Glenn Beck: Lenin of the Right?

I put this in Dissent because of the strong support that Glenn Beck has among Objectivists for the way he smuggles Ayn Rand's ideas into his shows. I confess also up front that I have yet to watch a full 60 minutes of Glenn Beck. I watched one show all the way through and some of another.

My warning to you is that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. When Lenin's Bolsheviks seized the Russian state, it looked like a glorious new future. Revolutions broke out. The USA suffered a "Red Scare" but the only scary thing was the communists dealt with the social democrats, the syndicalists, the anarchists and others. First Lenin, then Stalin removed the competition. The Spanish Civil War was a high point, but the Nazi-Soviet Pact was no surprise to anyone who viewed world politics from the vantage point of clear principles.

Many of President Obama's supporters are dismayed at his policies regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the status of Guantanamo, and the bail-out money to the investment banks.Those were all Bush Administration policies, to which President Obama added the take-over of the automotive industry and characteristic inaction in the present BP Oil Crisis, exactly as Pres. Bush's agencies failed to respond in the wake of Katrina. My point is that anyone with a consistent philosophy based on the law of identity understands why those events all played out as they had to. My point is that the left-liberal and right-conservative crtiics are alike unable to formulate the clear identification of the facts of reality.

Glenn Beck is today to the conservative right what the agitators of the Progressive Era were to the left. ... so far... You empower Beck and what you get is what was achieved by empowering them because ultimately, political power has no morality.

Objectivists are atheists. Glenn Beck is not.
Despite Ayn Rand's aversion, Objectivists have no problem with homosexuality and many Objectivists are practicing homosexuals. How will that sit with Glenn Beck and his viewers?
Gay marriage -- marriage being above all else a legal state with legal rights and responsibilities?
Objectivists are pro-choice because that is pro-life. Is Glenn Beck pro-choice? Or pro-life? Or pro life qua choice, or what?
Immigration? An issue that divides us here, apparently, but only because many carry the vestiges of conservative nationalist (and nativist) prejudices. With Glenn Beck, those are principles, not vestiges.

Ayn Rand warned about conservatives. For Glenn Beck to smuggle her words into his show is not to your benefit, but only to his. Who wins in a compromise?

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/05, 12:57pm)

Post 1

Saturday, June 5, 2010 - 1:27pm

Glenn Beck is a libertarian, not a conservative. He is deeply religious and that is a problem. When one of his shows starts going that direction, I turn if off as soon as I see what the theme is. But despite his religious views, he is far closer to Objectivism's positions in politics than an anarchist (Sorry, Michael, I don't meant to pick on you, but this is fact, and this is the kind of area where your anarchy blinds you.)

The really important issues, is that his opposition to statism is primarily libertarian, not religious. He favors limited government for the sake of economic and political freedom, not as a means to force desired religious views. And unlike many conservatives, he sees the people as having the rights and government as their servant. Add to that, unlike most conservatives, he understands the constitution.

He has had Yaron Brook on his show several times, and went out to dinner with him. I heard that Yaron was unable to convince him that individual rights are logically derived from human nature as opposed to being a gift from God, but they still found one another as allies in opposing the view that government derives human rights. Beck has found some way, in his mind to marry Libertarianism and Christianity. I'm saddened that he doesn't see the flaws there, but I'm deeply impressed with his ability to see what the progressives are doing. His track record in finding out what they are going to do next, and often being the first to find out are unparalleled.

Post 2

Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 7:12am

Steve Wolfer says: "Beck has found some way, in his mind to marry Libertarianism and Christianity."

Hehe-- I think its easy to do a mental block of the pro-socialist and anit-individualist themes in Christianity-- after you are capable of mentally blocking that the mystical things that happen in the bible conflict with how reality works.

Not that this isn't uncommon. All sorts of people believe in things like law-of-physics-breaking miracles and things like ghosts.

Post 3

Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 10:28am

Glenn Beck is a libertarian, not a conservative. He is deeply religious and that is a problem.

My take is Glenn Beck is a conservative Mormon Republican with some libertarian leanings, who thinks he is more libertarian than he actually is.

Is Beck in favor of legalizing all drugs? Legalizing prostitution? Ending Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and other forms of government "charity" (which together comprise about 54% of the federal budget)? Is he in favor of ending compulsory taxation and the IRS? Limiting defense to actual defense of the nation, and against pre-emptive war? Is he in favor of shutting down the post office, and the Department of Education, and Department of Commerce, and the EPA, and everything else that is not an enumerated power in the Constitution? And so on. You don't have to be very libertarian to be in favor of downsizing the federal government by 75% to 90%.

If you feel Beck really is a full-on libertarian, rather than a conservative with some small-l libertarian leanings, I'd like to hear, on those issues that separate libertarians from conservatives, which issues Beck parts way with conservatives.

Post 4

Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 10:34am

Steve Wolfer says: "Beck has found some way, in his mind to marry Libertarianism and Christianity."

Beck is a Mormon, not a conventional Christian. Mormon scripture has some strongly libertarian aspects, in particular the descriptions of how "agency" is supposed to work, which are largely ignored by most actual Mormons.

Those scriptures also have some socialist leanings, though like those in the Bible they are about voluntary socialism, rather than government-compelled socialism. The former is compatible with libertarianism, the latter emphatically not.

Post 5

Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 12:37pm

Jim,

You asked, "Is Beck in favor of legalizing all drugs? Legalizing prostitution?"

I don't know - but I suspect that he is in favor of legalization. I have heard him call for legalizing marijuana. When I listen to him on this subject, he sound more like a conservative who is changing to libertarianism more for pragmatic reasons than for individual rights. He definitely holds the position that things can be immoral, yet should be legal none the less.
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You asked, "Ending Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and other forms of government "charity" (which together comprise about 54% of the federal budget)?"

Yes.
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You asked, "Is he in favor of ending compulsory taxation and the IRS?"

He wants to start with a 50% reduction in spending coupled with a balanced budget - just as soon as it the current congress can be replaced. He wants a government that matches the powers specified explicitly by the constitution.

He recognizes the importance of having both minimum and maximum goals - the minimum being the most effective way to move towards the maximum goal.
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You asked, "Limiting defense to actual defense of the nation, and against pre-emptive war?"

Lots of room for interpretation here - is Afghanistan a defense against Al Qaeda? So, the answer is, 'It depends.' If Iran gets very close to creation of nuclear weapons, remains hostile to the US , continues to support terrorists (including Al Qaeda), when would military action not be considered pre-emptive?
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You wrote, "Is he in favor of shutting down the post office, and the Department of Education, and Department of Commerce, and the EPA, and everything else that is not an enumerated power in the Constitution?"

Yes. By the way, the post office is in the constitution, but I suspect that Beck would happily advocate selling it off to private parties in a public auction.
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Remember that what he is advocating now is part of a plan to stave off economic disaster. It is to be put in place beginning with the congress elected in 2010 and continued after the 2012 elections - in both cases, depending upon a win by tea party friendly people. This is the only intelligent approach. The primary purpose has to be removing what Obama/Pelosi/Reed have put in place and make massive changes to put free enterprise back in place and to do so in the ways that re-energize the economy. To shoot for less would be to pursue a goal that wouldn't stop us from being destroyed as a nation. To ask for more is to overburden the agenda with political expectations that the electorate wouldn't achieve.

But none of that means that he doesn't have an end goal of a government that is very similar in size to what the founding fathers envisioned, and that we once had.

He also recognizes that we need a moral revolution - and he is right, but as we agree, the one we want, the one we need, isn't to be found in religion.

Post 6

Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 6:59pm

You wrote, "Is he in favor of shutting down the post office, and the Department of Education, and Department of Commerce, and the EPA, and everything else that is not an enumerated power in the Constitution?"
Yes. By the way, the post office is in the constitution, but I suspect that Beck would happily advocate selling it off to private parties in a public auction.

Take him at his word. Do not put words in his mouth.

His website http://www.glennbeck.com has transcripts of his programs.

If you can find something there, then post it, or a pointer to it, here. Otherwise the default assumption is that Glenn Beck is a religionist conservative who will put you in a concentration camp if he wins the power that he seeks.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/06, 7:00pm)

Post 7

Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 9:24pm

Michael wrote, "If you can find something there [Beck's web site], then post it, or a pointer to it, here. Otherwise the default assumption is that Glenn Beck is a religionist conservative who will put you in a concentration camp if he wins the power that he seeks.",

Michael has chosen to cut his bonds to rationality altogether. He starts a thread that is full of bald assertions and false claims. Then when I make a reply, he makes the truly stupid remark that if I can't find something in Beck's own words, then Michael's words will become the holy scripture despite that they were bald assertions with no supporting evidence!

Michael sounds like the people that call Ayn Rand a nazi. Beck is not Lenin and nothing he has ever said would even remotely suggest that he wants to lock up anyone on religious issues - his heroes are the founding fathers. He isn't seeking any office. Michael's ignorance in this area is only exceeded by his willingness to speak from it (he did after all state that he not watched more than one show all the way through, and has only watched part of another.)

Michael, go look up the transcripts on your own. That will make it easier for you twist what you find to fit your preconceptions. If you can't find evidence to the contrary, then he is a libertarian (his words) and, by the way, he is far, far closer to Ayn Rand's political position, even with his weird, bizarre religious positions than you are with your anarchy.

The idea that YOU are warning US about BECK... that's too funny! :-)

Post 8

Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 11:34pm

By the way, the post office is in the constitution

Yes, but it doesn't say that the post office has to have a government monopoly, or even be run by the government at all. It's certainly a service that lots of private providers are champing at the bit for the opportunity to compete with the post office on their first class mail monopoly and drive them out of business.

The Congress shall have Power ... To establish Post Offices and post Roads

Perhaps Beck is more libertarian than the (admittedly cherry-picked clips intended to show Beck in a bad light) of him I've seen elsewhere, such as on Jon Stewart's show, where he acts like a clown. Perhaps he has some lucid, thoughtful moments, with occasional severe lapses in judgment. Dunno.

I've yet to see any of those cherry-picked clips where he says something undeniably libertarian rather than conservative. Do you have a link showing that?

Post 9

Monday, June 7, 2010 - 5:46am

Watch the video on this page for the answer to whether or not Beck is Libertarian.

Post 10

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - 10:10pm

The USA suffered a "Red Scare" but the only scary thing was the communists dealt with the social democrats, the syndicalists, the anarchists and others.

Yeah except for that whole communist spy smuggling out the plans to build functional nuclear bombs, causing a nuclear arms race that could have caused massive destruction on this planet, or that whole communist from Cuba assassinating a US president thing.

Do not whitewash the real threat communism posed during the cold war, nor act like the 'hysteria' over communist spies was anything of the sort. At best you are being ignorantly disingenuous, at worst, deliberately Orwellian.

Post 11

Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 3:25am

MFD: "Yeah except for that whole communist spy smuggling out the plans to build functional nuclear bombs... At best you are being ignorantly disingenuous, at worst, deliberately Orwellian."

Gee, are those the only two alternatives? You are usually more insightful than that. If you read the context of the statement you took out of context, you will see that my focus was the decades before those you alluded to. I wrote:

MEM: When Lenin's Bolsheviks seized the Russian state, it looked like a glorious new future. Revolutions broke out. The USA suffered a "Red Scare" but the only scary thing was the communists dealt with the social democrats, the syndicalists, the anarchists and others. First Lenin, then Stalin removed the competition. The Spanish Civil War was a high point, but the Nazi-Soviet Pact was no surprise to anyone who viewed world politics from the vantage point of clear principles.

My point was to warn against any call for a united front. Conservatives cash in on libertarianism because the "big tent" theory of the GOP works well for them in November. When Glenn Beck mentions Ayn Rand or libertarianism, he is playing to his audience. Yes, there is similarity and some congruity on economic theory. In the article from Reason about the split between conservatives and libertarians over judicial activism (recently posted; presently on the RoR homepage), the point is made that conservatives do not have a positive agenda. They only say what they are against. Libertarians and Objectivists are given to this, as well. Collectivism seems not to be going away any time soon, regardless of the parties in the Houses upper, lower or White.

That said, however, Objectivism in particular does have a prescriptive and proscriptive "agenda" (if you will) in that it is a moral philosophy for the individual. Morality rests on epistemology, which derives from metaphysics. Morality leads to politics. We all know that. Does Glenn Beck? I think that he would be hard-pressed on the issues that are truly important to us. His "Faith Hope Charity" posters speak volumes.

I have not yet seen Glenn Beck's tout of Hayek. However, Ayn Rand was less than sanguine about Friedrich Hayek and having read some of his work, as much as I liked it, I can see why she did not. He did criticize socialism in Road to Serfdom. Personally, I found his theory of spontaneous order compelling and subtle. But then what?

What does the future look like? What do you think the future looks like to Glenn Beck?

Post 12

Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 9:16pm

Michael writes, "I think that he [Beck] would be hard-pressed on the issues that are truly important to us [Objectivists]."

To "us"? Michael, unless something has changed, you are an anarchist, not an Objectivist. I'm still unclear as to how you can tell us what Beck might say that is or isn't important to anyone when you admit that you've only watched one show all the way through and only one other, partially. So I guess that when you said, "I have not yet seen Glenn Beck's tout of Hayek," that it wasn't in those few minutes you watched.

You said, "When Glenn Beck mentions Ayn Rand or libertarianism, he is playing to his audience." And you know that how?

Post 13

Friday, June 11, 2010 - 5:23pm

Steve, I did not know that you were in charge of the Objectivist Membership Cards. Homosexuality, women as US Presidents, Mozart and Beethoven as anti-life, and making handguns illegal, and pre-emptive nuclear strikes on slave pens, are among the many issues where Objectivists differ with Ayn Rand. At least she does not have to suffer our perfidy.

Watching Glenn Beck is not an intellectual challenge, but watching him online, I can run it back by sliding the thermometer bar. And his scripts are online on his website, www.glennbeck.com. I know a bit more about him than I let on, not that it takes much. I mean, how much time have you spend analyzing the speeches of Nancy Pelosi? You made up your mind about her based on a few essentials. I did the same with Glenn Beck. Despite your insulting claim that I viewed him with a closed mind, I know that I did not. I did, indeed, heave a sigh, and give it a go, but, internally, I know that I was prepared to be wrong, as I often am. That is how one learns.

His blackboards are patently obvious. It gives the viewer the feeling that he is an expert and that they are learning something difficult. If you read the scripts -- and I encourage you; indeed, I challenge you -- you will see literally, word for word, what a blithering idiot he is. He can hardly put a sentence together.

I understand that live TV is different from print. If President Obama talked like that -- and he does -- we would call him an idiot (and he is). Compare, just for instance, a video by Pat Cordell. He claims that he does not prepare his talks or read from a prompter. Glenn Beck is not half so conceptual.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/11, 5:33pm)

Post 14

Friday, June 11, 2010 - 6:01pm

Michael,

I read your last post twice... trying to find any substance. There isn't any. You gave everyone who reads this thread the impression that you had very limited exposure to Beck, now you imply that isn't true and that you were misleading us.
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If you think that Rand's position on homosexual, or a woman being president, or any of the other mis-applications of minor principles is equivalent to the difference between minarchy and anarchy then you have no sense of proportion.

Metaphysics: Objective Reality
Epistemology: Reason
Ethics: Rational Self-Interest
Economics: Free Enterprise
Politics: Limited government
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You said, "When Glenn Beck mentions Ayn Rand or libertarianism, he is playing to his audience." And you know that how?

Post 15

Saturday, June 12, 2010 - 6:13am

SW: You gave everyone who reads this thread the impression that you had very limited exposure to Beck, now you imply that isn't true and that you were misleading us.

I still have very limited exposure to Glenn Beck. However, discussions of RoR and MSK's OL -- this topic now; your challenges -- took me to Glenn Beck's website and to YouTube. I am very interested in ideas and I am intellectually honest. Intellectual honesty is the key virtue: the identification of the facts of reality, independent of your hopes, wishes, or fears. I wanted to see for myself what Glenn Beck was all about. Maybe he would have been politically akin to Ron Paul or culturally similar John Stossel or Rush Limbaugh, or something else entirely.

SW: You said, "When Glenn Beck mentions Ayn Rand or libertarianism, he is playing to his audience." And you know that how?

By watching Glenn Beck and reading the scripts. Sales of Atlas Shrugged are at record levels. Objectivists have joined libertarians and conservatives (paleo and neo) and the Chrisitian Right as an anti-government opposition front. For the great number of them, "anti-government" activities include voting for candidates who promise to reduce the size of the government at their level. For others, writing letters to editors of newspapers, or blogging online are significant. For others, Tea Party gatherings give them the sense of "doing something." They put their savings into gold. Many own guns. Glenn Beck plays to his auidience. Any good performer does. Thus, he mentions Ayn Rand and F. A. Hayek without differentiating them on principles while standing infront of Faith Hope Charity posters that play off the President's "Hope" campaign icon.

Glenn Beck's skill is in keeping all the factions, the fullest possible range of individual viewers, interested in his programs. The blackboard is a perfect prop.

But the blackboard came to us from public education. In 100 years we have gone from the steamship to the spaceship, but education still consists of a person in front of a blackboard lecturing to a passive array of listeners. Government did that, froze education at the 19th century. Yes, we have alternative modes of self-improvement, other media, other interactions, though not from schools. (I just spent five years at this and one of the "computerized" delivery systems was called "Blackboard." Go figure...) Glenn Beck delivers via the iconic blackboard to engage the memories of learning -- though what he says is known to you already.

Why does he not employ some high tech televideo online engaged interactive individualized experience? He does not for two reasons: He is not that smart; and neither are his viewers.

Post 16

Saturday, June 12, 2010 - 3:21pm

Michael, I find you exasperating to an extreme. I ask for the facts or the theory that would justify your impugning Beck's intellectual honesty. But you don't give anything that holds together logically - you just imply that he mentions things popular to different factions and then repeat your assertion that he only does this to play to his audience.

I find his affinity to different groups to be totally consistent with his stated principles and I find that his positions are not those that would be taken by someone who is motivated to play to the audience - he is too often too quick to offend one group or another. Further, if you look at his history, he is often there way before the audience is - they are following him, not the other way around.

As to your own intellectual honesty, you keep one foot in the area marked, "I have very little exposure to Beck" and the other foot in the area marked, "I know a bit more about him than I let on."

Then you launch into a discussion of the history of the blackboard, making the absurd, unwarranted, unsupported assertion that Beck's use of blackboards is "to engage the memories of learning" in us, and therefore (QED) Beck is intellectually dishonest, and according to you he only presents things on the blackboard that we already knew. I freely admit that I did not know that Goldman Sachs, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton's college roommate, Franklin Raines, Van Jones, SEIU, the AFL-CIO and George Soros were all tied in to a Chicago bank that will house a gigantic fund to be filled with Cap and Trade money. I saw that on the blackboard one day, and I'm sure I didn't know it before.
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Here is what Michael wrote at the end of his post: "Why does he [Beck] not employ some high tech televideo online engaged interactive individualized experience? He does not for two reasons: He is not that smart; and neither are his viewers."

Michael, I have so much more respect for the bulk of Beck's viewers and for the readers of this web site... I'll let them wonder who isn't that smart - Beck or Marotta.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 6/12, 7:54pm)

Post 17

Monday, June 14, 2010 - 5:17am