Glenn Beck is the Worst Possible Advocate for Freedom

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
42

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
belligerent wrote:
Sometimes I wonder if FOX didn’t put him on just to sabotage the freedom movement. Just saw his interview with Katie Couric and it’s obivious that he is a complete irrational fuckhead who is easy to ridicule. That’s why they put him on. So that people will reflexively associate capitalist/limited government views with Glenn Beck.

They put him on because of money, plain and simple. The Fox Sheeple will watch him.

Anyone ever wonder why not as many people watched him when we was on CNN? Seriously, it’s not like he changed. It tell you a lot about the people who watch Fox (i.e. that they will eat whatever Fox feeds them, and love it), and it tells you a lot about Fox: they thrive off of hysteria and irrationality.

And he certainly is polarizing. I don’t know many people who think he’s “okay” he’s either their savior or a raging lunatic.

But the Conservative movement in this country hasn’t been an intellectual movement for sometime now. It’s not a movement that in large would support someone like Goldwater anymore. Reagan essentially made it “un-cool” for conservatives to be smart and thoughtful, but demanded simplicity, black and white and intolerance, paving the way for the Palins of the world.

Whatever. I think it will end soon. There’s a younger generation that’s not in love with the massive government that both the “Conservatives” of the post-Reagan era, and the “Liberals” have built together. I’m hopeful.[/quote]

I would suggest you have this backwards. Fewer people watched him on CNN because fewer people overall watch CNN these days. Their rating have really suffered of late.

I hesitate to bring this up now because I do not have the time to fully develop it. However, is anyone familiar with Ken Wilber and integral psychology/philosophy? Way too short of an explanation, but he proposes a philosophical framework where everything has four aspects. It is represented in four quadrants, made up of interior and exterior conditions for both individual and collective expressions. (Yeah, I know this makes no sense unless you have read his works.)
Anyway, I am pretty conservative by nature and Wilber is anything but. However, I consider him in my top three intellects of all time. The point is that one of the quadrants, interior/collective, describes the every unfolding development of cultures/society. Along this progression are states he calls archaic, magic, mythic, rational and centauric. Magic would include culture where voodoo and “spirits” would dictate life. Mythic would hard rule based, crime and punishment, fundamentalist religion. Think Puritanical America or Radical Islam. Rational would be scientific achievement, the individual brakes away from the heard. The world is a rational and well oiled machine. Think “The Enlightenment” and Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” It is suggested that 30% of the population are in this stage and hold approx. 50% of the worlds power. It has been a good state for us overall. The standard of living has increased greatly for most of the world. Much hunger and disease eradicated. It as the day of the American industrial revolution on the father of American economic and geopolitical dominance. What we are experiencing now is the long slow mixed up birth pains of the next phase, centauric. Centauric is the green movement. It is the growth of the sensitive self. Community, bonding and ecologically friendly. They cherish earth and hate hierarchies. Think Greenpeace, socialized medicine and the modern hippie. Wilber recognizes centauric (or green meme) to be the next great unfolding. However, the new kid has a lot of problems to work out before he takes the throne. They only have 10% of the population and 15% of the power. But they will grow. The problem is that they have all these big ideas, but their foundation is as of yet poorly formed. They are at war with themselves.
The green/centaurics will eventually get their act together, and if I am still around I may go for the ride. Until them, there is a lot of work to be done. They have a hard-on for hierarchies. Violently do not believe in structured ranking hierarchies , all the while refusing to acknowledge that their fervent belief in their own way is best. They cannot except that a heterosexual marriage can be better for society in any way than a homosexual marriage. They are fractured and incongruent, FOR NOW. They will eventually get it together.
In the meanwhile, the good old Rational, scientific, individualist stage is fully formed and fully developed. It is tight in its beliefs and comfortable in its own skin. It represents the rock on which the greens will brake themselves, at least until they overcome their own contradictions and need to value everyone and everything the same. By this I mean everything has a value. A rock has a value. A person has a value. But they are not equal values. A person occupies a higher level of value than a rock, or a minnow or a bird.

I could go on. But I have confused things enough as it is. Suffice it to say that until the greens get through puberty and get it together, I will stay with the Rationals, and try to expose this a little bit at a time to some good green content.

43

[quote]K2000 wrote:
orion wrote:

Perhaps, and maybe he has changed his political stance, but I clearly remember him endorsing President Bush in 04 election. He was quite open about it on his radio show back then.

Yup, but I have seen him regretting that publicly.

There are still people who think that Bush was perfectly right.

They are the “conservative” version of liberalism. Their magic fix is not one more stimulus package but more troops.

At least he came around and admits it.

Totally worthless, and I’m calling bullshit as well. Anybody who couldn’t see that Bush was a big spender, was expanding executive power, and was also totally inept until after the 2004 elections, must have had their head all the way up their own ass. Bush actually toned it down at the end, and that’s when Glenn Beck becomes enlightened? Rubbish!
[/quote]

All of that is true and the alternative was Kerry.

So there.

44

[quote]K2000 wrote:
When I say Noam Chomsky, you say (_____) [/quote]

Any Austrian economist from the Mises Institute.

45

[quote]K2000 wrote:
Sorry but the Right has a history of looking down upon ‘intellectuals’ and ‘ivory tower academics’ and considering them a societal ill. [/quote]

That is because liberals tend to lock themselves in an Ivory Tower of Scientism.

Real intellectuals find this distasteful because they are smart enough to know better.

So much for “left intellectuals”…

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http://www.theonion.com/content/video/victim_in_fatal_car_accident?utm_source=videoembed

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

Beck does a magnificent job of expressing conservative, libertarian thinking. The fact that you disagree with this has more to do with your political values clashing with his than it does his inability to intellectually express “right” thinking.

[/quote]

See, I think this is where people have a big problem with Beck. It’s his “delivery”, if you will. I’m still a bit skeptical of his libertarian “street cred”, but he could really go a long way in appealing to people if he would take the sensationalism out of his shows both on radio and TV.

As I said in a previous post, I thought the interview with Kouric was reasonable, but unfortunately, that isn’t his usual behavior.

48

[quote]pushharder wrote:
<<< Beck does a magnificent job of expressing conservative, libertarian thinking. The fact that you disagree with this has more to do with your political values clashing with his than it does his inability to intellectually express “right” thinking.

And your lumping of Beck, and me for that matter, with Republicans is a serious reflection of your ignorance on this subject. >>>[/quote]

People can say what they want about Glen Beck. He is only a man and therefor subject to all the applicable foibles, but he is absolutely on the trail, like a relentless bloodhound, of the blatant effort of the present power structure to destroy the U.S. as founded. He is also no friend of the GOP who he sees as laying the most recent additions to the foundation that is now being built upon by rank enemies of this nation.

He is goofy, over demonstrative and does occasionally (but not often) push his conclusions, even for me. He IS after ratings as any person in his business would be. However, he is no phony and is one guy, regardless of what else somebody may think of him, who loves this country and is genuinely passionate in his quest to see it saved from the bloodless coup that is underway in DC.

I like the guy… A LOT. When his red phone rings and somebody has a legitimate instance of any of the things he is routinely accused of I may revise that opinion. If you don’t even know what his red phone is then STFU. You have no business whatever expressing an opinion on him.

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[quote]Dustin wrote:
<<< See, I think this is where people have a big problem with Beck. It’s his “delivery”, if you will. I’m still a bit skeptical of his libertarian “street cred”, but he could really go a long way in appealing to people if he would take the sensationalism out of his shows both on radio and TV.

As I said in a previous post, I thought the interview with Kouric was reasonable, but unfortunately, that isn’t his usual behavior.[/quote]

I do understand why you say this about his delivery, but I disagree. I believe people buy his bombastic persona as genuine and unscripted and exactly that is a major part of his appeal. He has monstrous ratings, a few best selling books right now, has directly overseen the demise of at least one Obama official undeniably and is rabidly hated by every liberal in the universe.

You’ll forgive me if I doubt he’ll be contacting you for marketing input anytime soon. He has appeal, HUGE appeal already.

I also don’t particularly care what he calls himself. It’s like arguing over whether DC is HIT or when does carb intake negate someone’s claim to be on the AD. Who cares? If what you’re doing in working… WHO CARES?

I agree with the body of Beck’s analysis. Indeed it’s about 95% of what I’ve been saying for over 20 years, I couldn’t care less what label he conforms to or not.

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[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
Not to completely change the subject, but did anybody else see the new South Park mocking glenn beck? Pretty damn hilarious I thought.[/quote]

Thanks, I watched it after reading this post.

Here’s the link: http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/251890

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[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
K2000 wrote:
Sorry but the Right has a history of looking down upon ‘intellectuals’ and ‘ivory tower academics’ and considering them a societal ill.

That is because liberals tend to lock themselves in an Ivory Tower of Scientism.

Real intellectuals find this distasteful because they are smart enough to know better.

So much for “left intellectuals”…[/quote]

Damn Liberals

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“The right” or at least “the GOP” has been mocking elitism for some time now. It was a major effort in the last presidential campaign. And not one that I think is a positive.

[i]Republican Party is evolving, and, I would argue, not for the better. Once the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Richard Nixon, Republicans today have decided to mock elitism and equate it with liberalism.

This strategy is likely to fail. The GOP is not, cannot and should not be the party of faux populism. Sure, many Main Street, mom-and-pop store and Wal-Mart shoppers are attracted to the Republican Partyâ??s call for smaller government and a strong defense, and yes, many of those voters lack Ivy League educations and fancy pedigrees. With Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as their vice presidential nominee, however, the new GOP is now trashing its past, abandoning its roots and trying to transform into something it is not.

…

But listening to the defenders of the McCain-Palin ticket, you would think that excelling in school was a misdemeanor. Palin omitted in her acceptance speech that she graduated from college (the University of Idaho, if anyone is interested). McCain boasts that he graduated at the bottom of his class at the United States Naval Academy. In his Republican convention speech, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (Cranbrook; Stanford for two semesters; B.A. and valedictorian from Brigham Young; J.D., cum laude, Harvard Law School, with a joint MBA, top 5 percent of graduating class, from Harvard Business School) ironically ridiculed the Eastern Establishment as if it were evil, out of touch and poorly equipped to serve the American people. Even Bill Kristol (A.B. Harvard, magna cum laude; Ph.D., Harvard) is extolling the praises of Palin as a hockey mom and Wal-Mart shopper ready to lead as commander in chief.

The historian Richard Hofstadter reminds us that anti-intellectualism has deep roots in American culture, and no one should be surprised that an evolving GOP that seeks to attract social conservatives will recognize that there is a real correlation between higher education and political liberalism.

But I am not convinced that this is a viable political strategy. The base of the GOP is increasingly educated. Swing voters do not trash higher education; in fact, many of them want their child to go to a top college or university.

This intentional downplaying and dismissing of a formal, prestigious education is beneath the GOP. Moreover, it is undeserving of the American people, especially when it comes from wise men and women who in any other culture would be considered the privileged best and the brightest.

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[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
DixiesFinest wrote:
Not to completely change the subject, but did anybody else see the new South Park mocking glenn beck? Pretty damn hilarious I thought.

Thanks, I watched it after reading this post.

Here’s the link: http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/251890
[/quote]

I am glad I made a difference with my post.

“How many smurf lives is it worth wendy!?”

But seriously though, it is interesting this shift of GOP thinking. Intellectualism is frowned upon (not officially of course). The strange part is that the founders of Libertarianism, Classical Liberalism, Anarcho Capitalism et al various liberty/freedom minded groups were profound thinkers with generally high educations.

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[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
<<< generally high educations. [/quote]

Nuthin wrong with generally high, very high or multi lettered educations in the least. What’s wrong is when some of these people demand that all of creation and probably even God himself defer to their destructive ideology on the mere basis that they are the ones proposing it.

There are millions of “regular” Americans who breathe down here amidst the flora and fauna where actual life takes place who simply KNOW… on sheer human instinct that what the exalted bookworm on TV is saying is bullshit regardless of how much education he has or where it’s from. Often enough and people begin to suspect that maybe it’s because of how much education they have and where it’s from.

They then begin look askance at academia as comprised largely of theoreticians, mutual mental masturbaters enslaved in a never ending cerebral circle jerk. Nobody would care except for the fact that they insist upon installing themselves as the wise most highly evolved dictators over those of us who are not as wise or highly evolved as themselves you see.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
“The right” or at least “the GOP” has been mocking elitism for some time now. It was a major effort in the last presidential campaign. And not one that I think is a positive.

I feel the opposite.

And let’s make sure we understand the distinctions between elitism and intellectualism.

[/quote]

Great point.

Lefists tend to erect a false dichotomy between their world view and thinking at all. In other words anybody who calls them on their academic elitist snobbery is by definition an unthinking individual. Put yet another way, they define “intellectual” itself as their world view, achieved in the sparkling classrooms of high academia and hence any challenge to their enlightened (and expensive) education simply must be anti intellectual as well as just plain wrong or they wasted their time and money.

58

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
“The right” or at least “the GOP” has been mocking elitism for some time now. It was a major effort in the last presidential campaign. And not one that I think is a positive.

I feel the opposite.

And let’s make sure we understand the distinctions between elitism and intellectualism.

Great point.

Lefists tend to erect a false dichotomy between their world view and thinking at all. In other words anybody who calls them on their academic elitist snobbery is by definition an unthinking individual. Put yet another way, they define “intellectual” itself as their world view, achieved in the sparkling classrooms of high academia and hence any challenge to their enlightened (and expensive) education simply must be anti intellectual as well as just plain wrong or they wasted their time and money.
[/quote]

Great point.

Rightists tend to erect a false dichotomy between their world view and thinking at all. In other words anybody who calls them on their purist “real vs fake” elitist snobbery is by definition an unthinking individual. Put yet another way, they define “what is ‘real’” itself as their world view, achieved in the megachurches and religous schools of the rural countryside and hence any challenge to their enlightened education simply must be intellectual snobbery as well as just plain wrong or they wasted their time and money.

:wink:

It’s not like “rightists” on this very board have told me I am not a “real” christian or claimed all economics and social sciences to be “not real” and “snakeoil,” right? :wink:

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[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

It’s not like “rightists” on this very board have told me I am not a “real” christian or claimed all economics and social sciences to be “not real” and “snakeoil,” right? :wink:

[/quote]

This would be me.

60

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:

It’s not like “rightists” on this very board have told me I am not a “real” christian or claimed all economics and social sciences to be “not real” and “snakeoil,” right? :wink:

This would be me.[/quote]

Did you tell me I wasn’t a real christian as well?