It's no accident Beck and his ilk are blatantly anti-intellectual. They know the smart kids will see through their juggling act so they go for the grade C demographic.  Beck works hard to convince his listeners that he has all the answers and boy-oh-boy aren't they the smarty-pants because just by listening to him they do too.Â
One of Rush Limbaugh's favorite self-descriptors used to be that he was so smart he could take on the liberals with half his brain tied behind his back -- or words to that effect. Beck does a similar thing.Â
On a recent drive up the California coast from LA to Big Sur I passed through one of those dead zones where the only thing on the air are country music and right wing talk radio. For most of an hour I listened to the Beckster selling the idea that maintaining Congress was a waste of our tax dollars. His last words before going to a commercial break were, "What can we do about it? Stay tuned. I have the answer."  Â
As it turned out his the solution was that Congress didn't need to be in session on a regular basis -- maybe only meet every other year like the Texas legislature. Then we could reduce their $140,000 salaries to the same $22,000 we pay our soldiers.Â
He also suggested we cancel their health insurance and make them go to the VA for medical treatment. (It pains me to say it but I kind of agree with him on this. It certainly would result in a magnificent improvement in the quality of care our vets receive.) Â
Of course the irony that he was promoting socialized medicine over private insurance was lost on him as well as his listeners.Â
The other irony is that last year Beck made more in two days than a member of Congress makes for the entire year.Â
So what's this all about? If you listen for more than a few breaths you understand that he's working hard to frame the government as responsible for everything that's wrong with the country.Â
He's even resurrected the bogeymen of Communism and Nazism, both of which he skillfully morphs into "the government" while presenting himself as a bulwark of freedom. Glenn pictures himself holding back the Commies with one hand and the goose-steppers with the other like Sampson pushing against the pillars of the temple. And we all know how that turned out.
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But make no mistake, behind the tears and the mean spirited comedy Beck's fundamental message is insidious and dangerous.Â
Under the skunk-like aroma of armed insurrection that perfumes his rants, buried deep inside the blizzard of intellectual dishonesty and carefully crafted logic pops, is the fundamental idea that government is unnecessary.Â
Let me repeat that.Â
Glenn Beck is trying to convince us that government is unnecessary.Â
You see, he doesn't just hate Democrats. He's virulently anti-democracy because, bottom line, you can have government without democracy but you sure as hell cannot have democracy without government.Â
Everything he says and does is designed to undermine our faith in our systems, in each other, and in our traditional political values.Â
In fact, he and his keepers are engaged in an economic and social experiment every bit as radical as the aforementioned Communists tried back in the fifties.Â
Only instead of it being run by a bunch of whacky Marxists, this experiment's being conducted by the same gang of greedmeisters that just caused the worst economic meltdown in the history of human civilization.Â
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