At the beginning of his show this morning, Glenn Beck started ripping into the imam that all the talk-radio hosts love to hate, because the imam has (correctly) pointed out that the U.S. has killed many more innocent non-Muslims than al-Qaeda has.
Beck went on to defend the U.S. embargo against Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the 1990s, argued that we should have fought the Iraq war “full on” from the beginning (meaning we shouldn’t have been so squeamish — as if “we” were — about killing innocent people), and claimed that the current U.S. government is the only one in the history of the world that has ever fought wars in a manner that avoided killing civilians.
Last year, Beck promoted a rally in Washington to protest the federal government’s taxing and spending. This year, he’s holding a rally to glorify the U.S. military. Can there be any doubt that by the time the Republicans regain control in Washington, Beck and his many followers will be right back where all the conservatives were during the George W. Bush years? Only it will be much worse, because they’ll have much bigger, more powerful government at their disposal, which they will not reduce one bit. And one shudders to think of what the apparent growing extreme, irrational hatred of Muslims may lead to.
Unless, that is, Ron Paul and other true libertarians can steer the Tea Party movement onto the right track before it’s too late.
As a good first step, it’s time for everyone — including some people who should know better — to stop suggesting that Glenn Beck is any sort of libertarian.
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Normally, when one party is in power in Washington, libertarians tend to root for the party out of power. When the Republicans are running things, the Democrats start to seem good, and when the Democrats are running things, the Republicans start to seem good. And of course, when the out-of-power party gets back in power, they disappoint you terribly by pursuing all the things on which they’re bad and forgetting the things on which they’re supposedly somewhat good — and you’re embarrassed that you ever (kind of, grudgingly) rooted for them.
Now, though, the right is making things much easier than usual. The Republicans’ incessant whining about the non-mosque that is not at Ground Zero, their war on immigrants, and their calls for war against Iran make me hate both parties equally — so I won’t have to feel at all bad for temporarily liking one of them (I don’t) or feel betrayed by them (since they never showed any real promise anyway).
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The furor over the “Ground Zero Mosque” (which is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero) doesn’t make me very optimistic about the prospects for liberty.
As a libertarian and just a live-and-let-live kind of guy, I can’t imagine caring much about, let alone vocally protesting, what someone is building two blocks away from me.
Yet apparently many of my fellow Americans are such busybodies that they’ll whine for weeks about something being built hundreds or thousands of miles away from them, in a city they don’t live in and probably won’t even visit. And many of the complainers are among the Tea Party set whom we are occasionally told are “libertarian,” even though they seem to hate Muslims and Mexicans and love war at least as much as they hate the federal government and love liberty.
Jonah Goldberg claims that the conservatives who object “mostly” recognize that the Muslims have a legal right to build their center. But what I hear on talk radio makes me doubt this. A common argument there seems to be that since “liberals” don’t care about the Constitution or property rights in general, they aren’t entitled to invoke them now — as though liberals somehow have the power to waive Muslims’ rights.
In any event, even if Goldberg is correct, it’s hard to imagine that the spirit of liberty resides in the sort of people who get so worked up over this sort of thing. The ease with which they’ve been distracted by this issue suggests that reducing government isn’t going to be their top priority once their team is back in control in Washington.
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How disgusting to learn that Glenn Beck’s much-hyped “8/28″ rally isn’t going to be about demanding more liberty from the federal government but will instead be about honoring the people who carry out that government’s extremely costly wars of aggression.
I’ve had a chance to catch some of Glenn Beck’s radio show lately, and it’s bizarre.
For maybe a fourth of the time, he’ll be pretty great and go after the right targets, bashing the likes of Woodrow Wilson and the Progressives. Even here, he’ll make some comments that suggest he doesn’t really understand economics or know much history, but for the most part, this portion of what he does is remarkably sound. To his credit, he’s sometimes good in places that probably surprise and upset some of his audience, as when he supports tolerance of the so-called Ground Zero mosque (which is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero).
For another fourth or so of the time, the show is like an innocuous, annoying “morning zoo” program.
For another fourth of the time, he spouts typical conservative-talk-radio junk, including the requisite anti-immigration stuff.
And for another fourth of the time, he sounds like a patently fraudulent televangelist.
It’s great that he gets a few things very right, that the heroic Judge Napolitano often guest-hosts his TV show, and that he’s promoted The Road to Serfdom. But his unquestioning support for one of the biggest, most destructive arms of the federal government — which the Founding Fathers he exalts would have abhorred and Woodrow Wilson would have loved — shows that he’s not libertarian and sadly neither is much of the Tea Party movement that reveres him.
Still, maybe he brings enough people far enough along that some will jump over to genuine libertarianism. I hope that outweighs the disrepute he brings to some good ideas — and the name “libertarian” — by associating himself with them.
If you know a brighter-than-average Glenn Beck fan who’s on the edge, you might try giving him a copy of my book.
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