SOLO-International Op-Ed: Glenn Beck's Nine Principles

Lindsay Perigo
February 11, 2009

Every day on Fox News, Glenn Beck delivers a stunning virtuoso program against America's exponentially galloping socialism. At the end of each hour one is exhilarated, enraged and depressed all at once. Beck and his two conservative cohorts, O'Reilly and Hannity, have done a sterling job of exposing the new Obama Administration's far-Left agenda and how quickly yet quietly it has moved to implement it. One is exhilarated that anyone in the media is doing this at all, outraged at the abominable corruption and detruction of America's founding ideals that is proceeding apace, and depressed at the seeming unstoppability of the process.

Glenn Beck, formerly an incongruity at Al Qaeda TV, aka CNN, is currently running a project designed to show that the process is not inexorable, and to reverse the tide. It's called "You Are Not Alone." It asks viewers who agree with at least seven of nine principles he lays out as defining America to send photos of themselves to Fox with which he'll swamp photos of the neo-communists in Washington and remind Americans who's boss.

Here are the nine principles, with comment from me designed to illuminate just why it is that conservatism, even when embodied in someone of Beck's overwhelming energy, talent and sincerity, is not the solution to America's slide into tyranny, but is part of the problem:

1. America is good.

Of course it is. Better than good - it's the greatest country on earth. The only country founded on the principle of individual rights.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

Now, this is where the conservatives start going astray. What the hell does belief in God have to do with America's greatness and with freedom? It's an irrational belief to which freedom happens to entitle one. Under freedom, anyone is entitled to make a non-existent being the center of his life if he wishes. The important thing, and the American thing, is the freedom, not the belief.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

NO! I should have been honest yesterday too. And should be just as honest today and tomorrow.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

Parenting is for parents, yes, and children are not government property. But contrary to conservative authoritarians, gays and single heterosexuals who choose not to have children are not second-class citizens in a free society. There is no duty to breed.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

Absolutely.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

There isn't, contrary to the Obama Doctrine that "spreading the wealth" (i.e. other people's wealth, forcibly confiscated from them) is a good thing. But the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should have been first on the list. That's what America was founded on.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

Indeed. And conservative presidents shouldn't force taxpayers to support faith-based charities.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

It isn't. It is un-American to force your religious superstition on others via legislation. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

Inexact and incomplete. Government exists to secure your rights, not to violate them. If it does the latter, you have the right to remove it, by force if need be as the revolutionaries did.

Mr. Beck is to be congratulated on the zeal he brings to the urgent task of defending America from those who would destroy it. But like all conservatives, he needs a primer on just what America is. For that, he could do no better than repair to the works of Ayn Rand.

Lindsay Perigo editor@freeradical.co.nz

SOLO (Sense of Life Objectivists): SOLOPassion.com

ENDS

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