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Glenn Beck is one of the most interesting things to happen in mainstream media and political discourse in this country – particularly for conservatives – in a long time. He has skyrocketed to fame and fortune with a new twist on the populist/conservative talker formula that the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity perfected, which they actually copied – and dumbed down – from guys like Bob Grant. In fact, he is actually affecting how Limbaugh and Hannity do their shows, and is a guest and is talked about on other major shows all the time. Perhaps the equivalent phenomena on the ‘left’ is John Stewart’s Daily Show – although I can hear Stewart and his ilk cringe at the comparison, and maybe Beck would too.
So what is this twist? In a nutshell, it’s that Beck is actually intellectually curious about the world and this is very engaging to a group of people who are sick of being treated to very simplistic polemic every day. Beck’s popularity is a rejection of the ‘talking points’ hectoring of major conservative talkers – folks on the left just don’t get this, btw. He tells his own story enough, so I won’t repeat it all here but essentially he claims that he woke up after 9/11 and really began trying to inform himself about the world. He’s an everyman that regular middle class Americans can relate to, and he’s taken his viewers on an intellectual journey through history, philosophy, economics and political thought in a way that no college professor or pointy-headed intellectual could ever do. He brings along with this a set of traditional values which can loosely be described as ‘faith and family’, that give great comfort to his audience. His self-styled political philosophy mirrors that of the Tea Party in that it is hard to articulate the actual differences between him and traditional Conservatives or Republicans in both rhetoric and substance. He often makes reference to libertarianism and at one point actually claimed that he should have voted for Ron Paul, although this admission was primarily based on Ron Paul’s critical view of our rigged economy, not the rest of his philosophy.
So, what’s wrong with that? Well, first, it’s painful to watch if you actually know something about the subjects he’s exploring. Let’s take one recent example of how he gets it so wrong. He’s been trying to understand the epistemology of left and right, communism, fascism and progressivism – but notably not conservatism. He’s put together a spectrum of political belief with anarchy at one end and totalitarian government at the other, rightly concluding that Fascism is totalitarian, as well as Socialism. However, he completely neglects the fact that Socialist theory (admittedly, not most of the practice of it) is democratically based, and in fact calls for all industry/business to be run by democratic cooperatives and have elected leadership. This is the problem with a one dimensional analysis. He gets totalitarianism correct but completely neglects the idea of authoritarianism. He then throws them in the same bucket, and at this point loses all serious students of the topic. Fascists and Communists were arch enemies in Nazi Germany, and the communists saw themselves as the proponents of freedom, which the Fascists had no interest in. I will stop detailing a critique of his specific thinking at this point because I don’t listen to most of what he says. But, from a broad standpoint, I think it’s fair and accurate to say that he really misses the intellectual underpinnings of the enlightenment and how classical liberalism has driven political philosophy forward. More directly, I think that if he’s going to posit himself as trying to understand and explain political thought and the history of it to us, he needs to do a much better job. Fyi, if you are tempted to think I’m sympathetic to communism due to the previous statements, you couldn’t be farther from the truth and in fact you are falling into the same pseudo-intellectual trap as Beck. Check your facts, Marx and his ilk based their entire theory on advancing their version real freedom for people – however wrong they were. It is utterly different from Fascism. You should also know that socialists play the same trick on capitalists, identifying fascism as a form of capitalism. Essentially, Beck is engaging in a combination of Red-Baiting and Nazi-Baiting – it’s intellectually invalid and not even new. Any undergraduate student of the topics he’s discussing would be able to easily identify the flaws in his thinking.
It must be said that much of what he’s wrestling with is understanding the canon of what used to be referred to as a ‘classical education’. Four years in an undergraduate history program that focuses on western civilization (unperverted by Critical Theory, admittedly hard to find) would do him wonders. It’s painful to watch him try to sort this out on his own, and between his radio and TV show, he does this for four hours a day. It requires a certain arrogance to put yourself forward as an authority while one is so self-admittedly ignorant, and also begs the question of why wouldn’t he spend his time putting people forward who know the subject far better than him. Yes, he does have many thoughtful guests, but really, if he wants to educate people in the way he claims he wants to, he would put them front and center to actually teach instead of using them as props. What Beck does instead is continuously move back and forth between polemic and inquiry in a chaotic way, with the ultimate aim of aggrandizing the world view he holds a priori.
Special criticism is deserved for his treatment of religion. Having had the hackneyed ‘spiritual awakening’ that only the ‘recovering alcoholic’ can have, he fervently promotes a brand of ill defined spirituality that he has absolute faith in. I stopped drinking with the help of AA 15 yrs ago, successfully, and adopted it’s spirituality for a few years, so I can speak of this authoritatively. Apparently this week he’s going to discuss the role of ‘faith’ in our nation’s history. He teased it on his radio show today as showing how our countries values and, by implication, its radical adoption of individual liberty arise from the teachings of Moses, as embodied in the Ten Commandments. This just isn’t so, and in serious intellectual circles, again, it can’t even be taken seriously. Here are a few reasons why, for those of you under his sway. First, The Enlightenment and the concept of individual liberty – better described as individual sovereignty, meaning that one owns oneself – arose in direct opposition to man’s previous state in society which was being the subject of God and King – and the King’s authority derived from God in the first place. Clerics of various religions were very powerful and the state used this power to visit and justify merciless depredations on its subjects. The idea that you were born into something other than this condition was a radical departure from the ‘faith based’ world of pre-enlightenment history. This is not debatable – it is an accepted fact. Go study this and you will find I’m correct. Second, the many of the founders of our country weren’t religious people. Key ones, including Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and others rejected Christianity and all religion, thinking of themselves as deists, at most. While it is without a doubt true that there were many Christians involved too, they all agreed to put in writing a prohibition of the state establishment of religion in attempt to stop the imposition of religion on man. It needs to be pointed out that while the Declaration of Independence has liberal mention of a God/Creator, it is not the founding document of our country or government – it’s the document that separated the colonies from England’s despotism. The U.S. Constitution, which formed our nation, makes no mention of God and requires no such belief to adhere to its principles. I could go on – many have – but Beck, and many other Conservatives are so wrong in this assertion that it’s breathtaking.
Last, but not the least of his failings, is Beck’s co-opting of the libertarian mantle in some people’s eyes. Yes, he sees the corruption of our monetary system by the Fed, yes he sees the abrogation of freedom that flows from the Progressive movement and yes he understands the importance of the rule of law but that does not add up to being a libertarian. Libertarians are for a radically different relationship between the state and individuals, one in which our current militarism is unthinkable and where your gay next door neighbors might sit on their front lawn doing bong hits with no fear of intervention by force. The Libertarian Party is “The Party of Principle” and we are unafraid to go to the places that these principles will take us. I’m not saying he has to agree, but the phenomena of Conservative Christians adopting the rhetoric of liberty is not new and when you really boil down Beck – and the Tea Party for that matter – both are very hard to distinguish from the the Neo-Con, Christian Republicans.
I do think that there is hope for him and his followers. My general sense of them from their calls to his radio show and my encounters with them in the blogosphere is that most have never really studied political philosophy before encountering Beck, and as such, make some simplistic assumptions about the world that undermines their reasoning. Unlike snarky elitists on the left and right, I’m okay with that. Most of these people have been busy building good lives for themselves and their families, and in many ways are the backbone of American society. Not everyone can spend years reading Locke and Friedman, Mao and Rawls and reflect on them thoughtfully. As well, many self-styled liberal/progressives don’t understand the foundations of their philosophy either. That said, this does not let Beck fans off the hook – if you want to argue political philosophy, you need to actually study the topic, otherwise you will end up sounding like an ass. So, be true to Beck’s call, educate yourself, hold yourself to the principles you espouse and learn for yourself. Encourage your children to be educated in the classic canon and push your educational institutions to do so.
As for Beck himself, he should engage more true intellectuals on his show. I’d love for him to have say Christopher Hitchens on for an entire hour or even a week to discuss the epistemology of classical liberalism. He should sponsor more debate on his show between intellectuals, say a Tom Palmer from CATO versus the current head of the Socialist party. He should spend more time on ideas like ‘Social Justice Theory’ by John Rawls, and give air time to criticism of it. Progressives think they are serving a higher purpose, justified by these lines of thinking and Beck could do real intellectual damage to their cause if he stopped the Red-Baiting. Sadly, mostly what he’s doing now is talking to the same folks the conservatives have always spoken to, and with only a slightly better message. In fact, it may be worse, because many people think they are being educated by Beck, when, they’re just mostly being subjected to agitprop. It’s sad because Beck comes close to doing something much more profound, and as such, it’s a real missed opportunity.
Like some, I got here from your WSJ comment regarding the Texas BoE.
It’s always a pleasure to come across someone who has taken the time to study the source materials and think hard about them.
As someone who was adamantly opposed to the totalitarian regimes whose leaders claimed the intellectual mantle of Marx and yet saw much to admire in Marx’s writings, I thank you for the nod to Marx. Too much is made of the early prescriptions in the Communist Manifesto (which even so were clearly anti monarchy and pro democracy) and not enough of his later “scholarly” works. That he was a classical economist who traced his roots to Adam Smith is often ignored entirely.
In the glorious days of the late 60′s and early 70′s when Marxism was a more popular political philosophy than it is today, one of my pet peeves was the corruption of key terms in Marx’s writings to suit rather, well, airheaded sensibilities.
Take , for example, the term “Exploitation of Labour”. This is a primary subject of the first few chapters of “Capital Volume 1″ and it is by no means used to portray the proletariat as a downtrodden class living in misery enforced by capitalist masters. It is a technical term Marx used to help analyze and explain what was, for him, a new and positive development attributable to capitalism–the ability, or rather, the systemic imperative, to extract a portion of the proceeds of labor for reinvestment in the means of production. Marx saw feudalism as a static, backward system that held the superior productive forces latent in “social labor” in check. Capitalism pulled humanity out of the economic backwaters and set it on a path of ever increasing productivity. This is what defines Capitalism for Marx. And he believed Capitalism was a necessary and desirable stage in the development of human economic society. As you may imagine, I was not popular many of my Marxist contemporaries
Another example: “Commodity Fetishism”. I used to cringe when I heard this because it was often used to insinuate that capitalism engenders a sort of perverse Freudian psychological attachment to material goods in the masses in order to divert them from their terrible plight and prevent them from rising up and throwing the Capitalists out. Not so. According to Marx, Commodity Fetishism was indeed an undesirable trait, but the critique was leveled at his contemporary socio-economic theorists who wrote as though , with the advent of Capitalist Commodity Production, human economic society had reached its apex and economic history had come to an end, as it were (sound familiar?).
One of the frustrating things about Marx for some is that he gave no clear vision of what a socialist society might be–because he didn’t really didn’t know. As for what might come next, he seems to have focused mostly on what he saw as “contradictions” and how they might be remedied. But he left no complete prescription. One great tragedy of the 20th Century is that despots have seized on the very few prescriptive statements Marx ever made and used them as gospel. Hence the enforced collectivization of agriculture in China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, North Korea, that is responsible for the death by famine of tens, if not hundreds, of million of humans.
And that brings me to the thing that gives me pause in your blog post regarding Beck.
“Four years in an undergraduate history program that focuses on western civilization (unperverted by Critical Theory, admittedly hard to find) …”
To me. this seems uncomfortably close a fetishism of sorts not unlike the commodity fetishism that Marx so abhorred.
In the end Marx was guilty of a fetishism of his own and one that is nearly universal. One that, paradoxically, disallows human agency a central role in human development. For Marx, capitalists were no more”free agents than workers. Both were “cogs in the machine” acting out predetermined historical roles. And so it is with many enlightenment philosophies.
I once worked with a dedicated Objectivist. Lunch time was often quite stimulating and thought provoking. On one occasion, the topic turned to the Great Depression and whether or not mobilizing to fight WWII (or, prior to that, to supply allies with heavy weaponry) helped to bring the depression to an end. Obviously such a discussion is full of traps–those who think fiscal policy an effective tool will be inclined to argue that it did, while those who favor monetary policy will be inclined to argue otherwise, etc.
The Objectivist contribution was: “Say’s Law. You might as well take all that production output and dump it in the ocean.”
Obviously, human agency plays no important part in this view of the world. There is a world of difference between asking the population of a country to accept rationing, wage/price controls, mandatory job assignments, etc in order to prosecute a war, and asking them to do so in order to take the results and dump it in the ocean. And I hypothesize that you will see radically different results in each case. .
One could argue that if folks thought of the production of military goods as the equivalent of dumping industrial output into the ocean, we might arrive at a more rational socio-politico-economic equilibrium (never mind that the notion of such an equilibrium itself is highly suspect). I admit I tend to that view myself. But that’s not the point.
Ouch! Gotta run.
But I will be visiting here regularly, though I will rarely go on at such length.
Keep on thinkin’.
I also read your comment on the latest Thomas Frank piece, and I truly appreciate your willingness to emphasize the importance of supporting your political philosophy with an intellectual one. This was the reply that I tried to post on the WSJ piece (that got kicked back for some reason):
“Glenn – You make an excellent point. The entire notion that the political divide in America should also be a divide between “the intellectuals” and “the regular people” is a disastrous one. The only way we can ever hope to make progress is by supporting our theories with evidence, and discarding those beliefs that turn out to be wrong – and that goes for everyone. What exactly would “the regular people” do if they somehow managed to “overthrow” “the intellectuals”? I can’t imagine that things would go very smoothly. ”
I also agree with your observation that there’s a degree of hypocrisy to the Christian Right adopting the idea of “liberty,” since its very goal is to see to it that a specific brand of religion is imposed on everyone – by statist means.
And as for intellectuals that Beck should have on his program for legitimate debates, Hitchens is an excellent choice! I recently had the opportunity to meet him, and I’ve written a piece about it at my own blog: The Conscience of a Centrist (www.conscience-of-a-centrist.blogspot.com).
I saw your comment on Thomas Frank’s article regarding the Texas School Board controversy and checked out your blog, which I found interestingly written and balanced. It’s sad that someone like Beck is the point of entry into historical thought for so many people, because, as you say, he’s clearly confused, but better people at least try to grapple with historical issues than to live the “unintended consequences” of history in ignorance.
Having studied history at the graduate level and taught it, and enjoying discussion of historical topics with anyone any time, I am tremendously disturbed at today’s efforts to rewrite history according to a rigid and wrong-headed ideology. These Christian zealots say they are rewriting the liberal bias inherent in history texts (not that I ever saw any growing up), but that “liberal bias” is of extremely recent vintage and exploded the field in the ’50s to ’80s. Until that time, most public history was little more than American triumphalism and hagiography, and the “revisionists’ made us look at the consequences of American expansionism for Indians, blacks, and the environment. The role of women, the texture of everyday life, the nobility of much of the labor movement and not just the triumph of technology and Carnegie and Ford, deepened our understanding of how history affected everyone. And the sometimes brutality of our society toward blacks, workers, Indians, and others is sometimes on full display, and should be reckoned with. Few people even know can conceive of the fact that between 1890 and the early 1930s, thousands of white Americans sometimes gathered to watch “spectacle lynchings” in which black men were tortured, castrated, and burned to death for crimes real or imagined, or that a bank in Atlanta used to display in its lobby a jar with the body parts of a lynched black man. This hard-won revisionism overcame decades of officially taught history that focused a little too easily on triumph and progress and not on the costs. i think it is possible to be a patriot and value the many great achievements of our people in spite of our weaknesses–the economic miracles, the belief in fair play that stubbornly works its way underneath systems of repression and control, the fight for black civil rights, the genius of a man like Lincoln to push toward freeing the slaves even though he was not a radical abolitionist, and the triumphs of the New Deal, however flawed, which helped us set right so many social inequalities and economic inefficiencies. There is greatness in America, but ugliness, too, and we are not well served by going back to a triumphalist national story that sweeps problems under the rug with a lot of euphemisms. This is a new version of Lysenkoism, which reigned over Russian science in the last decade of Stalinism.
The irony is that there are countless textbooks focusing on the role of religion in American society, from the colonial period onward. No one disputes that religious ideals animated the New England colonists and fueled America’s sense of destiny, mission, and quest for social justice. A great historian like Sacvan Bercovich is too difficult for high school readers, but he is one of many historians whose ideas about religious life in America can be worked into the curriculum. But to claim we are a “Christian society” from the birth of the nation is just a fantasy. As you note above, many of the Founding Fathers were not religious men, and virtually all of them wanted to avoid the experience all too familiar of them from Europe, riven for centuries by religious war. That’s why they separated Church and state, and the fanaticism displayed by many people today shows it is still a good idea. None of the zealots wants to recognize that American was founded also by Catholics from Britain, France, and Spain, or that Franklin was influenced not only by English political ideas but by the Iroquois Confederacy in forming his ideas about democracy.
Above all, the rigid “Founderism” I see in a lot of conservatives–go back to the beginning, strict construction of the Constitution and 18th century ideas–the Founders themselves would find laughable. They no more expected future generations to slavishly follow their ideas and systems than we would accept 18th century medicine or science. They understood that society is fluid and changing, that new generations must find their own solutions to new problems of which they couldn’t conceive. They were steeped in history and understood that its flowing stream would continue far beyond their lifetimes. That’s why it’s also foolish to insist, as so many conservatives do, that we’re a republic and not a democracy. The Founders in fact had to amend their more aristocratic laws and ideas under democratic pressure from common citizens, and the history of this country has been a steady pressure to expand the voting franchise, involve formerly “out” groups and individuals, and expand democracy. If you are serious about restoring the political world of the Founders, then we need to bring back slavery and disenfranchise women and the unpropertied.
Beck’s views on Progressivism, which are both stupid and insulting, I will leave for another time.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I’d love to hear your critique of Beck’s views on Progressivism and even on Marxism. Making demons out of ideas is dangerous and truthfully, I’m all too glad to shove the truth down the throats of the neo-con-gelicals I deal with all the time in the blogosphere. I’d be willing to host a guest post if you’d like to write an article on the topic. If you are interested, let me know and we can discuss it – provide an email okay? Fyi, I get about 1000 unique visitors a month to the blog so it ain’t going to make you famous, but you will be talking to an audience who needs to hear more substantive commentary.
Thanks. My email is bobby@crowsegal.com. The late 19th and early 20th century is a fascinating time, usually taught poorly in school, and one in which many of the major decisions about economic and political power were made that still affect us today.
I’m glad you mentioned that Beck charges us all with learning on our own and not engaging in blind trust (paraphrase). I’m one of those you described in your blog who haven’t had the time to read the philosophers, historians, and original writings of our forefathers to form a complete view of true history and the purpose intended for our nation by our forefathers. I can say with confidence that I don’t agree with everything Beck says, but I am thankful for his role in the awakening of Americans. Could we have done it on our own? Yes! Would we have done it without Beck’s influence? That’s for you to answer, but Beck among others you mentioned and some you didn’t, gives voice to a lot of people who would otherwise not have had one. His brand of sarcasm and taunting to the people who didn’t have to answer to anyone before has kept a lot of things from happening in our government that would have blown by us as we experienced that helpless feeling and listening to that voice in our heads saying “I wish I could do something about this,” and do nothing. To me, that is the importance of Beck in his influence on current events.
I am a Christian and not affiliated with any party to prevent being identified with party ideology. When you mention Beck’s plan to “…discuss the role of ‘faith’ in our nation’s history,” and how he will discuss how “…individual liberty [arose] from the teachings of Moses, as embodied in the Ten Commandments is using faith,” I would agree with him in spirit. I believe that our founders, many of whom had documented faith in God, used this influence to write the documents that founded our nation.
I don’t believe that Beck understands having a true Christian faith. Such a faith is a complete surrender to Christ and his teachings. Beck is a Mormon. Without belaboring the Mormon vs. Christian argument, I will make this comment and move on: The book of Mormon make a lot of claims to events that could easily be proven through cursory geographical study if they were true (and if they would be permitted in some areas). I am dumbfounded that Beck – the studied and researched person he makes himself out to be – claims Mormonism as the faith that will get him closer to God. Having said that, for me, this diminished his credibility for me. Knowing this makes me also side with you on your points that he should not speak with authority to subjects on which he is admittedly not able to do so.
I agree with Tom Monohan who “… see[s] Beck as a person still undergoing an awakening.” I sense he is learning as he sojourns and is simply taking his listeners and viewers with him on his journey. Like any time before Beck abounded on the national stage, we have the choice to follow, glean, or ignore his comments. Even he will tell you that. Like anyone, Beck has the potential to fail as much as he has to continue to be a voice that many will identify with.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I agree that he is awakening people, but I think those people should know the quality of the information they are getting from Beck.
As for the role of Christianity in our country, all of our founders were not Christians – that is certain. Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin were certainly not – they were deists and some argue that Jefferson and Franklin were atheists, but I don’t think we can know that. I don’t think it’s particularly relevant what religion they were in comparison to their creation of a constitution that doesn’t mention god once in it in terms of thinking about what the role is of Christianity in the founding of our country. In writing, George Washington said plainly that we are in no way a Christian country in the 1796 Treaty with Tripoli – look it up. As well, Thomas Paine, believed by many to be the invisible hand behind the Declaration of Independence, was outright hostile to Christianity and the bible, openly claiming it was full of lies and not believable in his writings.
My point in mentioning this is not to criticize Christianity per se, but rather to illustrate my point that the claims of some Christians today to some strong connection between Christianity and the creation of our country have no weight and moreover, are an inappropriate reach by religious zealots into the political sphere, where they have no rightful place. It goes without saying that you are welcome to your faith, but don’t dare assert the authority of your faith by claiming credit to it for the greatness of our country.
I was going to ask, “Where do we go for answers then if we know Beck doesn’t have all the facts?”… but I already know the answer; “To the history books to read it for myself.” I suppose this is the breakdown that all historical empires have suffered… it’s people don’t want to take the time to understand and eventually look for what they can get out of it for themselves. Wow… that’s a bleak view of the future. Though I think since we are all humans and make mistakes and ultimately will screw everything up, I can’t let go of the future so easily or quickly. I prefer to fight, but, here again, we need a way to express our voice and to assemble with people of like thinking. This is why we have to do so on basic tenants versus having all of the details aligned to be a member of any one group.
I appreciate your comments about Christianity… and I thank you for allowing me my faith, but I was simply illustrating your point that Beck hasn’t researched his own religion enough to have made an informed decision OR he has decided to ignore it. Is this the same approach he takes to some of the subjects on which he speaks with authority that he should leave to discuss with experts?
Tom, to take the last first, I have no problem with folks supporting the LP who don’t agree with all the parties principles or platforms. I have a problem when people advocate for the LP to change it’s principles or support policies that violate it’s principles. Furthermore, I left the Republican party in large part because it is filled with bigoted christians (and you can’t be a real christian without being a bigot – it’s axiomatic) as well as many people who don’t really want us to be free: rather they want society to arrange itself to their liking, whether it violates my natural rights or not. I won’t put up with it for a moment in the LP. Let argue about min-state versus anarchy, or discuss what libertarian foreign policy would look like, or together rail for an end to the Federal Reserve.
I won’t stand for people who blend their religion with their politics – I’m an atheist and that means in their view I’m not good for the country. Do you understand how violative that is? How exclusionary it is? How much it scares me that people like that think nothing of 800,000 people a year getting arrested just for pot in this country. That think it’s okay that Virginia just dropped its law that prohibited basing state hiring decisions on sexual orientation. People who think I shouldn’t be allowed to gamble, but then let the government become the biggest bookie in the world.
Many of the folks who come along this way think they are libertarians based on watching Beck, who you seem to agree is not well informed on many topics that he blathers away about. He’s also chaotic, which makes it even harder to take seriously. But he is no libertarian – his family, faith and country stuff is the same old crap i’ve heard from christian republicans for years. How well is that working to govern this country? What license do those people take because of their self-awarded moral superiority? As far as I can tell, they are just as flawed as anyone else on earth, so really, they should get hell off their high horses and keep their fantasies about a god who chooses to hide utterly from us (not leaving even one single shred of scientific evidence, but in fact leaving convincing evidence that ever thing, ultimately, is random). Well, they should keep it to themselves. I certainly don’t want some jerk to tell me that the fact that they believe that garbage makes them somehow a better American than I am.
Do you see how big a deal this actually is from a principled standpoint?
I see Beck as a person still undergoing an awakening. He is sharing his new learning and struggling with conflicts in his established norms, beliefs, values and taboos. Its a typical learning and growing process that should never end.
Regarding religion, many of our Founder’s were enlightened and shared their common belief in mono-theism through Free Masonry (Franklin and Washington were Past Grand Masters). They also recognized the entwined history between politics of religion (not a belief in a single God) and monarchical government caused many of the people’s problems.
Building on the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, they, through Madison, gave us the Constitution. I agree that it does not mention God and shouldn’t. They believed a man’s relationship with God is a personal relationship not a civic one. As for the Federal Government, we don’t give it power through our beliefs; we give it through our will. We are a country that protects freedom. We believe that the citizen is superior to the “crown”. It was novel in 1787 and today is still hard for many to accept.
Beck is coming down the learning curve and may or may not come to fully grasp a pure Libertarian position. That’s OK since the LP does not have a purity test. As the old saying goes, “I’d rather have someone representing me I agree with 75% of the time than someone I agree with 10% of the time.” As an 11 year member of the LP, I welcome folks who don’t agree with every plank in the platform. A bit of conflict can be a good thing, its what force growth and enlightenment.