Category Archives: Glenn Beck

A Palin Third Party?

Constitution, Democrats, Glenn Beck, John McCain, Liberty, Media, Military, Politics, Republicans, Sarah Palin

DON’T GET YOUR HOPES UP. In this week’s WND.COM column I write:

“… Palin was clucking over the merits of the two-party cartel. We are a two-party system, she told Glenn Beck. ‘The Republican Party, the planks in our platform are, are the best, strongest planks upon which to build a great state, Alaska, a great country.’ And while Palin confessed to being tempted to flee the duopoly, she vowed to remain a Republican.

BECK: Does that rule out third party for you — not saying a run — would you support a third party?
PALIN: I don’t think that there is that need for a third party if Republicans get back to what the planks say

Palin’s assertion is pie-in-the-sky; not pragmatism but falsehood. The Democratic and Republican parties—each operates as a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging in perpetuity from the one entity to the other.

The standstill state-of-affairs hinges on bamboozling party supporters. As my WND colleague Vox Day has observed, no sooner do the Republicans come to power, than they move to the left. When they get their turn, Democrats shuffle to the right.

At some point, McCain reaches across the aisle and the creeps converge.

The Constitution the colluding quislings only ever conjure as a weapon against the opposing, fleetingly dethroned faction.

If only Sarah Palin recognized and acted on this intractable reality.

Read the complete column, “A Palin Third-Party?”

And do read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material. Get your copy (or copies) now!

Updated: America’s Founding Philosophy

Barack Obama, Constitution, Economy, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck, Individual Rights, Media, Natural Law, Political Philosophy, Rights, The Courts

Glenn Beck is invaluable in highlighting the constitutional underpinnings of the republic violated by almost every law enacted by both parties. However Beck’s discussion is generally incomplete (along the lines highlighted in the article “Life, Liberty, and PROPERTY,” where I also readily conceded that “The man exudes goodness and has a visceral feel for freedom”).

Again and again Glenn has alerted his viewers to Obama’s disdain for the Constitution as a “charter of negative liberties.” Said the president: (Transcript here)

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.
I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.

To the president’s telling complaint vis-a-vis the Constitution being deficient in its articulation of negative liberties only, Glenn has retorted as follows: “That’s the way the founders designed it, because they saw what governments do when they are allowed to do stuff for you.”

I’m afraid that’s not quite it. Articulated by the Founders, in the philosophy of classical liberalism and natural law, negative liberties are the only authentic rights. Glenn must articulate more than a utilitarian perspective, which doesn’t do justice to the profundity of America’s Founding Fathers. Glenn is welcome to use the following explanation from “CRADLE OF CORRUPTION,” in my book (buy it), with attribution, of course:

“The only rights of man are the rights to life, liberty, and property. These rights exist irrespective of governments. Rights always give rise to binding obligations. In the case of natural rights, the duty is merely a duty to refrain from doing. My right to life means you must refrain from killing me. My right to liberty means you cannot enslave me. My right to property means you should not take what is mine, or stop me from taking the necessary action for my survival, so long as I, in turn, heed the same strictures.”

“If to exercise a right a person must violate someone’s life, liberty and property, then the exercised right is not a right, but a violation thereof. Because my right to acquire property doesn’t diminish your right to the same liberty, this right is known as a negative right. Negative rights are real or natural rights because they don’t conscript me in the fulfillment of your needs and desires, and vise versa. They merely impel both of us to keep our mitts to ourselves.” [“CRADLE OF CORRUPTION”]

[SNIP]

You see, positive liberties are rejected outright in natural law, unless undertaken voluntarily. So, dear Mr. Beck, the reason the Constitution is by-and-large a charter of negative liberties, as the president put it, is because positive, state-minted rights violate the individual’s negative (real) rights.

The Great Glenn in action:

Update (Dec. 18): Sitting in for Glenn, Judge Andrew Napolitano delivers a superb explication of the natural-rights doctrine, joined by Joe Salerno, whose lectures at the Mises Institute I greatly enjoyed, and John Tamny of RealClearMarkets.com. What a shame the Wall Street Journal’s statist extraordinaire, Stuart Varney, now tenured at Fox Business, gets to TALK over the Three Wise Men. I’ve had enough of the Stephen Moores and Stuart Varneys of the world, wrong for decades, yet able to keep lucrative careers going, as they pepper their verbiage with the occasional, non-committal, crudely stated truths (“government needs to be throttled”).

Allow freedom and reality to be heard for a change. Expunge the snake-oil merchants from forums friendly to freedom.

Readers, please send me the YouTube clip of this round table, which should be up very shortly (after all, YouTube is not yet run by the state).

Updated: America's Founding Philosophy

Barack Obama, Constitution, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck, Individual Rights, Media, Natural Law, Political Philosophy, Rights, The Courts

Glenn Beck is invaluable in highlighting the constitutional underpinnings of the republic violated by almost every law enacted by both parties. However Beck’s discussion is generally incomplete (along the lines highlighted in the article “Life, Liberty, and PROPERTY,” where I also readily conceded that “The man exudes goodness and has a visceral feel for freedom”).

Again and again Glenn has alerted his viewers to Obama’s disdain for the Constitution as a “charter of negative liberties.” Said the president: (Transcript here)

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.
I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.

To the president’s telling complaint vis-a-vis the Constitution being deficient in its articulation of negative liberties only, Glenn has retorted as follows: “That’s the way the founders designed it, because they saw what governments do when they are allowed to do stuff for you.”

I’m afraid that’s not quite it. Articulated by the Founders, in the philosophy of classical liberalism and natural law, negative liberties are the only authentic rights. Glenn must articulate more than a utilitarian perspective, which doesn’t do justice to the profundity of America’s Founding Fathers. Glenn is welcome to use the following explanation from “CRADLE OF CORRUPTION,” in my book (buy it), with attribution, of course:

“The only rights of man are the rights to life, liberty, and property. These rights exist irrespective of governments. Rights always give rise to binding obligations. In the case of natural rights, the duty is merely a duty to refrain from doing. My right to life means you must refrain from killing me. My right to liberty means you cannot enslave me. My right to property means you should not take what is mine, or stop me from taking the necessary action for my survival, so long as I, in turn, heed the same strictures.”

“If to exercise a right a person must violate someone’s life, liberty and property, then the exercised right is not a right, but a violation thereof. Because my right to acquire property doesn’t diminish your right to the same liberty, this right is known as a negative right. Negative rights are real or natural rights because they don’t conscript me in the fulfillment of your needs and desires, and vise versa. They merely impel both of us to keep our mitts to ourselves.” [“CRADLE OF CORRUPTION”]

[SNIP]

You see, positive liberties are rejected outright in natural law, unless undertaken voluntarily. So, dear Mr. Beck, the reason the Constitution is by-and-large a charter of negative liberties, as the president put it, is because positive, state-minted rights violate the individual’s negative (real) rights.

The Great Glenn in action:

Update (Dec. 18): Sitting in for Glenn, Judge Andrew Napolitano delivers a superb explication of the natural-rights doctrine, joined by Joe Salerno, whose lectures at the Mises Institute I greatly enjoyed, and John Tamny of RealClearMarkets.com. What a shame the Wall Street Journal’s statist extraordinaire, Stuart Varney, now tenured at Fox Business, gets to TALK over the Three Wise Men. I’ve had enough of the Stephen Moores and Stuart Varneys of the world, wrong for decades, yet able to keep lucrative careers going, as they pepper their verbiage with the occasional, non-committal, crudely stated truths (“government needs to be throttled”).

Allow freedom and reality to be heard for a change. Expunge the snake-oil merchants from forums friendly to freedom.

Readers, please send me the YouTube clip of this round table, which should be up very shortly (after all, YouTube is not yet run by the state).

Updated: The Authentic Ass-troturfers

Conspiracy, Constitution, Democrats, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck, Healthcare, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Politics

“The outcry against state takeover of medicine is in the best of traditions. Yet the malpracticing media are discounting the fractious town-hall participants as proxies for corporate and political interests. And worse.”

“The Authentic Ass-troturfers,” my new WND.COM column, details these execrable efforts by the left-liberal news filters, and their political master. Yes, “Cronkite died the other day; news coverage croaked a long time ago.”

You’ll find particularly patronizing the manner in which MSNBC “Anchors David ‘Shyster’ and Tamron Hall inferred that, rather than ‘un-American,’ the turbulent town hallers were a little simple.”

To quote from the column, What “led our sleuth in a C Cup to ‘inform’ her viewers that the mutinous multitudes were muddled beyond belief”? “Town hall attendees seemed to be harping on the proper role of government, and not on the minutia of the messiah’s medical plan.”

Lo! Making a philosophical point instead of a utilitarian one—now that is dimwitted. …”

Read the complete column, “The Authentic Ass-troturfers,” in which I make sure to further dim the debate, at least as Tamron Hall of MSNBC would see it.

You can catch the weekly fare every Saturday on Taki’s Magazine too, where the reading is really good.

Update (August 14): BECK. I like Glenn. I’ve said so often. But you come to this space for reason, not for platitudes. That’s not going to change. If you like the Beck blackboard and its “delusional diagrams of multiplying giant ACORNS,” you have to consider the merits of Maddow’s Memos, and other conspiracies lurking behind what to this here rational individual are “really unremarkable events and associations.”

You can’t gravitate to Glenn’s conspiracies while rejecting Rachel’s.

And here’s the mundane truth Glenn’s conspiracies obscure (from the post “On Conspiracy Theories”):

The premise for imputing conspiracies to garden variety government evils is this: government generally does what is good for us (NOT), so when it strays, we must look beyond the facts—for something far more sinister, as if government’s natural venality and quest for power were not enough to explain events. For example, why would one need to search for the “real reason” for an unjust, unscrupulous war, unless one believed government would never prosecute an unjust war. History belies that delusion.
Conspiracy is not congruent with a view of government as fundamentally antagonistic to the individual and to civil society, a position I hold.

Politics is dirty; there is no secret or conspiracy to it. Glenn’s nonsense, aside being tedious and taking away from the important issues of the day that he could be covering, encourages a sort of childish faith in the institute of government: “Omigod: look what they’re up to. I’m going to cry if they don’t start being nice to me.”

The Founders bequeathed a limited government because they did not believe, like Glenn appears to, that filthy politics is so unusual and conspiratorial. It’s the norm! Stray away from their vision of the corrupting properties of power, and you wander into the real of Democratic Pollyanna politics.

True, Rachel finds conspiracy in private interactions, even though these do not use coercion or access public funds. So, I guess, she is worse. Still, that’s not much of a consolation for adherents of Glenn’s latest obsession.
Incidentally, why does Glenn not sketch a diagram of the military-media-congressional-industrial complex? It’s plenty meaty. I’ll tell you why: Warfare, any warfare, so long as it involves our sainted men in uniform and their chiefs and generals, is sacred to our Glenn.

Lesson: people see conspiracy where they want to.