I know. Damn those capitalists, trying to make money and all. So evil. I have been following Glenn for a long time....back when I had to watch him five nights a week on CNN at the hotel I worked at. He was straight up neo-con in foreign policy and other things.
I have seen dramatic change in him....and not just when he came to fox. It started before.
This is a movement based on belief in the individual. Based on the hope that people can learn, understand, and put into practice ideas based on liberty. Not that government can create change, but that individuals can...and can change themselves. And individuals make MISTAKES.
I am certainly not saying to call Beck a hero of the movement. I am not even saying call him an ally. I am not saying watch him. Nor listen to him. I am not even saying trust him.
Simply don't give up faith that people CAN change, and don't be so stuck on your pre-concieved opinion that you cant recognize change when it happens.
I know I quoted a post, but I am responding to everyone, not just them.
Sincerely,
Slutter McGee
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
THANK YOU. Couldn't have said it better myself. And you're particularly right about the capitalism part. GOD FORBID someone wants to stay in business and make money. I say, we use it. Help him get good ratings when he talks about what we like (Ron Paul, Schiff, anti-establishment, etc), and make youtube videos and spread them around.
Hell, about 8 years ago when I got out of public high-school I was a raging statist. I felt the government needed to take care of us, protect us, and we should always trust our leaders to do the best and right thing, and that without all-present government we would destroy ourselves.
Shortly after being exposed to the liberal media, etc I became a raging socialist. We needed to help people, and force others to help us help them, and squeeze the rich to make everyone more equal. Life was unfair and it needed to be made fair for everyone, by the government.
Then I became a raging neo-con imperialist, because it was obvious socialism didn't work and was inefficient, but we needed to be the nation at the top - after all, someone has to be at the top, might as well be us. It was our duty to impose our morality and control over the savages of the world and spread and protect american interests everywhere.
Then after more research, and ESPECIALLY hearing Ron Paul debate a few years back - it really got me thinking. I did more research. Philosophy, economics, the founders, Ron Paul... I realize it was all bullshit - the govt was bullshit. But it was a necessary evil to protect our most fundamental rights. Freedom worked... but only to an extent, I thought. I didn't trust the govt to do anything right or efficiently, and they were easily corrupted - yet I still believed they should do the most essential jobs of society (protecting our natural rights of life, liberty, property, law and courts, providing for common defense). I was then a minarchist.
Then I realized the ass-backwards logic of such an idea that the govt can't be trusted in any way, to do things efficiently or right, and can easily be corrupted - but that we must leave the most IMPORTANT jobs to the govt. So I did yet more research and self-reflection... read some Ruwart, David Friedman, Rothbard, Hayek, and will start on Von Mises soon. I realized that ANY job the govt has ever done in history - the private sector has also done, but cheaper and much more effectively. There were clear-cut ideas of how pure-unfettered free-market capitalism and the complete absence of the state in accordance with people's recognition of property was the most logically, morally and economically consistent and viable system out there. I am now an anarcho-capitalist, with a view of gradualism and acceptance of minarchism as a means to an ideal ends.
What's my point in this rant? People CAN change. Maybe Beck is changing? Maybe he's not. But I and Slutter aren't saying to completely trust him just yet (I know I don't), but take it as an opportunity to spread the message we want out there much more... this may or may not result in a conversion of Beck - but at the least MANY minds out there will be a LOT more open to our ideas, and to Ron Paul. Plus, some videos have shown that Napolitano has been at Beck's ear a lot recently - so maybe he is changing his message? Sure, he's definitely not all the way there yet... but he's saying more and more of what we like.
I mean, for hell's sake - he's talking serious anti-establishment shit now, and he's EVEN talking about pulling our empire back, and talking about the constitution, mentioning Ron Paul, etc... this is VERY against the neocon agenda/philosophy.
Until then, we all have a common goal for freedom, whether some of us trust others or not - don't let stuff like this divide us. Although I don't think it really is anyways. But I digress...