— Edward Gibbon, ‘Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire’
Read an article today by Philip Moon over at Cracked.com concerning historic figures that are commonly misunderstood and misused in modern times. Glenn Beck and his adoring cult were the most egregious violators with their newfound obsession with Thomas Paine, mangling his thought in order to reach their own political ends.
Glenn has pretty well placed his career on some very bizarre and incredibly far reaching assertion that Thomas Paine’s historical legacy gives his amateurish libertarian “ideals” some credence. Well, Glenn’s crack research squad over at Fox News should have bothered to Google up a little bit of Thomas Paine’s writing before hinging their star demagogue’s legitimacy on name dropping a founder. Here are some Thomas Paine gems that Glenn doesn’t know about yet:
“Pay as a remission of taxes to every poor family, out of the surplus taxes, and in room of poor-rates, four pounds a year for every child under fourteen years of age.”
- Thomas Paine, ‘Rights Of Man’
Woops. That’s pretty much the child tax credit created under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
This one is great too:
“It is painful to see old age working itself to death, in what are called civilised countries, for daily bread… pay to every such person of the age of fifty years … the sum of six pounds per annum out of the surplus taxes, and ten pounds per annum during life after the age of sixty… This support, as already remarked, is not of the nature of a charity but of a right.”
- Thomas Paine, ‘Rights Of Man’
In modern times we call that Social Security, passed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Yet another liberal president cleaning up the previous conservative’s mess, and in doing so pulled the U.S. up into what Paine would call “civilised” status for a country.
Glenn would probably be scared into crying patriot tears over these thoughts of Thomas Paine:
“There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it.”
- Thomas Paine, ‘Agrarian Justice’
Oh, and this:
“Create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property.”
- Thomas Paine, ‘Agrarian Justice’
In the words of Philip Moon, “Holy shit! That sounds a lot like…”
COMMUNISM!
The point of this is that ideas on government should be based on merit, and reasoned through from an enlightened position of history (know the realities), context (times change), problem solving (as libertarianism shirks responsibility and avoids solving problems), and national interest (what’s good for our country, not what’s good for individual interests). Ideas on government should not be espoused because a certain person said them, or because they are old or from a certain time period. And the mistake of designating credibility in this faulty manner is just another reason that Glenn Beck is a GOON. And the fact that he believes that Jesus is from Missouri where the Garden of Eden is located would be another story altogether…
Halo 3: ultimate sticky grenade bank shot
Tommi makes the greatest throw of a sticky grenade I’ve ever seen in Halo 3.
Matt Holliday’s 2nd homerun of the game and 4th in the last 3 games.
Cardinals beat Athletics 4-3, 6/19/2010
Last pitch, last out. Jason Motte’s game ending 99 mph fastball. Fireworks at Busch Stadium for every Cardinal homerun and win. People living downtown must never get any peace!
Click through for Bill Maher making this sentiment famous last week on Real Time With Bill Maher.
Graphic by Brandon Green, possibly found here: http://bgreenillustrator.blogspot.com/
Comedian Lewis Black nails it in this critique of Glenn Beck’s constant pulling of the “Nazi card” and his hypocritical and ironic sensitivity to the tactic when he perceives it elsewhere.
On his show, Beck often argues against the criticism that he’s an irrational conspiracy theorist who makes things up by countering that he only uses his enemies’ very own words against them. Well Lewis Black demonstrates that two can play at this game.
I’m not sure why some viewers don’t realize that Beck can cherry-pick quotes, craftily edit clips, remove all context, and distort his opponents’ message, but historical fact will always be there to counter his wild delusions, and Lewis Black demonstrates this as well.
Glenn Beck’s strategy is nothing new, and is summed up well in this article:
Reductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum, (dog Latin for “reduction to Hitler” or “argument to Hitler,” respectively) is an ad hominem or ad misericordiam argument, and is an informal fallacy. It is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone’s origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context. Hence this fallacy fails to examine the claim on its merit.
Engaging in this fallacy is sometimes known as playing the Nazi card,[1] by analogy to playing the race card.
The fallacy claims that a policy leads to—or is the same as—one advocated or implemented by Adolf Hitler or the Third Reich, and so “proves” that the original policy is undesirable. For example: “Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarianism is wrong.” The tactic is often used to derail arguments, because such comparisons tend to distract and anger.[1]
Let’s not repeat this history.
Just saw the movie ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ for the first time, and it’s instantly one of my all-time favorites.
This scene is a remake of a report by revered journalist Edward R. Murrow. Murrow is addressing the irresponsible behavior of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had been succeeding in audacious character and career assassinations of those whom he disagreed with politically. McCarthy made wild accusations of subversive anti-American behavior against many people, spreading fear and paranoia throughout the government and the country. Murrow reported on the tactics and inaccuracy of McCarthy, and reason won out, with McCarthy imploding into shame and irrelevancy.
There should be no place in American politics for mass marketed demagoguery, no matter how profitable it has become. Our country protects freedom of speech but not freedom from responsibility. We should hold public personalities responsible for what they present. We can vote against character assassination, xenophobia, and hate by responsibly choosing what we watch and support on tv and radio. We can eradicate unjustified paranoia for profit.
I’m looking at you, Glenn Beck.
President Bill Clinton gave a speech last Friday concerning the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995. He noted the obvious parallels in the motivating ideology of this attack, carried out by domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh, and the new en vogue ideologies of certain elected officials and opinion entertainers. He offered that incendiary speech by politicians for the purpose of scaring up campaign donations, and the endless conspiracy theorizing and fear mongering of for-profit entertainers ends up landing on the ears of everyone; both the masses that understand the purpose and limitations of this kind of fundraising speech, and also the misunderstanding loons out there that don’t “get the joke.” From President Clinton’s speech:
…what we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should gag each other or we should reduce our passion for the positions that we hold, but the words we use really do matter because there are — there’s this vast echo chamber, and they go across space, and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike. And I am not trying to muzzle anybody, but one of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in America is that no law can replace personal responsibility. And the more power you have, and the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have.
Since the election of Barack Obama, the hate speech from officeholders and entertainers on the right has been shameless, and has only been increasing in intensity and lunacy, even as President Obama turns out to be much more moderate than many liberals had hoped. Domestic terrorists have come from the left in the past as well, but the left establishment has learned to speak in a way that doesn’t ratchet up the temperature to apocalyptic levels. My hope is that the right can ultimately come to respect the influence they have over the “serious and delirious alike” and learn to make their case in a responsible way. Here’s to hoping.
