Maybe Beck ain't so bad...

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (Not starring Clint. Not filmed in Italy.)
I watched the Glenn Beck show today (a rerun). And considering my wife calls me a flaming liberal I was surprised that I kind of agreed with some of his stuff. And in my own defense, I think I'm only about 76.294% liberal.
I'll try and start out on a positive note with the stuff I "agreed" with. Glenn feels that the aid we gave to GM was wrong. So do I. For years GM screwed around, built crap, paid their executives exorbitant salaries (way more than their European & Asian competitors) and made really bad decisions. I could go into the specifics but I think we all know the details. We should have let them fail and allowed somebody else to pick up the pieces. But that was not a politically viable option. And there was substantial support for this on both sides of the aisle.
One thing that troubled me about this is Glenn mocking the recent ad from GM featuring their CEO exclaiming that "We have repaid our government loans!" Glenn said "Maybe you shouldn't lie to our faces!" Ahhh… No Glenn. 500,000 at your rally? You held George Washington's hand written inaugural address? And many more untruths, some of which you have even admitted to. A few sayings or proverbs come to mind. "He who throws the first stone…" or "The pot calling the kettle black" and "Honesty is the best policy".
This one I had agreements and disagreements with. Ben Stein said "Fix Social Security by not paying benefits to the rich. And the same for Medicare!" But Beck had to ruin that by saying the implementation of Social Security and Medicare "infected America with European thinking and began our slide toward socialism." Yaousa! Go Ben! Ah, but regarding the evolution thing…
The Department of Defense… I'm not sure but I think I agree with at least some of what he said. Maybe most of it. I definitely believe we should reduce the budget of the defense department. And even his Blue Hat (the UN) and the Green Eyeshades thing made a lot of sense. Unarguably the UN has been plagued with corruption, ineptitude and mismanagement. But it's the only international body where grievances and other issues can be discussed and sometimes even resolved. There are some horrific examples where the UN (and the US) sat on their thumbs and watched while thousands, maybe millions were slaughtered (I'm thinking of Rawanda). And cutting the defense budget by a meaningful amount could make a significant dent in the national debt.
That's about all that I can agree with. Now, regarding the rest of the *!%^#...
"Abolish the Department of Education". Ahhh…no. In fact HELL NO! I should probably do a separate piece on this, but for now I'll try & be succinct. And besides, it would never fly politically. Why does he even say stuff like this?
And yes, there's no arguing the fact that various forms of government retirement benefits are crippling and in some instances bankrupting various government entities. Just running the numbers gives some very sobering data. And going forward more grounded reasoning needs to be used. But redressing past mistakes is not politically viable.
Now, what REALLY offended me…
"Progressivism is a cancer."
Really? So then what is it's opposite, Regressivism? Conservatism? So then is Regressivism (Conservatism) TB? Aids? Ebola? Emphysema?
I think what bothered me, angered me and frustrated was the angry, hostile, antagonistic tone of his show. It definitely bumped my blood pressure up.