What can I say about this book without discussing its author first? Probably very little. The name Glenn Beck alone stirs up emotions in people. I had the same feelings before I started reading. I think I have seen Glenn Beck on Fox News and heard him on the radio, though I can not recall anything specific at all. It is almost like I have had a dream of listening to him, but I can’t remember anything other than he was in it. Does that mean I have heard him or have only heard of him? I am not really sure.
I do remember hearing Rush and Hannity and Colmes and Liddy and Huffington and Howard Stern (joke) and Boortz and Maher and Gillette and Miller and Olberman and Malkin and Coulter and Stewart and maybe a zillion others. I remember their voices. I remember their faces. With Beck, I don’t have that. Maybe I somehow have never heard the man.
If that is the case then I avoided listening to him on purpose. I know his reputation. I know he has been in the news for saying things that are very controversial and sometimes mean.
I picked up this book with a pre-conceived idea of what it would say and what Mr. Beck stood for. I was half correct. Why half? Well, I was right in the fact that he would obliterate all the happenings in Washington DC with the Democrats in charge. What did I get wrong? I did not expect him to obliterate the Republicans also.
I thought Beck was a right-wing blow-hard much like Rush Limbaugh. I expected to read how the left wing was destroying our country and how the right wing would bring us all into a utopian society of brotherly love.
Beck crushed both parties. He is articulate and explains his position well. What is the best part is that I actually agree with much of what he is saying. It really is not that hard to figure out. Like he says, it is “Common Sense”.
What does the book talk about? How the DNC and RNC argue with each other over the subject of the day while both or either party whittle away at our freedoms. How the “system” is no longer representing the people or a government with the country in its best interests. It has become a perpetual cycle of say and do what you must to get reelected because politics is a career.
Beck spends a lot of time covering debt and financial issues. He says Social Security is just a legalized government version of a Ponzi scheme. The same thing Bernie Madoff was imprisoned for because it was illegal to RIP PEOPLE OFF. He calls Medicare Part D a “$100 trillion bipartisan betrayal” of the people. It was strictly to buy votes short term and mortgaged our countries financial future.
He spends time explaining how we used to have a “fair tax” and it was changed to a progressive tax and that this tax system is now used to do favors for special interest groups and attack political enemies.
He busts both parties chops for gerrymandering congressional districts to ensure re-election or incumbents and for campaign finance rules heavily favoring them also.
Then Beck got into “progressives”. He defines progressives differently than most people. He says the word usually is synonymous with “liberal” or “Democrat”. He then says “Progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, re-shape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State.”
That goes way beyond just Democrats and Republicans. They are both that way and so are lobbyists, special interest groups, unions, corporations, and government bureaucracies.
Beck discusses global warming, the second amendment, eminent domain, privacy rights, education, charity, public service, volunteerism, term limits, etc etc.
What did I learn? I agree with Beck. I like what he had to say and think his ideas are interesting.
I wonder what his political affiliation is.
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