some irritated thoughts about Glenn Beck.
So I sat down today to watch the last half hour of Glenn Beck’s show. I’d never seen Beck before outside of brief sound bights that CNN aired to make him look like a jackass.
As far as I could tell, they weren’t distorting his character much.
Now, let me be clear. I’m not saying Glenn Beck’s an idiot, and he’s not arguing as crazily as Rush Limbaugh. But he’s spinning harder than bill oriley and his persona disgusted me.
The half hour or so I watched dealt with three issues, both of which I’ll summarize, more for what they show about Beck than there relevancy to the national political discussion.
I tuned into the show at a random point, and caught the latter bit of a discussion on the economy. Beck was making the point that in 1946 the people who thought the country was heading back into depression were wrong. He drew parallel’s to our own time and how people on the left say we’re heading back into a recession with a possible depression looming.
I’m ignoring his argument because it isn’t the point. I’m not an economist; I can’t tell if what he is saying is crazy right wing bullshit or cogent. But when quoting a 1946 article by a liberal economist, he started the quote by going “egghead speaking, get ready folks.”
Ah, folks, people who say folks must be down to earth, with not a bit of yolk in their heads whatsoever. The quote he read on his show wasn’t even that convoluted, but he wanted to make it appear as though it was.
Why? Well, it seems to me that it was to advance a deliberately anti-intellectual stance. This stance is a thorny thing because his viewers aren’t supposed to think his arguments are intellectual, though they of course are, but they are supposed to distrust liberals for being overly intellectualized eggheads. Of course every economist of whichever stripe is, by definition, an egghead, no economist, however conservative stands up and says “we should do this because I feel it in my gut.”
the first issue Beck discussed which I watched fully was that of Obama’s supposed hatred for Great Britain. This stems from his returning of a Churchill bust the British gave us shortly after 9/11.
The thinking goes something like this. Obama’s grandmother relates that Obama’s grandfather was tortured by the British because he was involved in Kenya’s war for independents against the British.
Now, this makes sense. I’m not Obama, I don’t know if he hates the British because they tortured his grandfather or if he’s dispassionate enough not to care. But the way beck presented it was… Rather off putting.
The problem is the way he told the story. When mentioning sources, he pointed out that the grandma was Obama’s step grandmother, the third wife of his grandfather. Beck pronounced “third wife” to implicate that the wife was either the third at once, or a long string of failed marriages but didn’t clarify which it was.
Step grandma was also emphasized, as though it made a difference.
Beck then goes on to ruminate on whether or not a grandfather being tortured by the British would result in a hatred for the British. He concludes that if it were his grandfather, he’d hate the British. He goes on about this for a minute or so before saying that he doesn’t know how Obama feels.
Note the contrast between his rant on how he would have felt and then the soft spoken disclaimer that he has no idea how Obama would feel. It gets lost in all the noise. Its like talking about how most Afghanis are baby eating heathens, and then, in the last minute of your speech saying, “but this afghan is ok.” No ones going to remember that little contradiction.
Second was the death of Robert Byrd. Byrd was in the KKK in the fifties and spent that decade just basically being a racist douche. I dislike him intensely for this, and am moderately glad he’s no longer a senator. He apologized for the racist stuff but I doubt the sincerity of his apology as he only apologized once it was socially unviable to continue being a racist.
Beck talks about Byrd’s death. He’s upset that CNN and all the other news networks only show clips of Byrd playing the fiddle to crowds and fail to mention his KKK involvement. I was also upset by this.
However, I was even more upset by what followed for the sheer Orwellian doublespeak of it. Beck shows a montage of Byrd being racist. He details the man’s unsavory remarks, saying he wouldn’t fight beside a black man, that he’d rather die than do so. That mlk was a rabble rouser, that all men created equal wasn’t meant literally, the basic ranting of ignorant racists everywhere.
Beck intones all of this in a sneering baritone with menacing music in the background. Then, the music fades out and Beck points out that Byrd repeatedly apologized for his involvement in the KKK.
You can’t have it both ways! You either trust the apology or don’t. I don’t, but Beck tries to do both, but the scary music montage of all the racist shit Byrd did followed by, “but he apologized a few times.” Its discordant and leaves the viewer thinking some democratic senator was a racist, which is weird because the republican right probably hates Obama for being black… And to top it all off beck then takes a five or six word quote from Byrd’s 2005 autobiography where he calls the Klan a “fraternal organization.” But then Beck once again points out Byrd apologized.
He’s doing what he did with the British grandfather thing. He admits, in passing, a certain fact, in the grandfather situation that no one but Obama can know what Obama feels, and in the Byrd situation that Byrd did apologize, but he deliberately lets those things be overshadowed by the type of hysterical thinking liberal’s accuse him of fostering among his audience.
He said that the reason for the “BYRD WAS A RACIST” spot was to ensure that people did not forget that Byrd had once been in the KKK. OK, I remember. But it was such a jumbled message and that’s what pisses me off. He apologized, but he was racist, but he apologized later, but remember this racist stuff he did for which he then apologized.
Now, I don’t like Byrd, but take this quote from an interview Byrd gave shortly before his death.
I suppose what upsets me most about beck is the demographic he’s playing to or the demographic he’s helping to create. Its hysteria, its simple sound bights decrying other simple sound bights.
It isn’t that the arguments that Beck presents are wrong, its that they are dumbed down to such a degree that in their very simplicity they are hard to refute .
I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again. I can’t erase what happened. I still don’t trust Byrd, I never liked him as a senator, primarily, but not exclusively because of his involvement with the Klan, and because he got flagged by the media for saying racist things after he was done with it. But I also did not follow his career so closely that I’m ready to say without a shadow of a doubt that the above doesn’t express sincere regret. But the guy was in the senate for fifty years, his life shouldn’t be symbolized by a membership in an organization which was eclipsed hugely by his time spent in the senate.
Pages & Rages 
Legal or Out! My Thoughts on Immigration Law.
So, as its looking like a lot of the Arizona law will be allowed to take affect, I figured I’d give my thoughts on illegal immigration as its rather topical and also has me extremely pissed off.
My stance isn’t very nuanced.
If you are an illegal alien, as the very designation proclaims, you are not supposed to be in this country.
I see no extenuating circumstances at all. The only right I think should be granted to people without legal documentation is emergency medical care. Now, I’m not talking about a yearly physical or “I have a wart on my foot,” I’m talking just hit by a car medical care. And then, from the hospital, you should be deported.
Sanctuary states appall me. Absolutely appall me. Look at California. Part of its budget problems have to do with the money it spends on English as a second language programs.
Now, if all those school children are illegal that becomes a necessary expense. If they are not, it is not just unnecessary, but goddamned criminal!
I know all of this sounds conservative, but I’d argue that it isn’t conservative, but logical.
We either have opened boarders or shut boarders. There really isn’t a middle ground. Either there’s an open immigration policy, where we turn this country into a walk in clinic for people who had the bad luck to be born in impoverished countries, or we have visa’s and green cards and all the rest of it.
I think that we should be letting more people into this country legally. If there’s a work demand, that is, if there are jobs that only poor people from third world countries will take, then let them in. But just because the government hasn’t done that yet doesn’t mean we should ignore these laws.
So I’m perfectly ok with the current state of Arizona’s immigration law.
If a cop pulls someone over for an offense which is unrelated to boarder jumping, and there is a reasonable suspicion that the person might be illegal, a cop should be not just allowed to investigate, but encouraged to do so.
If that person is illegal, there should be no trial, no proceeding of any kind. I want instant and emphatic deportation. Right back to where you came from.
There should be no trial because if the offense that the person was pulled over for isn’t worthy of heavy jail time, then the fact of the person’s illegality should trump everything else, and they should be deported rather than prosecuted for breaking a window or being drunk in public. I don’t care what awaits you in your country of origin. Pissed off a druglord? Well, that sucks, but it is in no way the problem of the United States. Have nine kids and want to make money to send home. Well, you should have been reading the freakin speedlimmit signs more closely. If you wanted to do the legal thing you should have pled political asylum.
I don’t really understand the counter argument. It seems like a bleeding heart thing to me. I guess people feel bad that these illegal immigrants weren’t born into a high standard of living so they don’t mind that they come here, caj off our high standard of living and send money home while only paying a bit of sails tax.
Now, if you disagree with me, and you read the above paragraph you’re probably saying, “but Jason, these people are doing shitty jobs for shitty money in bad conditions.”
My answer is that that’s a hardship that they assume responsibility for. As bad as the wages and the work is, they obviously want it or they wouldn’t be here. Morally I have sympathy for people coming to this country without papers. If I lived in some third world cesspit I’d probably try to get to the first world. But it doesn’t affect my response as an American which is either pay your taxes or get out.
Now you should understand that I don’t much care which. If every illegal immigrant who didn’t have a conviction paid all there back taxes, and a five grand I snuck into your country without permission fee, then I wouldn’t care if they staid. But until that happens, I want these people out of the country.
My reasons are simple and economic. If you don’t pay taxes and work here, you have an unfair monitory advantage. If you don’t pay taxes and use united states social programs which includes free medical care, education, welfare, roads, free speech, free press, you are stealing. There’s no counter argument. You are stealing from the government. Education costs money. Every tax payer contributes to the cost of it, and if someone is being educated without a legal guardian of some form contributing to the budget of the United States, then that person is stealing. It pisses me off when someone with no health insurance gets themselves a case of diabetes or obesity or lung cancer that was self inflicted. Because they have no insurance they can’t pay for the medical care. But because they are a citizen, I wouldn’t want them to die in the street, so I except the necessity of paying for there medical care. Grudgingly, but unquestioningly. But that’s because there citizens. It makes a huge difference. I believe that all men were created equal, but the difference between being an American and not being an American either exists or it doesn’t. If it exists, and you aren’t an American, you shouldn’t get to take advantage of America’s perks for the reason that you are not an American. So if you have lung cancer or diabetes, you should be deported. How’s Mexico’s national healthcare? What’s the standard of care like there? You know what you should do if you like America’s healthcare better than Mexico’s? Well, either apply for American Citizenship or go to Mexico, take up your civic responsibility and try to CHANGE HOW THINGS WORK IN YOUR OWN FUCKING COUNTRY!
If the government, whether it be local, state, or federal, knows that a person is illegal, that should be the end of it. Out! No appeals, no nothing. You either have papers or you don’t, just.
No detention centers, no nothing. Out with the clothing on your back and whatever you have in your pockets. Most especially if you’ve been convicted of a crime.
Now I should say as a slight contradiction that illegal immigrants who go unnoticed, I’m not all that concerned about. If you never get convicted of a crime, and are here illegally, I’m still not happy about it, but there are worse things, namely the people who are here illegally and are convicted of crimes. I’m willing to ignore innocuous illegal’s. I’m not happy about it, but its the reality of the situation.
Ideally, in my opinion we shouldn’t go on some massive deportation drive. We shouldn’t try to root out every illegal immigrant. There are too many, its a waste of money, and a lot of them are employed here, doing jobs that even in this recession, normal Americans don’t want to do.
But if a cop stops a person for doing something illegal, the question should be asked, the answer determined, and if the person is illegal, then they should be shown the door.
I’ll leave you with one final analogy.
I’ve always wanted to stay at the Ritz. I’ve been there once. Its nice. You can smoke in the lobby, there’s a live band, the waitresses are hot. But if the manager of the rits caught me in the presidential sweet, he wouldn’t be like, “well, I’m not allowed to ask if you’d pay for a room,” he’d call the desk and if I hadn’t paid for a room I’d be deported from the hotel. We should think of ourselves like a goddamned hotel.
political commentary