Christofoo Review
the world needs to know what I think
This page contains material which some people may consider politically charged or offensive. If you feel offended, it means you're a wrong headed wacko. What I meant to say is, I don't have to agree with you, and you ought to agree with me, but technically you don't have to.
Glenn Beck: Peddler of 9-12 and Evil
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 12:51 | 
chris
(Updated.)
Glenn Beck started a "9-12 Project" in 2009, the stated intent of which is to "bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001..." Part of this project is a list of 9 principles (and 12 values).
I think it's great that Glenn Beck wrote these 9 principles. This means that instead of blasting him as a racist or a fear-monger or a right-wing-psycho-nut, I can analyze his principles and rationally describe why I fundamentally disagree with him. I only wish that politicians could spell out their principles as clearly as Beck, it would make voting a lot easier.
Here is the list, interspersed with my comments in red:
- America Is Good.
(I kind of hate to start with this one because it's so wacky. Does he mean that he just presumes America's righteousness? To anyone who thinks this way: was invading Iraq good? Was the Spanish-American war good? Was the Great Depression of the 1930's good? In my opinion, America is a large and diverse country, as a people we've made good decisions and bad decisions. It isn't helpful to presume that we're better than everyone else and I don't see how this "principle" is remotely helpful.)
- I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
- I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
- The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
Do you mean that you have the right to beat or kill your children as the ultimate authority? Family autonomy is a good thing, but there need to be limitations. "Ultimate" is clearly the wrong word. But where do we draw the line? This is what deserves discussion. For example, is home-school more of a right or a privilege? If you want to rewind history a bit, you could also maybe ask whether school ought to be mandatory.
- If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
- I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
This is true, and it's the reason that I believe that a country should have built-in safety nets. Some people are just unlucky. I believe that society needs to have institutionalized safety nets in order to function properly.
- I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
Finally, the meat of my disagreement. On the contrary, I believe that this is an important role of government, although I prefer the word "safety net" over "charity."
- It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
This I completely agree with. Where was this sentiment in Feb-March 2003 when we needed it?
- The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
It is true that our elected government answers to the people, and the people are responsible for the actions of this government, however government would be rather pointless if it had no ability to create and enforce policies. So I agree that people should be ready to rise up and throw down harmful policies, and the methods I support include election, journalism, and even civil disobedience (Modandas Gandhi style). However, Beck fails to draw any line between himself and anarchism. For example, civil disobedience must involve publicity with intent. Anyone breaking a law without announcing it to the world is just a criminal.
Comments are moderated, which means it can take days or weeks for your comments to get posted. I do tend to be faster when the site is active.
My goal is to allow all meaningful comments, and delete all spam and the like.
If you want me to delete your comments without posting them, here are some pointers:
- Include a hyperlink of questionable relevance.
- Include gibberish, especially in the title - I won't even read it.
- In general, fail to contribute to the conversation.
Got something to say to me? Try the talk back page.
Continuing the dialogue
I love the conversations we share. We have not evaluated politics together yet. I would be interested in more elaboration from you on point 7. What type of safety nets are appropriate, and which items go beyond just offering safety? I think that there is abuses by the government too. Like you said, the countries leaders make both good and bad choices in dealing with foreign policy; I am saying they have made good and bad domestic choices on how to properly establish the "safety nets", while at the same time not abusing the working class.
As you said, some people are unlucky. I think that part of this is related to the fact that there are a limited number of jobs available. And, there are even fewer jobs that offer a living wadge. I suspect the reasons are very complex, and dynamic. One major component is the that woman entering the workforce over the past 50 years and that has increased the demands for jobs. The complex question is did job supply increase equally to the demand? Many more thoughts to be considered, but just mentioning a few on that.
Second item is point 9. I think that you have a good point. The republic government established by the constitution is intended to be a check on the people. The people are also liable to abuse themselves. The majority is liable to abuse the minority. Thus, the republic was to offer a voted representative who is supposedly neutral to the people involved, and enforces the law as properly established. When the law is abusing the people, then the people improve the law by voting and contesting the law to the government.
Beck went way off on that point. I agree with one idea here, not explicitly stated, but implicitly alluded too. That is, that the states and the federal government need to strike the correct balance. We need to ask if the federal government is setting itself up in a way that might abuse the states. The closer the government gets to the people, the better chance the peoples voices can really be heard.
Re: Continuing the dialogue
Hi Eric (assuming you are the one I know in SLC),
It sounds like we have a bit of agreement here, which is unfortunate, since it precludes a nice heated debate on Libertarianism.
I'd have some work ahead of me to figure out exactly what constitutes a good "safety net," but maybe a good place to start would be social security, since it's the biggest tax item ever. I haven't made up my mind finally, but the retirement insurance part seems incorrect to me, whereas the disability insurance part is more inline with my philosophy. Not by coincidence, retirement insurance is also the most expensive part of social security. My disagreements with retirement insurance are manifold: 1) It sounds like an oxymoron, insurance implies that the contingency is unknown, but that's nonsense in the case of retirement, to a large extent you should be able to calculate what your retirement will be like based on what you're doing now. The contingency is known, in fact a person can viably plan to use the retirement insurance instead of savings. Imagine if I could plan to use my auto insurance to get a new car. Then it would be fraud. 2) Is retirement the type of thing that you want to mandate insurance on everyone? Really? On the other hand, having a mandatory disability insurance or health insurance and labeling them "social security" absolutely makes sense to me.
Going back to item 9, I actually don't believe that voting and contesting are the only checks that we have on government policies, I'm also with Gandhi's philosophies on non-violent civil disobedience, when called for. But that is a far-cry from Beck's "I don't answer to the government," which sounds an awful lot like anarchism to me.
Actually I don't have a particular stance on state-vs-federal government right now. I think the argument is something like "smaller government is invariably better than bigger government, therefore any function that can be served by a smaller government should not be touched by any superseding government." Maybe that makes some sense, but I'd like to see an expert build it out of case-studies before I accept it as dogma.