implications of the Ten Commandments, but the “pursuit of happiness” seems particularly non-Biblical.
And while we are at it, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is so antithetical to so much of what Americans, especially conservatives are usually saying and doing that it proves…probably that Jesus came up with some pretty impractical stuff. But just for the hell of it, how people who ostensibly “believe” Jesus teachings can devote so much of their time to working hard, providing for the common defense, and resisting Caesar is to me, the central paradox of America and its Christianity. Human beings can so easily switch from their belief in Jesus to a reflexive, “of course we have to kill those who are trying to kill us…or are even thinking about killing us.” It is very understandable, practical, and human, but it ain’t Jesus. It is the odd folks, the Quakers, Mennonites etc. who actually take this stuff seriously, which puts them well OUTSIDE our good old Scots-Irish, shoot em in the eye, or just gouge it out if you have to, swagger.
Ron for some reason it’s hard for me to take some of your points seriously especially when you use sites who are not of sane mine I mean sir it just hard to take there word as gospel. It’s almost like me sayin hamas is not a terriost group because Jimmy Carter has no issues with them so therefore you need not worry about them. I have tried many many times to email to ask some questions about some your articles that I’ve agreed with but was hoping for some finer points to be made but that doesn’t seem like a possibility since there’s noway to email you.
A lot of good discussion. My take away is to put Skousen on my reading list. Particular recommendation?
Ron’s rogues gallery seem like an odd collection of sticks to pick up to beat Beck with. I found the main article confusing inside baseball, but the commentary more illuminating.
I found the following snippet interesting. Would this constitute an axis of evil, or just an elitist railing against populist resurgence?
Rosen, of course, seeks to undermine the Skousen-Lee-Beck view in order to challenge his growing fear that the Supreme Court might indeed agree that ObamaCare is unconstitutional.
1) What exactly in hell does anyone mean by saying, “So irrational in its paranoia that it would’ve made Whittaker Chambers blush”? There is no longer any good-faith exception to assigning Hiss-deniers to de facto CPUSA membership.
2) Re Beck, Rush, etc., please be advised that no one ever became a disc jockey with a mental age over 14. Regardless of intelligence or formal education, these guys are still in junior high, maturity-wise.
As far as I know, Beck has recommended only one of Skousen’s books (“5K Year Leap”) which I read and found harmless. Ascribing to him all of the late Skousen’s thinking is like saying, because I love Janis Joplin’s version of Bobby Magee (I do) I like all of her songs (I don’t). If Radosh finds something disturbing about the “5K Year Leap” he should come right out and say what bothers him.
Granted, reading Skousen’s book is not like reading Hayek or Friedman or people like that. But neither Beck nor Skousen ever claimed to lay a serious intellectual foundation for a political philosophers. Glenn Beck is an entertainer — a real clown — most the time. He appeals directly and unashamedly to the masses. But he also tries to educate them a bit. Is there something wrong with that?
Posner asks the question, do conservatives really need Glenn Beck? I would counter with the question, do conservatives need other conservatives? Did not the Restore Honor Rally in Washington DC help stop the liberal juggernaut? We need Beck. We need conservatives of all different faiths and backgrounds.
I respect smart people like Posner whose posts I read regularly. The big question is not whether smart people like Posner need media masters like Glenn Beck or books like “5K Year Leap.” I think the answer is obviously Yes, even though they may be put off by an occassional silly idea.
Ron, you are asking the questions incorrectly in your article. It is not “if the Conservatives need Glenn Beck?”
It should be “Do we Independents need any Republicans’ or Democrats?”
If it wasn’t for Glenn Beck reminding Americans why the Republicans have been kissing Wall Street’s rear ends and bowing to their idols for years or how the Democratic party should just rename themselves Pravda America because their one millimeter away from becoming a Che t-shirt then maybe the globalist’s wouldn’t have had it so easy hypnotizing Clinton, both Bushes, and Barry Hussein into believing the fairy tales spun by the Federal Reserve every week or passing the existing trade laws which are destroying our nation. What do you think, Ron?
I don’t think this “Ron Radosh” character writes to create [meaningful] dialog. I believe he writes to create more division and diversion away from the relevant. The GOP has become a party in dissaray consisting of four disfunctional elements and some splinters. This “Radosh” feller, if a member of the GOP or even Independent, is an obvious 60′s, 70′s indoctrinated half-breed. Its these kinds of yo-yo’s who destroyed the traditional GOP and bowed to the socialist-progressives except, for the era of Reagan who commanded his ship.
A prime example of why the GOP needs to be flushed down the toilet and replaced with common sense intelligent folks….and this is NOT an endorsement of much of the “Tea Party” and “Conservative” movement of today. They too, are splintered in their ideology, have been long on rhetoric, short on realistic strategic planning and implementation and been horrible in their candidate selection, going to bed with far to many more anarchist libertaians who also stive for “smaller” government with limited authority and ultimately a very traditional anarchist ideology.
Most of the writers on here are like elitiest debutante cheerleaders at a cage fight and do little to contribute or create unity and real resolve ideas. They’re just self professed intellectuals playing to the peasants and selling their irrelevant books of intellectual philosophy.
Easy to see what you are against. Hard to tell what you are for. How about 30% less name-calling and 30% more identification of some character or value around which to build. Can we rally around Romney, Ryan, or Rubio etc.?
With all due respect “Dwight” I don’t resort to name calling and empty rhetoric as you so accuse.
I have read most of what you repsond to and with on PMJ and respect most of it. If you’d read what I have written on PMJ you would know the jist of the two orange crate issues I repeat over and over.
1. Enough of the self-serving historical and philosohical intellectualizing for attention and hawking ones books, all void of any substantive and comprehensive strategies for resolve to save Traditional America.
2. I evangelize for an amendment to the Constitutions Article I, Section 8, Commerce Clause.
Hope this suffices to fill in your voids of what “I” stand for.
I have little regards to those who only offer empty and or simplistic rhetoric as a self professed intellectual.
You say that you do not resort to name-calling, but here is what I was responding to in your post:
“an obvious 60’s, 70’s indoctrinated half-breed.”
“Its these kinds of yo-yo’s”
“Most of the writers on here are like elitiest debutante cheerleaders at a cage fight”
I may be in the minority on this, but when people use overly, er, colorful or sneering language, (VDH is big on the series of subtle sneers; Radosh is generally more reasoned, but is accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy) I trust the writer less, not more. Your underlying points seemed to be potentially valuable; but if there indeed are four splinter groups, strong language can increase the splintering. RR used smooth and generally well-chosen punch lines, delivered most of the time with his charm and smile to unify Republicans and tweak liberals.
Let’s face it, some of the posters here most all the time and most of us at least some of the time go with outbursts and “insights” which could never end up on a party platform. They are essentially throwaway lines, but ones which we think are entertaining, colorful, distinctive to our own unique take on things,…or we just can’t help ourselves.
At any rate, there was something(s) about the tone of you post which made me respond more to the style than the content. Having had this exchange, I will pay more attention (for better or for worse) to your future posts.
Re: [Can we rally around Romney, Ryan, or Rubio.?]
Anybody who has the real “brass” to take on the [real] underlying “causations” that has, for decades, systemically brung us to this point of time and circumstance…..with real and comprehensive strategies of resolve. In other words, sombody willing to treat the disease AND the symptoms.
NOBODY is filling these shoes thus far!
Beck started out great in the beginning. He exposed a lot of the deranged leftist agenda to the public which I had first hand experience with as a former hardcore leftist activist myself. The left really are Marxists, socialists and communists. And they really do support a one world government. They’re also obsessed with wealth redistribution both on a domestic and international level. And are endlessly striving to expand the sphere and size of the central government. And they do hate America, capitalism and Western civilization. None of that is a crazy conspiracy theory. It’s simply reality. I lived it every single day for years. Where Beck has gone astray is more recently where he’s become almost a doom and gloom cult leader telling people to prepare for disaster and with some of his NWO-type theories.
A Liberal is a Liberal by any other name and fits right in with Communism. Glenn Beck has awakend many American’s to the Socialist adgenda that’s destroying our great country. We need to get on the same page and quit being divided.
I don’t like this article because the author gives a sentence or two lip service to Beck’ virtue, and then proceeds to rip him apart.
Beck has an immense audience because he is so unique and because he is able to project a kind of sincerity seldom seen on TV. Nobody is perfect and Beck certainly is a work in progress, but doesn’t he often address these issues (being over the top sometimes) as they come up? And, isn’t he a refreshing antidote to the pomposity of Rush Limbaugh and the smug self righteousness of Bill O’Reilly and the monochromatic doofus who follows him on Fox, Sean Hannity?
No one else could have drawn that many conservatives, patriots and libertarians to the National Mall, and, day in and day out, this man steps up to the plate and delivers with everything he’s got.
Is this writer serious…….I read The 5000 Year Leap TWICE and I didn’t even know the author was a Mormon. And I hate to inform this ignoramus but a large majority of laws made by the gov ARE unConstitutional, including social security. Show me where in the Constitution the federal government is granted the right to take my money and give it to someone else…..you can’t because it’s not there.
The federal government has parlayed 17 enumerated powers from the Constitution into FORTY THOUSAND PAGES OF LAW. If you think that’s what the founders intended you have no idea wtf you’re talking about.
Exactly!
Um, uh, well, sorry, but much of what the federal government does IS unconstitutional. The fact that some unconstitutional things, like social security, have been around for decades doesn’t make them any less unconstitutional.
It is this attitude that has given us Obamacare and is likely to mean that we keep it forever. Is Obamacare also constitutional therefore, champ?
Yes!
Ron’s article’s make me wonder whose side he is on !!
Mr. Radosh,
A simple question{s)??
Have your ever read any of David Barton’s books or heard any of his presentations?? That should be your next article. Do you know the difference between a Christian Founding and a Secular Constitution? Do you understand religion in America but no state (sect they said then) church? Call David Barton or go see him. He has something like 7000 ORIGINAL documents from the 1700′s and early 1800′s? Have you been to his website, WallBuilders.com?
Are you familiar with my Dad’s books on Church History. Two Religious Revivals occurred before our Declaration. Did they influence America? Study Beck but do look up Earle E. Cairns and David Barton writings.
The thing I hated about The 5000 Year Leap is its treatment of the Left Right Divide. Basically Skousen reversed the Truth.
The left is not about Totalitarian Governmental Control, and the Right is not about Anarchy. Its also stupid to say Monarchy, Communism, and Fascism are all the same thing and all are tyrannies with central control that allow no Rights.
But Skousen does just this, and even claims ( Not sure if its in leap or another work, I read a few) that when the American revolution had inspired the world, Monarchy began to collapse, so those who liked Statism and of Government changed tactics and created Communism.
Does no one see the problem with this?
Then again, Mitt Romney calls Liberals “Neo-Monarchists”…
Folks, the term “left Wing”, and subsequently the term “Right Wing” came from the French National Assembly. Those on the Right supported the Traditional order and the Ancien Regime, the Left opposed them. The Left wanted to remove the Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Church and create an Egalitarian Society based on Enlightenment and the Supremacy of Reason, which they naturally identified with their own beliefs in Naturalism, Deism, and Libertine Moral abandonment. The Right wanted the preservation of he Union between Church and State, the Aristocracy, and the Monarchy, and stood for Traditional Family Values and Traditional Moral Codes.
According to Skousen, the French revolution erred because it went too far right and brought Anarchy, and the Court of King Louis the 16th was Left Wing. How on Gods Green Earth can anyone take this claim seriously? It’s clearly not True.
Monarchy is Right Wong, not Left Wing. Monarchy was the original cause for the Creation of the Right Wing in the first place. The idea that Monarchy is a Left Wing ideal is Ahistorical nonsense.
Also, the Communists weren’t the remnant Monarchists who longed for the days of the King, but realised the idea of all men being created Equal had won the day and Republicanism would advance, so adapted Statism to the new Republicanism. They are the Polar opposites of Monarchism. Communism is the essence of the Far Left.
Communism is based on the creation of an Egalitarian Society, in which no one is exploited and all have the same Equality of life by a collective effort of the masses. The means of production and distribution belong to the people as a whole, with the State not being a separate entity but simply an Instrument of the collective and Democratic Will of the People. Communism is about the Scientific and Rational advance of the perfect utopian Society, as filtered through the Enlightenments ideals, the Draper-White conflict Thesis, and the general belief hat all Men are indeed Created Equal.
The Communists were actually the Intellectual descendants of the Jacobins. Marx Idolised them and the later Communards of the Paris Commune. Marx saw the Capitalists as the New Aristocrats and derided both Hereditary Principles and Free Markets as he saw them as the exploitation of the working Class.
Marx, and subsequent Communists, rejected the idea of God as simply a mean of Subjugating people into complacence or giving them a delusionary escape form the hardships of life, that would fade away as Human needs are met, Education in Reason and Science increased, and society began looking to Humanity for its answers.
To Marx, Man was supreme unto himself and the Ultimate arbiter of Right and Wrong, but had been Stifled by Traditional Morals and Social Roles that hindered him from achieving his True Potential, and how was shackled to the bounds of Greedy individuals who accumulated most of the Wealth and Property for themselves and simply used others to foist dominance onto all others.
Hence hwy Communism seeks revolution and the overthrow of the Elites in society for the Common Man to seize the means of Manufacture and Production and Liberate himself form the Cycle f Exploitation. He would then tear down the Social Traditions and Institutions, such as the Church, and build a new Social order on Complete Equality and Liberty.
How does that come out of a belief in the Divine Right of the King to Rule, the inherent nature of Property Ownership being Sacrosanct and inalienable, and the strict adherence to oral and Traditional Social roles that is inherent in Monarchism?
Monarchism is about Tradition. It is not about Revolution, and it most certainly is not about seizing Private Property to make it communal, or redistributing Wealth, or ending Capitalist Exploitation, or elevating the worker above all else.
Monarchy is also strongly tied to Traditional Religious belief. The King of France was a Catholic Monarch Ruling a Nation Founded on Catholicism in which Bishops formed the Third Estate and had actual credible power in the Kingdoms Politics.
Clearly he Communists took their cues from the Jacobin Revolutionaries, not the Catholic and Traditional Monarchy.
Yet Skousen says the Jacobins were Right Wing and the Communists and Monarchists are Left Wing!
Does that even make sense?
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