Glenn Beck's CPAC speech was a rare gem of political discourse. I encourage everyone to read it so that they really understand where modern conservatism is going. Some of my friends are quite accurately comparing his "progressivism is cancer" screed to fascist rhetoric by people like Mussolini and Franco, because the parallels are striking, but I want to focus more on how the speech's philosophy is a template for the conservative cause right now.
Beck's essential message was: I crawled my way from the dung pile without any help, and that's what makes America great, so we shouldn't help anyone in trouble. From his twisted personal story to his twisted vision of American history, Beck took rapturous CPACers on a classic tour of American conservative ideology. From his paranoid, delusional ranting about how liberals hate anyone successful to his Social Darwinist view of society and nature, he laid out the conservative line and took it to its logical conclusion. And the audience loved it. The quintessential moment in the speech? When Beck explained why we shouldn't be helping anyone in need: "There's some sort of element of competition to life. Oh, that's not natural. Really? Go watch the lions eat the weakest." And the audience burst into laughter and applause -- as I wrote the other day, these conservatives really are into cruelty, so the idea of lions eating the weak got them going.
Beyond the celebration of eating the weakest, they money paragraph on the speech was this classic rendition of conservative thought:
We believe in the right of the individual. We believe in the right of the individual. We believe in the right, you can speak out, you can disagree with me, you can make your own path. But I'm not going to pay for your mistakes, and I don't expect you to pay for my mistakes. We're all going to make them, but we all have the right to move down that road. What we don't have a right to is: health care, housing, or handouts. We don't have those rights. Every time the government grows we lose more of who we are. When you give up your right to struggle... you're giving more of your freedom away.
In the conservative world view, each individual is on their own. The best society will be created if each of us goes our own way, with absolutely no help from anyone, and does exactly what we want to do, no matter who it hurts. Because that invisible hand of the marketplace makes individual greed a source of strength, and because if the weak are not "eaten," society itself becomes weaker. Like the Social Darwinists of the post-Civil War era, conservatives such as Beck clearly believe, as William Graham Sumner put it back in 1893, that every society faces only two alternatives: "liberty, survival of the fittest" or "liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest." Beck said, "As I read the Constitution...the only job of the United States government is to save us from bad guys." The way Sumner put it was that government had only one purpose, which was to protect "the property of men and the honor of women."
Conservatives' answer to the question "Am I my brother's keeper?" is a resounding Hell NO. And that is the essential divide between them and the progressivism which Beck describes as a cancer: progressives believe that all of us are in this together. When our child is weakened by a chronic illness, or our parent by old age, we don't abandon them in the wilderness so that the lion can eat them up (and then laugh about it). When our brother stumbles and hits bottom, we don't stand back and see if he can pull himself up by his own bootstraps, we lend him a helping hand. When our sister is abused and treated unfairly by an employer, we don't tell her she's on her own, we work with her to make things fairer. We believe in a community that helps each other survive and prosper, because we don't want to live in a world where only the strongest and wealthiest and -- yes -- luckiest survive. We don't have fantasies that all our success is of our own making because we know that without good families, good neighbors, good school and libraries and roads and bridges paid for by public dollars, that without all that, we'd be much less likely to make it on our own. In spite of Beck's paranoia, we have no problem with people being successful. I have never once heard any progressive attack Steve Jobs or Eric Schmidt for their success, or attack the local small businessperson making a good living because he or she is supplying products a community wants. But what we do believe is that those lucky enough to be successful have a responsibility to give something back to their fellow citizens.
I will choose the "weakness" of a compassionate society over the brutal kind of "let the lions eat the weak" vision of Glenn Beck's perfect society any day of the week. Am I my brother's keeper? My answer is yes.
"let the government deal with it"
While donating to charity is well and good, charity can be fairly limited in its scope. Beck's rant gives perfect clarity to the Dom Helder Camara quote "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."
I'm amazed by the ability of some to tell themselves that they are in fact fighting for the less fortune by calling for the repealing of every social program. The contradictions therein are numerous.
"Out of wedlock births, living together without benefit of matrimony, violent crime, pornography, homosexuality, crimes against property have increased in the last 100 years. Common crime and terrorism was rare in the London of 1910, despite few police, no "big brother" cameras and no "social safety net" to speak of. Go figure."
One little problem with going back to the good old days of 1910 would be what to do with a population that has grown from 1 billion to 7 billion within the interim, and an economic system that has grown at least proportionately.
Forget previous generations of workers that built our nation's wealth with sweat and determination, if grandpa held the deed to the building, or bought a profitable business intending to ship jobs and equipment to the cheapest ports, you are an "Elite", a Superior Human Being. If Dad made personal donations to government employees that granted favors for his business, congratulations, that automatically made you a Superior Human Being entitled to special treatment forevermore, whatever the cost to the rest of society.
What if you are not one of America's wealthiest families but a teabagger with illusions of sharing that wealth? Wake up, teabaggers. You've been told that banking or health care reform is wrong? How about those recent record-breaking banking or insurance premium increases? Think that corporations will be satisfied with those markups tomorrow? Sorry teabagger. They are the "Elite", remember, and you're not. By definition, hardly any of us are.
Welcome to the bottom of the food chain, teabagger. It's really getting crowded down here.
"When the Republican decry government, remember that said government provides roads and bridges so that commerce can EXIST. Government provides quality services in the delivery of mail for a low, flat fee. Government provided electricity in the 1930's when it wasn't affordable to the private utility companies. People wake up at night because their house didn't catch fire, eat breakfast without getting botulism, ride to work without their car's gas tank exploding and work in a job where they need not worry about losing their arm. All this is BECAUSE of government intervention."
This seems to make the same point you do.
The picture is of a couple of male lions lounging about (in a heap of bones) with a cigar and a brandy snifter in each paw. In the middle distance a group of female lions is bringing down a gazelle. The caption is one male lion saying to the other male lion:
: "Shall we join the Ladies?"
As one of Kentucky's finest said, "You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln's words have never been more true. We're in this together, but it is imperative to stop reprimanding competition like its an inherently evil concept.
Facts don't matter to conservatives. That's why you can't have a rational discussion with them.
Compassionate? I think not.
The best part of this article's criticism:
"In the conservative world view, each individual is on their own. The best society will be created if each of us goes our own way, with absolutely no help from anyone, and does exactly what we want to do, no matter who it hurts."
Sir, you are going down a slippery slope here. I don't think Beck literally meant we should lead our weak into the forest and leave them there to see if they can fend for themselves. We aren't talking about abused girlfriends, discrimination in the workplace, or ignoring the chronically ill. What we ARE talking about are free market systems. Not bailing out companies that having failing business models. Not funding entitlements to the point that people can make more on disability then they would in the workplace. Too much cushion slows growth. I'm not advocating that we should completely throw out entitlements, obviously that would create a plethora of problems. But we have GOT to get entitlements under control. We need to help people that really need help, and crackdown on abuse.
Please don't imply that "entitlements" are only granted to individuals but not failing businesses. How soon you have forgotten the economic crisis that brought us to the brink!
Crack down on abuse? Please do.
"America is the greatest country in the world, and everything about it is the greatest in the world! Well, except for the federal government, we don't like that. And the Democrat party, they're no good, so they don't count either. And all the liberals and progressives who vote for them. And the liberal news media. And Hollywood. And musicians like Springsteen and the Dixie Chicks. And the coastal cities, with all their 'cosmopolitan' 'elites.' And the educated 'elites' too, and the colleges and universities, and the professors. And public schools, and teachers' unions. And labor unions in general. And anyone on public assistance. And the whole social safety net. And regulatory agencies. And trial lawyers. And community organizations. And non-Christians. And atheists. And gays, and their 'homosexual agenda.' And Roe v. Wade. And activist judges. And Al Gore, and climate scientists, and anyone who thinks we ought to protect the environment. And vegetarians, and animal rights activists. And HuffingtonPost, and DailyKos, and ThinkProgress, and MediaMatters, and the rest of the liberal blogosphere.
But other than that, we're #1!"
I cannot understand the appeal of this message ... esp. to people who have lost their homes or are otherwise struggling. I boggles the mind ...
I wonder how many of these people would, in their and Mr. Beck's ideal "system," would be willing to accept the consequences of their own failure, of being overpowered and oppressed by stronger people than they, of having no one and nothing to protect their property and enforce their rights against those more "successful" than they. Survival of the fittest only works for you if you're the fittest. As you pointed out, most people think they are, but they aren't.