Glenn Beck is crazy, stupid or both?
Sorry I haven’t posted anything for awhile I’ve been avoiding the blog for a bit. I’ll try and get back to it more often. I really should have responded to some of the disagreements people had with my last post. It’s been so long I doubt the posters are still paying attention though, so it would probably be unfair to respond at this late date and expect any responses in kind, so I’ll just leave it as is.
Anyway, the reason for the new post; I listened to Glenn Beck’s show for around 5 minutes this morning while driving into work. I’m really glad that was all I could listen to, because the crazy/stupid was starting to chafe.
Bill Clinton signed a treaty that the (republican mind you) congress ratified saying we WOULD NOT TORTURE and Glenn was pissed because that was, in his words ‘TRANSNATIONALISM’. [It also seems to implicate our previous administration as having actually broken the law.]
He was basically PISSED OFF, because the constitution says we must honor treaties with other countries when they are signed by the president and ratified by congress. FULL STOP. That is the entirety of the complaint. No other way to put it.
His huge complaint about it was ‘we the people didn’t vote on it’. This is how ‘they’ (whoever the fuck they are, I guess our elected officials in this case) are going to ‘take over’. The ‘TRANSNATIONALIST’ are going to take over by saying we can’t do something because treaties are, in Glenn Beck’s words ‘the same as the constitution’ and we are all going to have to bow down to the internationists demands.
I guess ole Glenn thinks its better to not honor treaties? WTF man. Do people actually think this man is rational?
Also, I’ve been told that he’s asked his listeners to cut down trees for ‘Earth Day’. Rational? REALLY? This is the kind of thing that gets huge numbers of listeners?
I’m with Corbert on this one <cry> I just love sanity so much and I fear Beck is losing his.</cry>
EDIT: I have an irrational fear of ‘crazy’. I have an instinctual fear that it is catching. I know that is stupid and I do try to control my behavior when confronted with truely crazy people but it’s always there under the surface.
I cannot stomach Beck. Everything is black and white to him. He’s on the fringe, in my opinion. Naked partisanship is not what I’m about.
Regarding the torture question, Sam Harris raised some legitimate questions, IMHO. It’s a 2005 article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-torture_b_8993.html
Today’s NY Times reports that Obama’s intelligence director says waterboarding did produce valuable intelligence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22blair.html
Bombing women and children (collateral damage) = Sometimes acceptable?
Torture (waterboarding) = Always unacceptable?
In the real world, however, it is my opinion that field agents will continue to do whatever they think they need to do. In other words, even if torture is banned, it will still occur.
When you personalize the subject, what would YOU do to a person that was holding your wife or child captive? Would you read him his Miranda rights and drop the subject?
First, I will note that there is a huge difference between doing horrible things to someone totally in your control and doing horrible things to people that accidentally get in the way of your attempts to do something else entirely than intentionally hurt them.
It’s basically like saying it’s the same thing to hit a kid in the head with a baseball by accident when you hit a home run and hitting the kid in the head when you’ve tied him to a chair and are throwing balls at him. The kid might end up with the same headache, but it’s an entirely different moral area. One will happen if you play enough baseball and the other happens if you’re a psychopath.
Second, convicted felons use hand guns even though it’s banned for their use. Doesn’t mean we don’t still leave it banned and punish those that break the ban. If a field agent breaks a ban and saves the day, he still should get his day in court to plead his case. Maybe he can get a presidential pardon, or be found not guilty by a committee of his peers; but we as a society do not just let this go on in our name as if it’s all OK. It isn’t.
If the person holding my wife and child surrenders arresting him and reading him is Miranda rights is EXACTLY what you expect a professional police force to do. Are we now letting field agents deal directly with captured terrorists that murdered their children? Do we let police conduct interrogations if they are personally involved with the suspects or victims? Hell, we even expect our soldiers in the field to accept surrender in many cases almost immediately after the subjects have been killing their buddies and shooting at them.
Some of the prisoners have been held for over 3 years, just how long a timer is on the bomb that you need to torture them? If we can’t expect some modicum of professionalism from our interrogators we have bigger problems than fanciful ticking time-bombs.
Fifth, [third sir], third, it is a mistake to personalize the subject. We intentionally set up our organizations so that the handling of prisoners is done in a NON-personalized way, because if you personalize something like interrogation all to often the results are bad information, dead or severely damaged prisoners and a false since of retribution.
Forth, I can’t get to the second link, it requires a sign-in and I don’t have a user-id for the NYTimes.
Fifth, is roit out.
Oh, and before we get going on the whole torture thing. It was ancillary to what I wanted to post about.
What I wanted to find out more about, and hopefully have someone explain to me, was how the hell Beck has such a popular show when every time I’ve spent more than 5 minutes listening to it, I end up shaking my head at the amount of stupidity and crazy I’ve been exposed to.
I agree that he’s fringe(please lord let what he’s spouting be fringe), but are there that many fringers out there that they can make this a successful show? If there are that many, isn’t that kind of scary to you, because it is to me.
Perhaps this link may work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22blair.html?bl&ex=1240545600&en=ab4559dbcc4ddb83&ei=5087
Sorry, for going off-topic.
I have no idea why Beck is getting the ratings that he is getting. He and Hannity are preaching to the choir.
Its not problem. We can discuss it if you like. I just wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t the focus I had when I originally posted.
Who do you think the ‘choir’ is though? What makes that group work? What do they really think and why?
The Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh’s of the world just don’t make sense to me. Having a different point of view and espousing it is fine, I enjoy trying to understand how others think and why they could come to different points of view from my own. [Honestly not all the time, sometimes you just wanna rant and have no intention of trying to reach understanding or compromise.]
BUT, when you start shouting to everyone around that the sky is green and we should all eat dirt or the Enchilada of Damascus will devour us all what can you do other than put that person away for their and our, own good?
The positions I hear from these guys, just doesn’t make sense. It is C.R.A.Z.Y. yet people seem to be falling all over themselves to agree with them.
Link still does the same thing to me. I don’t know why. I’ve been able to get to their pages in the past.
Choir = Naked Partisans (they show up at the poll without even considering the issues)
Their votes are not up for grabs. They will vote Republican, no matter who is on the ticket. They will oppose a non-Republican candidate until he or she is out of office, regardless of the issues. Despite the TV ratings, this group of people has shrunk in recent months. Polling data indicates that the number of people describing themselves as Independents has risen, but those describing themselves as Republicans has shrunk.
To view that article, please do a Google search for the following:
“Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’ Memo Says” (leave off the quotes when you search)
The search result should produce a workable, clickable link.
I don’t follow Beck. I’ve listened to both Hannity and Limbaugh over the years off and on. Honestly, I find myself agreeing with them the majority of the time. However, the constant drum beat of their preaching turns me off fairly quickly and I got to turn my attention elsewhere. The reason I can relate to both men is that they preach a conservative view. Again, I don’t know much about Beck, but to call the guy crazy for listening to him for 5 minutes from time to time? I don’t know, but I would strongly suggest you would agree with the guy on something substantial. It would be like me saying Keith Olbermann is Crazy and everyone listening to him must be crazy. I doubt it…although I didn’t care for him during his ESPN days either, so maybe I would find him crazy? I mean if two guys can’t find some mutual understanding under the Sports Umbrella then something must be seriously wrong right? Anyway, all of these people are mostly entertainers at this point and preach to the masses.
Regarding Donny’s comments about the Republicans voting Republican no matter what and the shrinking Repubs becoming Independents: I guess one could make a strong arguement that there are a whole lot of Democrats who take the same path and vote Democrat regardless of issues. Honestly, I think the rise in Independents is because there are a LOT of Conservatives, like myself, who ‘mostly’ voted Republican over the years, but firmly believe that those Republicans that were voted into office did not follow through with the Conservative mantra they preached. They spent, they grew gov’t, and they were corrupt. Further, I think there are a whole lot of Democrats who don’t like the spending frenzy, the gov’t size, and the corruption either…hence even more Independents. I don’t think it will be too much longer before we see another Party or two perhaps.
Tatoe,
Yes, there are absolutely the same voting types on both sides. If I had to estimate it, I would say that 10-15% on each side are naked partisans.
For the rest of us, our votes are up for grabs. Honestly, I can rarely vote FOR a candidate, as it’s a two-party system. As a result, I end up voting AGAINST the guy I feel will do the greatest harm.
Donny,
I think your estimates are dead-on and I couldn’t agree more with your last sentence. Voting AGAINST instead of FOR, as I have done for many years now, has brought us to this point in time. A good deal of people in Washington today are essentially there by default and it shows. However, in all honesty I think there is no way to turn it around. I just don’t see a “normal” person running for office these days. What normal person would subject themselves to it? Who wants to have their entire lives scrutinized..complete with a MSNBC/FoxNews rectal exam..on live TV..for 2-4 years straight? You pretty much have to be a certified NUT to subject yourself to that don’t you? I often refer to this as the ‘Tornado Effect’. You know when the news cameras show up after a tornadic event and find the crazy lady with curlers and moo-moo to tell her story while standing on her now ‘trash heap’ of a house? I think normal people would say “get the hell out of my face with that camera” in this circumstance. If my house lay in ruins, the last thing I’d want to do is go on TV so everybody could witness my misery. Honestly, I’d punch the dude in the face holding a camera up to me as I ponder my circumstances. However, a few people flock to it and come off as looney as they describe the Tornado. People running for office today are no different…you GOT to be crazy!
Yes, I do not see how a third party can compete.
If you look at history, you’ll see that all of this comes in cycles. Each party has a tendency to over-reach, and then moderating actions take place.
I still have faith in the majority of the American people. They are, for the most part, fair and generous. They love Liberty and they value hard work and kindness.
The huge economic mess — which happened while Republicans were in charge of the hen house — was a HUGE factor in the last election. The American people have entrusted MUCH to the President. He was LOTS of people giving him the benefit of the doubt, people who didn’t vote for him.
The theme of the 2012 election will be simple (barring a major terrorist/military event): “Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Four Years Ago?”
If Obama turns the economy around and “keeps America safe” (whatever that means), he’s GOLD. Untouchable. Unbeatable.
The American people are unrealistically impatient. We saw that with the Iraq War. We want things DONE and over. If the economy doesn’t turn around in two years or so, the 2012 elections will be competitive.
The 2010 Mid-Term elections will be a small sign of what’s going on.
Obama could BLOW it, just as easily as being a great President. It is a very tough job, and it is performance-based.
Bill Clinton beat Daddy Bush on “It’s the Economy, Stupid”.
You may hear those words again.
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Can I still not post?
FINALLY! I don’t know what’s been up all morning but I haven’t been able to post to my own blog. I could delete spam and other things but I couldn’t post!
I have to get back to work now, OF COURSE, but real quick.
The problem with reaching the NYT has cleared up. I’m not doing anything different but both of your links worked from home and they seem to be working now on my usual box after a firefox update. I don’t know that the update had anything to do with it, (I think it has more to do with just restarting FF) but I’ll take it either way.
Here is an example of legitimate criticism of government. This is coming from David Sirota, Democrat.
http://www.openleft.com/diary/12977/were-being-robbed
If you pay taxes, then this stuff should make you mad.
I didn’t vote for Obama and I fully expected he’d do some things I didn’t agree with, but damn…the amount of money via debt that we’ve let him ring up is mind numbing. I don’t claim to be a ‘know-it-all’, but if I’m in debt there’s no way in hell I go looking for another credit card to max out in record course.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully blame the Repubs for this BS as well. The ‘economic mess’ IMO is a product of the tax code. Politicians use tax code and scare tactics to literally wiggle into office. They reward those who got them there with tax exemptions and the like. Eventually, they secure themselves a lucrative spot on some committee making them even more powerful in how and when tax dollars are spent. It’s gotten way, way off the path of fairness.
I worked my way to the top and I assume my neighbor did as well. My fear is that my kid won’t have the same opportunity. Instead, she will be relegated into the masses because the gov’t will dictate it to be so from the enormous taxes we will all have to eventually pay.
Great link btw. Bailout was destined to FAIL from start to finish.
Spend a couple of days every month listening to Olberman or some other left mouthpiece, and if every time you check in after 5 minutes you are positive that they are either crazy, amazingly stupid or both, odds are they are. That is the time frame we’re talking about with regards to me listening to Beck. I just posted on the last thing I had heard from him. If you are of a conservative bent then by all means please listen to his show for the rest of us and let us know what you think after some time, but right now I label him nuts. I also have been ‘slightly right of center’ my whole life and I figure they changed where the center was to make me appear as someone of the left.
As for the bailout..Well I think I’ve already pointed out that I think we are fucked with regards to the bailout. We were fucked from the beginning. We were fucked a long time ago and are just now noticing it. I honestly believe that ‘fixing’ that problem was/is going to cost a lot. [You know that stack of bills filling a warehouse? yeah..a lot of THOSE.] And I honestly think the current admin has/had a better chance of fixing it than their opponents. I especially believed that back in November.
HOWEVER, I haven’t liked the way the current admin is handling this problem; I don’t like Geithner, and every time I read something about the methods (or people) they are using I always come to one of two BAD assumptions. Either they are doing this to make things go ‘back to the way they used to be’ or they are ‘trying to make sure the shareholders, bondholders and ESPECIALLY the EXECUTIVES are made whole from their losses’ instead of making sure our society is kept whole and the taxpayers are kept in mind FIRST.
As I said in a previous topic, unless we change the way executive pay is structured and REQUIRE failed enterprises to actually FAIL we will remain status quo: FUCKED.
Trouble is, as bad as Obama is handling this I believe the Republicans would STILL find a way to be worse.
Aww…now you’ve gone and depressed me. We let an aristocracy take hold in our country by allowing unregulated concentration of money into fewer and fewer hands and this is the result. grumble grumble….beer?!.
If we ever do fix this, it’s going to take a MASSIVE public outcry and demand for change. Real change, but I don’t see anything like the kind of change we need coming from the right.
Um..anybody got links to something fun and ‘up’? I’ve been posting way to much downer bullshit lately.
If I owned a pet I’d start pulling the Balloon Juice trick and posting about it at this point.
Bill Maher:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-maher24-2009apr24,0,6983740.story?track=rss
Ok, I agree with what Maher said there, however, I don’t expect many Republicans to agree, simply because they will refuse to take advice from their ‘enemies’. I understand that position, who would take advice, even good advice from their enemies? The problem is, right now many Republicans have forgotten that Democrats are their rivals not their enemies. We all (man I hope this is a true statement) love our country and want what is best for it and it’s peoples.
That said sometimes the mindset of someone who is far right or far left just can’t bridge the distance to the other side and see how that other person can come to the decisions they do.
Also note that Republican != conservative and Democrat != liberal. The two parties definitely heavily sway that way, but there are plenty of liberals that hate what the current Dems are and plenty of conservatives that hate what the current Repubs are. Personally I think it’s probably more conservatives fed up with the republicans than liberals at democrats in today’s environment.
As a Conservative I think Maher is WAY off point. The protests were born out of the current political movement headed way left or in at least what conservatives like me feel are way left. That’s it. It stops right there. It wasn’t about the past Election, Black Obama, blahblahblah. I run in the Conservative circles and I know not one person that would fit the loop that Maher created in that article. It always concerns me when you have someone like Maher, an admittedly far-left guy, who is really on this planet to entertain, suddenly writing op-eds. It’s hard for me to take him seriously, but it scares me that others may be influenced by him.
The “Republican obsessions” Maher rants about are fodder for jokes …PERIOD It’s sheer entertainment for the masses.
The “normal issues” for the “normal people” that Maher describes are EXACTLY what was represented MOST by the resent protests. You don’t have to dig to deep to find that is a FACT. His so-called “Republican Obsessions” are being thrown around by 1% of the Conservative population and again, mostly in joking fashion. Maher is an entertainer…no different than Limbaugh, Hannity, and the like. Your last sentence rings true. Most Republicans, as it stands today, are not Conservative. Ahhh, but whatever, we’re fucked anyway. It’s all about the debt at this point as everything we do in the near future will be dictated by how we deal with the debt-load FIRST. Your standard recipe for fucked-up-ness…take your own advice and post some fun shit why don’t ya.
Kos: The GOP’s Base Problem
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/28/724998/-The-GOPs-base-problem
The Republican Shrinkage Problem
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/parsing-the-polls/21-percent.html
On the torture issue, former CIA (head of the Bin Laden unit, no less) weighs in…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403459.html