Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck

I tell folks all the time when they stop me to say they enjoy my column to "come by the gun shop and see me."  Every once in while someone takes me up on that.  When they do we inevitably get into spirited discussions of politics, race, religion and every other "third rail" topic you should avoid if you want to make everyone happy.  Well, I don't want everyone happy.  I want everyone informed.  I think Glenn Beck and I have that in common.  He is not concerned with your happiness when it comes to politics, he is concerned with your knowledge.

That fact alone puts him at juxtapositions with the rest of the "media" that is based on serving your baser instincts rather than actually informing you.  (Baser-instincts = 7 deadly sins by the way...)  Rather, Beck just gives it to you right between the eyes.  His loudest critics tell on themselves and confirm my supposition when they call him "loud", "dangerous", "paranoid" and "emotional".  Rare is the word "wrong" or "incorrect" used.  Because Glenn Beck is usually right, or at least headed in that direction.

Before you think I am a Glenn-head who listens to his radio show then rushes home to catch the TV show and has a life time subscription to his web page you might want to know that I never listen to his radio show and catch a TV broadcast about once a month.  I base my opinion on Glenn from previous years of listening to him on the radio and the occasional tune-in on my part to his current show on Fox.  It will also interest you to know that I generally detest Fox News, I think Sean Hannity is a media whore and Bill O'reilly is in the twilight of his relevance and career.  I find most of Fox News patronizing, tabloid and blatantly one-sided.  Just like MSNBC is to the left, so is Fox to the right.  I am smart enough to know when someone's marketing plan is just to confirm my bias!

Glenn however I count as an anomaly.  A welcome anomaly.  He, like Rush Limbaugh, bases his ideas on some very simple and heuristic values.  I think both of them are great, and I think both of them get it WRONG a good bit.  Glenn lets his emotions get the best of him, and Rush lets his arrogance get the best of him. 

Luckily the general message shines through.  What is so anomalous about Glenn Beck is that he is as close to a true Conservative as I can find in the media.  I also truly believe that HE believes every word he says.  I can't say that about Hannity or O'Reilly.  Glenn knows that Governments always grow no matter who is in charge and that its growth is accelerated when the Left is in charge, he knows that each individual state is sovereign and that our Federal government has grown past its useful size and is a tyrant over each state, he knows that less taxes are better than more and that more tax stifles growth of the private sector and rockets growth of government.  He knows our founders created a base set of laws called the Constitution and that we have strayed far beyond their intentions and timeless wisdom.  He knows these things because he is a Conservative.  The fact that he is able to synthesis our current state of politics and express it back to us on TV and radio in a way that makes sense to us explains his success.  Not because he is a fear monger.  Not because his paranoia is entertaining.  But, because he makes sense to us.

I invite you to tune in to Glenn on Fox News on occasion.  Not just because I like him or that his program is good, it is and I do.  But, because it scares the devil out of the left.  The true Kool-aid drinkers on the left can't understand Glenn's appeal and they will label you "paranoid" and "bitter" and "clinging" to guns and God.  Anytime we can scare the left because of their own paranoia about us, we should.  Not just because it is fun, but because it sends them on a fool's errand of trying to pry us from our good senses.  This give them less time to grow government, socialize medicine, indoctrinate children, and weaken our strategic defenses world wide.