The Glenn Beck Doctrine and the Tea Party: A ‘cult like’ mindset ignores a troubling contradiction
A recent study reveals that Glenn Beck is a highly regarded individual among Tea Party supporters, scoring a 75 percent very or somewhat warm rating, and Beck has leveraged that warm feeling to the tune of $32 MILLION a year between books, endorsements and shows. But what some have difficulty reconciling is this positive view of him by the Tea Party and the gospel that Beck preaches, which is centered on the premise that taking back our government REQUIRES we embrace Christianity, something that runs counter to that which the Tea Party holds most dear; our Founding Fathers who, contrary to Mr. Beck, held strong beliefs that there must be a strict separation of Church and State!
Recently, Beck held a ‘Restoring Honor Rally’ in DC on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, an event heavily attended by Tea Party devotees, and he again offered up his seemingly ‘contrary to Tea Party beliefs’ world view of Christianity as the centerpiece of governance.
Now, in response to the Restoring Honor’ event, which we regarded as a low point in American history, we decided to post a chart (shown below) provided by CelebratetheDream.org and the website The Other 98% that compared the accomplishments of Beck and King, and as one might expect, this generated a raft of angry comments from Beck supporters and Tea Party members. And as more comments came in, and more and more of his disciples defended Beck and what he stands for, it began to shine a troubling light on what these people believe, how they regard the world, and what their vision is of the nation and our country’s future. In the narrative they provide, you see an almost ‘cult like’ mindset as they parrot the many lies told by Beck and his ilk as if they were gospel, and doing so despite verifiable facts and evidence presented to the contrary by many others who took the time to post replies. We urge you to read through them. Their commentary provides all reasonable Americans with a stark reminder that unless we stand strong against demagogues like Beck and the type of movement he and the Tea Party represents, then our future as a Nation and a Democracy is in grave, grave danger.
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Your right Jack most people have been tricked into thinking the dems are protectors of blacks rights when really the dems have created most of the racial split in this country.
That’s right…for example, if Dukakis hadn’t run for Prez, papa Bush and his henchman Lee Atwater wouldn’t have had to demonize poor old Willie Horton. Apparently they forced poor Lee to do something that at the end of his life, he apologized for, as reported in the New York Times
That socialist bastard Dukakis and the racist Democratic Party should be ashamed for making Atwater be such a cruel and expedient racist. How do they live with themselves?!
Here’s a little info not to many people are aware of. it was written by Ms. Frances Rice, who is chairman of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA). I’m sure you will all disagree with her facts, and it would be interesting to hear your side of the story. The title of this piece is ” Why Martin Luther King was a Republican”.
It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.
It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.
During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Much is made of Democrat President Harry Truman’s issuing an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.
Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Sen. Al Gore Sr. And after he became President, Kennedy was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph, who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King.
In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King’s leaving Memphis, Tenn., after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a “trouble-maker” who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
Given the circumstances of that era, it is understandable why Dr. King was a Republican. It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that was designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South, one that was fair to blacks. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation’s fist goals and timetables. Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs.
Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans.
Critics of Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, who ran for President against Johnson in 1964, ignore the fact that Goldwater wanted to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation.
Those who wrongly criticize Goldwater also ignore the fact that Johnson, in his 4,500 State of the Union Address delivered on Jan. 4, 1965, mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only 35 words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights. Then in 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King’s protest against the Vietnam War, Johnson referred to Dr. King as “that Nigger preacher.”
Contrary to the false assertions by Democrats, the racist “Dixiecrats” did not all migrate to the Republican Party. “Dixiecrats” declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than vote for a Republican because the Republican Party was know as the party for blacks. Today, some of those “Dixiecrats” continue their political careers as Democrats, including Robert Byrd, who is well known for having been a “Keagle” in the Ku Klux Klan.
Another former “Dixiecrat” is former Democrat Sen. Ernest Hollings, who put up the Confederate flag over the state Capitol when he was the governor of South Carolina. There was no public outcry when Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd praised Byrd as someone who would have been “a great senator for any moment,” including the Civil War. Yet Democrats denounced then-Senate GOP leader Trent Lott for his remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.). Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Byrd and Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched.
The 30-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970s with President Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” which was an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats.
Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.
After wrongly convincing black Americans that a minimum wage increase was a good thing, the Democrats on August 3 kept their promise and killed the minimum wage bill passed by House Republicans on July 29. The blockage of the minimum wage bill was the second time in as many years that Democrats stuck a legislative finger in the eye of black Americans. Senate Democrats on April 1, 2004, blocked passage of a bill to renew the 1996 welfare reform law that was pushed by Republicans and vetoed twice by President Clinton before he finally signed it. Since the welfare reform law expired in September 2002, Congress had passed six extensions, and the latest expired on June 30, 2004. Opposed by the Democrats are school choice opportunity scholarships that would help black children get out of failing schools and Social Security reform, even though blacks on average lose $10,000 in the current system because of a shorter life expectancy than whites (72.2 years for blacks vs. 77.5 years for whites).
Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30 to 40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. More than $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty. Diabolically, every election cycle, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions in the inner-cities, then incite blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans.
In order to break the Democrats’ stranglehold on the black vote and free black Americans from the Democrat Party’s economic plantation, we must shed the light of truth on the Democrats. We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity.
Ms. King can be contacted at http://www.NBRA.info.
The article was written by Frances Rice, not Ms. King. Ms. Rice also was behind radio ads in 2006 asserting the same nonsense, which was disowned by most black Republicans at the time including Michael Steele (R), who was running for the U.S. Senate and denounced the King ad, and Donald E. Scoggins, president of Republicans for Black Empowerment and a former member of the association, who said it was a terrible idea to run the ads claiming King was a Republican. In addition, Christopher Arps, a former spokesman for Rice and the association said at the time that “Anyone with any sense knows that most black people were Republican at one time. But it’s a far stretch to think that in the ’60s Martin Luther King was a Republican.”. Also, in “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” which was published after King’s death from his written material and records, King called the 1964 Republican national convention that nominated Goldwater a “frenzied wedding … of the KKK and the radical right.”
Ms. Rice, a now well known partisan hack aligned with GOP luminaries like Karl Rove tried the same crap in 2008 and at the time Alveda King, who was previously elected to the Georgia House as a Democrat, but later appointed to state and federal commissions by Republicans, responded by saying “Martin Luther King Jr. was not a Republican or Democrat, but everybody uses Martin Luther King Jr.’s name for their own benefit.”. And that is what you’re doing. Sadly, counter to Ms. Rice assertion that Republicans stand for hard work, you’re too lazy to research the issue in any depth, choosing instead the expedient approach of cherry picking a discredited essay by a pseudo intellectual who has made sullying the King legacy her life’s work. It’s just sad.
That’s funny, Mr. Wonderful has to point out a mistake on my comment. It’s amusing how you don’t counter on any of the facts, and like most democrats, if you don’t agree with something, you just bash it, or insult the person making the comment (you would make MSNBC proud). What’s really sad is that you’re the one too lazy to research past your own Liberal views.
I apologize that my comments are not as immaculate and flowing as yours, and my grammar not up to par with the Great Mr.E. Gray. I just don’t have time to sit around and complain about my enemies all the time (yes, it’s getting to that point). You see, I have something you don’t have, and it’s called a life.
PS: I really enjoy your blog, it makes me appreciate the Republican Party so much more.
Glad to be of service!
The article posted by Jack is another example of American conservative misrepresentation of history.
While Ms. Rice’s article contains historical truth, it nonetheless is an exercise in misrepresenting history; the end result is another conservative piece that misinforms its readers (and causes one to wonder if it is not part of a deliberate campaign of disinformation).
Ms. Rice employs the hide-the-truth method of suspect advocacy. She rightly informs us of Lincoln era Republicanism and its roots in the anti-slavery movement, but then erroneously links it to the modern Republican Party as if political parties and their constituents are static throughout history.
In truth, she ignores the real issue concerning race policy in our country: liberals and moderates versus conservatives and the far right. Such Republicans as Pres. Eisenhower and Everett Dirksen were moderates who probably could not get elected in today’s far right Republican Party. (In fact, Eisenhower was considered by Beck-like Birchers of the day to be a secret communist). The southern Democrats who tried to obstruct desegregation policies during the 50’s and 60’s were conservatives. As the Civil Rights Movement of the late 50’s and 60’s advanced, the apartheid southern states’ voting trends began to move away from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Why? Was it because southern voters appreciated the Republican Party’s alleged championing of civil rights; or was it because the Civil Rights Movement was advanced in the south by strong-armed policies initiated by a White House headed by a southern Democrat who had become as liberal as FDR? Anyone living in the south in the last 50 years knows the answer to this question.
Ms. Rice’s reimagining of President Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” is truly remarkable. Here is her accounting of it: the strategy was “an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black.” This is an incredible rewriting of history. Contrast this view of Nixon as humanitarian with a statement in 1970 made by Nixon political strategist Kevin Phillips concerning the “Southern Strategy”:
“From now on, the Republican are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that… but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.”
Ms. Rice believes the Republican Party has a lot to offer racial minorities, such as the “principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses…” Forget for a moment that these are not really government policy proposals or issues. Remember instead that conservatives and far righters generally believe there is really no important race issue in this country, and remember too that moderates and liberals helped bring about the downfall of the apartheid South which enabled minorities to find work, good education, and ownership of homes and small businesses without discrimination.
great post !!! keep sharing… 🙂
There are two aspects of the rightwing obsession with these false prophets and propagandists that I find both highly entertaining and terribly disturbing at the same time.
One, is that NOTHING that anybody says or provides them in the form of documented proof to counter what their propagandists have said, will EVER penetrate and cause them moment for pause. Nothing. You could post articles with photos, from every news sources in the world, of Beck anally raping 5 year old boys on the front lawn of the white house, and these delusional beck worshipping fools would refuse to believe it.
Therefore, it’s pointless to even discuss anything with these people. They live in an alternate universe, where up is down, black is white, in is out…same as the bush worshippers, which isn’t surprising, seeing as how most of them ARE former bush worshippers, too.
In short, the bush/beck/limbaugh/palin worship cult is merely here to entertain us rational, intelligent, truth-seeking folks. They’re not here to provide actual reasoned, worthy debate. Treat them like you do the monkeys in the zoo. Watch, laugh, poke fun at, and move along. They have NOTHING to offer the real world.
The second aspect of this bizarre manifestation, and the truly troubling part, is how closely it mirrors the early phases of nazi Germany. The open, seething hatred, bigotry, racism, and mistrust of fellow humans. The intolerance for opposing viewpoints. The extreme national jingoism. The blind allegience to pure propaganda. The ease with which they’re manipulated and controlled. The ease with which they accept and passionately believe outright lies. The mad rush and obsession with war and military might. The violent opposition to the REAL teachings of the Christ, right alongside the outright FALSE prophets (and profitting).
Beck might just as well start selling brown shirts to his delusional, brainwashed minions. The frightening thing is, they’d trip over themselves to buy them, and even THEN, wouldn’t recognize the close ties that they have to Nazi Germany!
All I can say, as an observer of this bizarre, twisted phenomenon, is that I’m damned glad that they’re out there and in such a public eye, because it shows the rest of us just how deranged and twisted the republiCON party has become. The more vocal and omnipresent the beck’s, palin’s, gingrich’s, limbaugh’s, etc. become, the more they show normal, REAL Americans just how out of touch the diseased republiCON party is.
“The second aspect of this bizarre manifestation, and the truly troubling part, is how closely it mirrors the early phases of nazi Germany. The open, seething hatred, bigotry, racism, and mistrust of fellow humans. The intolerance for opposing viewpoints. The extreme national jingoism. The blind allegience to pure propaganda. The ease with which they’re manipulated and controlled. The ease with which they accept and passionately believe outright lies. The mad rush and obsession with war and military might. The violent opposition to the REAL teachings of the Christ, right alongside the outright FALSE prophets (and profitting). ”
It is frightening, very frightening – and quite possibly coming soon to a government near you.
Beck’s assertion that the MLK date was an accident is so beyond belief that anyone who would consider it truth is a shiny example of willful ignorance and stupidity. A person only needs one reference to show his callous shock jock antics are being employed to his political aspirations. That reference would be the 9/12 Project, also a “non political rally”. The Logo is the Capitol Dome with a snake wrapped around it, the text, “We the People demand answers” . The Restoring Honor logo? Lincoln… on the date of MLK’s Inspirational speech for All Americans. How could any of us moonbats jump to such hasty and misguided conclusions that is is a political movement? The Washington Monument reference? Complete fiction that could be excused as ignorance, misinterpretation, or indoctrination. His “I held Washington’s Inaugural speech”? A blatant lie, not a misstatement, not an off the cuff remark taken out of context, a blatant bold face lie. His Thomas Paine and Jefferson references ? Almost laughable. He is, as George Carlin would say, hoping that we are just smart enough to remember these were important historic persons, and just dumb enough to not remember why they are. I think I am in the extreme minority when I say (and without a shred of evidence) that Thomas Paine did not believe what he wrote in the Age of Reason, but that could just be my ignorance. Stop by your local library and flip through this blasphemous attack on Christian Religion and realize it IS either a test of our resolve to have religious freedom (my personal belief) or a heartfelt hated for all organized faiths that was regarded as acceptable opinion in colonial times. Some say Beck shouldn’t be given so much attention, that he is a looney who just craves attention (and large heaps of cash). They said the same of Hitler in 1935. *yeah i used the Hitler reference (without any implications that Beck is as evil as Hitler)* It only show historic context about the masses, not Beck, not Hitler, but of us, you and me, as a species.
Some say we should be “objective”, to look at his views with balance and fairness. This approach leave a person with quite a blind spot if their field of cognition. Just big enough to let his obvious false assertions hold merit with those who have nothing but fear and hatred for anything outside their scope of experience. I understand fear, for I am an “downstate” Illinois resident. I am ashamed to admit, but will with candor, that when I heard on the radio Barack Hussein Obama was elected to State Senate, my first reaction was, “damn it, some Chicago Gang Thug Malcolm X radical has scoured the jails and prisons of the state to get himself elected into the Senate on a platform of “let’s stick it to whitie””. But unlike some, I paid attention to him as he went along. It didn’t take me long to figure out that he was a man of undeniable character and moral conviction. I am proud of my President for the first time in my forty five year lifespan. Much prouder of him than I am of my knee-jerk internal dialouge. I am not proud of our media or press, lamestream or otherwise. Jefferson speciffically mentioned the musilms in his writings and made no fuzzy statements about if they should be included in our freedoms. Henry Ford (a xenophobe if there ever was one) employed thousands of muslims in ’20’s. Some estimate as much as 20% of his workforce. Not one Christian has opposed building a church in Waco because it would be a “Monument to Radical Christian Terrorists”. It’s hard to stay focused on Becks rantings becasue he is like a whack-a-mole game, and this post is beginning to ramble. Beck is not meaningless, or powerless, or incompetent. He is devicive, divisive, lacking even a shred of honor or dignity, and if we do not waste our time on him, he will be the seed that will sprout ruin to this, our nation .
Our land, riches, freedoms and integrity depend on us laboring over his hate filled innuendu until he self destructs into a black hole from the gravity of his self importance.
The KKK analogies make me laugh considering president Obama spoke at a members funeral in support of one of it’s members.
Uhhh…excuse me, Capt. Clueless, but, if you’re referring to Senator Byrd, he was NOT, I repeat NOT a KKK member at the time of his death, and in fact, hadn’t been for at least 46 years, when he publicly denounced his prior affiliation with the hate group that has since been coddled and fostered by the republiCON party.
For historical FACTUAL reference, clueless one, the KKK HAD been coddled by the infamous “dixiecrats,” which was a group of southern racist democrats that railed against civil rights. When the democratic party rejected this outright racism and instead fought for and passed civil rights legislation in 1964, they effectively handed the responsibility for hatred and racial bigotry over to the republiCON party, who were all too happy to take charge and begin to use it as an election wedge, and have done so every 2 years, ever since.
Every two years, like clockwork, the republiCON party marches its racist message out. And, every year, the racist republiCON core, answers the call, and fans the flames of hatred and intolerance.
The republiCON party is, after all, the party of Jesus, right? And, we all know what a racist asshole He was.
Glen Beck die hards are blind to the truth of his opportunism. It’s like trying to explain a symphony to someone who is deaf….they don’t have the neurology to get it…
He has found w way to feed his ego and his pocketbook and is the Heir Apparent to limbaugh’s dung heap….
Let’s hope the “coolaid” wears off before too much damage is done to our great country.
You want funny?
Mormon theology would have had the amusing aspect of making Glenn Beck (and other Mormons) blasphemers under the Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, in 1649. Despite the name, the act provided that:
or deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or shall deny the holy Trinity the ffather sonne and holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the said Three psons of the Trinity or the Vnity of this Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachfull Speeches, words or language concerning the said Holy Trinity, or any of the said three psons thereof, shalbe punished with death and confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his heires,
What that means translated from all the 17th Century gibberish is that if you don’t believe in the Trinity: you’re dead.
Since Mormons believe that:
“The trinity is three separate Gods: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. “That these three are separate individuals, physically distinct from each other, is demonstrated by the accepted records of divine dealings with man,” (Articles of Faith, by James Talmage, p. 35).
That would mean that Glenn Beck would have been burned at the stake. BTW, Did he miss how intolerant today’s Christians are to Mormons?
Be careful what you wish for Glenn!
You’d think that somebody who professes to be a Mormon would have his act together enough to know that there is a reason for the First Amendment saying “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. I mean–look at Mormon history.
What a ridiculous posting!
You’re in the wrong century, son. Most of the Founders would have been punished for the same transgression, but what has that to do with anything?
It is precisely the Constitution he defends, NOT your propensity to persecute Mormons.
Actually, Beck believes the strict separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. By reinterpreting the Establishment clause to mean banning establishment of one particular Christian denomination over all others (instead that government should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion” in general) and by assuming the Exercise clause includes government encouragement of (presumably) Christian ideas, Beck is informed by Christian nationalist beliefs.
It is curious, as lacithedog notes, that Beck is aligning with the forces of Christian nationalism given that many far right evangelicals see Mormonism as diabolical or a heretical cult. If we did not have a separation of church and state, i.e., a secular state, or if Christian nationalists have their way, it is a feasible forecast that Mormons would suffer forms of persecution for their beliefs.
Also, there is an issue of dishonesty by dissembling (again) attached to Beck’s form of advocacy. He is so busy attacking progressives as fascists he apparently doesn’t have the time to mention that many of his conservative followers would eliminate Mormonism, if they had the power, because it is a false religion.
Recently I had a conversation with a very conservative evangelical who became hooked on right wing talk radio because of the late Marlin Maddoux and his “Point of View” program (a religious right show featuring attacks on secular humanists,
liberals, evolutionists, Mormons, Islam, satanic cults, legal abortion, feminists, higher education, and so on). My evangelical friend had previously mentioned his admiration for Glenn Beck and had found his show very informative. In our recent conversation I happened to mention Beck’s Mormonism. My friend seemed stunned.
“Are you sure,” he asked. Yes, I said. “His Mormonism is well known. I’ve even read his Mormon testimony on the web,” I added. My evangelical friend then said: “Well, that’s very disappointing. I thought he was a Christian.”
Wow – 300+ comments!
Obviously the Becktard Nation got wind of your diabolical plot to compare their shock-jock messiah to MLK. Yeah, what could be more heroic than mocking a woman’s miscarriage live on air – unless it’s shilling for a shady business like Goldline, or saying the POTUS hates white people?
Does “Restoring America’s Honor” include overturning the Patriot Act, or prosecuting Americans guilty of war-crimes, or shutting down any of the hundreds of overseas military bases America uses to intimidate the world, or even ending child poverty in one of the richest nations on Earth? No … apparently, it involves lots of praying, going back to the self-destructive exceptionalism of “My Country, Right Or Wrong” – & not much else.
Reducing King’s legacy to “content of character” is an insult to American history: his biting social justice sermons on economic inequality & the unjust war in Indochina quickly made King one of the most hated people in the nation … & despite daily death-threats & a massive smear-campaign, he just kept right on giving them. That is real “content of character” – something which Beck & his ilk can only dream of.
The elites the Teabaggers claim to hate so much must be having a ball watching their victims passionately defending their weepy blackboard-loving mouthpiece. They know damn well that progressive culture will eventually render them either weakened, powerless or extinct – so of course it must all be a socialist/Marxist conspiracy, amirite?
The same progressives that fought (& in some cases were imprisoned or killed) to give these fools the liberty to say any stupid thing they want – & the time off work to rally by the thousands to do so without being summarily machinegunned down for opposing the government – are the ones they’re convinced are “taking away our children’s freedoms” … because the same movement that originally abolished slavery just can’t wait to bring it back, for some unknown reason.
Kafka wept.
“Does “Restoring America’s Honor” include overturning the Patriot Act, or prosecuting Americans guilty of war-crimes, or shutting down any of the hundreds of overseas military bases America uses to intimidate the world, or even ending child poverty in one of the richest nations on Earth? No … apparently, it involves lots of praying, going back to the self-destructive exceptionalism of “My Country, Right Or Wrong” – & not much else.”
Odd that a your president with filibuster-proof majorities in both chambers has had an opportunity to address just these issues, but has done nothing (except, of course, to continue with a slightly modified Patriot Act).
One wonders who you would wish to be in power.
“The same progressives that fought (& in some cases were imprisoned or killed) to give these fools the liberty to say any stupid thing they want – & the time off work to rally by the thousands to do so without being summarily machinegunned down for opposing the government – are the ones they’re convinced are “taking away our children’s freedoms” … because the same movement that originally abolished slavery just can’t wait to bring it back, for some unknown reason.”
In my time, the proressives were the cowards who fled to Canada to avoid service. And military absentee ballots are always dreaded by the left because most true patriots vote Republican.
Conservatives don’t need to bring back slavery, even if they wished to(which they don’t). For the last 50 years, the Democrats, when they realized they couldn’t continue to obstruct the expansion of freedoms for blacks (as they had done for the previous 100 years), discovered a newer, more effective method: make them dependent upon the government. What a cynical idea that was, and became a more effective way to continue the enslavement, and get votes for it to boot!
I feel sad for you if you truly believe any of this…
What a bleak and polarized world you live in and
FYI:
the Majority of unwed mom’s and welfare recipients are
WHITE…google it
vi:
“I feel sad for you if you truly believe any of this…”
If that makes you sad, pick up a history book for once in your life…might make you weep bitterly.
“What a bleak and polarized world you live in.”
My world (the real world) acknowledges the polarization that exists. If you don’t believe this, you haven’t read the posts on this blog. Or do you believe only the left has the right to insult, vilify and denigrate the opposition?
“FYI:
the Majority of unwed mom’s and welfare recipients are
WHITE…google it.”
I have no doubt of it, but what the hell does that have to do with anything? Slavery is slavery, whether it’s black, white or green. The shackles of economic dependence upon the government are a purely statist vehicle to bolster the “registered Democrat” roles.
What about the shackles of economic dependence on multi-national corporations to bolster registered Republican roles. Ok, just being a smartass, but it does beg the question of why is government always the evil, but never big business or corporations that have, for centuries, controlled, enslaved, manipulated and dominated millions of lives? Think the coal mines in WV, steel mills in the Midwest, automakers in Detroit, railroad barons creating company towns where they controlled housing, commerce and the work force all to their profit?
What we now have are these same controlling forces doing the same thing, but using modern media and PR instead of the more overt methods of the past. Hey, government can be blamed for a lot of social ills, but the complete pass that corporate America gets from conservative activists is astounding.
“What about the shackles of economic dependence on multi-national corporations to bolster registered Republican roles. Ok, just being a smartass, but it does beg the question of why is government always the evil, but never big business or corporations that have, for centuries, controlled, enslaved, manipulated and dominated millions of lives? Think the coal mines in WV, steel mills in the Midwest, automakers in Detroit, railroad barons creating company towns where they controlled housing, commerce and the work force all to their profit?”
Yes, we still live in the 19th and 20th centuries. Here, let me throw you a curve ball, from a “conservative activist:” EVERYONE, liberal and conservative alike, excoriates the inhumane treatment to which workers were subjected in that era. But your call of “workers of the world, unite!” has been out of fashion for some time now. You may not have noticed, but labor union size and influence have been waning for decades, and it’s no mystery why that is so.
I know it’s a minor footnote of history in your mind, but it was the capitalist (sorry to use such a hateful word, I purposely didn’t capitalize it to mollify your anger) free market system in America that created the largest, most prosperous middle class in the history of the world. Do you deny it? (and please don’t give me a “yeah but” answer).
Like the making of goose liver pate, you would have the machinery of government squeeze that lovely bird to death, and then wonder why no more golden eggs were laid. Yes, let’s go down and wait in line at the local butcher’s with ravenous eyes focused on that single salami hanging in the window.
With respect to the coal mines of WV, whom do think is killing that industry today? (I’ll wait for an answer). Which presidential candidate was the largest recipient of $$$ from that evil Wall Street and BP? (still waiting). Was it private industry that quadrupled the national debt in a scant few months, mortgaging away the future of our children and saddling them with crushing debt? (ho hum, still waiting).
Who has bankrupted MEDICARE, MEDICAID, Social Security? (getting tired of waiting). Who precipitated the Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac mortgage crisis because the warnings of the Bush administration were poo-poohed by Barney Frank, Franklin Raines and other criminals? (stopped waiting).
I could go on and on, but space limits.
“What we now have are these same controlling forces doing the same thing, but using modern media and PR instead of the more overt methods of the past. Hey, government can be blamed for a lot of social ills, but the complete pass that corporate America gets from conservative activists is astounding.”
You’re right, of course. I recall seeing a lot of conservatives out there cheering when World Com, ENRON, AIG, Merrill Lynch and others went tits up. And we are all lining up for Bernie Madoff’s autograph. If you would once stop caricaturing and stereotyping conservatives, we might, just might, be able to have a reasonable discussion.
When will you admit that there’s BIG money behind liberal causes as well as conservative ones? Or is George Soros a figment of the fevered imagination of this conservative? How about the 50-50 split of Liberal and Conservative politicians who are (obscenely, to use a favorite liberal term) rich?
No, I’m one conservative-minded person who sees that, when it comes to government, ALL politicians, regardless of affiliation, are weasels and hypocrites. That government is not inherently bad, but that it has the power to cater to the lowest and basest of human nature. That it has to regulate where needed and back off where needed.
I’m also reasonably and sufficiently balanced to recognize that business is not categorically bad just because it’s business. The job generator in this country is small business, and they constitute the majority of people who live, work, raise a family and die in this nation. Of course there are bad players out there, and they need to be weeded out. But to paint conservatives as either condoning or encouraging that kind of behavior is irresponsible.
I didn’t say they condone, merely pointed out the relative silence compared to demonizing govt for all the world’s ills. And also did not mention small biz, so not sure what that’s about. Nor did I call for a worker revolt. Merely raised the point that there are many forces at work behind the challenges our country faces.
BTW, I’ve enjoyed yours, and Jerry’s reasoned discussions. Smart folks both.
Point taken, and thank you.
I really wish we could all (myself included) keep down the bile and try to discuss matters calmly. It’s difficult, seeing some of the drive by hitters that post here, to maintain our cool.
There seems to be too little recognition of the fact that virtually no issue is pure black and white. No one has cornered the market on virtue, and the truth about what’s best to do is somewhere in between the poles.
I don’t think it’s too far off the mark to say that the vast majority of people in this country are conscientious and caring proponents of liberal, conservative or middle of the road philosophy. But I further believe that many on both sides have been whipped up by politicians of all stripes where it only serves those politicians to do so, and no one else. We are all being used by a political establishment (D and R) for whom we are just voting blocs.
The fabric of national life has become coarser since I was a kid. Discussion in civil tones has gone the way of the Dodo, replaced by expectations that the best arguments are rated by decibel level. Political discussions by talking heads is marked by constant interruptions, talking over each other and stridently demanding attention. Sadly, I see a lot of this on Fox, but it’s also evident wherever the remote button takes you on the airwaves.
BTW, are you and I the only ones posting this weekend? Maybe we both should get a life!
“BTW, are you and I the only ones posting this weekend? Maybe we both should get a life!”
I’ve been looking for years, no luck.
Agree with your thoughts on how polarized the current landscape is. And yes, this blog does not help that. But it is really a more a reaction to many forces on all sides.
One dynamic that seems to be a big part of it is the 24/7 media noise machine representing the right, left and middle. All fighting for ratings. Add to that the so called mainstream media (supposedly real journalists) who are also fighting for attention, so they focus on the loudest and most outrageous. The result is a constant echo chamber of raised voices and red faces.
Then there is the passive aggressive friendly online exchanges where the other side is not a person but a faceless voice, easy to dehumanize and demonize.
Sometimes we need to remember that the person we disagree with is a person, and most are Americans who come from shared places and experiences. Many could sit next to each other and talk baseball (Cubs or Sox?), favorite TV shows, who was their favorite Beatle, and a whole lifetime of common memories and beliefs. But when it gets racketed up, and we’re hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet, then that same person becomes an evil entity deserving of the most vile and vicious consequences.
And the worst part is, I suspect that there are a lot of people and interests out there that like us being that way because it enables them to control, manipulate and exploit people more effectively.
You have precisely mirrored my sentiments! FIVE STARS.
But after this weekend, when the kids are back from wherever they went, I’ll brace for the onslaught of snipers, both left and right. This time I’ll try to keep my composure….wish me luck!
Vigilant,
To quote you: “In my time, the progressives were the cowards who fled to Canada to avoid service. And military absentee ballots are always dreaded by the left because most true patriots vote Republican.”
Amigo, your remarks trouble me. In my time, I, a liberal, was drafted into the Army and served 11 months in Vietnam. Before I was drafted, I opposed the war. I went anyway. I was in the Republic of Vietnam less than a year after I received my “Greetings from President Nixon” draft notice in the mail.
To this day I wonder if “the cowards” demonstrated a type of courage that I lacked: the courage of their convictions. They knew that their families, not to mention their country, would consider them lowly “cowards.” Such a cruel epithet.
Indeed, to tar draft evaders with the “coward” label is truly unfortunate. No doubt that some folks feared wartime service and fled to Canada. But I would suggest that a majority of evaders saw the Vietnam conflict as an unnecessary war fought without the justification of real threats to national security. As the carnage went on and on and on, they could not support it, and certainly could not support it with their lives.
To get political, I’m sure you’re familiar with the long list of conservative leaders who avoided service in Vietnam, one way or another. The long list spans from Rush Limbaugh to George W., our former Commander-in-Chief. Personally, I do not fault these guys for taking advantage of the system and do not call them cowards. I do see them as hypocrites, however. They had their chance to fight for their country, yet they sat it out. Some of these guys later became virtually bellicose in their support of war, and quick to call liberals “unpatriotic” or “cowards” if they rejected the need for war, whether in Vietnam or Iraq.
As to your remarks about “true patriots” being Republican, I have to disagree with your view, in context. In context, today’s all volunteer military service is heavily populated by those young women and men who often find bleak economic opportunities in their communities. Correct me if I’m wrong, but a large segment of military service is constituted of volunteers from rural communities. Such communities are generally conservative.
I do not doubt that many volunteers serve because of heartfelt patriotism, both conservatives and liberals. Most, primarily rural whites, secondarily urban blacks and whites, are looking for economic improvement (this is not to diminish their service to our country in any way). I think it is hasty to assume that “true patriots” vote Republican (another issue), one, and that the modern military is populated only by conservatives, second.
Hi Jerry,
Please forgive the generalization in that post; I was responding to a drive-by shooter. That was almost a week ago, before I decided I would cut the crap and try to address issues rather than trade insults.
You are right, of course, and I would find little to challenge you on. For the sake of discussion, however, please let me make these points:
Who insulted, spat on and mistreated the troops when they returned from Viet Nam? Was it right to do so? This is one of my pet peeves. It is the hatred displayed by the left that seems to know no reasonable bounds. As I said in another posting, I was shocked to see the absolutely blind rage directed at Nixon at the time, a hatred that failed to acknowledge even the few good things he had done.
It was that revolution in the ‘60s that truly began the coarsening of political discourse in the nation. If you and I can calmly discuss matters, why cannot the media or public at large do it? Would you grant that both the left and the right are responsible for exacerbating the polarization in the country today?
You said, “But I would suggest that a majority of evaders saw the Vietnam conflict as an unnecessary war fought without the justification of real threats to national security.”
I think, in retrospect, that most of the country agrees with you. And most of the wars/actions since then would probably fall into the same category.
Clinton’s blundering into Kosovo is a good example. Did it address in any way national security matters? No. Was it done in consonance with established norms of international law? No (invasion of a sovereign nation that was not guilty of aggression). Did it violate the NATO Charter? Yes (Article 5 stipulates that a war on one NATO partner is considered war on all; Kosovo was not a NATO partner). Yet where were the protesters then?
The second Gulf War may have been unnecessary, that’s a matter of speculation, but it would appear that the bottling of Hussein between the north-south no-fly zones had been pretty effective. British intelligence, on the other hand, was providing what we thought was damning evidence of WMDs, and most people (even Dems) believed it. Did the gov’t skew it for its own purposes? Likely so. It may not have been as well known, but Hussein was continuing nuclear R&D programs. If memory serves, Tony Blair commented that, even if Hussein didn’t have WMDs, the train was on the tracks and headed in our direction.
Can we win in Iraq? I doubt it. Can we win in Afghanistan? I doubt it. Personally, I feel that we don’t need to expend further blood in countries that will collapse into sectarian civil wars or tribal feuds after we leave. Our quest to democratize Iraq is, I’m afraid, a futile effort. I never forgave Bush when, after campaigning on a promise that he would never “nation build” as Clinton had done, did precisely that in Iraq.
The knotty nature of the problem is that we were the ones who created the instability in both these nations. Our meddling, if you will, has only strengthened Iran in its megalomaniacal aspirations to the point that we can no longer ignore it. In Afghanistan, the central gov’t has never had any power beyond a 50-mile radius of Kabul, and the spillover into Pakistan has muddied the waters in a country that is nuclear capable.
Just for ancillary info, I enlisted in the Air Force in 1966 and retired in 1990, after which I worked for NATO for 14 years in the Netherlands.
Thanks for your post, I respect you as a thinker and take your points to heart and mind.
Vigilant,
I disagree somewhat with your view that the “coarsening of discourse” buck stops with the cultural revolution of the 1960s. If you mean only that coarse language has made base our national discourse, I agree that the 1960s saw a serious loosening of acceptable standards and fostered less conformity to “proper” language use. On the other hand, if you mean by coarseness the anger and mean spirited discourse in our polarized society today, and wish to blame 60s and 70s leftists for this development, I must disagree.
You must have forgotten the McCarthyism of the late 40s and early 50s. You must have forgotten that America’s left was smeared as un-American by a few noisy right-wingers with access to tv exposure (what’s old is new again indeed). You forget lives and careers ruined by baseless accusations, the stock and trade of the American right.
Have you forgotten the cottage industry of 50s and early 60s conspiratorial conservatives and their march toward disinformation? Today Rush tells his d-heads
that Pres. Obama is planning a fascist takeover of our government; in the 50s the Birchers told us Pres. Eisenhower was a secret communist (what’s old is new again).
Have you forgotten the full page ad published in the Dallas Morning News the day John Kennedy was murdered? Do you remember it was financed by right-wingers and was in the form of a wanted poster that charged Pres. Kennedy with treason (what’s old is new again, Ann Coulter). Do you remember how the right tried to smear Martin Luther King as a communist sympathizer? Remember when right wing nascent talk radio in the 80s and 90s similarly tried to smear another civil rights leader, Nelson Mandela, as a communist?
Do you remember Nixon’s “southern strategy” that played on the fear and entrenched racism of the American south? Do you remember his “enemies list” of perceived liberal threats? Do you remember the hatred emanating from the right towards liberals, black activists (heck, blacks in general), “hippies,” war protesters, women’s libbers, and so forth and so on.
I’m always surprised concerning the sensitivity of the modern conservative: he/she always remembers and harbors resentment for all the negative things said about conservative leaders by liberals, and overlooks, rationalizes, minimises or joins in the neversleeping smearing and defaming of liberals by the right. (During the Bush/Kerry election, a news program mentioned the findings of a study of the last decades of Democratic and Republican campaign issues. The study found that Democrats were more likely to criticize Republicans on policy issues; Republicans were more likely to criticize Democrats on character issues. Sound familiar?)
Which brings me to the smear you seem to buy into: the “spitting on returning Vietnam veterans.” For a long time I have harbored doubts about the truth of these supposed accounts. I’m not saying such a thing never happened, but that if it did it was minuscule in number and not common. My doubts arose because I didn’t hear about such events during the time period they allegedly happened, but heard more and more about them the further away in time they supposedly occurred.
Perhaps you are familiar with Jerry Lembcke’s The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam. He looked for documentation that would verify such accounts. He found none. Instead, he did find documentation for spitting events that involved soldiers and Vietnam veterans against the war having been spat upon by older veterans. He argues that the ubiquitous spitting on Vietnam veterans by “hippies” or anti-war protesters is largely an “urban legend” taken advantage of by right wingers to discredit the left and foster a disdaining of anti-war protests and it eventually became a cultural myth due to the influence of Hollywood films such as First Blood (“Rambo”).
The first person or second hand accounts of spitting on Vietnam veterans that I have read about on the web certainly seem like “urban legends.” They seem too similar, always at San Francisco airport, for instance. Curiously, when I came home from Vietnam I too went through the airport at San Francisco. Because of the layover, I went outside to take in American air. I was approached by some “hippie” looking young men and I was a little cautious because the “hippy” phenomena was still new to me. “Soldier,” one of them said looking my way. Yes, I replied. “Your name tag has fallen,” he told me. I looked and sure enough my name tag had become detached on one end on my khaki shirt. I thanked him. He said, “No sweat, man.”
Recently I saw how such right wing scenarios are propagated regardless of the facts. I was discussing the service of a fellow Vietnam vet with two right wing relatives. One told how this Vietnam veteran came home after serving in Vietnam. He went out one night with friends and he wore his Marine uniform with pride. He was attacked and beaten up, “just because he had his military uniform on.” I recognized the conservative intent of the story: a patriot was attacked by un-American thugs and, of course, what kind of thugs would do such a thing (liberal thugs, of course).
The truth was a slightly different story. My brother was the Vietnam vet and he was still a teenager when the altercation occurred. As he told me, he and a “tough buddy” friend went to a local teenager hangout and encountered some of the local toughs in the form of high-school linebackers. In a fit of testosterone, a fight ensued. My brother got the short end of the stick in the fight, or I should say the flat end of a whiskey bottle. The altercation originated not in a flash of liberal anti-militarism anger or un-American hate against a patriot (as imagined by the right winger), but rather began as a tough-man contest between footballers, a Marine, and his tough buddy.
CammyLeA’s comments about “The Jefferson Bible” (The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels: Compiled by Thomas Jefferson) reminded me of another example of Glenn Beck as professional dissembler and history distortion artist.
Jefferson compiled his “Bible” by extracting the moral teachings of Jesus from the the Gospels and presenting the essential events of the life of Jesus. He did not include the miraculous and the supernatural elements of the Gospels, including the resurrection. Jefferson believed Jesus was a sublime moral teacher and believed Jesus never claimed any membership in the Godhead, but was rather “ascribing to himself every human excellence.” (Letter To Dr. Rush, April 21, 1803).
Jefferson accepted the moral teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, and rejected the “Saviour Christ” of popular Christian faith. He distinguishes his philosophy as a counter to Jesus of the Gospels: “I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; I require counterpoise of good works to redeem it, etc., etc.” (Letter to W. Short, April, 1820).
Jefferson understood the controversial nature of his work, knew the incredulous and vitriolic reactions he probably would receive from professional and lay Christians, and never sought to have his “Bible” published. His manuscript was recovered years after his passing, and was published in 1895.
Glenn Beck during his April 8, 2010 FoxTV show, with guest David Barton, a popular right-wing revisionist, discussed Jefferson and his “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” (FOXNews.com – ‘Glenn Beck’: Faith of Our Founders – Glenn Beck). Here is Barton’s description of Jefferson’s “Bible”:
Barton: “What he did was took all the words of Jesus and pasted them end to end non-stop so he can read the words of Jesus in four languages.”
Beck then offers this: “OK, Now, here is what is very interesting. This is — this one was printed in 1904. ‘The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth’ by Thomas Jefferson and it was printed Washington, Government Printing Office, 1904. And I see here it’s from the House of Representatives.”
Barton: “Yes.”
Beck: “What is this?”
Barton: “That is what was given to every freshman member of Congress every election. Congress gave that to freshmen members because they needed — they felt this was important thing for you to know. This is what Jefferson thought was important and was just passing it to members of Congress.”
Beck: “When did we stop printing this?”
Barton: “We probably stopped that about the progressive time, in the 1920s. We moved away from that.”
Beck: “Unbelievable.”
This exchange is dissembling and dishonest. First, B&B never let their audience know the controversial nature of Jefferson’s work, as it relates to a conservative Christian point of view. The impression left, by omission, is one of “what Jefferson thought was important,” namely, the words of Jesus. No mention is made to the fact that Jefferson also thought it important to remove the “superstitious” elements from the life of Jesus, the very elements conservative Christians find supremely important.In the hands of B+B, Jefferson might as well be Jerry Falwell.
Second, B+B try a little progressive-smearing, as is habitual with Beck. The storyline propagated by certain elements in modern conservatism is the one where dastardly progressives during the era of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson began the long subversion of Christian America. Christian nationalists such as B+B set forth the thesis that progressives have tried to hide America’s true history as a Christian Nation. In this case, they blame “the progressive time, in the 1920’s” for somehow causing the stoppage of the distribution of Jefferson’s little book of Christian morals to freshmen members of Congress.
As with his habitual progressive-smearing, Beck has other bad habits as well. Such as being factually
challenged. According to “The People’s Bible Goes to Washington” at beliefnet.com, “It seems that distributing the Jefferson Bible to new members of Congress every other year was a tradition from 1904 until 1957, when the practice quietly stopped.” If this is true, then the “Jefferson Bible” distribution to Congressional freshmen did not cease during “the progressive time, in the 1920’s”; the practice was stopped during the Eisenhower/Cold War time. Probably cold war propaganda, which often had a juxtaposition of godly America with atheistic Russia, spelled the demise of the giveaways of a “Bible” that omitted the supernatural, and was compiled by a materialist.
Personally, I hope that Glenn Beck has finally found religion with his Lincoln Memorial event. Perhaps, if he is more Billy Graham and less Elmer Gantry, his programs will have at more integrity, if not better politics.
Thank you for bolstering my point.
Jefferson’s extraction of the moral teachings of Jesus is a fine example of what I’ve been trying to get across about the nation’s founding on Christian values.
For some reason, even though I’m not a Christian, people keep trying to put words in my mouth. So far, I’ve been accused (wrongly so) of asserting that the Declaration and Constitution are Christian documents, or that I’m a right wing Christian (which I am not), with all the baggage that comes along with the unfair stereotypes of that breed.
What would you call the values expressed by Jesus, so important in Jefferson’s mind that he indeed had them published without the spiritual “claptrap?” And what about a clergyman’s definition at the time, that “Deism is what is left of Christianity after casting off everything that is peculiar to it.” Would you call them, Buddhist values? Muslim? Secular? Atheist? No, of course not, they’re Christian values!
Deism, in the words of Crane Brinton, was “certainly related to, descended from, and by many reconciled with, Christianity. I call this religion simply Enlightenment, with a capital E.”
Jefferson was not even anti-institutional when it came to Christianity. In the words of David Holmes, “he firmly believed that morality was rooted in religion.”
Franklin, as well, “perceived that organized religion could benefit society by encouraging public virtue as well as by promoting social order.” (David Holme).
The point is that all Deists believed in God (it’s contained in the very term “deist”), and most, if not all of the Founders believed in the virtues preached by Christ. While they generally rejected the supernatural and historical assertions of Christianity, they fully believed in the Christian values. And they understood, especially with the decline of Deism early in the 19th century, that it was only the churches that could continue the message, albeit with the extra baggage of mystery, myth, magic and ritual. This “baggage,” however distasteful it may be to the secular humanist, was necessary to ensure the continued propagation op Deist/Enlightenment ideals.
My beef with the left has always been that they wish to throw the baby out with the bath water. “Christian” has become such a hateful thing to them that they jump through hoops to try and erase any acknowledgement in history of the important part played by Christian values in the formation of the nation. I truly wonder how many who rail so vehemently against Christianity actually foster Christian values themselves. Few, I would suspect.
How many are atheists, and how many believe that, in reality, that any nation can survive whose fundament is upon purely secular considerations? Benjamin Franklin fully understood this, as throughout his life he “remained skeptical about the claims advanced by Enlightenment writers about the innate goodness and perfectibility of humanity.” (Holmes)
Vigilant,
I appreciate your posts because you make arguments. Before we diverge too far off the point, I would like revisit Glenn Beck first.
The reason many liberals dislike Beck is not because we hate his conservatism. We dislike him because his commentaries are dishonest. His commentaries are not reasoned arguments; his comments are bare propaganda, using the age old techniques of the demagogue. We find him offensive because we are the targets of his propaganda and his dishonesty.
Let’s revisit Beck and Barton and their use of “The Jefferson Bible.” Their shared motive is to discredit progressive ideas. Not by reasoned argument, mind you, but by dissembling and dishonest comments. By omitting Jefferson’s dismissal of Jesus as the Christ, they foster the idea that Jefferson was a Christian concerned with the words of Jesus. By not explaining the true nature of Jefferson’s book, they misled.
We can see this clearly if we try a thought experiment. Let’s pretend Jefferson never compiled the “Life and Morals.” Now let’s pretend instead that Barack Obama had the idea to compile the moral teachings of Jesus extracted from the Gospels, to present a truncated life of Jesus that omitted the miraculous and supernatural references found in the New Testament, printed his compilation, and offered his book to all freshmen members of Congress. Remember, unlike Jefferson, Obama is a Christian. Pres. Obama offers up his little book in order to present the ethical teachings of Jesus to people of other faiths or no faiths who would otherwise not be interested in Christian literature. A good thing—right?
Now, what would Beck and Barton say about the “Obama Bible”? What would Rush say? What would Palin say? How about Hannity? Mark Levin? Savage? To ask each question is to answer it. Obama would be savaged. He would be called a secret Muslim trying to discredit the Christian faith. He would be called a Marxist, denying Christ. He would be called a Fascist who is laying the groundwork for a totalitarian state. He would be charged with trying to subvert the faith of freshmen congressmen. He would be denounced as an anti-Christian whose action will cause God to withdraw his protective shield over America.
These reactions would have one thing in common: they would have no evidence to support them. They would not be reasoned arguments; instead, they would be smears meant to foster fear and distrust in the Chief Executive for political reasons. Such reactions would be so overheated as to betray their cause as either purposefully deceitful or originating in feverish minds.
My point here is twofold. First, Beck and Barton enlist Jefferson’s compilation on the morals of Jesus in their smear campaign against progressives. Progressives are anti-Christian, they tell you, and LOOK, those godless progressives STOPPED Jefferson’s book on the life and morals of Jesus from being distributed to members of Congress. What they don’t explain is this: it is not the progressive that would have any problem with Jefferson’s book (in fact, a secular humanist publishing firm reprinted “The Jefferson Bible” a few years ago), it is the conservative Christian, the Becks and Bartons of this country, who would have raised holy cane against the distribution of a secular version of the Gospels to congressmen. Jefferson knew in his day that his book would have been condemned, not by the age’s liberals, but by the Becks and Bartons, the far right, of his time.
Secondly, please look at my thought experiment again. My hypothetical attacks on
Obama and his “Bible” are outrageous, but they are representative of the quality and content of the far right’s nasty and mean-spirited, 24/7, specious, over-the top attacks against Obama. Think this out for yourself: you have not condemned Jefferson for his tome. No mean-spirited diatribe. No attributing baseless motives, etc. So why, I ask you, do you ignore the ridiculous attacks against Obama? The government partners up with General Motors and Chrysler in order to stave off the collapse of a major American industry and its satellites, and Obama is called a Fascist and compared to Hitler, the mastermind of one of history’s most horrific holocausts! Obama gives a stimulus program, an economic jump start most economists would say was necessary to keep the country from falling into another Great Depression, and he is called a Marxist who is redistributing the wealth of our country for racial reparations! Good Lord! Do you really buy into this over-the-top rhetoric meant to inflame, not elucidate? Do you really?
And I must point out that Beck and Barton told their audience that the practice of giving members of Congress the “Jefferson Bible” ended during the “progressive time” of the 1920s. This is not true. If the practice really ended in 1957 as one source I found stated, then it probably was due not to liberals or progressives, but conservatives and right-wingers who didn’t want a book about Jesus by a “Materialist” given to members of Congress. Hey, we ain’t no Soviet Union you know!
Vigilant,
I must confess that I’m not understanding your point of view entirely. I’ll accept the blame for that. Sometimes I’m not the brightist bulb in the room.
As you know, there are various ways of looking at Natural Law. There is the position that Natural Law can be ascertained by the use of reason applied to an understanding of what is basic to humanity as theoretically applied to “natural man,” human kind before a social contract with civilization.
Another way is to assume that Natural Law is that moral compass inherent in all individuals, placed in us by a wise and all-knowing deity.
Still another way is to see Natural Law as equivalent to Revealed Law. We assume this Revealed Law would be the Judeo/Christian scriptures.
There probably are other versions of Natural Law, but the reason I’m bringing NL into the discussion here is this: are you conflating NL with Christian values? In other posts, you note the primacy of Natural Law in the ideas drafted into the Declaration. You view belief in NL as essential to the well-being
of any republic. In this post, you write: “Jefferson’s extraction of the moral teachings of Jesus is a fine example of what I’ve trying to get across about the nation’s founding on Christian values.” Since the founding was also indebted to belief in Natural Law, are you suggesting NL and the moral teachings of Jesus are the same? Or, am I misunderstanding you.
You note “the values expressed by Jesus, so important in Jefferson’s mind” that he collected them in a compilation. You failed to note, on the other hand, Jefferson also disagreed with some of the values of Jesus. For example, Jefferson notes his particular disagreement here: “he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; I require counterpoise of good works to redeem it.”
Jefferson praised the morality of Jesus(excessively,to my mind), yet he did not approach the morality uncritically. And given that Jefferson denied Jesus was deity, it would be hard to press Jesus’ values into the service of revealed Natural Law acceptable to the Founder. Jefferson’s view of some of Jesus’ values (that he, Jefferson, disputes them) also would preclude assigning to Jesus the pure, immutable values discerned by the alleged moral compass created in each of us by either the Christian god or the First Cause. And Jesus’ values can not stand as Natural Law discernible by reason, since again such values are disputable by the very use of reason.
Hi Jerry:
I very much appreciate your reasoned discussions. We can agree on some things and, I guess, agree to disagree on others. Believe it or not, I’m open to a change of opinion on many things, as I have done throughout my life, as I suspect you are.
I find much to agree upon with you in regard to Glenn Beck. I’ll admit, I think he is a voice that needs to be heard in the nation, with regard to honoring the principles of our founding, but also that he periodically goes over the top. And as I said before, I become uncomfortable when he launches into his lay preaching mode.
I was not aware of the history of the Jefferson bible, and I thank you for elucidating it. Beck and Barton were certainly gaming it if they failed to tell the whole story, and that is just plain wrong. That being said, and to give Beck his due, he also continually asserts that we should not take his word for it, that we need to extensively research on our own to confirm/deny his contentions. Whether in fact that is regularly accomplished by his audience, I’m not prepared to say.
“Do you really buy into this over-the-top rhetoric meant to inflame, not elucidate? Do you really?”
Much the same could be asked about Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, Al Franken, Sean Penn, et. al. The discussion has turned into vilifying screeds on both sides of the issues, and that’s wrong, no matter which side you believe in. So many of the foul-mouthed, denigrating and bellicose comments on this blog show the nature of “discourse” in this country today, and that, too, is just plain wrong.
Relative to your comments regarding the savaging of Obama vis-a-vis the “Obama Bible,” you may be entirely correct. However, you also said: “They would not be reasoned arguments; instead, they would be smears meant to foster fear and distrust in the Chief Executive for political reasons. Such reactions would be so overheated as to betray their cause as either purposefully deceitful or originating in feverish minds.”
And how was the inflammatory rhetoric against Bush any different? I remember in the 70s when Nixon was besieged by such hateful rhetoric, “so overheated,” as you say, that it was the first time in my life that I began to recognize the profundity of the hate and bitterness of the left. It truly shocked me. Don’t get me wrong, Nixon committed a crime and deserved the constitutional ax of impeachment. But then we see the left’s forgiveness of a high crime on the part of Clinton, and the vote fell along almost purely political lines. Double standard? You bet.
Please let me digress for a moment. One of the most pervasive myths is that Clinton was impeached for sexual peccadilloes in the White House. This myth has been perpetuated by the Dems to the extent that it’s received with complete faith by “the faithful.” He was not impeached for this, he was impeached for putting his hand on the Bible, raising his right hand and solemnly swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It wouldn’t have mattered if he was accused of jaywalking or littering, he committed perjury. All he had to do was tell the truth and the whole thing would have melted away. (and had he the right public/political spirit, he would have resigned and placed Al Gore in an incumbency position that may very well have made him the succeeding president).
At any rate, I hope you will agree that neither side is blameless in this heated dispute.
As for one sidedness, and leaving out crucial info, do you also believe that MLK was not a philanderer, was not associating with Communists and did not plagiarize on his doctoral dissertation? These are proven facts, but somehow the complete story was not told in the comparison made at the top of this blog page. It is certainly no less culpable an action than Beck/Barton not telling the whole story about the Jefferson bible.
To be continued shortly, but let me again thank you for engaging in a thought-provoking, reasonable discussion. I will address the Natural Law discussion next.
Hi Again Jerry,
Natural Law is, in my opinion, the absolutely central issue in the establishment of an authoritative and compelling basis for our Republic. I would go so far as to say, as I have before, that history shows that the absence of an immutable moral anchor in forming a nation has always condemned that nation (city state, empire, whatever) to abject failure.
My intent is to assert not a conflation but a confluence of ideas at the time of our founding, and the profound relationship between them that gave us this unique “experiment” in all of history.
Crane Brinton’s words are exceptionally important to an understanding of the circumstances surrounding the thought of the Founders. “Deism…was “certainly related to, descended from, and by many reconciled with, Christianity.” If this point is not accepted, then there is nothing more I can say to convince you.
It should go without saying that in today’s society, religion plays a much more diluted part in providing a moral compass than it did in 18th century America. Most of the original settlement had been along either religious or economic lines, and I think you’ll agree that the call to worship was much more universally recognized as imperative duty than it is today.
The Founders were, in name at least, mostly members of Anglican, Congregationalist or other Christian faiths. Many were Deists who recognized the propriety of leading a moral and virtuous life, and although they disagreed with many of the claims of Christianity, found a kindred “comfort” in maintaining a public persona that extolled the virtues of Christ’s message. Polite fiction on the part of the Founders, no doubt, but it also demonstrated their dedication to a value system found in a generally accepted institution to which the average American was devoted.
So conforming were the two philosophies that some, like John Adams, were Christian Deists who still followed the dictates of the established church. One could be comfortable as a Christian Deist or as a non-Christian Deist.
The very first principle of Deism was a belief in God. You may call it Divine Providence, Nature’s God, or whatever Deist term you like, but the fact is that they all believed in an ultimate power, personal or nonpersonal, as creator of the universe.
You said, “There is the position that Natural Law can be ascertained by the use of reason applied to an understanding of what is basic to humanity as theoretically applied to “natural man,” human kind before a social contract with civilization.”
I have no doubt that that is true, but the Founders who were Deists, one and all, were believers in God. The mainstay of natural law, insofar as it was considered by the founders to apply to the human condition, was Locke’s Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government, and it was a work that acknowledged God’s existence.
The point of contention, perhaps, is my belief that the nation could have been set up on the basis of a “Godless” structure, a purely humanistic structure, but it never would have succeeded in the absence of the “God-fearing,” moral influence of the church.
As I have said, I am not a Christian in the traditionally accepted definition of the term, but I am not an Atheist either. I passionately defend the actions of our Deist founders for the reason that my religious beliefs are in general agreement with theirs. But even if I were an Atheist, I would have to bow in recognition to the service provided by Christanity in “carrying the water” for the ideals of natural law. No other institution could have done it.
Please understand that I do not believe that the church has always acted honorably. The part of the southern Christian churches in rationalizing and perpetuating slavery was unconscionable, the terrible intolerance, brutality and violence caused by the institution in history was deplorable. On the other hand, the part played by the Catholic Church in agitating for emancipation is not to be denied either.
Charlatans can and will arise at every opportunity to take political advantage for personal gain of any institution, whether it be religious or political.
But I don’t throw out the baby with the bath water by asserting that, because the church has done innumerably bad things, its basic teachings (i.e., the teachings of Christ) are also to be relegated to the trash heap. On the contrary, it was (and hopefully will continue to be) the values imparted by Jesus to which we must hold these institutions accountable.
As I said before, the values of secular humanism may be very fine and lofty values, but they fail to recognize the powerful influence of religion on the daily lives of the people. You may scoff at the naiivete of the faithful, but you must, perhaps begrudgingly, admit that only religion can fulfill the deepseated need that humankind feels for a spiritual anchor.
I would be willing to grant that secular humanism may be an idea years (perhaps centuries) ahead of its time, but I hope you would grant that, given the real world’s view of things, it’s unlikely that secular humanism can make much headway in the current environment.
One final point: had the Founders been nothing more than Atheists (or secular humanists) who attended Christian services for show purposes only, their game would have been discovered long ago. It was not a case of them fobbing off purely secular values that they hoped society would accept. It was their example of living their lives with values in which they truly believed, including the (“non-superstitious”) values of Christianity, that elevated them to the hero status they so richly deserved.
Are either the Declaration of Independence or Constitution “Christian” documents? No. Is or should the US be a Christian theocracy? No. Is the US a Christian nation? In the sense that a majority of its citizens are Christian, yes (Turkey has a secular government, but would be characterized as a Muslim nation in the same sense).
Enjoying this discussion. ‘Til next time….
Vigilant,
Whenever I try to understand Natural Law I’m reminded of good Republican Gertrude Stein’s comment on another issue: “There is no there there.” In your post you state “Natural Law is, in my opinion, the absolutely central issue in the establishment of an authoritative and compelling basis for our Republic.” You imply Natural Law is “an immutable moral anchor” and apparently link it to Christian values, yet you do not really define Natural Law in any explicit manner. Is there any there there?
The idea of Natural Law predates Christianity (see the Stoics, Cicero), so Christian values are not a necessary component of historical NL. Now, the pagan belief in NL was perhaps based on belief in deities, but not on “revealed” religion, religion of the Book. NL was thought to be ascertainable or elucidated by examining man in his natural state, his primal existence not burdened by life in a state of civilization. Natural man’s basic behavior or instinct hence reflect Natural Law.
Like other ideas, Christians incorporated pagan beliefs into their theology. Aquinas developed NL as an inner moral light made in man by deity. This idea of a divine moral compass no doubt was influential to later generations of Christians, as for instance the Reformation period in which a virtual Catholic monopoly of Christian thought was broken up in favor of Christian competition, including the appeal to that divine inner light as opposed to a blindly held trust in Church authority.
Enter the Enlightenment. Perhaps because of the advances in scientific thought and exploration, interest in Natural Man was again prominent. Rousseau’s belief that man is inherently good in his natural state may be seen as a form of NL. The Enlightenment belief in the power of reason gave a new coloring to an old idea: we need not appeal to “revelation” at all; all we need is our reasoning and empirical understanding applied to the task of discovering Natural Law.
I think you are correct to note the confluence of Christian beliefs and Enlightenment ideas that helped shape nascent America. No one could deny you that observation. But I do believe that Enlightenment thought is more radical than you seem to allow. For instance, the view that Jesus
was a great moral teacher, not a deity, may have appeal for some of us two hundred years after Jefferson so argued, but had Jefferson himself lived two hundred years earlier in Christian Europe and publicly announced such ideas, he would have been apprehended, tortured and/or murdered.
The idea that deism is some form of water-downed Christianity misses the reason for deism. Deism was the theological reflection on the new knowledge uncovered by empirical science. Astronomy presented a universe that seemed orderly and thus designed, yet accumulating scientific knowledge also seemed to put into question the world of miracles and supernatural influences found in the Bible.
You and I are looking at this issue from two different vantage points. You say deism originated in Christian theism, and you are correct given the fact that deism followed the monotheism model of Judeo/Christian theology. I say deism is more empiricist oriented than Christian belief, more reliant on reason as opposed to faith, and otherwise tagged as an Enlightenment construct. You point to the various shades of deism, such as Christian deist (Adams, Franklin) and I would add to the mix a more materialist form (Jefferson, Hobbes). You say such shades are compatible or friendly to Christian values. I know there was no codified deism and that Christians and deists could draw ideas from one another (as long as deist ideas were not as so to the point as Paine’s The Age of Reason); yet I differ with you because I emphasize the values of the Enlightenment as on a trajectory that moved informed thought away from orthodox Christian theology and to a more secular outlook of the 1800s and later.
When I first examined Natural Law I thought I would find a concrete, empirical explanation similar to what we find with Laws of Nature. That is understandable, I guess, given the similar terms. Instead, I found a jumble of conflicting notions. Underlying the entire discussion was this salient fact: Natural Law is not really a natural thing at all—it is a metaphysical idea! It is a First Principle. And a First Principle, as any sophomore philosopher like myself will tell you, is nothing more than an ASSUMPTION, unproven because it is unprovable in principle.
The bottom line is that Natural Law is an elitist construct advanced by many moral theorists in many cultures, even if it does not have a basis in factual knowledge. (NL was conceived and promulgated long before science was sophisticated enough to present disciplines such as anthropology and cultural anthropology which understand “natural man” as no exemplar of immutable, internal morality, at least by the standards of Christian values.)
I would say your argument boils down to the idea that our country’s greatness is due to a generally shared belief in Christian values. This is its bare essence I think, freed from the apparent mysticism of Natural Law. One may even be able to boil it down a little further: as a country we must believe in God. However, I have my reservations concerning this prescription.
Curiously (at least from your point of view), studies show that often it is the nation or community that that is most theistic that also fosters the most moral ambiguity. For instance, one cannot find a more homogeneously theistic nation than Mexico. Yet Mexico, which ranks low among nations for divorce rates, ranks extremely high for general corruption. How can this be? The state of Utah, a theistic community of the first order, ranks high among all states for its consumption of pornography. (Interestingly, Red States consume more pornography than Blue States).
Question: What ARE the values that are exclusive to Christian values? You cite peace and tolerance. Yet, pre-Enlightenment Christianity is known for its internecine wars, inquisitions, and impediments to the advancement of knowledge. If Spanish Catholics weren’t torturing “heretics,” Luther was giving sermons on throwing pig shit at any Jews you might encounter on the road. Such expressions of Christian values were not merely the eccentricities of bad men, but deducible from their Christian beliefs.
How can Christian values be immutable if you strip away the theological underpinnings that make them Christian? If you do not hold to orthodoxy, where is the authority for Christian values? If we accept the Founders’ word, are we not accepting elitism? How can a nation purported to rest on Christian values accept slavery and native genocide? How can a President, claiming to act on Christian values, commit his nation to an unprovoked war on another nation, based on bogus premises, and incurring untold misery?
Friend, there is more to consider, but I’ve probably taken up too much of our time on this. You will have the last word on this seriously off-topic conversation. (If you wish). Anyway, it’s been interesting.
Glenn Beck is one of the most evil men to ever rise to prominence in white America. Wrapping himself in the bible and the flag, Glenn Beck pretends to know God’s will and like every demon preacher he is willing to provide his interpretation of God’s will to anyone who will listen. And, it’s obvious that those who listen are people incapable of thinking for themselves. For certainly if they were able to engage in rational thought, they would immediately reject the nonsense Glenn Beck is spewing from his mouth just like the other matter that spews from the other orifice in his body. The fact of the matter is one is just as worthless as the other, and America better wake up before these people gain real power because at that point violence will become the only alternative left to fight the Glenn Beck’s of the world.
Oh, Bilbo. You’re a funny guy.
Bilbo writes this:
“There is a thing called freedom in this country, in case you missed the memo, and we all have a right to believe whatever the hell we want. Whether it’s (wait for it, wait for it) GOD or Allah or Satan, whatever, it’s not okay to tell ANYONE that what they believe in a religious and non-religious sense, is wrong.”
This paragraph comes *DIRECTLY AFTER* this sentence:
“This whole blog is just wrong.”
That’s nice. “It’s never okay to tell anyone what they believe is wrong. Also, all of you are wrong.”
“it’s all about YOU and what YOU think is right or wrong.”
Speak for yourself pal, it sounds like your entire position is “everyone who doesn’t believe in what I do is wrong.” Way to set the bar for the level of discourse. You’re so insistent on proving yourself right that you’re not even willing to discuss anything. That’s not a debate, it’s a shouting match. I don’t think you want a debate though, do you? It’s hard to hold a debate when your entire position consists of transcripts from Fox News, devoid of any original thought. Coincidentally, this is Beck’s strategy as well. He doesn’t need to present facts if he yells loud enough.
Well, I think your base of, what, 60 members (give or take) speaks for itself. But what am I talking about, you guys are some of the smartest people around. I’m sure you will grow. I mean, with people as SMART as the ones on here, who could disagree? Protesters protesting protesters. A cause worthy of news coverage! Or not.
Thanks for ignoring everything I wrote. That’s another tactic Beck knows well. I’m not sure what base you’re referring to, but it’s clear to me that the side that you “represent”, in addition to your “opposition” represented here, are both going to argue this country straight into the ground. It doesn’t seem like either side of you warring retards wants to engage the other in any type of rational debate. Everything is name-calling, insulting, mud-slinging, etc. I’m right, you’re wrong. Us vs. them. That’s the way it is with you people, and both groups are the reason why this country is where it is. The people deserve better, but it seems like intelligence is leaving this society faster than anything else. It’s already almost completely gone from the national discourse. Why bother with rational debate when you can just call the president a secret Muslim? There’s no sense from either group that everyone is in this together, which is what the truth is. You’re going to need to live with some things that you don’t like, and the people on the other side are also going to have to live with some things that they don’t like. That’s the way it is. Get over it.
“Speak for yourself pal, it sounds like your entire position is “everyone who doesn’t believe in what I do is wrong.” Way to set the bar for the level of discourse. You’re so insistent on proving yourself right that you’re not even willing to discuss anything. That’s not a debate, it’s a shouting match. I don’t think you want a debate though, do you?”
This isn’t mudslinging, pal? You even decide to put words in my mouth, because if you were paying attention, I never ever once said this, ((“Why bother with rational debate when you can just call the president)) ‘a secret Muslim’?” Or even you want me to simplify it, I never once said Obama was “a secret Muslim.” Not one single time.
No, as a matter of fact, any “reasonable” thing I put out there is just a means for you guys to start talking about my spelling, grammer and punctuation.
And to “defend” my statement of this blog being wrong… yes there is a thing called freedom of speech in this country, and this whole “blog” is dedicated to fighting against those particular “peoples” freedom of speech.
As a matter of fact, this whole article is based on name calling and mudslinging.
But of course, I’m not even sure why I am saying any of this because it will “go right over your head”.
Actually “Steve”, Let’s go through and find any mudslinging, name calling, etc. etc. from your statements.
“Thanks for ignoring everything I wrote. That’s another tactic Beck knows well.”
“It doesn’t seem like either side of you warring retards…”
“That’s the way it is with you people, and both groups are the reason why this country is where it is.”
Well this entire statement:
“Oh, Bilbo. You’re a funny guy.
Bilbo writes this:
“There is a thing called freedom in this country, in case you missed the memo, and we all have a right to believe whatever the hell we want. Whether it’s (wait for it, wait for it) GOD or Allah or Satan, whatever, it’s not okay to tell ANYONE that what they believe in a religious and non-religious sense, is wrong.”
This paragraph comes *DIRECTLY AFTER* this sentence:
“This whole blog is just wrong.”
That’s nice. “It’s never okay to tell anyone what they believe is wrong. Also, all of you are wrong.”
“it’s all about YOU and what YOU think is right or wrong.”
Speak for yourself pal, it sounds like your entire position is “everyone who doesn’t believe in what I do is wrong.” Way to set the bar for the level of discourse. You’re so insistent on proving yourself right that you’re not even willing to discuss anything. That’s not a debate, it’s a shouting match. I don’t think you want a debate though, do you? It’s hard to hold a debate when your entire position consists of transcripts from Fox News, devoid of any original thought. Coincidentally, this is Beck’s strategy as well. He doesn’t need to present facts if he yells loud enough.”
No Steve. It seems like you are a hypocrite. You are engaging in the same behaviors you condemn others for.
But you are right about one thing, niether side is going to agree with the other.
“No Steve. It seems like you are a hypocrite. You are engaging in the same behaviors you condemn others for.”
I disagree, I’m stating facts, not just throwing BS around. Just because you don’t agree with what I say does not make it mudslinging. You didn’t cite anything I did that can be considered mudslinging, with the exception of the term “retards”. I’m sorry if that’s not the preferred nomenclature, in the future I’ll use “Palin-Americans”.
I stand by the contention that both sides are doing everything they can to send this country straight into the ground. Both sides are sure they’re helping the situation, but in fact neither side is, and both sides are more alike than they are different. This red vs. blue crap isn’t getting the country anywhere, we need to return to how elections were 50+ years ago and get some other parties involved. Unfortunately, since the democrats and republicans form the committee to decide who gets to debate on TV, that’s just not going to happen. The system has been designed so that D and R are the only choices anyone gets presented to them, and there are a lot of people who don’t fit into either group.
Actually “Steve”
Why do you quote my name? My name really is Steve, Mr. Baggins.
No, as a matter of fact, any “reasonable” thing I put out there is just a means for you guys to start talking about my spelling, grammer and punctuation.
Now that’s the proper usage of quotes – to indicate sarcasm. I don’t think you’re trying to say anything reasonable, you’re just yelling:
you guys always take it a step further and because you believe it is wrong, you think you have a right to advocate what that person believes. And if they don’t agree, well than, take their rights away!
Sweeping generalization
Let me guess, you believe in evolution. Listen, you may have come from monkeys, but I sure didn’t.
Flamebait
I think we can all agree that Lib’s make assumptions before they know facts.
Another generalization (making assumptions before facts is restricted to liberals, huh? How many people attended that Beck rally again?)
Your post that I originally quoted is some non-sequitor where you apparently try to allege that only conservatives or republicans care about freedom. This is everyone’s country man, you’re not the only group that gets to claim they care about it. Again, both sides are more alike than they are different.
And don’t worry man, Jesus would approve, it’s “fiction” just like your diluted way of thinking.
Flamebait
Exactly! Just like how we know evolution is true. If a scientist said it, it HAS to be true!
Flamebait
Oh yes, there is so much evidence, we see evolution all around us everyday, just yesterday I saw an ape evolve into a person! It was incredible!
.. more flamebait (what’s your deal with evolution, anyway?)
hahaha, yes you are SO right! A tax-exempt ‘religious’ orginization! You are SO smart. How did you figure it out?! (You do realize I’m being sarcastic and contemptuous right?)
Contemptuous is a good word. That’s the main problem with the national debate, both sides come into the thing with contempt for the other. Argh.
It looks like most of your other comments follow the same vein, random sarcastic, contemptuous replies. So I’m not real sure what you were referring to when you said that anything “reasonable” you said was responded to with scorn. I don’t see you saying a whole lot of “reasonable” things in the first place. I’m not trying to be insulting, but scrolling back through the comments shows that you’re basically just being sarcastic to other people.
That being said, I’m not trying to pick on you specifically. The people that you’re being sarcastic to often deserve it, there is just as much BS on the D side as there is on the R side, neither party gets to claim exclusivity there. I’m just trying to point out that none of this helps anyone. I personally think the best thing this country can do to get out of the current political division, which frankly I think is threatening to bring down the government, is to allow third and fourth and fifth parties to participate in the prime-time debates and elections. The people of this country deserve to hear more voices to decide who really speaks for them. We had that only 50-60 years ago, then the D’s and R’s decided to put a stop to that in the 80s with the commission on presidential debates. And here we are…. in the last several elections the only reason I’ve voted D is not because I thought those people represented me or would do a great job, but because they were less bad than the choices under the R column. I’m from Arizona too, I was perfectly ready to vote for McCain before he decided the best running mate he could find was a cheerleader with frankly frightening ideas about what makes right and wrong. He could have done better. In fact, if Karl Rove didn’t screw McCain and the country out of the republican primary in 2000, this country would be much better off today.
Monty Burns, you’re my new hero. Thank you for making my night! I’m sure most of what you said went right over Bilbo’s head. Let’s just hope there’s more of us than them come election time; I don’t want to lose another 4-8 years of progress.
@muv…don’t leave it to hope. We must take action and do something about it, or we will suffer the regression that was Bush all over again. I don’t care if it is money, words, rallies, phone banks, outreach, whatever. WE CANNOT LEAVE THIS TO CHANCE. Beck’s disciples are far too dangerous for that, because the question that the Beck backers cannot answer is this…What do you choose? Beck or the Founding Fathers? Beck says we must take back our country through embracing God and Jesus Christ. Our Founding Fathers knew that theology and religion in government was a recipe for disaster and tried to create a Republic that would forever guard against that happening. So what is it Tea Partiers? Beck or the Founding Fathers???
“We must take action and do something about it, or we will suffer the regression that was Bush all over again.”
If I had a choice between “regression” and “oppression,” I would take the former. What do you call a government that disregards the will of the majority on a regular basis?
A recent poll in Ohio confirms that, even in Democrat districts, the people would prefer Bush over Obama. And by a two to one spread, voters think this country is headed in the wrong direction. THE MAJORITY of Americans wants Obamacare repealed, supports the Arizona immigration law, and disagrees with the inordinant $$$ spent on bailouts. Those are facts that even you and your fellow travelers can not dispute. Deal with it.
It amuses me that, as the clout of the Tea Party increases, the left has become more desperate, and the inflammatory comments on blogs such as this are eloquent testimony. Not just inflammatory, outright false.
“Our Founding Fathers knew that theology and religion in government was a recipe for disaster and tried to create a Republic that would forever guard against that happening.”
Your absolute ignorance is showing. To imply that Beck would “fundamentally transform” our form of government into a theocracy is absolute hogwash, and the worst part of it is that you know that’s so.
“So what is it Tea Partiers? Beck or the Founding Fathers???”
Answer: BOTH!!!
No need to take my word for it. Hide and watch. The wave of sanity that’s going to bowl you socialists over in November ’10 and November ’12 will leave you stunned.
Or will you advocate that the government continue to dishonor the “majority rules” and suspend the Constitution?
Glenn Beck did drugs and alcohol and went to rehab and Fox News! His nemesis, President Obama did Columbia, Harvard and community service and went to the White House. Glenn Beck dishonors MLK and those hallowed grounds! Glenn Beck has no shame. At long last, Glenn Beck has no decency!
Thomas Jefferson advised that the greatest threat to our Democracy is “ignorance!” Thomas Jefferson believed that our nation’s survival as an independent democracy absolutely depended upon its success in educating the people. He understood “that knowledge is power, that knowledge is safety, that knowledge is happiness. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” The Tea Party represent the ‘ignorance’ about which Thomas Jefferson warned! Ignorance is eroding our freedom! Conservatives are inflicting a greater terror on America through ‘ignorance’ than any enemy of this country. Considering Thomas Jefferson’s warning, survival of our democracy is in peril because obviously Tea Party people are not educated and America is suffering the consequence of their ignorance!
Wow, you are really great at name calling and mudslinging, mayhaps you should start your own blog.
Didn’t Obama once smoke pot and do some “Blow” (as he put in one of his books)? Just wanted to make sure everyone was educated and no-one was ignorant….
“Glenn Beck did drugs and alcohol and went to rehab and Fox News! His nemesis, President Obama did Columbia, Harvard and community service and went to the White House. Glenn Beck dishonors MLK and those hallowed grounds!”
Pot calling the kettle black? (no pun intended). MLK cheated on his wife, associated with known Communists and plagiarized on his doctoral dissertation. Obama did drugs and kicked off his political career in the living room of Bill Ayers, domestic terrorist responsible for the deaths of innocent people.
My, how your indignation changes when it happens to be someone you like!
Or were you simply ignorant of these facts? (“Ignorance is eroding our freedom!”)
Wake up and smell the tea.
Bottom line: Obama is a liar and marxist that wants to “fundementally change America”. No thanks. This November will be the change we need back to common sense conservatism, law not man.
Please back up your bizarre statements. Is Obama also a Fascist? Maybe a racist too. Hates both Blacks and Whites. Oh yeah, a Islamist too- that’s why he attended that Christian church ya’all got so up in arms about. He’s a Kenyan, no… and Indonesian. Man, what is this guy? How did he get to be president?!
Oh yeah, that’s right- I remember… in spite of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh doing their “best”, the Majority got out and voted. And elected Barack Obama. And if the majority of Americans aren’t just sick and tired of all the fear and anger tactics employed by the Regressive (Republican/Tea Party) factions, funded by thesuper rich, they’ll get out and vote Progressive again this November.
(Sorry for the typos!! I hit submit before proofreading!! Duh!)
“And if the majority of Americans aren’t just sick and tired of all the fear and anger tactics employed by the Regressive (Republican/Tea Party) factions, funded by the super rich, they’ll get out and vote Progressive again this November.”
My goodness, a leftie who never heard of George Soros!!
Replace “Regressive (Republican/Tea Party)” with “Progressive (Democrat/Socialist)” and change “Progressive again” to “with common sense” and you will have come close to the mark.
@Dildo Baggins ”
“Whether it’s (wait for it, wait for it) GOD or Allah or Satan, whatever, it’s not okay to tell ANYONE that what they believe in a religious and non-religious sense, is wrong. ”
Actually, anyone does have the freedom, to tell you that what you believe in is a crock of camel dung.
You are free to believe in nonsense and people are free to tell you it’s nonsense. If the truth hurts you then that’s just too bad.
Let me guess, you believe that some invisible spirit controls the universe and not only hears you talking to him but responds to your delusional ranting ?
Well, you see, that’s just plain stupid. So there you have it.
Haha, I was wondering when the first lame dildo comment was going to be used. And you are absolutely right, you do have a right to tell someone that what they believe is a crock, but you guys always take it a step further and because you believe it is wrong, you think you have a right to advocate what that person believes. And if they don’t agree, well than, take their rights away!
Let me guess, you believe in evolution. Listen, you may have come from monkeys, but I sure didn’t.
Uh, no one came from monkeys. If you bothered to study evolution, you’d know that chimps and humans share common ancestors and are actually cousins. We came from separate evolutionary lines. Just saying.
PNUT:
“Let me guess, you believe that some invisible spirit controls the universe and not only hears you talking to him but responds to your delusional ranting ?
Well, you see, that’s just plain stupid. So there you have it.”
ALL of the Founders of this great nation believed, and about 80% of Americans still, believe in that invisible spirit.
Let me guess, you believe the government of this country was formulated in an atheist (small letters intended) vacuum, and that the vast majority of Americans are just plain stupid? You’re on the wrong side of the fence, sonny.
Great article! The commentary tho’ !! Wow– you know, I think it’s just best to ignore people like Mr. Bilbo (I’m soooo sorry he chose that name- he sounds more like an Orc to me than a nice, brave, intelligent Hobbit!).
We just need to get out and vote this November- you know the Regressives will be out in force, because unfortunately, they’ve been scared stupid and they honestly think that the Republican/Tea Party leadership is on their side. I guess if you frighten people sufficiently, they go all Stockholm Syndrome on you- or like the poor girl Patty Hearst- she got raped and abused enough times, her mind went blank and she joined her oppressors.
We should have compassion for the Tea Party people. They’ve been raped and abused for so long that they’ve donated their once-good brains to those who are abusing them. Have compassion, and take the stance that Tea Party people should be seen (maybe) and ignored (definitely).
Vote and get your friends to vote. It matters.
From your strident tone, it is obvious that you and your fellow socialists, not the opposition, are the ones who are scared.
I’m truly going to relish the results in November.
After reading his defenders, you know the one thing I think we can all agree on is that Glenn Beck and his fans thoroughly deserve each other.
Those of us who don’t deserve them should do the patriotic thing : fire up the Gulfstream and move to tax havens in Dubai! See you there Eric Prince!
I agree! *lol* I think we can all agree that Lib’s make assumptions before they know facts.
Let’s fix that-baggers make assumptions and never bother with facts.
This whole blog is just wrong. There is a thing called freedom in this country, in case you missed the memo, and we all have a right to believe whatever the hell we want. Whether it’s (wait for it, wait for it) GOD or Allah or Satan, whatever, it’s not okay to tell ANYONE that what they believe in a religious and non-religious sense, is wrong. Okay, even though “claims” that our founding fathers weren’t really “Christians”, etc. etc. if someone wants to follow the Christian religion, IT’S OKAY, FREEDOM OF RELIGION! Just ask Obama. Right? That is what our country was founded on. FREEDOM from control, because of the fact of all the control the British had over lives and religion, (i.e. Cathlosism).
Anyway, I know I’m just wasting my breath, because you could care less about freedom for other people, it’s all about YOU and what YOU think is right or wrong. Our country is Doomed.
Cei La Vie
“Cie la vie?” It’s : C’est la vie” sonny, but very continental of you to give it a try. Glad to see that dumbing down of education conservatives have bankrolled is working so well.
Yeah, a tiny blog that counters the “Free Speech” of the trillion-dollar Right Wing noise machine (Koch Bros. and Murdoch are just the tip of the iceberg) should be forbidden here in the glorious Fatherland. So very very wrong. It’s making Karl Rove wet his bed with agony, I am sure.
Freedom swings both ways Mr. Superduperpatriot and if you want to live in a universe free of criticism of Beck, go move in with Sarah Palin. She’d love to have an unpaid slave like you, I’m sure.
P.S. “BILBO” : THE HOBBIT is a real long book with no pictures–how have you ever heard of it? I think the author wrote it for his 8 year old nephew so I can’t fathom you’ve actually read it yourself. Maybe someone read it to you. I don’t think Jesus would approve tho. It’s a lot of Celtic paganism dressed up in Disney drag.
And don’t worry man, Jesus would approve, it’s “fiction” just like your diluted way of thinking.
Because we all know the bible is TRUE! Especially the Jesus stuff. My masters told me so.
Exactly! Just like how we know evolution is true. If a scientist said it, it HAS to be true!
“Bilb” (I can call you ‘Bilb’ right?) I already guessed you were an evolution denier, you didn’t have to tell me. Home schooled right? Well, that would explain the spelling….
But it’s Monday–shouldn’t you be in church?
Look, I’d love to e-chat all day, but Nancy Pelosi, George Soros and I are going to have scrambled human fetuses for lunch and I gotta run. (Hey thanks to god-fearing conservative ops perpetually screwing up the FDA, they’re a lot safer than chicken eggs!)
I’ll have the driver honk when we pass Chilli’s. Give the Freedom Fries a break for a sec and wave. Keep the safety on, tho, those shoulder holsters are tricky!
Hey Bilb? It’s “would have” not “would of.” See, the contraction “would’ve” combines the two words “would” and “have.” So, the phrase you were dribbling out would’ve been, “who would’ve guessed.” Cool, huh? I give you a point for not writing “who would of guest.” That would have been totally wrong. So, good work! Almost a win on that sentence.
We stinkin’ liberal commie Muslims learned all about that stuff in the taxpayer-supported public schools when we were young. It was probably second or third grade. You’ll be AMAZED what you’ll learn when you get that far. It may change your view of the world.
No need to capitalize “Rhetoric” either, since it’s not a proper noun. See what you have to look forward to? I can’t wait until you learn the definition of “charlatan.” Your mind will be blown.
Bilbo, don’t ever change! (Of course since nothing evolves, you can’t possibly).
You am perfect just the way yoose iz.
And I really mean that – perfect.
Buh-bye.
@artokosan
hahaha. I love how you just made all my points for me. Glad someone was paying such close attention. Whoo! What a hooter and a hot diggity diggy feller. lol
Oh wait! Besides Obama. Sorry, I can’t leave out the Messiah himself. We should get twogither n go bowling sometime so you can teach me more about how the world REALLY Works and exists. you iz jus so much smarter than myself. You probably even went to public scool oh my gosh, you iz so luky to hav the best educition.
lol…stoopid
Then, Bilbo, you must be in favor of the Islamic center two blocks away from the twin towers site?
Is that question or a statement? Andrewsy, are you in favor of the Islamic center being built two blocks aay from the twin towers site? Why or why not?
CORNERING THE GOLD MARKET. This ruse was first attempted by Jay Gould and Big Jim Fiske. Gould and “Jubilee Jim Fiske devised a plot to corner the gold market by buying up all the gold they could in the NY market and driving the price of gold upward. On Sept. 24, (Black Friday) 1869, the bubble burst. The treasury department (another one of those pesky government agencies) released government gold on the open market driving the price of gold downward. Prescient, but not loyal, Gould sold a majority of his holdings before the bubble burst without telling his cohort Fiske. Both men were running and hiding in the NYC-New Jersey area because angry crowds of purchasers of gold at high prices were roaming around the Metropolitan area seeking to hang Gould and Fiske.
Isn’t it appropriate that this happened on Sept 24? Should Beck not be warned, “Beware the Ides of September”).
If “Gold” is all you are worried about, man, you should take a look around this blog. Our country is divided. We aren’t going to have a country for very much longer.
Yeah, and Beckypoo is the one doing the dividing. And it’s long division too! I didn’t know coke-heads could do 6th grade math!
Good, maybe you Conservatards will die out just like the Dinosaurs did.
Oh, wait, I forgot, Dinosaurs never existed, the bones were put there by Satan to try to trick you sheep,oops, I meant “the flock”.
Seriously though, you obviously don’t know a thing about Evolution . Do you honestly think that some semi-literate desert dwellers knew more about the Universe than the best minds of modern science ? How sad for you, your brain is wasted ,you could have gotten by with a “Chimp” sized model.
Unlike your religion, Evolution has evidence, mountains of it. God is imaginary, and you are a fool.
haha to each his own, you pnut minus the p. Oh yes, there is so much evidence, we see evolution all around us everyday, just yesterday I saw an ape evolve into a person! It was incredible!
I hope Rupert Moloch is paying you Beck fans handsomely for so tirelessly promoting his trained chimp here…
You are being paid right? Because if you’re doing it all for free that’s a flagrant violation of sacred Free Market Principals!
Any of you closet pinkos who may be doing it gratis, you’re hurting the bottom line! Get out there and peddle a kidney for heaven’s sake – those Goldline coins won’t buy themselves!!!
No, we’re all on welfare, living off of people who actually work and make money.
We’d rather someone else pay our way than try to depend on ourselves! So get out there and work brother! So we can eat some dinner tonight! Woo!
Oh, you must be a tax-exempt ‘religious’ organization then.
I’ll tolerate religion when they pay their fair share like everybody else.
BTW I meant “Principles” above. I am so ashamed.
hahaha, yes you are SO right! A tax-exempt ‘religious’ orginization! You are SO smart. How did you figure it out?! (You do realize I’m being sarcastic and contemptuous right?)
NO
To Vigilant,
Thanks for your comments. I’ll explain my disagreements with your critical reply.
My concern is with the Religious Right’s notion that the U.S. government is exclusively a creation of Christian ideals and thoughts. Beck has appropriated much of this rhetoric. This rhetoric underplays or ignores completely the role the Enlightenment had in influencing the
thought of the Founding Fathers. Given the fact that most of the important Founders were either (what we would call now) liberal Christians or freethinking critics of “revealed” religion, certainly it is not specious to understand their words as having been influenced more by the secular trend of the Enlightenment than by Christian orthodoxy.
Of coarse, the early Enlightenment philosopher John Locke was influential with founders such as Jefferson (although, as you know, Jefferson dropped Locke’s “property” and replaced it with “pursuit of happiness,” a sign that the Founder was not going to echo Locke’s preeminent concern with property rights). Locke was an orthodox Christian, yet he also advanced an empiricist view of the world that called for the primacy of reason (and experience) in understanding the world, and in so doing, helped open the intellectual climate to non-Christian and even anti-Christian thought based on rationalism.
I think you are narrowing the issue to Natural Law, whereas I am looking more broadly at the general influence of Enlightenment thought on the founding. How may we understand the Declaration as a Christian document, when it was conceived primarily by deists, with the anti-miracle, anti-scriptural Jefferson its principle architect? How is it a Christian document when it never mentions Christ, the Bible, or exclusively Christian principles, and yet does mention “Nature’s God,”
a deist expression?
My inclusion of Paine’s famous diatribe against the Judeo/Christian scriptures was meant to show what was “in the air” in the days of the founding, an expression of Enlightenment thought in opposition to Christian beliefs. This is relevant to the argument made by conservative Christians today, who portray the early years of our nation as virtually homogeneously orthodox. Dare I say right wingers have “revised the history books” to obscure, if not erase entirely, the very fact that America’s founding intellectuals lived in the world of intellectual upheaval known as the Age of Enlightenment?
Now you may find my comments “diversionary” and claim a “Christian fundament upon which this nation was built.” I don’t know how to persuade you, since you apparently hang your hat on Natural Law. You are biased and angry, but can you not see that centuries of Christian dominance in the West did not produce a democracy such as ours? Can you not see that our democracy came about during the turbulence of the Enlightenment, wherein the power of orthodox Christianity began its decline in conjunction with ascending science, reason, and more liberal religious views?
Are you too blinded by bias to see the Constitution for what is in fact, a secular document? It proposes that our government is an instrument of “We the people…” It says nothing about Christ or Christian principles, nothing about Divine Providence, and nothing about an origin in religious ideals or beliefs. Against this too obvious fact, you weakly present the contemporary dating method as if it implies a constitution based on Christian principles. Incredible, my friend. “In the Year of our Lord” is referencing not Jesus, but the dating method, the English form of Anno Domini (AD), which means “the year of our Lord.” In the same vein, the Constitution uses pagan words, such as “January” (from the Roman god Janus) or “Sunday” (from Sunne, the Saxon Sun god). Good gravy, and you criticise me for offering “diversionary tactics”!!!
The founders created a representative democracy, or a “REPUBLIC,” if it suits you. But a Christian republic? Ever wonder how the first Western republics were pagan (Greece, Rome, etc.)? Ever wonder how Christian Europe existed for centuries without democracies or republics? Ever wonder why Western republics seemed suddenly to appear—-during the Enlightenment, just when people began to doubt elements of the Christian faith? Ever wonder why RR figures such as Glenn Beck and David Barton soft-pedal the Enlightenment, if they mention it at all?
(Just for the record: one need not be a “leftist” or a “communist professor” or a “revisionist” or a “sophomoric blogger” to ask such questions).
Thank you! I’ve finally found a reasoning thinker and worthy opponent on this blog. I’m not being facetious, and I offer my apology to you for my stridency. I had seen so many drive-by, ignorant rants that I was whipped up to a fever pitch by the time I got to your posting. Thank you for toning things down.
I am not part of the “religious right” as generally understood. In fact, I am a skeptic, and often you will find me railing against the excesses of organized religion of any stripe. I don’t know that I would go as far as Paine in my condemnation, but I believe that in religion, as in politics, organization more often than not creates power struggles that either detract from the original “message,” or obliterate it entirely. Just as the political heirarchy of the Catholic Church was based on Plato’s Republic, most all organized religions tend to attract the charlatans and pretenders who are more interested in selfishly maintaining their power than in promulgating the lofty principles of their creed.
That being said, I admit that Beck makes me uneasy when he launches into his “lay preaching.” When he addresses matters of historical importance, however, I find him to be generally accurate, and correct in his assessments.
I do not assert that “the U.S. government is exclusively a creation of Christian ideals and thoughts,” and while “[Beck’s] rhetoric underplays or ignores completely the role the Enlightenment had in influencing the thought of the Founding Fathers,” it is my belief that the rhetoric of the left too often underplays or ignores completely the role that Christianity had in influencing the thought of the Founding Fathers. It is therefore perhaps a matter of degree on which we disagree.
Whether the Enlightenment or Christian principles (not Christian orthodoxy) influenced the Founders more is not for me to say, but I feel that it was the marriage of the two that set this nation on its unique path.
“Of coarse (sic), the early Enlightenment philosopher John Locke was influential with founders such as Jefferson (although, as you know, Jefferson dropped Locke’s “property” and replaced it with “pursuit of happiness,” a sign that the Founder was not going to echo Locke’s preeminent concern with property rights).”
We find much to disagree upon here. The Constitution, in the Founders’ eyes, meant nothing without the concept of Natural Law. The constitution of the former Soviet Union was full of flowery terms regarding freedoms and rights, but its basis was upon some humanistic (and Atheistic) ideal for which the Founders would have predicted failure. It’s important to realize that Deism believes that God created the world subject to natural laws, and therefore I’m not narrowing the subject but expanding it.
Underpinning the new nation was an a priori acceptance of the universal principle of natural law. Locke’s influence on the Founders was incalculable. Jefferson’s (revised) inclusion of Locke’s statement underlined this, and the word “property” was left out not as “a sign that the Founder was not going to echo Locke’s preeminent concern with property rights,” but because Jefferson feared the Southern states would use this as a pretext for perpetuating the slave trade (as slaves were considered property in law).
And would it make sense that Jefferson, always wary of the encroachment of government into the lives of individuals, would replace “property” with “pursuit of happiness” because he wanted to deprioritize this fundamental principle?
Locke’s preeminent concern with property rights (he considered their protection to be the highest priority of government) was certainly not ignored, as evidenced by a post-Federalist Madison when he included it in the Fifth Amendment. (Remember that the Federalists didn’t consider the Bill of Rights necessary because the solid acceptance of the principles of natural rights was so universal that property rights were implicitly assumed when the Constitution was written).
It was not until an activist Supreme Court clearly overstepped their Constitutional limits in revising the takings clause of this amendment (Kelo vs. New London, CT) that the sanctity of private property was ever called into question.
To be continued…..
“How may we understand the Declaration as a Christian document, when it was conceived primarily by deists, with the anti-miracle, anti-scriptural Jefferson its principle architect? How is it a Christian document when it never mentions Christ, the Bible, or exclusively Christian principles, and yet does mention “Nature’s God,” a deist expression?”
No where have I claimed that these are “Christian” documents. If I’ve been unclear on this, I apologize. What I claimed was that the marriage of Enlightenment philosophy and Christian principles was what made the course of this ship of state unique in all of history.
Acknowledging the Deist influence (and most of the signers were not Deists), the Republic would not have withstood the birth pangs of this new nation if the American people at large were an “anti-miracle, anti-scriptural” society. The Founder’s outright depended upon the promulgation and maintenance of Christian values (e.g., virtue, honor, honesty, accountability, forgiveness, etc.) to assure an orderly, respect-for-the-rule-of-law society.
The Christian ideas of individual freedom and individual salvation dovetailed perfectly with the tenets of natural law. It’s not for me to say that select Founders were interested in perpetuating Plato’s “royal lies” to consolidate a primarily Christian society into a cohesive whole, but it’s possible.
Lastly, to refute the influence of Christian VALUES (not orthodoxy, not theocratic constructs or establishment churches) in the formation of this country is to say that this nation was built on no values at all. Only a totalitarian regime can be built on such a foundation, as was the Soviet Union. I would submit, and the Founders knew, that in the absence of a compelling and absolute authority, such as that provided by natural law in concert with devotional and charitable morality, no nation can survive.
Secular humanism will always be an abject failure, because it depends on an “elite” who prescribe the rights and wrongs of life, write the laws and punish the transgressors. Elites are subject to change, as are the willful revisions of right and wrong, when new and conflicting powers come into ascendancy. And this is the true danger of appealing only to the ephemeral. No anchor exists to define the good and virtuous. Without a recognition and respect, nay reverence, for the immutable natural rights of life, liberty and property, no temporal government will survive. And life in such a nation will ultimately devolve into Hobbes’ “nasty, brutish and short” existence.
The case has never been more apparent than it is today. As the country has turned away from its spiritual and philosophical origins, it has suffered. As government has “progressively” (pun intended) taxed, regulated and abridged the rights and freedoms of its populace, it has morphed into a blunt weapon of destruction.
“The founders created a representative democracy, or a “REPUBLIC,” if it suits you.”
It’s not a matter of suiting me, it’s the form of government we have. I have always been amused that the Democrats insist on calling it a “democracy,” which it is not, because of the name recognition. And to call it a Republic would give an unwanted advertisement to the Republicans.
Suffice it to say that no republic in history has had a written constitution longer than we have. Why? Because it was the first republic in history that was formed “by the people.” It was the first republic in history that recognized that it derived its just powers from the consent of the governed. Without adherence to, and belief in, the primacy of the individual (natural rights), it would never have reached the heights that it did.
And, as was to be expected, when the Constitution is treated as a “living document,” when the branches of government step well beyond the bounds established by that great document, when the will of the people is flouted to institute socialist and collectivist policies, when the Executive Branch fails to enforce its own federal laws, and the Judiciary begins writing their own, the beginning of the end has already happened.
I really like it when Christian conservatives claim virtues are Christian values as if the concept(s) didn’t exist before the foundation of Christianity. Vigilant writes “Christian values (e.g., virtue, honor, honesty, accountability, forgiveness, etc.) to assure an orderly, respect-for-the-rule-of-law society.”
I love it when they claim responsibility for the “ideas” about freedom. Vigilant writes “The Christian ideas of individual freedom and individual salvation dovetailed perfectly with the tenets of natural law.”
The use of Christian as an adjective is always suspect. Not many Christians out there willing to use it as a noun. As when they profess their faith, I am a Christian, leaving it at that going on about the business of being human. That’s what our “founders” saw, too, Vigilant. They saw your mistaken reasoning. They saw the one thing most Christians seem to forget about Christianity. You know, being Christian rather than claiming it. They saw Protestant sects and some Catholics willing to imprison, torture and kill other Christians in an effort to control all of Christianity. They also saw it paralleled monarchy.
It’s like that joke going around about the tea party. You know the story about the politicians who campaign that a vote to send them to Washington is a vote to change things when they get there? When they get there all they do is say that they were sent to change things.
(And yes progressives are prone to buying this nonsense, too. But that’s beside the point.)
We live in a country of conservatives who like to claim what they stand for, like to claim who they are, like to boast about their accomplishments, and like to ponder about how foolish everybody else is with what “god gave us.”
It’s pathetic. Looking back over Vigilant’s posts before I post my comment and I can’t see anything that makes sense or gives me the hope that, though I disagree with his or her ideas, Vigilant actually cares about what anybody else thinks. And that pretty much sums up Conservative America. A squelching loud chaotic mess of angry, dislocated people fighting for a vision that never existed and so invested in a warped idea of traditional America that they simply can’t afford to listen to anybody who disagrees. That’s the Conservative Christian movement in a nutshell. And it’s turned into a big resounding NO. A “no” that Vigilant would have us believe is about individual freedom and virtues.
Brilliant stuff.
dagseoul,
Thanks for adding nothing but insults to the discussion. Had you the power of comprehension, you would have noted from my post that I am not a Christian.
Truly brilliant stuff.
Deal with the criticism. You’d have to forgive me for not noticing you’re not a Christian for all of the Christian tags dropped throughout your posts.
Your criticism of humanism is taken directly from the Conservative Christian playbook. And doesn’t make much sense at all.
dagseoul:
“It’s pathetic. Looking back over Vigilant’s posts before I post my comment and I can’t see anything that makes sense…”
Then your powers of understanding plain English are truly limited. My expression is lucid and staightforward. You may want to keep a dictionary at hand, or return to 5th grade for a refresher course.
“Your criticism of humanism is taken directly from the Conservative Christian playbook. And doesn’t make much sense at all.”
I rest my case.
All these people are former Bush supporters. They have no shame. Still self-righteous and wrong.
Woo! No Shame! Woo! Go Bush! Yeah! Go President Obama! You rock! You love our country! Go brother, go!
I hope for all the fundamentalist Beckians that the price of gold drops to $5 an ounce.
No. We live on welfare, brother! Don’t worry. Gold ain’t shit! And pretty soon the dollar won’t be either! Yeah! Everything will be free! Woooooo!
I have to commend “Bob Gare” for such able typing with his head so far up Beck’s ass. I’m guessing he’s is probably an overweight incontinent leper who sits at his keyboard 24-7 while masturbating to Goldline ads.
I have concluded that there is no mental illness mightier than stupidity and Beck’s deluded marks are incurable. Comments like “He’s not racist? See? He had King’s [hate-filled idiot] niece was on stage!” are proof that the days of IDIOCRACY are here.
The conundrum for the rest of us: this level of idiocy can neither be ignored nor cured.
“GET A BRIAN, MORANS!”
I have also concluded that there is no mental illness mightier than stupidity. And you are a most eloquent expression of it.
“GET A LIFE, OLLY!”
Wow! You spelled “eloquent” correctly and used it more or less so, (although “eloquent stupidity” would be an oxymoron – or as you might say: “oxymoran”). Kudos to your mommy for the spell checking.
Hey man, peace, love, free healthcare. hahaha. What a joke Olly. You’re right, stupidity IS incurable. You poor poor stupid man. So let’s get MLK Hate filled niece out there to help us pull our heads out of Becks ass. Poor Beck. That would hurt to have over 500,000 heads stuck up your butt. Ouch.
This is HILARIOUS!!!! Not one of these radical liberals have backed up one single comment of thiers. Fact is….. THEY ARE SCARED!!! Think they’re starting realize that they are TOAST ! GONE! About to be voted out for good. They hate Beck because they are ignorant. All libs are. Useless wastes of an “almost” human life. Give em something for free and they will faithfully follow you around for life. The morons who keep quoting Becks comment of “rodeo clown” and “don’t belive me” is his attempt to get morons like these freeloading libs to doubt him and look up the facts for themselvs. But STUPID as they are, they go to msnbc and the like to get thier constantly wrong facts, so all they have left is to call names and criticize “punctuations”. How petty. How sad.
Ive come to the conclusion that all these Libs do deserve “free things”. So I say…. Let’s make the first free thing a ride in the electric chair. Yea …. It will stink like burning trash. But what the hey…. Let em have it.
Yep. There it is: The Final Solution to the “People with Different Opinions” problem. The Nazis were thinking so small, limiting themselves to a just Jews, slavs, and homosexuals.
Well put Jim H.
That’s obviously how come no signs allowed at Herr Beck’s Open Air Tent Show. Five decades of being held accountable for their brand of bigotry and tirade has forced a few of them to speak carefully in dog-whistle codes for what the KKK and other supremacists used to say openly. They are itching for those days to return while the rest of them never thought they were over.
They just have a hard time putting it in grammatically correct words.
But its all about GAWD, see? GAWD AWL-MY-TEE. And freedom. And liberty. Just not for everybody.
Buy GOLDLINE!
Facts? Beck does not offer facts…..He offers platitudes.
Beck is the ignorant one, making connections that any reasonable person would laugh at. He cannot even get historical fact straight!
Why don’t you try and back up a single Beckerism? Go on, prove a single Beck platitude.
Beck… that damn evil millionair. He made millions off of lies! Hahaha. Jealous much?
You cry for facts but if they were givin’ to you you’d claim they were lies, so it’s pointless. Why waste time giving facts to someone who wouldn’t listen to them anyway.
So let’s just all sit and brood over that damn evil millionair. Evil Devil Man, Beck.
I can always tell fron reading comments if a person is a conservative or not. The conservatives always rant and rave and call people names. They are always so angry with very little rationing skills. Just stop and compare the comments of each side, and you’ll realize who is really scared.
Hell yeah brother, that’s how we do. Anger, Roar! Let’s waste our time comparing comments. Yeah! Peace, love, and marijuana brother! Hell yeah! So scared! Stupid people are reproducing at a rapid rate (oh wait, I forgot… abortion… my bad, my bad) hahahaha
I think I found this from a link on NPR and wow. I have never read such drivel in my entire life. Are we so polarized that this is what we resort to?
Oh and this gives a nice perspective:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/28/897086/-What-Happens-When-A-Liberal-Black-Man-Goes-To-Glenn-Becks-I-Have-A-Dream,-Too-Speech!
It seems as if conservative forces and voices discreetly, perhaps even unknowingly, advance an anarchy of information, where “truth” and “facts” are what correspond to one’s worldview, and contrary facts or opinions become “lies.” This anarchy of information is a virtual religious faith, where faith becomes a wish fulfillment epistemology: What you believe true IS true if you BELIEVE it is true.
Present in some pro-Beck correspondents here is a reliance on literalism: if Beck does not make overtly racists remarks continuously, or doesn’t advocate violence against liberals and Democrats in an open, perpetual fashion, then he is innocent of any charge of race-baiting or an advocacy of hate. These Beck supporters ignore, or truly do not see, the nuances and innuendos found in Beck’s presentations that cause others to see him as a dangerous demagogue. It also doesn’t help when his supporters condone Beck’s openly outrageous comments and actions, such as presenting a mock murder of Nancy Pelosi (and, sorry, the hanging in effigy of political figures during political demonstrations is not in the same league as the murder of politicians suggested on air by an immensely popular talk show host, even if in smirking jest.)
Beck is a propagandist, pure and simple. For instance, on his Feb. 4th, 2009 Fox TV program, Beck made this announcement:
“Comrades! Good news from the Western Front! Our glorious revolution is starting to take hold. Oh, the revolution of Change. Our fearless leader has just signed in SCHIPs, and earlier today, he spoke out against capitalism.”
Of course, Beck here is mocking President Obama. But what is Beck’s grievance? Apparently, he doesn’t like the fact that the President signed into law the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that helps states cover health-insurance costs to families. Beck also says President Obama is against capitalism because the President put a cap on salaries bank executives could receive if they worked for banks receiving bailout funds from the government.
Both acts by the President are defensible on various grounds that a majority of Americans probably would agree with. However, if you are a strict ideologue taken up with a libertarian outlook, or a dogmatic adherent of a particular view of the Constitution, then the President’s actions are worthy of criticism.
If you are more than an ideologue or adherent, but are a propagandist as well, then you exaggerate or fabricate in the most egregious fashion in order not only to dispute your opponent’s views or actions, but to demonize such opposing thoughts or actions as well. The above comments by Beck are meant to associate Obama with the Soviet Union, communism, revolution, and anti-capitalism. It doesn’t matter to Beck, or to his supporters, that such a portrayal is basically dishonest and cannot be supported by any appeal to the facts. Apparently, Beck’s aim is not to enlighten his viewers. He seems to want instead to distort, to create fear and distrust in order to cause an emotional backlash against common good, but not libertarian (and social darwinism), policies.
Some folks here defend Beck as presenting the truth about the founding fathers and the Constitution. Actually, those who believe Beck also claim to have substantiated his presentations by further study. However, they are probably reading the fringe literature that Beck recommends.
Beck erroneously portrays the founders as looking to fundamental Christian principles for guidance as they forged the laws of a new nation. I wonder: does Beck ever mention the importance of the Age of Enlightenment in the creation of American democracy? Does he mention the unorthodox Christianity or freethinking deism of the most important founders? Does he tell his viewers about Thomas Paine’s THE AGE OF REASON, a diatribe against Judeo/Christian scriptures? Does he note the particulars of the constitutional balance of powers were not derived from Christian scriptures; they were adopted from writings of European thinkers influenced by Enlightenment thought. Does he ever point out
that the Constitution itself is a secular document supporting the role of humanity, not of deity, in the rule and guidance of the country? If he does not, then his words are misleading.
Now, I hear that Beck’s Washington D.C. address was well attended. How sad. It appears his program was basically unpolitical and of an overtly religious nature. So, we are seeing the next phase of Beck’s evolving demagoguery. First, the wrapping of himself in the flag; now, he is in the fond embrace of God. How dare we miserable liberals question the integrity of such a man?
“Beck erroneously portrays the founders as looking to fundamental Christian principles for guidance as they forged the laws of a new nation.”
You needn’t refer to Glenn Beck’s words on this matter. The Founders themselves, on countless occasions, in their writings and speeches, looked to fundamental Christian principles for guidance. Your attempt to rewrite history is all too typical of the secular progressive.
Actual, factual history is indeed the most “inconvenient truth” for the leftists, and that’s why they try to suppress it.
Have you actually looked for yourself?
Thomas Paine in “Age of Reason” – “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
In his “Essay of the Origin of Free-Masonry “, he wrote – “The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote and passed a bill called the “Bill for Religious Freedom” in Virginia, which states, “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
He rewrote the Bible, taking out the supernatural events, all the miracles and mention of angels; he actually used a razor and cut up the four gospels, slicing out verses that mentioned any supernatural attributes or miracles. Jefferson was a Deist who wrote separation of church and state: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
You can believe anything you want, but the fact remains that you believe propaganda, not history.
Beck is turning the Founders into propaganda.
CammyLeA: Thank you for proving my often-expressed point about the left trying to change the subject instead of arguing the facts head on!
Yes, I have looked for myself, and I daresay I’m more knowledgable than you are regarding the roots of our Republic.
Thomas Paine (1) was not a Founder, (2) was a propagandist whose services were vital in bolstering Colonial morale during the darkest days of the Revolution, and (3) had opinions about religion that were neither contradictory nor relevant to the very basis of Natural Rights philosophy. He had no influence whatsoever on the writing of either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
Likewise, Jefferson’s thoughts on separation of church and state have no bearing on the issue. The issue is Natural Rights.
Can you for once, though it’s hard for a liberal, stop confusing the issue? No one, Founders included, ever advocated a theocracy; it was precisely that type of government they wished to avoid, and for good reasons. But to imply that the Founders intended for us to expunge God (Christian or otherwise) from our personal and public lives is a flat lie.
Jefferson’s actions against collusion/coersion by either the state or organized religion are entirely compatible with, and do not negate, natural rights principles. Nor Judeo-Christian principles, for that matter.
Our constitutional law itself is based on the natural rights philosophy of the Enlightenment, so eloquently expressed by Jefferson in the Declaration. Interesting you would remember “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but conveniently forget the first part of the sentence, “endowed by their CREATOR (caps mine) with certain unalienable rights…” As well as “And for the support of this Declaration, WITH A FIRM RELIANCE ON THE PROTECTION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE…” (Caps mine).
The enlightenment philosophers wrote within the context of Christian culture. And whether you like it or not, this nation never would have succeeded for over 200 years without firm reliance on the Judeo-Christian principles of individual freedom, tolerance, kindness, forgiveness, etc.
hahaha! Thomas Paine a founder? Wow. This is just too funny. I love it. You all make me laugh! No wonder our country is so screwed. We have a bunch of un-educated idiots running around who think they know everything. Bahahaha.
Thank you Vigilant. It’s great to see someone out there still has a brain. These idiots won’t listen, have you read the “About this Blog” section of this? It’s quite eye opening. It’s a distortion of truth. Which is a sure tactic of any Liberal/leftist. They talk about the “Big Lie” theory. I’d never heard of it until I saw it on here. Definately sounds like a Liberal tactic. (i.e Free healthcare for all (that isn’t possible, someone’s picking up the bill), They didn’t really MEAN freedom of religion, just ask Thomas Paine, Abortion isn’t killing babies, it’s actually removing cells (??), Scientific theory is DIFFERENT than actual theory.) lol
A cursory look at an Encyclopedia Britannica would show you that Thomas Paine was a Founding Father, a non-slaveholder, from Pennsylvania. He was only called the Father of the Revolution, was only known as the Voice of the Revolution. His pamphlet “Common Sense” was only the first powerful public call for revolution. The earnings from the sale of “Common Sense” (twenty-five editions) only financed Gen. Washington’s Continental Army. Six months after it was first published, the Declaration of Independence was written. Before it was written, independence was only whispered about.
Don’t let the facts upset you, though.
As for how you are changing the argument, fine. You first wrote “The Founders themselves, on countless occasions, in their writings and speeches, looked to fundamental Christian principles for guidance. Your attempt to rewrite history is all too typical of the secular progressive.” I challenged that with examples of my own, showing that, on the contrary, the Founders were humanists in most respects.
Now we are on to Natural Rights. It is most important to you for everyone to recognized that they are endowed by the Creator (which does not have to mean the Christian God).
Yes, Natural rights are rights that are endowed by the creator, or nature, or by the sheer fact that we are humans and born free. They can’t be granted or taken away by a political entity. They are a part of human nature. Whether you believe that God gave them to you or that you have natural rights by virtue of being an evolved, self-aware, human being.
It does not have to mean that we have to believe in God or nor does it automatically mean that the Founders all thought in terms of Christian principles. They often used the word Creator interchangably with Nature, which would seem to imply that they are referring to an ambivalent, impersonal Creator at best.
As far as citing the Lord Almighty, I have yet to find any reference to God in our Constitution. I haven’t found anything about Divine Providence, or Creator, or Nature. The only reference to “Lord” that I have found is in the conventional way of writing the date – “the Year of Our Lord”, which is as much about religion or “Christian principles” as Easter eggs are.
“Does he ever point out that the Constitution itself is a secular document supporting the role of humanity, not of deity, in the rule and guidance of the country?”
RE: “DONE in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the YEAR OF OUR LORD (caps mine) one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven…”
What have you been reading, the Communist Manifesto?
“I wonder: does Beck ever mention the importance of the Age of Enlightenment in the creation of American democracy?”
I have to wonder if you have even a rudimentary knowledge of the Enlightenment. If you had ever read Locke’s “Second Treatise on Civil Government,” you would have known that the very crux of the treatise was Natural Law. And Providence certainly plays a large part in the concept.
Locke’s ideas of “life, liberty and property,” famously included in the Declaration of Independence (with Jefferson’s revision) became a cornerstone of US constitutional law. No one, until leftists revised the history books, ever doubted that the foundation of our country was via the appeal to immutable natural (NOT human-made) laws.
“Does he mention the unorthodox Christianity or freethinking deism of the most important founders?” And not a one of them doubted the veracity of Natural Law.
“Does he tell his viewers about Thomas Paine’s THE AGE OF REASON, a diatribe against Judeo/Christian scriptures?” If you can tell me what exactly this has to do with the argument, I’ll eat my hat. Paine was a propagandist and rabble-rouser whose services were critical to rallying support for a cause which seemed doomed in the early days of the Revolution. His religious preferences were irrelevant.
“Does he note the particulars of the constitutional balance of powers were not derived from Christian scriptures; they were adopted from writings of European thinkers influenced by Enlightenment thought.” Again, so what? Another diversionary tactic that we won’t fall for. Who is claiming that the constitutional balance of powers were derived from Christian scriptures? How, in any way, does this negate the Christian fundament upon which the nation was built?
This nation not only survived, but prospered as no other nation in history, because of its basis on the principles of the right to life, individual freedom and recognition of the sanctity of private property. No communist professor, no leftist revisionist and no sophomoric blogger can change that.
BTW, the Founders didn’t create an “American democracy.” They created a REPUBLIC, which is based upon democratic (and Christian) ideals of individual freedom.
Yeah, a diversionary tactic. That’s right. Fool you brother! Fool you. Ha!
I would agree that Thomas Paine’s religious views have nothing to do with the constitution. I would also agree that many of the founders were Christians or Deists. However, they believed that their respective religions have nothing to do with the future operations of the country. You can pick apart the Constitution and highlight every single generic reference to a LORD or CREATOR, but you can’t avoid the fact that Thomas Jefferson advocated a “wall of separation between church and state.”
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
Jeez. This is the best you can do to malign Beck? To call him names? Didn’t Saul L. say to demonize your enemies. Beck must be hitting really close to home.
“SAUL L?”
I presume you mean Saul Alinsky? Who you probably only have heard of thru your daily dose of Beck Aid?
Good god you Becksters are so undereducated and misinformed that swatting Junebugs seems more of a challenge… Forget sunlight, a pocket flashlight illuminates your stupidity. No wonder signs were verboten at this thing: to put cloak not only the bigotry but the sheer dumbness….
Well this is my last post here, anything sent from this thread will be caught and trashed by my spam filter. What a hateful bunch on this site.
Look in the mirror, Hating supposed or proven haters is still hate on your part. In Gods mind there is no distinction between the two hates..
“pot calling the kettle black”
Mark: Well mark, libs birth rates are down to but not through lack of sex.
Libs just kill their babies before birth.
Alienami: I guess you missed the post where they prove that wasn’t MLK’s niece just a paid impersonator that isn’t really black either.
Or was that a coded subliminal message that I just picked up and interpreted to mean she’s a fake.
elie: Do you personally attack every one you disagree with?
elie: Yes Beck really needs to see how this group gracefully and respectful deals with people who disagree with them!!
elie:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm
if that doesn’t answer your question either way, try reading Gods subliminal thoughts like you have to do to find Beck and Rush’s hidden meanings.
elie: There are a few people here who disagree with the majority and it is us (minority) who are being trashed on a personal level.
elie: Don’t read any thing into the abbreviation of liberals that I use. But feel free to scan my brain to see if I said it as a hateful term subliminally.
Again turn it personal towards me.
Navel8: I don’t blindly follow any one, As I said over and over again “listen and verify.” A concept not accepted by Libs.
Navel8: Yes those unspoken subliminal messages they send are scary!
I forgot the thought police are watching. Do you hear how fullish you are.
Actually I’m wrong about you, you are the smart one. There are no facts to back it up because it’s all transmitted through brain waves. They are complete unverifiable.
Beck and Limbaugh are true geniuses. Well they were until libs broke their code and now can intercept there evil thought transmissions.
Navel8: If I’m wrong I admit it. If I misquoted some one I’m sorry.
Now you show me were your quote applies applies to any one else other than the prez. And if I did let those critics off the hook here, it’s because I was talking about beck and not paying attention to what any else is saying not related to that.
“you’re perfectly willing to permit critics of President Obama (or anyone else, for that matter)”
Again turn it around to me not the subject we are discussing!
Freedom Driven ’til Death!: No I don’t know any of them personally. But I’m not saying I hate him or he is trying to start a civil war.
But maybe you should go after all the people here that HATE him for what he might have thought or what some one got out of what some one else told them he said.
So your telling me to stop asking for facts and just quietly submit.
mbrat42: you made a terrible mistake in your post. Don’t confuse or anger these people with facts. They can be very hateful. Remember facts get in the way of their unbacked up lies.
Bull O’Really: Sorry bull I just overheard some one saying that reportedly the only words you can send to me is.
“What is YOUR point then?”
Bull O’Really: twice you asked what me point is. What is your point other than trying to get a rise out of me by taking it personal?
Bull O’Really: if you bothered to read all the post you would see that some people would rather trash you for spelling than back up their hateful post.
I love how people here Hate some one for supposedly hating some one.
Reminds me of the pot calling the kettle black!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh and before you ask for a quote.
here ya go, but I guess since he didn’t say ” I am seriously planning on murdering a person” it must not be good enough.
Mitch: Can you also hear what I’m thinking. Do you use your powers of mind riding and interpretation for good or just to trash those you disagree with?
I won’t ask for a quotew if you could have found one you would have backed up your statement.
“oh and before you ask for a quote.
here ya go, but I guess since he didn’t say ” I am seriously planning on murdering a person” it must not be good enough.”
mitch: OK mitch where did you get that quote???
“Hearing him talk about killing people with a shovel and then talking about God’s love is an insult to me as a Christian.”
Send me the link so I can hear what he did say.
Debbie: Yes wouldn’t want to overload those lib brains.
I could care less who watches him. Just quit speeding lies that can’t be backed up.
John S: yep keep those personal attacks about me coming. It will keep you from showing me the facts. Like any good lib.
DJones: I don’t care if you like him or not, but spreading Lies that no one can back up except 3rd hand. Hateful and childish.
John s:: true lib personal attacks when you don’t have the facts.
If you are going to attack me show your proof.
John S: your the big man show me the facts. Don’t attack me about not believing the facts when shown them.
John S here is your shot you show me tapes audio, video what ever, in full context of him speeding hate, inciting riots, being a racist bigot.
Show us John you opened the door back up your words we are all waiting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Come on John s. facts plz you are attacking me show me the facts.
thebertman: he wants civil war??? PLZ send me the link where I can apply!!
I missed the show where he was looking for volunteers. Can you send me the you tube link so I can see that show.
Sorry forgot libs don’t have to back up their fairy tails.
JUST SHOW US THE FACTS.
instigator5: Yep funny how we sit here and take all the unbacked up here-say. But you are a dumb racist when you ask for their facts. Again personal attacks on the person asking or showing them the facts. Always avoiding thew subject.
And yes freedom of speech only applies to libs any one else is just to dumb to have an opinion.
24hourrifle : just following the lefties lead. At least I can do it with out getting personal!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And with out hating any one I disagree with.
‘Been sitting here watching the oft-heated debate between Beck’s supporters and detractors for a while now, and I’ve realized something: just how remarkable is it that we are all getting so worked up over a man with whom ALL of us, at some level, agree? There are two primary factions of folks who agree with Beck. First, there are the folks who follow Glenn as the weeping uber-patriot, the man of rampant conspiracy theories whom Lewis Black lovingly diagnosed with “Nazi Tourette’s” (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-12-2010/back-in-black—glenn-beck-s-nazi-tourette-s), the man who provides targets for their rage, puts convenient labels on their fears, and who desperately wants to “take America back” from the socialist brownshirts (or is it brownskins? It’s all so confusing…) in the White House, lurking behind every tree and Democrat. Then, there are the folks who prefer to acknowledge Glenn as a winking carnival huckster – a self-described “rodeo clown” (http://chattahbox.com/entertainment/2010/04/08/glenn-becks-rodeo-clown-empire-for-suckers-brings-in-32-million-a-year/) who stated in an interview with Forbes that “If you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot” and whose remarkable continued success in the face of such admissions proves the old adage that “there’s a sucker born every minute.” Face it: on some level, we all agree with Beck. Perhaps this is inevitable since the man talks so much and uses multiple sides of his mouth when he speaks. The question we should all be asking ourselves is this: why are we permitting an ENTERTAINER who (understandably and with distinct bias) panders to his target audience for ratings and personal financial gain and has openly stated that he “could give a flying crap about the political process” – to wield such influence on our personal and political discourse?
Damned if I know
oh and before you ask for a quote.
here ya go, but I guess since he didn’t say ” I am seriously planning on murdering a person” it must not be good enough.
He sounds so much like Jesus in those clips. No wonder the teabagger morons worship this guy.
Dude, when u asked for quotes and some guy gave them to you your response was “he didnt say he wanted to kill blacks” or soemthing to that effect, therefore the quotes didnt prove anything. What a ridiculous thing to say, Hitler never said “Hey I want to kill all the Jews” but he obviously did, of course Beck is never going to say he hates blacks because he would lose the small percentage of his listeners that aren’t completely lost. Hearing him talk about killing people with a shovel and then talking about God’s love is an insult to me as a Christian.
Janie: It’s Not a bad thing for you to hate beck? Is that because it’s ok yo hate a hater?
janie: your are right every thing I said should be discredited because I admittedly am not a good speller.
Unproven accusations never need to be backed up with facts or be discredited. Well at least as long as they can spell.
Bob Gare permalink
August 27, 2010 9:07 pm
Obummu is Not a racist. He just acts like he hates Christians, Jews, whites.
^^This is race baiting^^
You are here simply to provoke.
You have made no “points” to dispute.
There is nothing to discuss or argue with you, Mr. Gare.
Steve: You are looking stupid, when you post an accusation with out the tapes of him saying it.
I do watch beck and never have I’ve seen him bash MLK. He agrees with MLK most of the time. Take off you progressive glasses and ear plugs, see for your self.
Unless you can show me a quote of him hating MLK.
I won’t hold my breath. Remember 300+ tv shows and unknown radio shows. There should be so many you don’t know where to start.
Bob watches Beck and Bob has never seen Beck bash MLK. Bob is the authority and you can’t prove anything to his satisfaction. What’s the point?
I’m saddened that so many people are simpleminded enough to be fooled by this charlatan of a man. The only good news is that our birth rate is down. Maybe it means that some of the fools have decided to not reproduce.
They can’t reproduce because they are impotent. This is why they are so mean.
Well said…
Wine dude: what are you 10 yrs old “he’s an idiot”
You don’t like him fine I’m ok with that. Not one person needs to like any body they don’t want to. But don’t try to spread your hate speech about beck and his followers without facts.
I only ask because it’s obvious that you came to this site harboring resentment for it’s intent. You of course are welcome to post what you will, under moderation, but why are you compelled to confront people here?
I’m not a scholar or a spelling wizard. It’s alway libs who turn to the non-subject things like spelling and not the content.
Hey Bob, We can all see what you see and come to our own conclusions. Why is it important that you present everyone with your interpretation?
John S: All any one has show us is unsupported 3rd hand stories. all I ask for are facts.
So what is your point?
what’s a lib? I’ve been called that all day and not in affectionate terms
DEFINITION:
lib (lb)
adj.
1. Conservative label for people that frighten the sheep who follow morally bankrupt, intellectually challenged, and marginally talented demagogues who have messianic tendencies (see Fox News personalities)
2. A person not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or the bulls**t spewed by charlatans (like Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity/Palin) and their conservative lies
3. Sad attempt to assign a childish label to people who challenge those sad individuals who can’t think for themselves (see Tea Party members/Teabaggers) by posing complex ideas and using really, really big words
Conservative:
•resistant to change
•having social or political views favoring conservatism
•cautious: avoiding excess; “a conservative estimate”
•a person who is reluctant to accept changes and new ideas
•button-down: unimaginatively conventional; “a colorful character in the buttoned-down, dull-grey world of business”- Newsweek
•a member of a Conservative Party
•bourgeois: conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class;
“Neo cons”: mostly former leftists/liberals who converted to conservatism. In domestic policy they tend to be moderate “welfare” Republicans. However, their major concern is foreign policy.
liberal:•broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; “a broad political stance”; “generous and broad sympathies”; “a liberal newspaper”; “tolerant of his opponent’s opinions”
•having political or social views favoring reform and progress
•tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
•a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
teabagger multiple meanings. 1) one who carries large bags of packaged tea for shipment. 2) a man that squats on top of a womens face and lowers his genitals into her mouth during sex 3) one who has a job or talent that is low in social status 4) a person who is unaware that they have said or done something foolish, childlike, noobish, lame, or inconvenient. 5) a man that works in a gay bar lowers his genitals and pats his scrotum on another man’s forehead 6) also see “fagbag”, “lamer”, “noob”
Libtard 1) Combination of the words Liberal and retard (see also: Libterd, libturd, libnerd, libsurd, libdiot, libored) 2) The result when a tree hugger successfully mates with a tree and the offspring is born with an extra chromosome. 3) Any helpless society that must always be liberated by the blood and sweat of others yet are too arrogant and stupid to realize that they owe their entire existance to others.(see also: French-tard, French-Tarded, Retarded-Frenchmen).
libtard
1) Hillary clinton and her husband, you know what’s his face. You know that libtard that got impeached for going down on that fat chick in the beret that looked like Rosie O’Donnel.
Wine Dude: Facts plz, video If that’s what he preaches on his show lets see an in context video. There should be hundreds to choose from. So I’m a beck Kool-Aid drinker, That’s why I stated I don’t believe every thing he says or any one else I look it up and verify. Obviously like most lib’s you won’t do that because true facts just get in the way, right?
http://www.facebook.com/restoringhonor#!/restoringhonor?v=app_136483746394240
Hurry the black impersonators are singing “Amazing Grace” on stage. I still can’t see the black face make up. These guys are good.
http://www.facebook.com/restoringhonor#!/restoringhonor?v=app_136483746394240
glenn beck=thulsa doom. I live near herr beck’s hometown and was appauled when he spoke about a recent event where he claimed the radical progressive ELF had blown up two radio towers near snohomish,wa. THE TRUTH= the locals had been fighting the construction for some time,near completion someone broke into the site and using the heavy machinery available pushed them over then threw up a ELF sign to distract from the people opposing this. he distorts the truth and insults the intelligence of his followers and the love it. a true cult of personality. sadly the only way we can fix this is to go back in time and put mccain/palin in charge. effectively erasing the tea party and keeping beck minimalized. i truly believe he wants a civil war where the liberal will become the jew to beck’s gestapo. if he truly believed in america he would push buying american made goods,supporting strong,accountable labor unions and boycotting corporations that out source jobs.
See if you can help me count all the minority impersonates in the crowd. Remember no minority would ever show their face there because of the public death threats coming from the stage.
Paid minority actor/impersonate or all that should up It’s been reported that some KKK leaders in black face. This is to attract minorities into the really so they can brutally kill them.
http://www.facebook.com/restoringhonor#!/restoringhonor?v=app_136483746394240
Hurry turn this on. The hateful race riot has started. “I think he is thinking to kill and have his follower kill every one that disagrees. He is pure evil. Click on the link and see for your self, as long as you can take the hate speech and bloody violence.
http://www.facebook.com/restoringhonor#!/restoringhonor?v=app_136483746394240
Oh the inhumanity of it all.
Janie Goss: instead of attacking my spelling be un liberal like and stick to the content!
You know just saying.
Just pushing books today.
Glenn and Sarah.
It’s all about the money and always has been.
So much mis-information here, I feel compelled to respond.
I am from Connecticut and remember very well the period of the 1990’s when Beck was a disk jockey at KC-101 in New Haven. Let me share some bonified facts with you…
1. He was not political then…he was a music dj. Then he became the morning show dj, and became more of a talk show host. By 1995, he was program director for 3 Clear Channel stations in CT.
2. He was arrested in CT- I only know of twice. He was arrested for a prank at a bank where he threw an animal into a deposit slot. He was also arrested for assaulting an elderly man, a well-respected radio personality in CT for many years, Ron Romer. There was also a civil suit against Beck for this incident, which he lost. Mr. Romer died shortly after the settlement.
3. He eventually lost his job because of erratic behavior, harrassment of coworkers and job performance issues because of his addiction issues, which were eventually treated. He made racist comments to an Asian American on the air and was disciplined for it…was ordered to apologize and he never did.
The only personal opinion or remarks I will offer: I remember listening to him and starting to feel uncomfortable, and eventually stopped listening to KC 101 because of this. When I heaard his name come up as a TV personality I was a little surprised because of all the trouble here in CT, but figured he had gotten his “stuff together”. When I remember those days, and see millions of people travelling to see him speak in DC, it blows my mind. Its like two different people…
Chris, if you watched his show you would know that he’s admitted to all of this. He has even said he was as bad as Howard Stern, that he was a shock jock.
steve: beck made 32 million!!! My God 32 million what a fool I’ve been. That the says it all. I have to hate him now!!!
I really did believe he did it all for free like all other tv, radio personalities and authors.
What a joke beck takes money to do his job. What a phony A– hole he is.
What is your point?
STEVE
Facts plz back up all you accusations with In context beck quotes!!!
You are kidding me. YOU are making a Personal Assumption as if it were truth. You are hating Beck for thoughts You are making up in your own mind, now those are some facts.
“RFK and MLK were both big supporters of social justice. I guess beck secretly hates them both. beck is a disgusting, worthless, pathetic man who dares […]”
Your post is as bad as what you are accusing beck of. Except we have you saying it in your post. VERIFIABLE!!!!!!
Sick libs. Make up a thought and then hate the person who never thought it. It is your thought not his.
drklassen: Since when is “social justice” a living being. So what he hates a none living thing. Is that the best you can come up with?
What is YOUR point then?
Sara: Without a doubt the lefties will be there. Like they have been at other rallies and when checked on, the trouble makers are proven to be leftist. Some of them have been found to be lib campaign workers.
must be nice to have that excuse at your disposal…..”yeah,uh…..anyone who says or does ANYTHING at all offensive,or who has a “wacky” sign……just go ‘head and assume they’ve been sent there by moveon.org or whatever……..
yep…….and if you read the comments at foxnation-on nearly any thread,24hrs/day 7 days/wk-the endless racism and threats of violence and overall disgracefulness?……..yeah,thats all from the left as well….
Sara: back to spelling grammar and punctuation. That’s more important than the statement.
Watch his show, most likely if it’s true he stated it on his show. Her doesn’t hide his past.
Wait in Lib terms if he said it on his show it’s a lie, right?
“Reportedly” his real statement on the show was “I hate people in mental institutions. Pick up your weapons and kill them all in hate filled riot.”
Tough croud. Did all of you trash the Kennedy’s with their endless trips into rehab? Their, giving airport security a hard time, questionable accidents where a woman dies as he leave the seen.
They are running our country, Beck is a tv, radio personality and author. His is not trusted to run or country. If you don’t like him don’t turn him on. We are stuck with politicians until they are voted out. But Libs look the other way when it is another lib. That’s why the keep voting them in.
I’m not sure but “reportedly” all libs think like that. LOL
Amazing stuff here. Maybe an unfortunately perfect picture of modern politics. You take a guy who regularly lies, makes hateful, dismissive statements, poses in tearful fashion as a rescuer of America – and has no experience in actually doing anything for America in his past. He could have at least served his country or shown some selflessness, somewhere. Is that asking too much to expect of a “leader”? No, what we get is a cat with the same credentials as Rush Limbaugh – a history of increasing savvy concerning the effects of mass media. Nothing more. Not at all. A shell of a real person – and I now refer to both of them – who offhandedly insult people who have actually done things – in real life. To even imagine Beck and Palin somehow stretching the realities of the Civil Rights Movement to their own devices may just be the single most cynical event in US History. Beck made $32 million last year, lol. What a Patriot! These are actually very shameful time we live in.
OK, Steve set us straight. IN CONTEXT QUOTES PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!
Mary: watching American idle is much more of a brain stimulator.
Richard Clark: He agrees with most of what MLK stood for. Quotes plz of him speaking out against MLK.
If you watch Beck on a regular bases you would know and understand that.
He does not agree with the commie MLK. Beck knows that God rewards those he loves with high paying salaries, and the poor should be put in FEMA camps because they are a drain on society. Beck is a Mormon, he knows that blacks are not equal.
You would know this if you watched him.
Steve: lets see the quotes from Beck. Convert me into a beck heater like the majority here on this list.
If we watched Beck on a regular basis our brains would turn into mush like yours. No thank you.
MLK stood for social justice…Beck has made it more than clear that he thinks that’s somehow evil. What does he believe in if not social justice? Social injustice?
Rachel quoted provable facts, quotable facts out of obumma’s books.
That’s what we are asking, bring out true hateful, riot in sighting facts in context.
Just like Rachel quoted.
Rachel quoted out of context, Bob – so the “facts” about the President’s character you think you’re getting from those quotes are totally bogus. You can’t criticize folks for quoting Beck out of context when you’re perfectly willing to permit critics of President Obama (or anyone else, for that matter) to do the same. Our political discourse as a nation is ill-served by such willful deceptions.
Rachel: The ultra Libs here should take a look at them selves. The use all kinds of hate speech against Beck, as Libs usually do. The bring up all unprovable facts. They are being everything they are accusing Beck of. The big difference is we have the facts to back me up my statement in most of their post on this thread. But still no racial, hate monger “facts” about Beck.
Come on with years on the radio TV and books you should be able to flood this list with true in context quotes.
drklassen: I was half kidding about the druggie statement. Do You think I’m as naive as a Lib, no way not close.
I should have said a lot more Libs are pushing for drug legalization than Conservatives.
The best answer is of coarse “REPORTEDLY ALL LIBS ARE DRUGGIES.
I FOUND THE SAME FACT BOOK YOU ARE ALL USING ABOUT BECK.”
So it most be true.
Yes, I know you were “joking”. I was merely pointing out that drug addition crosses all political lines. The difference between liberal/libertarian drug users and conservative drug users is, just as you point out, the former are not hypocrites while the latter are.
Liberals and libertarians see no reason that impels the state to make recreational drug use a crime—so if any are users, that simply means they are living according to their ideals.
Conservatives push for harsher and even mandatory sentencing for the most innocuous drug use/possession. So when they are caught, they are hypocrites. Even more so when they use their power and influence to avoid the very punishments they demand of others who have no power or influence.
Does anyone on here have the slightest notion of the difference between righteous and self righteous? How about hypocracy? Beck is an entertainer like Limbaugh,I just don’t find them very entertaining. It speaks volumes about those who do.
Okay. I’m banning myself from this site. Not that I didn’t have loads of fun with ya’ll! Thanks for getting me heated up and cooled off all in a day. MUAH! Go Glenn Beck. Keep pissin off the left!
A whole lot of comments about someone who doesn’t matter. I have no doubt that the Progressives are changing their underpants on an hourly basis because of this worthless American who represents many many more people than all the Liberal Progressive Web Sites and Bloggers combined, not to mention the leftist Lame Stream Media. Enjoy your ride Sorros & Friends because it’s almost over for this generation anyway and you’re so old and ugly you won’t have any relevance for the next set of empty headed mamma’s boys and girls…
Can someone show me the liberal mainstream media? I know of one liberal TV network (MSNBC) and only one liberal radio station in my hometown of Detroit. All the rest on TV networks are right wing, and all the rest of radio in Detroit is either total right wing or right wing extremist programming or right wing owned with a right wing slant. Please show me any different. On shortwave radio there is ZERO liberal and only very extreme right wing stations and I’ve been listening to shortwave radio since 1964 and I’ve been in broadcasting myself.
Obummu is Not a racist. He just acts like he hates Christians, Jews, whites.
Mr. Gare: You are a fool sir. You’ve obviously swallowed the Glenn Beck Cool-Aid (actually Flavor-Aid was used in Jonestown). Anyone that know right from wrong takes a listen to Sr. Beck and concludes that he is preaching nothing but hate & fear, despite protests to the contrary.
Where’s your “proof,” Bob? Show us some facts that “prove” the President has ever behaved in such a manner toward Christians, Jews, and whites.
Wow, considering that Glenn would never compare himself to MLK Jr., what a waste of time this article is, God bless Glenn tomorrow as he does what many wish they could but won’t…hopefully no one gets hurt by the crazy leftists who I’m sure will be there trying to cause trouble…
You are funny.
So Bob…you say you watch Glenn Becks show, but do you actually listen to what he says? Here’s a couple of quotes from your hero.
”This is what Hitler did with the SS. He had his own people. He had the brownshirts and then the SS. This is what Saddam Hussein — so — but you are comparing that. And I — I mean, I think America would have a really hard time getting their arms around that.”
—Glenn Beck, claiming Obama’s ‘civilian national security force’ is the same as what Hitler and Saddam Hussein did, Glenn Beck, FOX News’ Glenn Beck show, Aug. 27, 2009
”I could give a flying crap about the political process … We’re an entertainment company.”
—Glen Beck, Forbes interview; April, 2010
”I have been nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies. … And I know you’re not. I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.”
—Glenn Beck, interviewing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim U.S. congressman, Glen Beck’s show on CNN’s Headline News, Nov. 14, 2006
”I’m a rodeo clown. It takes great skill.”
—Glenn Beck, New York Times interview, March 29, 2009
”Al Gore’s not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization…And you must silence all dissenting voices. That’s what Hitler did. That’s what Al Gore, the U.N., and everybody on the global warming bandwagon [are doing].”
—Glenn Beck on his radio show, May 1, 2007
And this is just a minute offering. Glenn Beck not a fear mongering idiot….indeed.
Unlike the Pres I do listen. I didn’t sit in a church for 20yrs and never hear a word.
That’s hate speech, war mongering i don’t think so. He is a commentator his job is to express an opinions ask questions and promote thoughty, not riots and murder.. I read your quotes I see nothing that reaches the level of what you are accusing him of.
I wait for “I hate, blacks, I want them killed, I hate Muslims I want them killed. Pick up your arms and attach all Libs and progressive beat them until they die. Riot in the streets.”
That is what most people hear are saying, The quotes you posted don’t come close.
Bob, folks like Beck and Limbaugh have been in the entertainment business long enough to know that they don’t have to be so direct with their audiences in order to get their desired results (indeed, they can be charged with libel and held responsible for unpleasant consequences if they are too direct/explicit, so they tend to avoid the types of statements you list above). All they have to do is suggest, repeatedly and forcefully, that something MIGHT be true. That certain manufactured threats and conspiracies MAY exist. That certain groups or individuals or belief systems MIGHT be a threat. Typically, these suggestions are rooted in their listeners’ pre-existing fears and prejudices. Beck & Co. just leave them to draw their own conclusions . . . which are also, quite naturally, rooted in those very fears and prejudices. It’s a terribly cynical and tremendously lucrative enterprise. Bob Cesca recently wrote a brilliant opinion piece on the impact this type of “entertainment” is having on our political discourse, and it’s far from pretty (see http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/building-a-nation-of-know-nothings/). The only winners in this scenario are folks like Beck and Limbaugh themselves – “entertainers” who make major contributions toward poisoning our national dialogue while laughing all the way to the bank.
Conservatives have mean streak, This hole subject is an example of how liberals attack viscously with 3rd hand lies. Conservative argue with facts. and don’t get as personal.
The hole subject?
He’s an idiot.
Mr Gare, you MIGHT be taken a bit more seriously if you would take the time to check your spelling (assuming you CAN spell of course). At the very least you wouldn’t look so much like an idiot.
Just sayin’…
Well—there is a HUGE hole in this whole subject…that’s for sure. Just for the record–I went to the Restoring Honor rally (it is about our veterans you know), loved it. I watch all news channels for the liberal spin and appreciate all the information from Fox news as well. Also, cheers for Dr. Alveda King!
Wow, you guys on the left are so hateful. When you produce the actual police records and show his “rap” sheet then maybe you will have a leg to stand on. Beck never said he was like Martin Luther King Jr. You people who trash him are just sad individuals. But yet you wear and honor people like Che’. Losers.
I absolutely do hate what Beck stands for, but you say it like it’s a bad thing.
Glenn Beck: a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact: a paranoid delusion. Oh wait that’s the definition for delusion. Ok well, same difference then.
Wow, what a witty reply…lol!!
How come no one ever brings up Glenn Becks stint in the mental hospital?
Funny how you can’t even put your name on here…
Funny how you can only offer up ‘Sara’.
Oh, sorry Mrs. Palin-I mean, your Highness. My mistake.
Oh no, you mean he’s not perfect like you are?
More than anything else bad I could say about Glenn Beck, he’s just not very funny. His schtick is too whacked out to be serious, so it must be comedy. It’s a failure at that.
But I always remember that conservatives have no sense of humor. They have a mean streak, that they think is the same thing.
We are all a bunch of meanies…you should report us to the principal’s office for detention…get real…
Why would Mr. Beck describe himself as a rodeo clown?
A rodeo clown serves as a distraction from the cowboy I threw off trying to ride me after yanking my balls.
Doofus.
bet you like gettin’ your balls yanked on.
hahahaha
kimbutgar: Yes you are probably right. What minority would ever share a stage with Beck unless they are a paid impostor. Wait tell you see all the paid minority impersonators on stage with him tomorrow.
You’re right, ’cause the liberals are doing so much to help minorities, lol!
I’m so excited. These people are going to have such a conniption fit and they are going to continue trash talking poor A.King. Oh yeah, she’s getting paid “so much money” to turn people who hate GB against her. What silly thinking, right?
Woo Bob Gare~ You gots a hot case o’ man-love for Glenn!
Do he reciprocate?
Is he payin’ you?
He gettin’ his honor defended by y’all?
And MLK–a conservative? That black revolutionary?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You trippin’.
What I said was Alveta King was a conservative. Never said MLK was. Just said he was a Christian. Don’t think you can argue with that.
Martin Luther King paid with his life to give freedom to black people. Don’t think you can argue that one either.
And what is this paying someone for man love? Sorry, Glenn Beck and Bob Gare have a lot more morals than to be involed in such immoral things. Glenn Beck is used to all sorts of people saying JUNK about him, we’re just stating the truth, even if it IS a little hard to swallow. Has nothing to do with defending “honor” or anything like that. He does a fine job him self.
Rachel of coarse what ever MM says is ok. He is in with the elitist. That makes him smarter than us so he can say what ever he wants. And unlike Beck, it’s been “reported” he does it all for free. LOL
Shaun: Beck admits to his troubled past. He only blames him self.
Wayne: Beck tries to have the facts to back up most of what he says. He has videos when possible, audio or books that he shows the quotes out of.
I know every is not like me. I question a lot of things, always have. If some one tells me something I’m not sure of, need clarification on or just because it got me interested, I have to find out for my self.
I like the way he gets people to read and question and not just be sheep. That reason alone is a plus for me.
Like I said when possible he does back up stuff. It’s TV. LOL
That’s why I say and he does to, “Look it up and verify”
When you watched was he inciting riots, threating to kill people and trying to get his audience to kill some one, did he use racial and derogatory remarks?
He is on TV and like any one on TV you have to use your own judgement and verify.
Does he twist the truth yes That’s why he says look it up”verify.”
If that was a crime and sometimes I wish it was. We could rid our government of all it’s liars and truth twisters from the very top down.
Jill b: Quotes plz on what hate he is spreading?
Rachel: I did the Google search seems pretty divided. I could do the same search for any public figure and come up withe same type of links.
I still don’t see him in context threating to kill, encouraging riots, being a bigot, making raciest statements worshiping money, comparing him self to Christ or MLK, except to say he is not as good as them.
Yes he can lie like any one else. We are all human. Politicians that lie is what should get us pissed off. Beck isn’t running the country a bigger bunch of more aggressive liars are.
You don’t like him don’t watch him, You don’t watch him don’t trash him.
Exactly!! I’ve never once heard him compare himself to Christ or MLK. And if you don’t like him, I think you should watch him, but if you are going to watch him, you should watch with an open mind. He isn’t trying to deceive anyone, he actually uses facts to back up things that he says.
Zac: I don’t see a fact. Reportedly is Not a fact. In my book it would be scary that “reportedly” is a fact because than all of these statements are true.
Reportedly obumma is a socialist
Reportedly obumma is not a us citizen
Reportedly obumma is a muslim
Reportedly the mosque is funded by terrorist countries
Reportedly housing sales are up
Reportedly the economy has turned around
Do I really need to go on ZAC.
sorry I forgot to paste in the linkhttp://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201007200002
To Bob Gare, I admire your ability to continue to be calm, respectful and realaxed in your commentary while being harpooned by others. I do not necessarily agree with your opinions regarding Mr. Beck. I will be the first to admit that I do not watch Mr. Beck’s show for the very reason you have stated, he has no facts to back up the majority of his rhetoric and consistantly quotes commentary taken completly out of context with no factual back-up. He tends to accuse others of fear mongering while in nearly the same breath uses the same tactic himself. Please follow this link for an ABC news report on same.
Actually, he backs up whatever he says…do you actually listen to him?
AL WHITE: See how they will tear apart spelling, grammar and cap locks. But answer question or respond to statement that they might have to back up their answer. Nope!
Rachel remember the book “Arguing With Idiots”
We might as well be talking to a wall.
Most definately. It just gets me so angry… I need to remember who we are dealing with here. I’m sorry to go but I’m going to go watch my tea-baggin’ hero on the boob tube. 😀 😉
me too
Larry: I read his post. It was not a threat, it was to make a point, that obvious went over your head.
Or most likely a liberals attempt to twist the facts.
Beck has never dined his past. He brings up how bad he was all the time and what it took for him to straighten out.
Let’s not give him credit for admitting it publicly over and over again. Let’s just trash him for his past.
Now you are making some sense Bob. That is a fact and I can back that one up for whoever wants all their “facts”
Oh no, You mean Beck make millions off his tv and radio shows and book sales? What an un american Ahole he is. Who does he think he is making money.
Micheal Moore makes all his movies and never takes a penny for them, right?
I don’t really care if beck makes millions. I do care, however, when he makes these millions by being a demagogue. He is a classic example of a demagogue, using fear to gain support of the average Joe.
ok for the guy who keeps crying for facts, this is what you do, go to google.com search for “glenn becks lies” and youll easily find facts
Beck has:
reportedly retaliated against a rival radio host by calling the rival’s wife and mocking her for having a miscarriage. On the air.
enumerated the various people, including Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), that he wanted to “beat to death with a shovel.”
reportedly attacked Terri Schiavo’s husband, Michael — after he had previously run segments mocking Terri’s condition — as a “murderer” who sired two “bastard” children
attacked Katrina victims as “scumbags,” adding “I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims.”
reportedly resorted to “vicious personal assaults on fellow radio hosts,” including lobbing “exceedingly cruel, pointless” “fat jokes” aimed at an overweight rival host during his time as a DJ in Louisville, Kentucky.
and thats just a sratch on the surface of the amount of uneducated hate he spews
go to google.com and look up Glenn Beck facts. Look, we can circle this retard wagon all day if that’s what you want to do. Their are obviously opposite views on all sorts of websites… You aren’t thinking rationally.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/why-liberals-cant-understand-glenn-beck-and-why-it-matters
You know, that nowpublic.com link doesn’t say anything about what many of us cannot stand about beck. It doesn’t answer questions about his call to kill Michael Moore or poison Nancy Pelosi; it doesn’t answer questions about his calling that woman about her miscarriage; it doesn’t answer the question about why beck yelled and screamed at his caller, Kathy, who was defending obama’s health care plan….beck yelled at the top of his phone, “get off my phone, you little pinhead.” And, by the way, those of you who claim that liberals call their opponents names instead of providing “facts” and reasonable arguments, beck certainly did not treat his caller Kathy with any respect and in fact called her a name. She was being very reasonable in trying to explain her position.
Even if I agreed with beck 100%, I still could not stand the man because of his actions and nonsense.
beck likes to make a lot of very strange analogies and irrational connections, so I will make one of my own. If charles manson were to start spewing crap from prison about how bad Obama is, how this country was going in the wrong direction, would the beck-types start to listen to him?
Go ahead; critize me for using the manson analogy, but beck has called or inferred that Obama is a nazi, a socialist a marxist, a maoist, a communist, etc. newt gingrich has compared the Muslims who want to build that Islamic Center in NYC to nazis, as have other prominent conservatives. It is just disgusting the rhetoric which people like beck and others use; it is hateful; it is divisive.
Why is it that you diseased wingnut asshats seem to insist upon denegrating retarded people? What have they ever done to you? Are you ashamed because those individuals who’ve been medically deemed mentally retarded act so much more rational and intelligent than you do, that you can’t resist the urge to use the term in a derogatory fashion to express your hatred for those who dare to disagree with you?
And, to me, even more dispicable and unforgivable than this offensive trait of yours, is that you STILL pretend to be “Christians.” Here’s a little clue for you, clueless ones: Just because you go to church doesn’t mean you’re a Christian. Unless you’re living the teachings of the Christ, you are most certainly NOT a Christian.
Last I checked, Christ said absolutely nothing about either abortion or gays, yet was vehemently against excess wealth, wars of aggression, intolerance, judgement over one another, and a whole host of other typical republiCON characteristics.
In fact, when you go down the entire republiCON platform, you’ll find that the entire party is intensely ANTI-Christian, in that virtually every single thing that they stand for is something that Christ stood against.
NEVER forget that it was republiCONs who marched us into an illegal, unnecessary war of aggression in Iraq, and who’re ultimately responsible for the MURDERS of over 1.2 million innocent Iraqis, including many women, children, and yes, even unborn fetuses. ALL OF THEIR BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS, WINGNUTS. You will NOT enter your precious kingdom of heaven, because of this blood on YOUR hands, and because you stand so firmly AGAINST the teachings of the Christ, in so many drastic ways.
Call someone a “retard” just once more, you diseased fraud and morally bankrupt, defect of a human. I dare you.
Wingnut nightmare:
This is delicious! Scolding Christians for not adhering to Jesus’ teachings, while hurling foulmouthed insults which display the same lack of sensitivity you excoriate.
Kindly continue your postings to this blog, the more the better. You have the uncanny ability to divulge the real leftwing(nut) viewpoint. Take it from me, you can’t accuse people of hatred when your post is long on hate and woefully short on facts.
But that’s never stopped you guys before has it?
Beck isn’t comparing him self to Christ!!!!
Follow the money good fact Follow the money Does not mean Worship the money. He means follow the money trail.
Again plz show my the facts that he worships money of God. If you say you were following that truck, are you a truck following worshiper.
And before any of you say it, he doesn’t sell gold. Yes he owns gold and yes two gold companies advertiser on his show. Do you feel every show advertisers are tied to the stars on the show or does that just apply to Beck?
(Newser) – Michael Moore has some choice words for Democrats, whom he calls “wusses” in separate interviews, and Glenn Beck. Highlights from his talks with Raw Story and The Young Turks, the latter recounted at the Huffington Post:
•”You know, I tell you, these Democrats are disgusting. Wimps and wusses and weasels. You know, get some spine. This is why I have to admire the Republicans. They at least stand for something.”
•On Democrats’ reluctance to take on insurance companies: “It’s embarrassing, it’s disgusting and I won’t have it anymore. I’m sick of them.”
•On what he would have said to Glenn Beck if he were ousted Obama adviser Van Jones: “Fuck off! That’s what I would have said.”
•On Jim Bunning: “He was an angry pitcher. He was crazy then, and he’s crazy now.”
•On the economic system: “It’s not going to get fixed. There’s going to be another crash (over commercial real estate and credit card debt). … The crash of ’08 is going to look like coming attractions.”
Read more: http://www.newser.com/story/82333/michael-moore-to-glenn-beck-f-k-off.html#ixzz0xpj4WeRw
It seems that Michael Moore and Glenn Beck don’t see eye to eye. But I’m sure you agree it’s okay for MM to say whatever the hell he wants, right?
I never believed in WMD, nor did I support or vote for Bush. I voted for obumma. So don’t even think you know even a little about me because you don’t.
I watch, read and listen to all points of view with an open mind and arguing with others who can only quote what 3rd parties tell them all out of context and never bother to check facts them selves is sickening.
I’m not conservative or liberal. I take each issue on it’s own merits.
yeah sounds like you like disagreeing with people regardless of what they say… you probably think you are so damned smart too. Am I wrong?
Oh just because I vote according to my belief I like arguing with every one. No, I don’t think I’m smarter than any one else and No I’m obviously not as smart as you.
What different sides am I arguing here. I’m trying to get facts on Beck. I might have missed other arguments I’m having here besides Beck.
I have to say you are hard to pin down. You are arguing both sides of the Beck issue.
Nah sweetheart, you are definately smarter than I. I’m glad that you have your own oppinions and remain unaffiliated. That’s probably the best way to go, because you can argue both sides pretty well, and you look at all the facts and fiction from both sides before making an rational dicisions. I tip my hat to you.
The Beck minions either need to put down the drugs or get better ones.
See I learned something new. I always thought it was the libs that were the druggies.
You mean like Rush? And Noelle Bush? You know, the ones who preach “personal responsibility” for everyone but themselves?
re drklassen: If you don’t remember Rush sought treatment. Sounds like “personal responsiblity” to me.
Rachael: Yes, but he did everything in his power to avoid going to prison—the very place he demands that others go if they break the laws. Not only that, but he’s been a proponent of continually making the laws less forgiving to everyone else.
It’s just the whole point of the article is that Glenn is some sort of hero for the tea parties when in actuality it is George Washington and the founding fathers. It’s just pathetic and sickning that you libtards will find any reason to bash Beck… would you like me to back that statement up with facts?? Or can you libtards figure that one out on your own incompitence?
You know, conservatives in general like to ask liberals for “facts,” but in spite of the fact that many facts are given about beck, conservatives and beck supporters apparently do not read those facts or refuse to believe them.
Also, conservatives in general like to say that all liberals can do is call people who oppose them names. I don’t know how many times I see people like Rachel call liberals “libtards.” And that’s a fact.
I normally do not try to correct people’s grammar or spelling on blogs like this, but I did notice that Rachel corrected someone’s use of the word “stupidest.”
That’s interesting because I have seen at least 3 separate postings where Rachel has misspelled various words, including in this thread. Well, make that 4 words because I just saw another one in this thread. She misspelled “sickning,” and she misspelled “incompitence.”
Rachel also said this: “Their are obviously opposite views on all sorts of websites.” In this context, “their” should be “there.”
I don’t remember the other misspelling.
Sorry, Rachel. I normally don’t do this, but fair is fair, right?
Heat of the moment, right? Just as it was pointed out to me.
After leaving Houston, Beck moved on to Baltimore, Maryland and the city’s leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested for speeding in his DeLorean with one of the car’s gull-wing doors wide open.[19] According to a former colleague, Beck was “completely out of it” when a B104 manager went down to the station to bail him out.[19] After a year of struggling personally and professionally, Beck found himself working alone when Gray’s contract was canceled. When Beck was fired also, the two men spent six months in Baltimore living off of their severance, unemployed and planning their next move. Then, in early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved on to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in Hamden, Connecticut.[19]
His statement about taking back the civil rights movement isn’t about stopping it, it’s about fixing it. Another taken out of context quote.
Phillip, I’m ignorant but your the one making statements about what your never watch.
Show me the lies. All of you make more and more unbacked up accusations. Next time one of you make an accusation back it up!
Joe no threat there. Just a statement on what he was thinking to make a point about “what would Jesus do””? Context!
Attention Becks minions…Even if he wasn’t arrested for some lame crime years ago, he has still always been a “zoo” radio type huckster. He has no education. He tries to sell you overpriced gold. He lies to you constantly. And he is indeed trying to co-opt the civil rights movement. For telling us “libs” that we just need to watch his show, you seem willfully ignorant of what he actually says. “We’re going to take back the civil rights movement!” I can tell you it was not a bunch of camp chair wielding, hateful, white people that protested for the civil rights of African Americans.
It wasn’t a bunch of gay, atheists who think only their rights matter either. But that’s what the American Civil Liberties stand for today. Oh and illegals as well. Come on and tell me you don’t know this and I need to back it up with FACTS. Because if I really MUST go get facts for you I will. Civil Rights was WAY different back then in comparison to today.
let me CAPITALIZE words in a seemingly ORDERED fashion in an attempt to IMPART my opinion of FACTS onto you
let me just say that OTHER people’s RIGHTS don’t matter to me because I BELIEVE that the CHRISTIAN MAJORITY in this country is under ATTACK by the OTHERS in the world who wish to CHANGE my country*tear* which I BELIEVE in
although i cannot DIRECTLY say that we should STOP IMMIGRATION i can lean in the RIGHT DIRECTION and say that only non MEXICANS or non MUSLIMS or any brown non EUROPEANS be allowed in this country and that they should only ALLOW real white people that speak ENGLISH into my BELOVED country
i speak for REAL AMERICANS
while im sure you think this is the truth…
REAL AMERICANS would know that anyone who wants to try to make it in america is a REAL AMERICAN regardless of the country of origin
ANCHOR BABIES are a myth
canadian hospitals are private for PROFIT entities
seperate insurance is available for purchase even in your incorrectly branded SOCIALIST countries
there is no LIBERAL MEDIA and you can follow the money as beck likes to say to prove it
the right wing preys on FEAR and the left wing preys on BLEEDING HEARTS
i donate to CHARITY but i dont tell anyone not cause i’m ashamed or afraid of being branded a bleeding heart LIBERAL but because i do no want recognition for good deeds
i RESEARCH what i donate to in order to make sure they actually pay out, rather than donating to a cool sounding name
the CONSERVATIVE MEDIA would like you to think that reiterating their TALING POINTS is thinking for yourself
i have nothing against conservatives but i cant stand by and watch as they DERIDE Obama’s spending and praise or better yet say nothing about Bush’s at the time record spending, maybe its because records are made to be broken lol
but seriously stop being HYPOCRITICAL and conservatives might be more accepted, and i’m not just talking about policy, i’m talking about GAY POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES that talk a big game and spew ANTIGAY RHETORIC all while living their “IMMORAL” lives, i’m talking about drug abusing alcoholic woman beating right wingers that talk about FAMILY VALUES, and if you’re reading this and thinking im a “libtard” for not buying into the bull, then my friend im talking about YOU
You can jump on me 30 seconds after I post. But disappear when I ask for facts to backup your Beck accusations.
Shmuck, Joe American just showed you what Beck said about killing Michael Moore. Don’t you read?
I never said Beck agrees with every thing MLK said. Nor does Beck quote everything MLK says.
This was a Beck bashing thread with absolutely no Facts.
You Hate Beck and you hate me. Make a fool out of me and Beck. Beck is on 5 sometime 6 times a week every week you should be able to find enough facts to back up your statements 1000x over.
Glenn Beck stated he wanted to kill Michael Moore. Now tell me that isn’t hate speech!
Glenn Beck=FASCISM.
Richard: Good statement!
You just proved my point Richard, thank you so very much! He has done over 300 shows there must be tons of racial, hatefull quotes, SHOW us!
But what said is a statement by you, where is your direct quote that he threatened to kill MM.
FACTS!!!!
May 17, 2005: “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus — band — Do, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, “Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,” and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realize, “Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.” And you know, well, I’m not sure.”
Source: http://mediamatters.org/research/200505180008
Very Christian attitude, that.
He also made jokes about poisoning Speaker Pelosi, This guy is propoganda at it’s WORST.
Key word in that statement “jokes”.
“He also made jokes about poisoning Speaker Pelosi, This guy is propoganda at it’s WORST.”
Libs made dummies of Bush hanging and burning. They weren’t joking.
Again, he was joking! context people!!!
Yes, beck “joked” about poisoning Nancy Pelosi. But I really have to ask…..when has it become acceptable to “joke” about killing someone on a national cable show or radio program?
Yes, people made fun of bush and there were a few burnings of him in effigy. But how do you know they weren’t “joking?”
The fact of the matter is, it was wrong to burn bush in effigy; it was wrong to call him a nazi; but I do not recall any major TV personality day after day, week after week, calling bush a nazi. beck reportedly has some 2 million daily viewers. He has repeatedly called or inferred that Obama is a nazi, a communist, or some other loathesome type. He has a long history about making hateful comments, about killing people he dislikes.
You’re going to have haters on both sides, but when you have a national celebrity like beck, it is unacceptable for him to lead his followers in this way. I have no doubt that most of the nazi comparisons, most of the pictures of Obama with a hitler mustache, most of the signs (even on kids’ t-shirts) that said “bury Obamacare with Kennedy” were a result of beck’s rhetoric.
Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda for Hitler and his nazis, perfected the art of the “Big Lie.” The Big Lie is the technique that if you audaciously lie and repeat that lie over and over and over again, the masses will believe it.
This is what beck does. He has repeatedly compared Obama to nazis, communists, maoists, etc. Repeatedly. What beck does is to spread propaganda.
Here is another lie. beck is known for crying on his show. You can find YouTube video of beck himself sitting in a dressing room with someone putting Vicks Vapor Rub under his eyes in order to produce false tears when he claims, “I fear for my country; I love my country.” When beck “cries” on TV, this is a lie. He’s a charlatan. He’s a quack.
September 9, 2005:
“You know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims’ families? Took me about a year. And I had such compassion for them, and I really wanted to help them, and I was behind, you know, “Let’s give them money, let’s get this started.” All of this stuff. And I really didn’t — of the 3,000 victims’ families, I don’t hate all of them. Probably about 10 of them. And when I see a 9-11 victim family on television, or whatever, I’m just like, “Oh shut up!” I’m so sick of them because they’re always complaining. And we did our best for them. And, again, it’s only about 10.
But the second thought I had when I saw these people and they had to shut down the Astrodome and lock it down, I thought: I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims.”
Now you can say this was taken out of context, but it was not. beck said that he hated about 10 9-11 victims
and a few of the Katrina victims in New Orleans.
If this isn’t hate, I don’t know what is.
I see a number of commenters here have brought the legitimate facts Bob Gare dared them to and yet he’s still stone deaf to them. Either that or HOMETOWN BUFFET is open late where he lives and he’ll be back when they close.
Libberulls hung Bush in effigy Bob? (Effigy means using a lifeless dummy, son, I know big strange words confuse you.) On what network? (FAUX doesn’t count – those were probably Rupe’s anonymous stooges.) Which liberals? What liberal with anything close to Beck’s billionaire-bankrolled exposure stoops to his asinine incendiary bilge? But of course, when he says it he’s JOKING. I see… Those are what you would consider jokes… Sarah Palin is my idea of a joke, but I guess diff’rint jokes for diff’rint folks…
And “Vigilant” darling, keep throwing George Soros up, since he’s the only wealthy lefty you have ever heard of. God knows mercenary right wing plutocrats and their spawn have had a death-grip on the mass media here for decades (if not centuries), but hey! George Soros has a website! A WEBSITE, do you understand???
BE AFRAID! (I know you’re afraid already, but please, for me, be a little more afraid? Thank you so much and drive carefully.)
Quit quoting MLK!!
Back up your lies about what Beck says.
Facts, Where are your facts??
What facts do you want exactly. I was quoting MLK for a reason… but obviously the reason escaped you completely.
You did say “land of the free”, but go away if you don’t agree, More progressive thinking.
To quote the King himself :”I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
— Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 1964
Thank you for your 3 page history of MLK. To bad I asked for US and our Founders history and compare it to what Beck says.
Oh there is a good point to your MLK’s history, it’s a lot of what Beck quotes. But I’m sure you’ll never hear that on TV. And I already know you don’t watch the show on a regular bases so you can only go be what others say he said. Don’t be sheep “investigate the facts for your self” Glenn Beck says that almost every show multiple times. I do check what I my self hear him say.
Yep and there are more polls that prove you wrong. At least I can see I watch the show on a regular bases so I know what he says and the context they were spoken.
I didn’t mean facts on MLK. I meant show me full context of Beck being , a bigot, hateful and every other things you are accusing him of saying. I also have been to tea party rally’s. Funny thing is I have never seen or heard anything they are accused of.
Show Me the Facts in Becks own words.
As I recognize, we have a few “haters” on this site with their arguments.
Glenn Beck is a famous FOX host and a lot of people are jealous, wish
him the death.
Personal attacks against him are not solving problems and this kind
of people who want to spread hate should “shut up” and leave this
country. The US is not a country of HATERS, so my advise would be
“go back, were you belong”, and out of our minds and eyes.
We don’t want you here in the Land of the Free.
And yes, you are Muslims or Racist – Congratulations!
Judith I really hope you are not talking to me!
Are you saying that Beck is not a spreader of hate? And aren’t you yourself spreading hatred of Muslims?
Judith..stop ranting at those people who disagree with you
Selected Bibliography
Adams, Russell, Great Negroes Past and Present, pp. 106-107. Chicago, Afro-Am Publishing Co., 1963.
Bennett, Lerone, Jr., What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Chicago, Johnson, 1964.
I Have a Dream: The Story of Martin Luther King in Text and Pictures. New York, Time Life Books, 1968.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Measure of a Man. Philadelphia. The Christian Education Press, 1959. Two devotional addresses.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., Strength to Love. New York, Harper & Row, 1963. Sixteen sermons and one essay entitled “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence.”
King, Martin Luther, Jr., Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York, Harper, 1958.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience. New York, Harper & Row, 1968.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? New York, Harper & Row, 1967.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait. New York, Harper & Row, 1963.
“Man of the Year”, Time, 83 (January 3, 1964) 13-16; 25-27.
“Martin Luther King, Jr.”, in Current Biography Yearbook 1965, ed. by Charles Moritz, pp. 220-223. New York, H.W. Wilson.
Reddick, Lawrence D., Crusader without Violence: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York, Harper, 1959.
From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html
Funny how your own poll disagrees with what you say.
I guess all the readers of your blog are just to stupid to realize the truth huh?
artin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family’s long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.
In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.
In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, “l Have a Dream”, he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated
((If they were progressive… they wouldn’t be Christian in any way shape or form. Dr. Alveda King IS a Christian just like her uncle. And in TODAY’S sense of being a christian you HAVE to be conservative. Read it slowly so you don’t miss anything. ))
Arguably the stupidest and most undemocratic (not to mention unAmerican) statment I have heard or seen in years. Thank you for this, it will resonate for a very long time…
And its not stupidest it’s most stupid… but thanks for making yourself look like a total @$$. It will… resonate for a very long time…
stu·pid (stpd, sty-)
adj. stu·pid·er, stu·pid·est
1. Slow to learn or understand; obtuse.
2. Tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes.
3. Marked by a lack of intelligence or care; foolish or careless: a stupid mistake.
4. Dazed, stunned, or stupefied.
5. Pointless; worthless: a stupid job.
n.
A stupid or foolish person.
[Latin stupidus, from stupre, to be stunned.]
😉
All right, let’s just dive right into this stupid thing.
Recently, a professional athlete was quoted in an article as saying I made the stupidest mistake. The athlete was talking about his personal life-his VERY personal life. (It’s hard to keep track these days, isn’t it?)
The superlative form of stupid is most stupid, as in I made the most stupid mistake, not stupidest. Stupidest can be heard and seen everywhere, but it’s wrong. (Please don’t ask me to roll out my entire exposition on why finding a word in a modern dictionary doesn’t make it legitimate, standard English. Paul and I have already paddled across that ocean several times.)
Stupid is just like lucid (same -id ending). The comparative form is more lucid, and the superlative form is most lucid. Likewise, the comparative form of stupid is more stupid, and the superlative form is most stupid. In fact, in general, -id words use more and most instead of -er and -est. (The water was more tepid, he was the most lucid, they could have been more candid, his reflexes have grown more torpid, the milk was the most rancid, his tongue had grown more acrid. No one would even think to say tepidest, lucidest, candidest, torpidest, rancidest, or acridest.)
((( WIKIANSWERS.COM : QUESTION IS STUPIDEST A WORD)) 😉
Touche’ (or is it touche’ist??) From what I’ve hard, technically it is not the ideal way to articulate what is trying to be conveyed, but it is generally acceptable in a more informal exchange, so yea, I guess my English teacher would mark it in an essay, but this is a dopy blog and an exchange of comments, replete with syntax, grammatical and spelling errors for most (and some troubling overuse of CAPS by a few). And of course, that whole twitter thing has gotten me into bad habits (gotta save characters U no).
lol. Sorry. I’m almost surprised I’m saying this but you are funny and I like you. Even if you said I said the most un-American thing you ever heard
most un-American thing in years, not ever…still, it is a lot hyperbole, but that is the current mood out there
Can’t we all just get along!? hahahaha
And clearly someone who has never actually read the Gospels.
E. Gray is just like most ultra-liberals who believe that free speech only applies to people who share their leftist views.
Contradict them even once, and they call you a racist. My God, this nation is doomed. We are, in fact, being over run by the worst of third world nations refugees (just like europe).(Of course, I will be called a racist. My wife is African American, but call me a racist anyway). Liberals insist that if we all cannot be at the top, then no one can. Drag everyone to the lowest common denominator.
Evolution has brought us to where we are, technology, medicine,etc. But, that same technology has stopped evolution. We are now devolving into a sub-human species, where violent ant-socials and criminals are defended and held up as heroes. Where the rule of law is thrown aside for some utopian vision that cannot work.
Are you saying, if all of a sudden all of the bible were proved true, and the End was here, and the real Jesus was suddenly standing in front of you, he would agree with Glen Beck? Would Jesus want to feed the poor? Would he want to clothe and care for them? Would he think everyone deserved to be taken care of when they were sick, even if they had no money at all? Did J.C. ever, ever say he “hated” anyone or anything? Next time, don’t ask What Would Jesus Do, ask yourself, what would I do if the real Jesus was standing right next to you, right at this moment? Would he talk of politics, or, as he said simply before, “Give to Ceaser what is Ceaser’s…”?
I love my country. I love to pay taxes, because it builds my country up. I have already asked myself, what can I do for my country, and building up our infrastructure, so my daughter does not have to, is what I am doing. Sending money to homeless shelters to help others who have less than I do, is what I’m doing. Feeding the poor, building shelters for them, giving them a way out, is what I’m doing, by paying my taxes. I made 14,000 dollars total last year, I am not a wealthy person. But, I am a happy person, and I know I am doing 100% of what I am able to, and still helping others.
Beck says “follow the money”. But real Christians follow CHRIST. The next time you are about to utter the words “I hate….”, remember, Jesus hung out with the poor, the criminals, the downtrodden, the whores. When was the last time you helped a total stranger without expectation of compensation? Without anyone knowing about it, with no appreciation of your help, no gratitude expected, just the knowledge that deep in your heart you helped someone that day, for free?
Did I say that? No I don’t think I did. I wasn’t even talking about Glenn Beck I was talking about Martin Luther King and Alveda King.
And how is that stupid? To be a Christian is not to believe in things like KILLING innocent babies, A man laying with another man and vice versa. Which. hmmmm, would be the same values a conservative. I may not be the most smart person out there but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that much.
To be a Christian means not killing anyone..
There is nothing in the bible that forbids homosexulity.
By the way..it isn’t most smart……it smartest.
Also, Martin Luther King believed in democratic socialism to his credit. He rightly believed it was the only way to address the inequality of capitalism. Don’t believe me? Read “To the Mountaintop” by Steward Burns, page 224. Now let fascist Glenn Beck suck on that!
Alveda King is the only member of Martin Luther King’s family to go over to the conservative side. All the other members of Dr. King’s family have remained Democrats and progressives (like his son, Martin Luther King III), sorry about your luck, you’re going to have to do better than bring up Alveda! Oh, and let’s talk about Dr. King’s father who remained a Republican. MLK Sr. was a Republican when the GOP was still the “Party of Lincoln.” You know, the LIBERAL Republican Party of the mid-19th century! The party that freed the slaves, supported the 14th Amendment & Reconstruction. Do you tea-bagger fascists even know what Reconstruction was? It was when the LIBERAL Republican Party of the 1854-1877 era sent federal troops into the defeated South to make sure the right-wing White racists didn’t suppress the newly freed slaves. Trouble is, I can’t find a single Republican today who would’ve supported Reconstruction because the GOP has been taken over by these former White racist Dixiecrats! I only wish Reconstruction would’ve lasted 100 years in the South! Heck, even segregationist George Wallace had a FEW (and I mean a few) African-Americans that he liked to showcase at his campaigns to prove he wasn’t a racist. lol! You tea bagger fascists haven’t got a leg to stand on and you remind me of the Know-Nothing Party of the 19th century!
Maybe you people are right. So show me the facts in complete context and prove it to me!!!!!!!!
IT IS AMAZING HOW SOME PEOPLE CAN JUST THROWOUT THOUGHTS THEY HAVE WITH NOTHING TO BACK IT UP AND MOST DEMA AND LIBS WILL BELEIVE IT
You mean like the WMD that were in Iraq, or Saddams’ Links to Bin Laden, or Saddam trying to get enriched uranium, or floride in the water is a communist plot, or, wow the hypocrisy in your statement is well, quite ironic.
Here we go again, blame Bush. Pathetic!
Typing in all caps does not make your rants true. Your post would indicate that you are shouting. Perhaps a warm cup of tea to relax you and get your blood pressure down.
I hear Yoga works well too..
Al, you really should learn how to write coherently with correct spelling. This liberal progressive is proud, informed and knows how to write correctly. You just proved your ignorance by your post. Typical Bleck fan unintelligent and intellectually incurious. You have to be spoon fed information. Typical sheep that will follow blech off the cliff.
AL WHITE: your wasting your breath. This thread seems to be about grammar, punctuation, spelling not about the facts, tea party or beck.
I’ve come to the conclussion that progressives (aka socialist, democrats) should be classified as “special needs.” It appears the part of the brain that processes facts and information is either absent or atrophied in this segment of society.
Poor things.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Conservatives, (ie, facists) are scared little sheep that need their shepard to guide them through the daily Horrors of money markets and two martini lunches. It appears that the part of the brain that connects it to the body was removed around 1980, and has not been found since. Republican’s have destroyed this country, they are the first to offer up their freedoms for a little safety, (and may I remind you Mr. Franklin’s comments on Liberty and Safety, Those that would give up an essential liberty for safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety) and are always waving the American Flag, extolling their “patriotism” while trying EVERYTHING they can to destroy American Democracy.
Have any of you bothered to check his facts? If you go into history books that are over 50 old (before the progressive rewriting of history.) You will be able to verify what he says about our country and founding fathers. I can guaranty most of you have never watched his show except to rip it apart. Go in with an open mind and verify for your self.
I’ve watched his show enough to know that he’s laughing at you. He get’s rich because there are so many idiots out there who will follow idiots like him no matter what he says or does. You believe him because you want to. I watched him rant about the hammer and sickle on (separate) buildings at Rockefeller Center. His take? NBC is a communist organization. Uh Fox News is also at Rock Center. Obama hates white people? Did his mother and grandparents (uh, they’re white) know this? Does his staff members know this? Are you incredibly ignorant? YES!
I watched beck fairly often early last year. Show after show after show, he showed video of nazis marching through the streets, all the while talking about Obama and his admistration.
That told me that beck is a habitual propagandist. He is a hater. Anyone who compares Obama to nazis is a hater. Most people I know of, when you mention “nazis,” think of 6 million Jews that they killed; they think of the 50 to 60 million people world wide who died because of nazis. How in the hell can Obama even be close to nazis and the horrific, horrendous deeds they committed?
So what did he actually do that was hate full. What hateful thing did he say about obumma?
I see absolutely NO facts here. I see statements of hate and fear that are not backed up by any evidence. And you call yourself a journalist??? Pathetic. Do you even watch the show? If you watched the show and then tastefully disagreed I would have a little respect (not much, but a little). By the way, the only one comparing Beck to King is you and your group of fear mongers. Get over yourselves and listen to the silent majority. (They’ll be at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday 8/28).
Intelligent people become educated about the opposing view and then decide if they disagree. Unintelligible people rashly disagree in such hatred that their argument(s) make absolutely no sense.
Wow you are so wrong. If all you say is true why is ML Kings niece friends and agrees with him.
It is funny everyone keeps mentioning that MLK’s niece will attend the rally, SO THAT MEANS HE WOULD ATTEND THE RALLY. IF you believe this you are a MORON, come on, she works for a Conservative Think tank, of course she supports this Shyte. My question to you F$%ktards who watch this tripe is, HOW DO YOU KNOW HE WOULD EVEN LIKE ALVEDA KING? He may have hung his head in shame that a person of color is working for a group that has consistently worked to limit opportunites for people of color, as well as use them to scare old white voters to vote for them. Glenn Beck is a propogandist, a modern day Tokyo ROse, without the talent or commitment. All he cares about is GOLD, which like the Dot.com market, housing Bubble and Wall St. is due a collapse in the near future, please you idiots, keep buying Gold, that is lining the pockets of the mega-wealthy, which none of you sheep are. Baaaa! where is my shepard the great becktard.
She’s probably getting paid to appear on his show to legitimize him. Why doesn’t Glen have MLK, Jrs. two sons or his 1 living daughter on?It wouldn’t surprise me though is the niece is a fake.
Oh no! agendas not agenda’s. Sorry, “I love Beck”. Thought I’d correct myself before you did… like your two very long posts of pointing me out. 🙂 I’m special ((sarcasm))
“HOW DO YOU KNOW HE WOULD EVEN LIKE ALVEDA KING? He may have hung his head in shame that a person of color is working for a group that has consistently worked to limit opportunites for people of color, as well as use them to scare old white voters to vote for them.”
Wow. Do you dislike members of your family? This is a little shocking to me. How do I know he would like his niece? Um, because she is his niece possibly?
Your argument does not even make any sense. lol You are making an argument based on an assumption – not a fact.
1. Have you read the “I have a dream” speech?
2. Have you listened to the Beck show or radio program with an open mind? (I ask about the open mind because many liberal out there say conservatives are closed minded) We think you all are hypocrites – why don’t you prove us wrong and listen with an open mind and provide some intelligible arguments.
3. Do you know Dr. King or his niece personally?
4. Do you know Glenn Beck personally?
If the answers to these are no, then our debate is over and I have won in default to someone who has not prepared.
If Mr. Beck respectfully disagree with anyone, you might have a point.
“Last thing I want to say is this: To my fellow countryman, Mr. Glenn Beck. I see you, and I love you, brother. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. Let’s be one country! Let’s be one country! Let’s get the job done! – Van Jones”
At least there is one liberal/progressive/communist who has some intelligence and humor, even though he is of course still a liar. Sadly, you don’t appear to be in Van Jones’ league in any of those categories except liar. Nor are you, apparently, a mind reader who knows what others “really believe.” Mr./Ms. Gray.
May God give you whatever blessings you so richly deserve.
And your proof? I really want facts to rescue me from being a Beck fan. Help Me Plz!!!
Facts and only facts.
Hey, E. Gray! You are a moran and probably a communist! Why don’t you crawl back to the hole that you came from! It’s people like you who are supporting the current Administration and its policies. That is why the economy is going to hell. Shame on you!
Gee, thought the ‘red scare’ was out of vogue…go figure! GlennBo really has his hands full! Socialists, progressives, immigrants, blacks, foreigners, democrats….AND NOW COMMUNISTS! Whew, I guess you’re right. He is quite a guy!
Do you even watch his show, or listen to his radio program? I mean come on! Anybody who actually listens to what he has to say knows this is a bunch of bogus.
Hey, J. Kadlec – it’s spelled m-o-r-o-n. MORON!!
We know how to spell moron. As usual, the right-winger doesn’t get the joke. Apparently you slept through one of the biggest Internet memes of 2003?
Glenn Beck is a good man. Too bad their weren’t more like him. Martin Luther King JR. was also a good man and I know he would be patting glenn on his back right now. And I’m sure if he were and could you crazy leftists would have something bad to say about him as well. Anything to fit your agenda.
I’m sure MLK would’ve gave Beck a big ol’ hug even that day Beck was on Fox saying Obama was a racist that had a deep seated hatred for white people.
Rachel, you don’t know sh%t, MLK would be with Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network rally, He would not have wasted his time or effort on a crackpot like GLenn Beck.
beck is not a “good man.” And to compare him to MLK is simply wrong. There is absolutely no comparison between what MLK did and the chicanery that beck has been pulling for many years.
beck himself has admitted that he is a “rodeo clown” and added that it “takes great skill.” He is in this only to increase his celebrity and increase his bank account.
You can find YouTube video of beck in the dressing room with someone putting Vicks Vapor Rub under his eyes to produce fake tears. beck says this rally is to “restore honor”; this man has never had any honor to begin with. How can one seriously say he has honor if he produces fake tears on his show when exclaiming, “I love my country…..I fear for my country.” beck is about as dishonorable as you can get.
“There is absolutely no comparison between what MLK did and the chicanery that beck has been pulling for many years.”
You’re right, of course. Glenn Beck is not cheating on his wife or associating with communists, nor has he been guilty of plagiarism on a doctoral thesis. All of these things were part of MLK’s life, and are INDISPUTABLY TRUE. Strange that the purveyors of this hate site didn’t feel it necessary to mention these accomplishments, but history is always the most “inconvenient truth” for the left.
“You can find YouTube video of beck in the dressing room with someone putting Vicks Vapor Rub under his eyes to produce fake tears.”
I see you are also scientifically challenged, as well as ignorant of history. Try putting Vicks VapoRub under you’re eyes and you will see IMMEDIATE production of tears, not tears you can call up on demand. If such a thing were true, he would have been teary-eyed from the start and remained so for a good part of the broadcast.
When hate blinds a person such as you to history and science, your comments have no credibility whatsoever. And I’ll bet you’re one of the idiot fringe who believe that President Bush was complicit in 9-11.
http://www.americanheritage.com/events/articles/web/20060116-martin-luther-king-junior-civil-rights-reinhold-niebuhr-affirmative-action-proposition-209-i-have-a-dream-boycott-jim-crow-poverty-racism.shtml
Un unaffiliated page on Martin Luther King Jr.
Rachel…you ain’t no lady!!!
Well, I think your base of, what, 60 members (give or take) speaks for itself. But what am I talking about, you guys are some of the smartest people around. I’m sure you will grow. Protesters protesting protesters. A cause worthy of news coverage, or not.
Tea Party & Glenn Beck=FASCISM!
Yep, what rallies have you been too?
Oh my, my….my. Your desperation is showing; not to mention your ignorance. You can’t dig up any dirt on Glenn because there is nothing to dig. Beck has talked openly about his past since he began his talk radio career in 2000 or 2001. He’s also proven himself to be a good man, a product of repentance (try dictionary.com – I would suggest the Bible but you probably don’t know where to find one) and redemption (again, dictionary.com). I could go on and on and on and…on showing you what ignorant, ill-informed, hypocrites you are but I have better things to do with my time, as it’s obvious to anyone with even the slightest capacity for rational thought that this is hypocritical, self righteous trash.
Btw, King was a Christian and a Republican. Aaaaaand you think he would stand with the hateful, spiteful, angry, racist likes of you? LOLOL
Well, we certainly do appreciate you carving out some of your valuable time for your comments!
My goodness, aren’t you brainwashed? So sad to see people taken in by this clown. And I bet you are a “patriotic” citizen who ‘”upholds” the constitution. You people are laughable.
Terrry plz teach us the truth about Beck. Bring on the facts.
“My goodness, aren’t you brainwashed? So sad to see people taken in by this clown.”
I’m confused. Why are you talking about Obama?
Only people how don’t watch Beck and verify for them selves blindly believe what they are told.
Do I agree with all he says, No! Do I do my home work and look things up myself . yes. That’s what a lot of us like about the show. He puts a fire in people to look up and read our history, read the bible, study the constitution as written.
The nerve of Beck wanting people to read and learn our countries true history. What kind of a loser would agree with him.
That’s not true. I sometimes watch Beck and he constantly distorts history to serve his purposes. He is a skilled manipulator and he is laughing all the way to the bank. One of the thing Beck often does is portray academics and intellectuals as “elitists.” It’s as if he is saying “don’t listen to those educated people” and in the same breath saying” listen to me.” (Of course Beck does not have a college degree of his own.) If you go and read a history book for the purposes of validating Glenn Beck’s opinions, that is not making judgement for yourself. Reading history then developing your own opinions organically is making judgement for yourself.
LHC, seeing you watch him so often You should have tons of real quotes to back you up. RIGHT!
It’s pretty clear those that defend this unconscionable character are of like mind. beck is but a tiny fraction of a man compared to Martin L. King. Matter of fact beck is NOTHING compared to the late Martin L. King. A nothing nobody making money off folks like you who hate just like him and sariah. The only message Glen Beck & his cohort are spreading is one of fear and hatred. Offering free sandwiches at the rally to get more people to attend says volumes. Personally, I don’t see how anyone of any intelligence can listen to this man and even worse palin’s wordsalad. “beck and palin’s particular aberration is ultimately so dark and twisted and hate filled, that we cannot stomach watching it.” and won’t! We’ll wait for the next day to give FOX time to insert fake pictures of millions attending.
beck has not “repented” at all.
Last year beck called Obama a “racist with a deep seated hatred of white people.” Didn’t beck know that Obama’s mother and grandmother were both white? Of course he did.
One month after beck called Obama a “racist,” he was on Bill O’Reilly’s show and made the claim that using the term “racist” was old and no longer had any meaning because it was overused. Isn’t beck a hypocrite for making these statements?
Recently, beck told his listeners that it was wrong to involved politicians’ families (wives, children, etc.) while criticizing those politicans. Yet a short time after that, beck made fun of Melia Obama in reference to plugging the BP oil spill Again, beck is a hypocrite.
Yes, beck has “apologized” for both of these instances, but he has a long history of making very hateful statements. When he got his start as an AM radio shock jock, beck called up a lady who was the wife of a competitor. He asked her, on air, about her miscarriage she had just 3 days earlier. He made the comment that her husband (his competitor) couldn’t do anything right; why, he couldn’t even have a baby.
beck is fundamentally evil, and he will never change. He has not repented one single bit.
wasn’t beck an alcoholic who was abused by his family as a child? did he do drugs too? didn’t he cheat on his wife? hasn’t he been married a few times… wait, am I supposed to think that just b/c he found god that he’s a good guy?? And for being a christian he sure sounds very mean and hateful. I don’t know how anyone can argue with that… ??
Get this through your heads. King was not a Republican. Now please tell us where you heard this lie, what evidence was given to support it, and why you believed it.
The people following Glenn Beck would be the same people who opposed everything that Dr. King stood for. MLK opposed militarism and the institutionalized inequality between rich and poor in this country. These two items don’t bother the tea party crowd.
beck has made statements about those who support “social justice.” beck hates “social justice.”
One of the biggest supporters of social justice and civil rights was Robert F. Kennedy. RFK and MLK were both big supporters of social justice. I guess beck secretly hates them both.
beck is a disgusting, worthless, pathetic man who dares to say he is “reclaiming civil rights”; he is a miserable human being who claims this rally is to “reclaim honor”; how can he do so when he has never had any honor to begin with?
Restoring, not “reclaiming” Restoring honor to America. We live in a society where it is perfectly okay to show people having sex on television, where it’s okay to force agenda’s on people. Do you think these things are honorable “I Love Beck”?
I fail to see any connection between honor and what some communications megacorp decides to air on television—television that you have to pay to get before it can come into your home.
As for forcing an agenda, if you mean taking us to war despite the will of the majority of the people (just as that Dick who was Veep about what he thought of majority opinion)?
Of course, as Beck would point out, we live in a Republic which means we elect representatives to carry out our will. Just because you lost this time around does not mean you are being ignored. It means, you lost and it’s our turn. That’s not a “bug”, that’s a “feature”.
Oh no! agendas not agenda’s. Sorry, “I love Beck”. Thought I’d correct myself before you did… like your two very long posts of pointing me out. I’m special ((sarcasm)) I posted this in the wrong section… maybe you can write a long post for that too.
What a terrible hatchet job. (yawn)
Fact: Glenn Beck has had King’s niece on the show and she sides with him AND will be attending the event.
Fact: King was a Republican.
Flame on, Libtards.. but the truth is the truth. I’m going to bed. Have fun with your fictional reality based on revisionist history and propaganda.
“Lowery, who knew King well, said there is no reason why anyone would think King was a Republican. He said King most certainly voted for President Kennedy, and the only time he openly talked about politics was when he criticized Republican Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign.”
Dream on.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Billboards_Claim_Rev._King_Was_Republican_0705.html
Oh your in trouble now. Your quoting history before it had it’s progressive rewriting. That’s not allowed her. LOL
Liptard..how beckish of you.
Nice to see the facts about Glen Beck. I knew he was a shallow twit, but his life and media past presented above confirms it. The Racist Right is showing the KKK flag on MLK’s anniversary. History will record this lowest moment in American life.
KKK? Are you serious? Did you realize Alveda King is going to be standing with Glenn Beck on the monument? Nothing KKK about that. But keep up the mudslinging it seems to be working. lol
I’m sorry. Do you even realize who Alveda King is? Are you gonna Mudsling MLK’s niece as well?
Might as well. It will fit your petty mudslinging agenda.
Well, last summer, beck did call President Obama a “racist with a deep seated hatred of white people.” Does beck even realize that Obama’s mother and beloved grandmother were both white?
Alveda King is a homophobe who does not think that gays should enjoy the same rights as others, which is completely anathema to her uncle’s message. So to see her support Beck is not a surprise, and her family should disown her for disgracing her uncle’s legacy
Josh B,
Your beloved president also does not think gays should enjoy the same rights as others. Are you racist?
It so refreshing to know that there are no minority racist. Lets see your in context facts to back up your accusations.
Re I love beck: Since we are correcting and fair is fair… Seriously? Who was talking about Obama in all of this? We were talking about MLK, GB, and ADK. But since you brought it up:
The quote below is taken from Obama’s book, “Dreams of My Father”:
There was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”
And who doesn’t know Obama’s mother is white?
From “Dreams of My Father”: ‘I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.’
From “Dreams of My Father”: ‘I found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.’
From “Dreams of My Father”: ‘It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.’
“That hate hadn’t gone away”….”white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.” Barack Hussein Obama from “Dreams of My Father”
From “Audacity of Hope”: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’
To me MLK was trying to get all humans (black, white, brown, pink, yellow, green, whatever) to look past COLOR OF SKIN and look at what kind of character a person has. Maybe I’m wrong. According to someone’s post on here, he was a progressive trying to equalize the rich and the poor. But I don’t think he was assaulted, murdered, over money… like I said, maybe I’m wrong.
Oh yes the facts they have posted. I see all unfounded accusations. If the reported lies where true after a number of years of radio and tv. Their list of actual FACTS should fill volumes of racist, evil death treats, inciting riot. You see list of facts we see list of unbacked up Report rumors and flat out lies.
I can not understand why ‘Tax and Spend’ is supposed to be an insult. Tax and spend in the Clinton years yeilded a surplus and allowed debt reduction. Bush was not tax and spend and his administration tripled the debt and was in continual deficite. Was the Iraq war nessecery? Yes, only if Lil George was to out do his father.
You are assigning logic to Beck’s actions. Beck puts up a strawman that he knows will be 1) simple enough for the tea Party education level to understand and 2) demonizes it regardless of the real facts about its implications. Again, he doesn’t really believe what he himself is saying, he is just interested in qhipping up emotions and anger so he can sell books, ads, gold, whatever to acquire wealth.
If your right I’ll have to stop watching him. I never realized that all other authors, radio and tv host didn’t try make money on their ratings, book sales and selling commercial time. What a loser he is.
Um… I understand what you’re saying. However, I feel that comparing Glenn Beck and the great Martin Luther King, Jr. is somewhat distasteful. Not as distasteful as any number of Becks actions, but still…
I wasn’t comparing, just saying they agree on more than you think. If you don’t watch the show, how can you know what he has said other than being told by some one else.
Facts show me his full context hateful speach?
Show me these actions! Don’t just keep making statements you don’t back up.
Glenn Beck has NEVER been arrested. Not once. Maybe you could check the faulty facts of the moron writing unauthorized books about him, before slandering? That’s why the book sold, maybe 12 copies…nothing in it.
Again…produce arrest records…never happened. His DeLorean never worked, let alone being driven with the doors open. If this is the worst you’ve got, no…I’m not all that embarrassed.
Pat it has to be true, It was on msnbc. lol
He has indeed been arrested, you moron.
But if you pay attention the reportedly arrest rumor that is going around is that he murdered a teenage girl. That is the lie we are talking about. Again he doesn’t hide his past.
I don’t know if beck has ever been arrested, but no one has proved to me otherwise that he has never been arrested. Please, Pat, please prove to me that our beloved beck has never been arrested!
So what if he has. A lot of people have issues. I know very few who don’t. He messed up, he found help and turned his life around. Those are things to be praised not used against him..
You are nothing more than an enabling and “useful idiot” of the Fourth Reich’s quest to resume where their repressed self-hating homosexual leader, Adolf Hitler, left off.
Rebecca…. What’s the reason why you bring up…”we’re talking about mlk,GB ‘etc…. Not oshama, when someone you disagree with mentions this temporary idiot we have for a president. I haven’t noticed one single post of yours that degrades the (as libs say) .. “moran” liberal that throws oshama into the mix.
FACT…. You party is infitrated by radical progressives. PERIOD. You will still need proof since msnbc,cbs,abc,nbc only fills your soul with pure liberal hate.
Proof? William Ayres
Van Jones
Anita Dunn
Mark Loyd
George Soros
and the list goes on and on and on and on.
But something tells me you’ll have an argument against facts. That what radical progressive liberal uh..”morans” do.
@Hrdbrgn AMEN – and don’t waste your breath. We know they are just angry now, nothing more. We don’t have to put up with the liberal cancer much longer.
@Liberals – When I read your comments, they simply baffle me. I am not one to jump on forums or blog, but this new attack of the 8/28 event is a disgusting display of stupidity. I wouldn’t expect much less to be honest. You yourself should try to restore honor to your life and stop sucking the life and resources out of everyone else.