printIt’s official. Glenn Beck gets his own category/archive on Barely A Blog. He deserves it. In addition to his other attributes—you can now track my analysis of Beck’s progression as a force for liberty by clicking on the BAB Beck category—he is the only conservative, mainstream TV commentator to treat Bush with the contempt he reserves for Obama.
The tirade against “W” begins 3 minutes or so into the broadcast.
“Debt, spending; this was insane what G. W. Bush was doing. Spending us into oblivion. National security. How about you declare a war and fight to win? How about you secure our borders? … Some people wanted global warming. The rest of us wanted us out of the Middle East; use our own energy. The Republicans had a crack at it, but what did we get? GB, in his last year, lost 3 million jobs. Debt. Spending: How about $4.9 trillion? He increased discretionary spending almost 50 percent. Fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2000: Bush almost spent double than President Clinton. And who can forget the $550 billion prescription drug fiasco? He abandoned the free-market system to save it with a $700 billion TARP slush fund. … The border was left wide open. Corruption was rife. Oh, and global warming: the biggest schemes of all times not only supported by Republicans, but by leading Republicans. Lindsey Graham, Tim Pawlenty, John McCain. All pro cap-and-trade.
Update I Feb. 16): In the same program, Glenn conducted a devotional to Diablo—Abraham Lincoln—rejecting some of the most solid historical revisionism.
One of the reasons a volume like The Real Lincoln is so sound is that it does NOT refute historical facts; most historians agree about what transpired during the War of Northern Aggression; it’s the interpretation of these fact.
With Diablo it boils down to deciding matters of natural law: did the states create the union or vice versa (dah Diablo)? Was secession legitimate” Is it right to sic brother on brother so as to coerce the one to remain with the other? Suspend the Bill or Right?
The “Church of Lincoln” says “Yes” to all; we who are with liberty say NO.
A reminder that I’m not adjudicating Lincoln in this post; but Beck’s progress toward the founders’ freedoms. It’s one step forward, two steps back with Beck.
Update II: To follow on RG’s excellent post, this from my “Classical Liberalism And State Schemes”:
“We have a solemn [negative] duty not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty, and property. But we have no duty to uphold their rights. Why? Because (supposedly) upholding the negative rights of the world’s citizens involves compromising the negative liberties of Americans—their lives, liberties, and livelihoods. The classical liberal government’s duty is to its own citizens, first.”
Update III (Feb. 18): This post went off-topic, because some would rather rehash their convictions despite the answers provided. So, in reply to,”Do you believe those 500 million people form a serious military threat against which we must defend ourselves?”
For one, there are about 1 billion Muslims in the world. In the previous post, I replied to the same question. I’m reproducing the update:
Polls show a respectable percentage of Muslims condone Jihadi pursuits (search for some fresh data; I like those). If equaled by as many Jews and Christians, liberals and libertarians and elements on the American Right always helping to make the “Islamikazes'” case would protest as loud as you lot squealed over placing a bug in Abu Zubaydah’s cage. Hence the issue of fifth-column immigrants.
Back in 2005, “a leaked Whitehall dossier revealed that affluent, middle-class, British-born Muslims were signing up to Al-Qaida in droves. Translated into official speak by Timesonline, only ‘3,000 British-born or British-based people have passed through Osama Bin Laden’s training camps.’
And if that doesn’t allay unwarranted fears, ‘Intelligence indicates that the number of British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad or supporting such activity, is extremely small and estimated at less than 1%.'”
In other words, 16,000 homicidal sleepers are loose in England!
These figures, of course, probably replicable in the US, are statistically significant—stupendously so—given the barbarism they portend. It is over this sort of astoundingly consequential number that our liberal-minded readers are jumping for joy.
Such is the liberal mindset.
Glenn Beck is about 90% acceptable. Now, if only he could get it through his head that torture is a bad thing, that the “war on terror” is a Big Blue Lie; that there is no “war exception” for the Bill of Rights; and that Obama’s lack of qualifications for the office of the Presidency is a very big deal, he’d be 100% acceptable. He DOES need to quit hanging around with Bill O’Reilly. One can only hope, I suppose.
Torture? When it comes to killing snakes one must get down in the tall grass with a cotton chopping hoe and do the dirty work. We can’t kill snakes by using the Marquis of Queensberry rules. Bill of rights? Who for? Americans, OK. All others are on their own.
[Spoken like the true blue Southerner you are; bless you. Love the reference to the MOQ]
I don’t know what to think of Beck. His histrionics make me cringe at times but his straight out history is the stuff that you can’t see anywhere else in the media. I’ve tried listening to Limbaugh and Hannity, looking for some kind of champion, but to both of those guys a return of the Republican party of Jorge is acceptable, even if they talk about Reagan.
Beck’s blathering is to me a convolution of facts and opinion. I am thankful I do not have cable TV.
So many of the glaring missteps contradict and are incompatible with legitimate principles of liberty.
With Lincoln: I believe it is much more than an interpretation of the facts. A deliberate concealment of said facts by the MSM and government run education systems have promoted this falsehood of the Lincoln imperial presidency for generations.
Glen Beck is using the old disinformation tactic of “Poisoning the Well”. Most of his “observations” will be spot on, but other, absolutely critical points will be skewed to the desires of his “Masters”. It’s an old tactic, but it still works. We can only hope that the few “thinking” people left in the world can and will call him on it.
Beck also talked about not “winning” the war. Win WHAT? This isn’t Wheel of Fortune or Poker? The Israelis who are on the front lines have outgrown the delusions of turning Moslems into Norwegians. But Beck at least goes after Bush and McCain – which is better than the historical revisionism of Sarah and some of her Tea Party buddies
who talk as if Obama took over from Calvin Coolidge.
As for the intelligence value from waterboarding Taco Bell clerks like Jose Padilla, it is vastly overrated.
Whatever useful info we get will be buried amidst the tons of other bull…
and never get to the right places.
Remember CURVEBALL!
Why do the rightwingers not see the ineptitude of government when it comes to “national security” (same as when it comes to “fixing the economy”)???
With all due respect, please consider the following.
The Declaration of Independence, one of our founding documents, states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights is the word, “citizen” used. The Founding Fathers believed that these were the natural God-given rights of all men. It is this great idea, that every living human person has been granted inviolable rights by God, that is the literal cause of American exceptionalism. No other national government in the history of the world was based on this concept.
Therefore, the Constitution does not convey any rights to the People. Rather, it constrains government from violating unalienable God-given rights. These rights are not government’s to grant or to withhold. Whenever some politician or commentator of whatever political stripe begins ranting about how outrageous it is to “convey Constitutional rights to people that aren’t even American citizens,” it is proof-positive that the speaker has really does not understand the American system or the Constitution. This argument amounts to a denial of the American Republic’s essential foundational principle.
I understand the American system and the Constitution. However that son of the desert who would behead, torture or blow up any and all Americans doesn’t understand the system. He (or she) is still mired in the 9th century and is incapable understanding our system. I for one and tired of being a target and advocate that the enemy be treated like the enemy.
[ similar point was made by another wag here.]
Frank Brady: “It is this great idea, that every living human person has been granted inviolable rights by God, that is the literal cause of American exceptionalism.” Every day I learn something new. Thanks. I’m going to have to go reread the Constitution, because I missed that thought/concept. It makes me think. I can’t say much about Glenn Beck either way; since I don’t watch him.
With respect, James, which “son of the desert” are you targeting? There are more than one billion Moslems in the world and most of them are no more a threat to us than, say, the average Presbyterian. The last time a nation designated an entire religious group as an enemy, the outcome was rather unpleasant.
[Sigh. I have just answered this liberal delusion in the post “Murder By Majority (Or Mercy Killing).” There I complained about the endless repetitions into which I am forced.]
Frank Brady: I went to the Wiki and read the whole part of the preamble you quoted. The post reads; “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” It states “We the people (read citizens) of the United states” and ends with “for the United States.” A minor detail that makes the document specific for the citizens of this country only. I do think that the creator does prefer everyone to have the right to freedom, but that doesn’t mean they get it. Sorry for taking up so much space, should have checked the document before replying.
[Excellent, RG; This kind of illuminating extra-work is encouraged.]
Nice try, Mr. Glisson, but there are a number of problems with your “illuminating extra work” (not counting your wholly gratuitous conclusion that the word “people” can be read as “citizens”) including the inconvenient fact that the United States had no citizens until ratification of the 14th Amendment, an Amendment rammed through at gunpoint by Washington’s appointed legislatures at the conclusion of the North’s war of aggression against the States. Prior to that time, Americans were citizens of their respective states, not the United States.
The Declaration says that “all men…are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” and there nothing in that statement can honestly be construed as meaning anything else.
Mr. Brady: Wiki dictionary/thesaurus states “2.people – the body of citizens of a state or country; “the Spanish people”
citizenry”
Also you are not quoting the Constitution but the “Decoration of Independence” which is not the same document.
However in the war of semantics- I declare you the winner.
Mr Brady: I haven’t noticed the peaceful Muslims. I’m sure they are peaceful Muslims, and probably only a half billion Muslims want come over here and blow us up or pull out our finger nails with pliers or just hang us or behead us. [I believe that there are about 100 million Islamists; one percent or so of Muslims. But others on this blog have dismissed the meaning of that number; and will again when we are forced into repeating the same debate.]
Google “Mideast Executions” just to see what we are up against. Some people seem to look for any excuse to let the Muslims slide so as not to face them. I am not of that mind. If they want to jihad I’m willing to jihad with them. The comparison to “those violent Presbyterians” is the kind of nonsensical, factless moral equivalence that progressives just love.
Mr. Glisson, below please find direct quotes from the Constitution’s Bill of Rights which bear directly on our discussion. You will note that they speak of “the people” and “persons” and “the accused” and never speak of citizens.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Is it not absolutely clear that our government is directly violating the rather explicit language of these Amendments?
Mr. Huggins, I want to be certain I understand you.
1. Do you believe that half the Moslems in the world (500 million people) [where do you get this bogus, optimistic number!] hate the American people enough to want to kill us?
2. If you do believe that they hate the American people so much, what do you believe to be the cause(s) of that hatred?
3. Do you believe those 500 million people form a serious military threat against which we must defend ourselves?
Thanks.
Mr. Brady:
Since you define ‘citizen’ as being a word defined and only having credence by governmental decree “the United States had no citizens until ratification of the 14th Amendment” or as I understand your writing, the country has no ‘citizens’ until the state grants the ‘people of that country’ that privilege. Yours is the strictest definition, therefore I conceded defeat. You won, why are you beating a dead horse? If you choose to believe that no one was a citizen until 1868, so be it, I will continue on in my ignorance and consider Daniel Boone a citizen.
The tenure of the thread changed from Glenn Beck to ‘whether we should allow foreigners the rights of the US Justice system.’ I have not expressed an opinion on this; however, Ilana (The host) has stated her opinion under “Update Two.” Therefore, you should be arguing with her, rather than straining gnats with me.
[You’re right: debate should be on-topic.]
Mr. Glisson, I don’t understand your last paragraph. You wrote: “The tenure of the thread changed from Glenn Beck to ‘whether we should allow foreigners the rights of the US Justice system.’ I have not expressed an opinion on this; however, Ilana (The host) has stated her opinion under “Update Two.” Therefore, you should be arguing with her, rather than straining gnats with me.”
Sigh! The entire point of my posts was to demonstrate that there is nothing that authorizes the government to deny anyone “rights of the US Justice system”…which is right on topic.