Transcript (+ links and resources) follows video.
Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.
Well, today around 2:00, Anthony Weiner announced his resignation. This is a man who, arrogance and out-of-control doesn't begin to describe him. Sending naked pictures of himself. Texting porn stars. Even driving around with a car with a license plate that wasn't even the right licence plate for the car. The car wasn't even registered. This guy was totally out of control.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
He's an elected official who also also last year tried to use the full power and force of the United States congress -- and did -- to go after me and this program and my number one radio client. He tried to shut my business down for political purposes. He tried to smear me and my client -- with the power of the congress. He did so by using a bogus narrative that somehow or another I was committing -- ethics violations -- while he was looking, apparently, into the porn ethics, et cetera et cetera. This was the man who was in the midst of sending naked pictures of himself from the congressional gym to strangers while trying to smear me.
It would be easy today for me to celebrate his exit, but the garbage in his life is now out, and the garbage that he has brought into our lives is also now out. So now we are left with him just being a citizen, just like you and me, an American now struggling with his problems. And problems, he has. But he has a chance to make things right and to start all over, so tonight, personally as a citizen, I am glad that he is gone. I thought that he was doing an awful lot of damage to our country for a myriad of reasons, but as one human being to another, I wish Anthony Weiner serenity, and I truly hope that he finds the path that turns his life around
DUN DUN DEHN DUN
I said to my daughter today, I was sitting on my couch in my office and my daughter popped in, and she said, "How are you doing today, Dad?" and we watched this Anthony Weiner thing, and I said, "You know what?" and she said "What are you gonna say today?" and I said, "I'm gonna say the right thing, but I want you to always remember this, Hannah. Doing the right thing really sucks a lot of the time. But it's the right thing to do."
Hello America. I've got a really weird, weird thing for you today. This program has basically alleged for the past months that progressives have embarked on a 100 year campaign to chip away at the American culture, to undo everything the founding fathers have done, and one of the battlefields in that war is the classroom. That way, suddenly America would wake up, they would know nothing about the founding history of our country, and we would be a country that was lost. Mwahaha. What crazy accusations...
In a completely unrelated story, the annual study of American history -- the nation's report card -- has just been released. I told you a little about this yesterday. Only 20% of the 4th graders performed at or above a proficient level. They didn't even know what the Declaration of Independence was. 8th graders it was worse, only 17% performed at that proficient level, and for 12th graders, 12%.
We went over some of the questions yesterday, and it is stunning how little our kids know. You cannot be a country, you cannot survive, if you don't even know your own history. Baselessly, I charge that this is intentional. Now, what better way to finally achieve the progressive dream of abandoning the constitution, which they feel is a charter of negative liberties, than to make it an old, antiquated document that nobody knows anything about?
Now. I said it's partly progressive agenda. Let's not just single out the progressives. Or the teachers or the kids or anything else. Helloo. WE are part of the problem as well, because most of us aren't much better. We have taken our freedoms for granted for so long, we've lost our passions for it, because all we really do when we were kids were memorize dates. Who cares. Not the stories, and the stories are the important parts.
The adults have been caught on video now, put on video by the Media Research Center. They're out front on the White House, and they were asked, Can you tell us a little bit about our country? Really, really easy questions, like Who's the vice-president of the United States. Watch us:
[video]
Q: Who is the Vice President?
A: The crazy guy who doesn't know much.
Q: Who is the Speaker of the House?
A: I don't know, I'd know it if I heard it.
A: The crier, the guy who cries all of the time.
Q: Name one member of the House.
A: Anthony Weiner
How sad is that? [Editor's note: Isn't this an old Leno gig?] They could name Anthony Weiner, but they couldn't name Joe Biden or John Boehner. For a minute I was like, I'm not the speaker of the house, then I remembered, oh yeah, John Boehner cried, too. That's right.
In fairness to the Vice President, Obama needs to keep Biden locked into a closet or an undisclosed location for at least 78% of the year for national security purposes alone. You let that guy our for five or ten minutes, and the next thing you know he's having drinks with Ahmadinejad and he's giving away nukes secrets, so you've gotta keep that name down.
Is this a lack of education and a lack of interest in our nation's past? I'm speaking as a whole, because I know you are engaged. You wouldn't have made Road to Serfdom a number one best seller if you weren't interested in American history. Many Americans are. But the media can just bash Sarah Palin, the public can bash Sarah Palin for her remarks on Paul Revere and nobody says anything because nobody knows the truth.
A couple weeks ago they called Sarah Palin stupid and every other name in the book. It's not new to the Palins. They're used to it, I'm guessing by this point. But historians were immediately asked about this. Yes, believe it or not, THIS is the story -- and one of the only stories -- the press ruthlessly investigated. Sarah Palin. Well, they pointed out, the historians did, a 1798 letter written by Paul Revere, where he describes how after his capture by the British officers, he warned that "there would be 500 American there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the way up." (The Massachusetts Historical Society)
That's what Sarah Palin said he did. Several Boston historians said, y'know, Palin's correct... One Boston University historian, Brendan McConville, listen to this, said:
"Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, 'Look, there is a mobilization going on that you'l be confronting,' and the British are aware as they're marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing -- she was right about that -- and warning shots fired. That's accurate."
But wait. There's more to this story. Despite the historic evidence on her side, he added that he wasn't convinced that Palin's remarks reflected scholarship. Quote, "I would call her lucky in her comments."
[Editor's note: BECAUSE SHE'S DUMB, SEE? SO IF SHE GETS SOMETHING RIGHT, IT MUST BE LUCK. IT CAN'T BE PROOF THAT THE DUMB-MEME IS, WELL, DUMB ITSELF. /soapbox]
Really? What a lucky stab in the dark, huh? Others weren't quite as kind. One historian, even with the matching letter and Sarah Palin's comments, then went on to not only discredit her, but he said he wasn't sure that Paul Revere was telling the truth. So, the historians put you in a position to where they're saying -- for political reasons -- no no, you can't even listen to the guy who wrote the letter, the guy who the story is about, Paul Revere. No, no you gotta listen to us. They're so desperate to mock and trash -- for political purposes -- they are willing to distort and ignore political fact for political gain, historic fact for political gain.
They also bashed, remember when she told a Tea Party crowd, "Party like it's 1773"? The media, of course, thought she was referring to the Declaration of Independence, which of course was signed in 1776. And it has become an accepted Palin Gaffe. But if people knew their history they would have turned on the media a lot earlier. They would know that she was referring to the Boston Tea Party. TALKING TO A TEA PARTY, TELLING THEM TO PARTY LIKE 1773... which is the year the Boston Tea Party happened.
The same thing happened when we, this program, talked about the 3/5th clause in the constitution and when Michelle Bachmann was assailed for saying our Forebearers fought against slavery. We're no longer teaching the truth in America, and the truth is so clear. You want the 3/5th clause? Go back and read Frederick Douglass, go back and read his own words. He makes such a clear case for it. He says, in one of my favorite phrases, I'm paraphrasing, "So, stop with the three-fifths clause."
[Editor's note: Douglass's text reads "So much for the three-fifths clause; taking it at is worst, it still leans to freedom, not slavery; for, be it remembered that the Constitution nowhere forbids a coloured man to vote."]
What are our children learning? They don't know about history, they don't know about America. But they do know Che. Well, they know about a kinder, gentler side of Che. The buy the t-shirts to show solidarity with a glorious communist revolutionary. What they're not taught about Che might make them rethink the t-shirt, but then again, I don't know how many of us are even thinking anymore. Che hated America, and generally was a pretty evil dude. In fact he wanted to destroy America. Quote:
If the rockets had remained, we would have used them all and directed them against the very heart of the U.S. including New York, in our defense against aggression. But we haven't got them, so we shall fight with what we've got. (London Daily Worker, November 1962) Our every action is a battle cray against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the peoples' unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. ("Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life")
Does it sound familiar? It's Che, but it could be a lot of revolutionaries that are currently working in and around our government. Che was also a racist. Does anyone wearing a Che t-shirt or carrying a Che purse know that? On the Africran-American, quote:
The negro is indolent and a dreamer, spending his meager wage on frivolity and drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving. (The Motorcycle Diaries)
He was a murderer, quote:
To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution and a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate." (Ernesto "Che" Guevera)
How do you feel about your t-shirt when you hear this one? Love of a murderer, quote:
I feel my nostrils dilate, savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood." (The Motorcycle Diaries).
Che was personally responsible for overseeing at least 163 executions. More than a hundred of these were just political prisoners deemed to be traitors. Our society has glorified him, and somehow or another our founders and our constitution have become irrelevant or somehow or another evil. If an animal like Che can, over time, have his history twisted to the point that he is an international icon, and our constitution can be made irrelevant and oppressive, we stand no chance of survival.
But there is good news. America is waking up. Sanity isn't completely dead.
We told you about a story out of Arizona and a top education official said yesterday that the ethnic studies program -- you remember, the one we told you about that called for the overthrow of the United States government and had the students chanting for it because they were all revved up by former hippie revolutionaries -- the superintendent said that course violated a new state law, and if they don'y cut the class, they risk losing about 10% of their funding, about $15 million. The media describes this new law as controversial. Well, I want to tell you how controversial this is. Ask yourself, here it is.
This new controversial law, as it is described by the press, bans K-12 programs that, quote:
Promote the overthrow of the U.S. government [Beck: How controversial!], promote resentment toward a race or class of people [Beck: How controversial!], are designed primarily for pupils of one ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity. [Beck: How controversial!]" (The Arizona Republic, June 15)
I always thought white power would be bad. What's the difference if you just change the color? It's not controversial. We're being led astray, intentionally.
About a week ago, I asked you, and I told you, what do we have, 11 shows remaining, 10 after tonight, on this network. We have tried to do history, and I think there are many on our crew, including me, and many in our audience who have learned things on this program in particular about African American history that nobody has ever-- that none of us knew.
We asked you a few days ago, in our last 11 shows, if we did a show on history, what would you want? The number one thing was another session with my good friend, David Barton. [Beck joins a table with three men.] Who, by the way [to Barton] is this the first time you've been on TV since you were on the show with Jon Stewart?
DB: That might be.
GB: You did a good job. I warned you, I said you're not going into a friendly place, but you handled him quite nicely.
DB: It's a fun conversation.
GB: It's hard to debate the facts when you're sitting across from David Barton. I should have actually called Jon Stewart and said, I warned you.
[Beck introduces the panel]
David Barton is the founder and president of Wall Builders, Josh Charles is the co-author of the Original Argument, the translation of the Federalist Papers, and Chris Stewart is the author of Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World.
[Editor's Note: This is the first time that Beck has fully referenced that The Original Argument is a book. He did not say that he is the other co-author. I wonder what kind of skeezy end-contract Fox created that gagged Beck from self-promotion. Promoting GBTV is one thing, but his own damn book? Gimme a break.]
[Editor's note: Transcribing conversations is tough, so I may take liberties -- describing an exchange rather than typing it word for word, etc.]
Okay. I want to start with the audience, because you're going to direct this program today. Where do you want to start? [Shot of the audience. Man in blue shirt raises his hand. There is a bald, white-bearded man in the audience who is wearing a white shirt. I cannot tell where the beard ends and the shirt begins. He is also wearing wire glasses. I choose to believe that Santa is a Glenn Beck fan.]
Blue Shirt Man, in a gravelly voice: I sit down in the offices of some great members of the U.S. congresses and Senate. Bachmann, Pence, Demint, Colonel West, and I ask 'em, How do we get back to the basics, back to the constitution? And they say, we gotta go back, and we gotta learn it. And I say, how do we learn the constitution when some of our own Republicans that we put into office are against the constitution? So, I ask you, who is more dangerous? Is it George Soros and his minions, or is it some of these camouflage Republicans that we put in office, and they screw us in our back?
Beck: I think the most dangerous of us [turns to table] and let's talk about this historically, I think the most dangerous of us is us. Because it's our responsibility, is it not?
DB: Congress is a reflection of us, it reflects our lack of knowledge. Now, I will say one caveat. I, aside, did the same sort of thing the NAEP did with the history institute. [Editor's note. This guy has a Southern accent. I used to be able to translate drawl much better. Yikes.] They took the questions that you have to know to become a citizen if you are an immigrant. If you know nothing about America and start from ground zero, here's what you have to know to be a citizen. They gave that to citizens and 71% of them didn't know enough to become a citizen of the United States. Here's the pill, though. They gave it to elected officials as well. Elected leaders scored lower on the test than the citizens did.
Beck: I believe that, I believe that.
Grizzly blue shirt guy nods with a caustic grin. [Editor's note: Hey, I wanted to know the answer to your question -- which is more dangerous of the two; not which other group is more dangerous than both of those two...]
[Editor's note: In college, I had a friend that spent a summer working for Disney. It, apparently, was a hardcore interview process, but he finally made it through, packed up his stuff, and drove to Orlando. He didn't know what job he was going to have. He was assigned to live in Disney apartments with other college/summer employees like himself. It was like college-camp. Or something. For the week before they started working inside the Magic Kingdom and then once a week after that, they took Disney Classes. They had to wear neckties to class. They learned about the history of the park, about Mr. Walt Disney and his vision, they learned the lingo to be used ("vomit" = "protein spill"), they learned about the business structure and their valuable place in the machine. When I visited my friend that summer and he took me into Disney World, we stopped at every bush and tree, and he told me the unique story behind it. Honestly, it was a little creepy for me, a then-twenty year old pot head hipster, to see what I could only describe as Disney brainwashing. I digress. I also spent one day working at the Disney Store in the mall when I was eighteen. I quit after training. Training, itself, was too intense for me. The company extended the same business philosophy to that little store in a mall in Chicagoland suburbia. My original interview didn't show them that I was not the right person for them, but their training video showed me that I was totally wrong for them, and I did them the favor of quitting. I mention this to show the extent to which the Disney company understands that its employees and representatives -- and, yes, they do see their Disney stores as being representatives of their parks -- MUST be knowledgeable of their company's history, language, rules, culture, and general practices. This is the frickin Disney Store. This is Disney World. It requires more education of its employees -- even glorified paid interns, like my college friend -- than our elected officials in whom we trust the welfare of our nation. /soapbox]
CS: You know, as an officer of our government, an officer representing the people, whether they're military officers or congressional leaders or congresspeople, they swear an oath to the constitution, and yet we don't require that they understand the constitution. There are a couple of congressmen and senators who make a point of carrying a pocket constitution around with them [editor's note: I do this!], and generally they're ridiculed for that. "Oh isn't that quaint."
Beck: I used to be that guy, I used to be that guy who used to make of fun "Oh, gee, we're a republic, not a democracy"-- Hey, give it a rest. It DOES make a difference. I used to be a guy who ridiculed people who walked around with a pocket constitution, 'cause you immediately think "pocket protector", like oh Hello, Mr. Geek, how are you today? But you know what? That's all we have. Josh was on the air with me today and we were talking about, we call it now the Good 'n' Plenty clause -- that John Conyer said... the General Welfare clause. And we were, at the time, saying, "What the... I don't even know where that is, that doesn't even he exist." He didn't even know the constitution. When we were taling about the 2000 page bills-- the Federalist Papers, what do they say about basically 2000 page bills?
JC: Basically, if the law is too complicated for people to understand it, that's a dangerous tipping point for any country where the people can't understand it, it's unintelligible for the people who are even writing it, and that's what's happened. We've become an administrative state where the government is so pushing itself in areas that it can't go or these congressmen, congresswomen can't possibly be experts on the things that they are legislating on so they literally consign that responsibility to experts.
Beck: Which Federalist Paper is it, do you remember which one? Sixty--
JC: 62
Beck:-- that says if you can't understand it, if you can't understand the bill, then people can't navigate in their own lives, and you can't do business. [Editor's note: You have to pass the bill to know what's inside it!] Yesterday we heard the president say to-- NBC said to the president, "How can you fix this economy if you can't get businesses to open up the purse strings?" And his response was "well, we've got a lot of complex things going on, like ATM machines." ATM machines? That's it? Like, it's Rosie the Robot out dispensing cash. That's not it. It is in the Federalist Paper. Number 62, read it. He says -- Madison -- in that, if it becomes, if a law becomes so complex that people won't be able to understand it, business won't be able to do business. Because they'll be trying to figure out the laws, and they won't be able to move forward. It's our fault. We have to study it and hold their feet to the fire.
Back in a sec.
COMMERCIAL
I'm sorry, I just saw my lovely daughter off to the side who's in town for Fathers' Day. Hello, Mary.
We're back with David Barton, Josh Charles, and Chris Stewart. And I have to tell you, and I know I've said this all week, Chris Stewart is a new friend of mine [Beck holds up Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World], and I read other one of your books while on vacation, and I called him up -- my wife about killed me -- I called him up and said, "you, sir, are a genius," and wanted to talk to you about it. This is your new book. It is called The 7 Tipping Points that Saved the World and would you agree that we are at a tipping point now?
CS: Well, yeah, I absolutely would. If you call me a genius, I have to mention that you are the only person in the world who has ever done that, so... [everyone laughs] I hope I can get a tape of this. But yeah, I think we are at a tipping point. When we look at the coalition of events that are converging now and some of the things in our culture that are dividing us now, and I don't think we can sustain this like we have. Now, I don't think we need to be ignorant. I think that we went through times in our past that were very, very dangerous, more so than now. But this is a time when we need to come together.
Beck: But what we had at that time we don't necessarily have now, or we're at the beginning of it, and that was an understanding of the constitution was solid, that divine providence, that God was involved, right?
DB: That's what the question is now. We have a world view conflict we've never had before. We had a big fight over slavery and abolition and such , but there was still an acknowledgement of the constitution and that God had a hand... not now. We're now at the point where we're looking at elections and saying, "Uh, do I choose saving the economy or saving the constitution? Let's save the economy." And if we go in that direction, we'll lose everything. [Editor's note: this is one of my deepest fears. Shuddup, you.] We're toast.
JC: James Wilson was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and when he took the constitution back to his constituents to get it ratified, he said at the very end of his speech after admitting the constitution was not perfect, he said that I am bold to assert that this is the best form of government ever offered to the world. And so that right now, in terms of solving this problem, there is that lack of boldness.
DB: There is another aspect, too, and that is when you look at George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, you look at James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, all these guys who were part of it. They said this thing is a miracle. George Washington said that there is no act of providence any greater than what we just had-- he told Lafayette this, what we just had to do in this constitution, you'll find no act of providence greater than what we just had now--
Beck: I believe it
DB: And if we dismiss that, Daniel Webster once said about the constitution, "Miracles do not cluster." One time in 6000 years may never happen again. Hold onto the constitution. Because we're holding onto a divine miracle. If we lose that, there's no guaranteeing another miracle will happen like this.
Beck, to the audience: He's bumming me out.
CS: And I actually think an extension of that point. It's easy for most of us to look back on our founding fathers or that foundational time and say, yeah those were miraculous events, the preservation of George Washington's life, the miracle of fog on the Eat River that occurred just a few miles from here, and then the creation of the constitution. We can list many things and then look back and say, "I'm comfortable calling that a miraculous event." But I think there's a couple questions from that. One is, why did those things take place? Why was it so important that this nation be preserved, created and preserved? And then the second question I think that is a fair question is why do we not think that that can happen now? If you talk about this being a tipping point, why can't we expect for a miracle to happen now--
Beck: I do.
CS:--and preserve us?
Beck, to the audience: How many people believe -- and think of this carefully -- believe in the protection of divine providence for our nation? Truly believe that.
[Me: does not raise hand.]
[Most of audience raises hands.]
Beck: Kay. How many people believe that you could see, in your lifetime, true Moses-style miracles?
[Me: does not raise hand.]
[Most of audience raises hands, but less than previous question. Beck raises his hand.]
Beck: I've got news for you. I do. I have seen the shadows of them, and I believe they're gonna happen. I really do.
[Me: Sometimes being an atheist is lonely.]
CS: I've got a great example of that, I think. In 1980s I was a lieutenant pilot, of course, preparing like all the military to fight the Russian forces as the fought to fold the Russian gap in Germany. [Editor's note: I may have garbled that sentence.] And I remember flying with a friend of mine, we were kind of talking while we were in cruise, and he asked me a question, he said essentially, "do you think we'll ever see the fall of the Berlin Wall?" And I remember thinking and very clearly answering him, saying "yeah, I think we will, but not in my lifetime." And it was not 18 months later that we sat there with our mouths open and watched that whole thing go away. And if anyone says to you, "oh yeah, we saw that one coming," I just don't believe it. It's like guys who say, "I was at Woodstock." Everyone claims it, but it's not what it is.
[Beck makes a joke about CS not being at Woodstock.]
CS: But military intelligence, or intelligence organizations, no one could have predicted that would happen the way it did in such a short time, and how can you look at that and say what a miraculous event! And how many people have access to--
Beck: Lemme reverse that now. How many people do you know that now say, "this could never fall apart"? Y'know, "Could America fall apart?" "Oh no, not in my lifetime." Yeah...
DB: If you don't understand your foundations, it's really easy for it to fall apart, because you don't know what you're defending and protecting.
[Editor's note: I'm thinking about the political shenanigans ongoing in Madison this year, particularly with ethics being defined by legality and interpretations of minutia of a few words in this law or that law, rather than any bipartisan discussion of the intentions of any of it. Both sides are guilty. I could easily point fingers at the "This is what democracy looks like" Sheep and ask them to get educated about rights, liberty, etc. before causing a ruckus, but their elected representatives -- and mine -- on both sides of the aisle are just as guilty of pulling out bits and pieces of legal horse shit to further a motive that is in no way tethered to constitutional ideology or the original intentions for this nation.]
Beck: I'm gonna put you on the spot -- and I only have one minute, so I'm gonna break early and when we come back, I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask you to tell a story, 'cause this is one of my favorite stories about the Constitutional Convention and when they're -- I think it's the delegates of New York -- and they're thinking about cheating. And they're like, can you give us some candy here, 'cause we gotta take this back to New York, and I mean, have you seen the people on Broadway? They get pissy. [DB laughs.] And, so, he said, how can we live with ourselves if we don't do the right things now? One of my favorite phrases of Washington -- you know what I'm talking about? [DB: mhmm] -- one of my favorite phrases of Washington. And I contend that we are the people that he spoke about in that.
DB: Yeah.
Beck: And we'll go there next.
COMMERCIAL
Tonight we have 11 programs left of the Glenn Beck Program on the Fox News Channel and tonight we wanted to bring the history one more time -- at least one more time -- in the next 11 days, and we wanted to talk to David Barton, Josh Charles, and Chris Stewart. Before we went into the break, I asked David to tell a story of George Washington. It's one of my favorite new Washington stories -- new for me -- where they were at the Constitutional Convention and they were arguing back and forth -- Josh you probably know this, too -- arguing back and forth, and I think it was New York that said, "C'mon, help us out. We've gotta have something here--" and Washington spoke up and said, "We can't compromise." And I'm paraphrasing here. He was more eloquent than I could ever be. He said, "How can we live with ourselves at the end if we would now compromise here, with this opportunity. We have to do the right thing." He said, "The event is in the hand of God. Let us raise a standard--
DB: that the wise and just can repair."
Beck: Do you believe that he expected us, that we are now to be the wise and just? That we're not, but we need to be.
DB: Yeah. He also gave a speech after that where he said that providence has plainly put it in the hands of the people and if it gets off track, that'll be the people, but I [Washington] can't believe that will ever happen. That his optimism was so high, and that's what he expressed. John Adams shortly after that gave a speech where he says every citizen has to become, for himself, a statesmen. He has to judge and read every legislative act, because that's the only way to keep the whole accountable, you have to know what they are doing, because they'll tell you stuff. So they went through a-- It's really a kind of different time frame in that they had representative government, but they did it very different than we do today. If you look at their elections back then, any candidate who put himself forward for office was automatically disqualified for office. You went into the polling booth with a blank piece of paper, and on it you said, "Uh, I want Glenn Beck for mayor, and I want Josh to be my senator" and then they would count up the names, and they would go, "they chose you for mayor, do you want to be the mayor?" and you had a choice at that point, and you never ran for office.
Beck: WOW.
DB: People recognized their leaders.
Beck: That's fantastic.
DB: The statement that Sam Adams said was that if you put yourself forward for office, you will become a dangerous party man. And that was his statement.
Beck: Can I tell you something? In my church, it's all done with callings like that. You don't become a bishop, you're called. And I was told when I first joined my church that if you ever want a calling, if you ever want to become a bishop, you'll never make it. And I said immediately, I am printing up buttons: Beck for Bishop. [Laughter.] Lemme go to Scott [in audience], because I think you have a question that kind of fits here.
Scott: Well, I was-- one of the recurring themes has been the contest between good and evil, and one of the things that always concerned me during the period of slavery is why more Southern Christians weren't morally stand up and understand the moral imperative of why slavery was so wrong. Did it boil down to economics? And also, why were we the only country in the world who actually fought a war over emancipation? All the other countries and Europe didn't do that, and why did men of goodwill turn a blind eye to it for so long -- or, seemingly goodwill -- which seems to kind of be a theme today, that we have people of goodwill that turn a blind eye to the morally right thing to do. So that's kind of the whole discussion...
Beck: Before you [DB] start, lemme just say this. Why are so many people turning a blind eye to sex slavery that is still going on all around the world? Stoning of homosexuals in Iran. And we don't really seem to care. To whatever. You can name them, and it seems as though people are asleep, but people are no different [turns to DB] are they, now than they were then, on turning a blind eye? You can come up with a million different reasons for it.
DB: I think that we have a tendency to be less involved now, because we watch things on TV and we elect people to represent us, and each member of Congress has 607,000 constituents, I'm just one and they won't listen to me... and so we have talked ourselves, by the tens of millions into thinking that we're impotent and have no ability to do anything. That I think is one difference from previous generations is that we have a mentality that says I can't make a difference, and yet the polling numbers still remain consistently high -- this week 61% of the nation said that having abortion was morally wrong, that's a pretty strong number. 62% came out today and they said they think marriage should be between a man and a woman only. No exceptions. That's strong. But we don't see that kind of political impetus... but going back to the slavery thing, when John Quincy Adams finished his term as president of the United States, 1825-1829, he went in -- the only president ever to become a member of Congress -- he went in with a nickname, the Hell Hound of Abolition. He was not going to let go of that issue until he ended slavery, that was his nickname throughout -- he spent 17 years as a one issue congressman. And when he got there, he looked around at all the representatives and the overwhelming majority were from the Northern states that were anti-slavery, they had already ended slavery. He said, the difficulty that we have in Congress is they keep looking at slavery as an economic issue, not a moral issue. He said, if we can't make it a moral issue, if we keep it as an economic issue, then we'll never end it. Well, it finally became a moral issue because of things like the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act, all this other stuff going on, you had a lot of--
Beck: Isn't it interesting that what's happening now in America. Everything -- capitalism -- it's becoming a moral issue. That capitalism hurts people. The border issue. Everything is social justice.
DB: That's right.
Beck: Everything is social justice. Is that where that came from?
DB: Well, that came, actually, after the Civil War. It didn't come from back there at that point in time, 'cause they still had the clarity of not making things that weren't moral into moral issues. Now we try to shroud everything with a moral respectability and that tells us we're supposed to automatically back off and allow it, but it's not. But you do have the issue that when the people finally recognize it as a moral issue, the election of 1861, the people overwhelmingly said, "we want a platform. We've got a Republican platform for president, for house, for senate, we want them in, they promise to abolish slavery." Eleven planks, nine of them abolish slavery, they put them in. It was then that half the congress resigned and said, "These guys... if they're gonna abolish slavery, we're leaving." We always say the South seceded from the North? It was not. It was a group of political leaders who said, "we're not going to be a part of ending slavery." And that was the inability of Congress to handle what the people had said through elections. They refused to do what the people said.
[Me: Congressmen leaving when other elected representatives did what their people wanted them to do? Can you imagine if that happened now? Oh, wait a minute...]
Beck: Back in just a second.
COMMERCIAL
Tonight we're talking a little bit about history with David Barton, Josh Charles, and Chris Stewart.
Beck: Chris, we were talking a little in the break about the power of the individual and the tipping points. I'm struck by the fact that there are these moments that aren't necessarily leaders that it's taken by.
CS: Yeah, it can be an individual. In this case, he emerged into a great leader. It's hard for us I think to understand what a crisis and a pivotal moment the Civil War was for our nation -- and by extension, for the rest of the world, 'cause what would the next century had looked like had we not had a united United States? It was imperative that this nation stay together. And, of all the people who hated Abraham Lincoln in the South, there were about as many who hated him in the North.
[Me: I'm refraining from making a Palin comparison here.]
CS: He didn't have very many friends. And if you read the press at the time, that becomes very very clear. He must have felt, 'I am alone' so many times. And yet, really the story of hope that comes out of that. Here was a man who stood up to do what he felt was right against opposition from almost every corner, and yet what a difference it made. And it was one of those tipping points. He changed not just the future of this country but the future of this world, because of that courage.
Beck: What would the founders tell us -- or the Federalist Papers tell us -- about our role.... How do we prepare people to be Abraham Lincoln or that person, the guy in front of that tank in Tiananmen Square?
JC: Well, the authors of the Federalist Papers make it very clear that a moral and virtuous people ultimately solve the problem, and they keep the system going. Benjamin Franklin himself thought the system would fail after 50 or so years in his call for unanimity, he says at the end of all of this the people will be prepared for nothing less than despotic government. But it's kept going, because a morally virtuous people -- and I believe that in this day and age, people of faith will make the difference. In Isaiah, they're called repairers of the breach, when the exiled are coming back from Babylon. Chronicles, the Lord is looking throughout the land to look for those whose hearts are fully committed to them and to strengthen them. They're gonna make the difference. When you go to Wilmington and you show the power of prayer... I still talk with Robin Morris, and she has had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people come from across the country and even from different countries, and they just want to set up prayer houses. People of faiths will make the difference; all of these problems will begin to be solved there.
Beck: I wanna take a break, because I want to go to Laurie Martini, basically on that point, in a way, what could be the most recent tipping point. We'll do that next.
COMMERCIAL
Beck, to audience: Laurie, how are ya?
Laurie: I'm excellent.
Beck: Where are you from?
Laurie: Longport, New Jersey.
Beck: Oh, I'm sorry for that. [Audience laughs.] Alright, go ahead.
Laurie: Um, I wanted to know what you feel is the most recent tipping point, and in particular if this country's support or lack of support for Israel is going to become the cause of the tipping point.
Beck, to the table: Who wants to take it?
DB: Well, I'll tell you, historically that has always been a tipping point for nations, the way they threat-- and I've got to go back to the founding fathers and what they did at the Constitutional Convention, 'cause when you look at what George Mason said and what Luther Martin said, they gathered on the aspect of national accountability. They said that everyone of us account to God, but nations also account to God, and it was George Mason who pointed out that nations don't account to God in the next world, they account in this world. So, if you believe that there is a god, if you believe we are accountable to God, and you take something as simple as Genesis 12:3 where he makes a perpetual covenant and he tells Abraham and his descendants, "however they treat you, that's how I'm gonna treat them. They bless you, I'll bless them."
Beck: That stinks on ice.
DB: Yeah. But that's what you see historically. Whether it be the Middle Ages, through World War I, World War II, through modern history the position a nation takes toward Israel determines their economic fate and their political fate more than anything else.
Beck: Name the countries, Josh. Go!
JC: Syria, Rome, Babylon, Germany. All of the above.
Beck: Aw, stop showing off. [JC laughs.]
CS: You know, I might make a more practical rather than historical observation that is this -- and I probably should say this -- in my time in the military I had a chance to work and train and exercise with countries from all throughout that region, and one observation that I took away from that that I'm certain of is Israel is perhaps our closest and only true friend in that region of the world.
Beck: Oh yeah.
CS: If they are our ally -- and they are -- then we need to recognize that.
Beck: It is the end of the West if we don't support them and they fall. It is the end of our lifestyle. Agree? [He points to each at the table and they all agree.] Does that answer? [to audience]
Laurie: Thank you.
Beck: Stinks on ice, too, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Lemme see if I can get one more quick question. Yes, Peter. [Points to audience.]
Peter: Glenn, when do you think this apathy started? Is there a historical time point you can point to in the country when people stopped believing in politicians and paying attention? [Laughter.]
Beck: [comical coughing] Woodrow Wilson.
Peter: And how many generations of apathy do we have to undo?
DB: Well, Woodrow Wilson is a period of great economic prosperity, and in the scriptures God told his people, 'you're going to get that prosperity, and when you do, you're going to forget me.'
Beck: Right.
[Me: I'm remembering the episode where Beck talked about the Jospeh & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat's Pharaoh's prophetic dreams: seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. I sorta tuned out while he was talking, because I kept singing Joseph lyrics in my head. Damn. Now I'm doing it again. His coat was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve...]
DB: Forget me, and it's gonna sink.
Beck: It really was, this was a time bomb that was planted, you know, starting with Teddy Roosevelt. The Progressive Era, time bomb planted. And they started the ball rolling. They thought it would go off a lot sooner than it has, I think. But this is it. This is when the time period is. Now it requires us to do our own homework, do our own research, and return to the basics and the principles. Back in just a sec.
COMMERCIAL
Special thanks to our guests tonight. We'll see you tomorrow with the Quiz Show. The things you learned on this show -- or did you?
[Editor's note: I will probably recap the game show with Questions and Answers, omitting chatter and whatnot. Prediction: this will either be fun to watch but not very deep, or this will be a great list of research points. A Launchpad, if you will, for summer work while Beck is away.]
Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.
Well, today around 2:00, Anthony Weiner announced his resignation. This is a man who, arrogance and out-of-control doesn't begin to describe him. Sending naked pictures of himself. Texting porn stars. Even driving around with a car with a license plate that wasn't even the right licence plate for the car. The car wasn't even registered. This guy was totally out of control.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
He's an elected official who also also last year tried to use the full power and force of the United States congress -- and did -- to go after me and this program and my number one radio client. He tried to shut my business down for political purposes. He tried to smear me and my client -- with the power of the congress. He did so by using a bogus narrative that somehow or another I was committing -- ethics violations -- while he was looking, apparently, into the porn ethics, et cetera et cetera. This was the man who was in the midst of sending naked pictures of himself from the congressional gym to strangers while trying to smear me.
It would be easy today for me to celebrate his exit, but the garbage in his life is now out, and the garbage that he has brought into our lives is also now out. So now we are left with him just being a citizen, just like you and me, an American now struggling with his problems. And problems, he has. But he has a chance to make things right and to start all over, so tonight, personally as a citizen, I am glad that he is gone. I thought that he was doing an awful lot of damage to our country for a myriad of reasons, but as one human being to another, I wish Anthony Weiner serenity, and I truly hope that he finds the path that turns his life around
DUN DUN DEHN DUN
I said to my daughter today, I was sitting on my couch in my office and my daughter popped in, and she said, "How are you doing today, Dad?" and we watched this Anthony Weiner thing, and I said, "You know what?" and she said "What are you gonna say today?" and I said, "I'm gonna say the right thing, but I want you to always remember this, Hannah. Doing the right thing really sucks a lot of the time. But it's the right thing to do."
Hello America. I've got a really weird, weird thing for you today. This program has basically alleged for the past months that progressives have embarked on a 100 year campaign to chip away at the American culture, to undo everything the founding fathers have done, and one of the battlefields in that war is the classroom. That way, suddenly America would wake up, they would know nothing about the founding history of our country, and we would be a country that was lost. Mwahaha. What crazy accusations...
In a completely unrelated story, the annual study of American history -- the nation's report card -- has just been released. I told you a little about this yesterday. Only 20% of the 4th graders performed at or above a proficient level. They didn't even know what the Declaration of Independence was. 8th graders it was worse, only 17% performed at that proficient level, and for 12th graders, 12%.
We went over some of the questions yesterday, and it is stunning how little our kids know. You cannot be a country, you cannot survive, if you don't even know your own history. Baselessly, I charge that this is intentional. Now, what better way to finally achieve the progressive dream of abandoning the constitution, which they feel is a charter of negative liberties, than to make it an old, antiquated document that nobody knows anything about?
Now. I said it's partly progressive agenda. Let's not just single out the progressives. Or the teachers or the kids or anything else. Helloo. WE are part of the problem as well, because most of us aren't much better. We have taken our freedoms for granted for so long, we've lost our passions for it, because all we really do when we were kids were memorize dates. Who cares. Not the stories, and the stories are the important parts.
The adults have been caught on video now, put on video by the Media Research Center. They're out front on the White House, and they were asked, Can you tell us a little bit about our country? Really, really easy questions, like Who's the vice-president of the United States. Watch us:
[video]
Q: Who is the Vice President?
A: The crazy guy who doesn't know much.
Q: Who is the Speaker of the House?
A: I don't know, I'd know it if I heard it.
A: The crier, the guy who cries all of the time.
Q: Name one member of the House.
A: Anthony Weiner
How sad is that? [Editor's note: Isn't this an old Leno gig?] They could name Anthony Weiner, but they couldn't name Joe Biden or John Boehner. For a minute I was like, I'm not the speaker of the house, then I remembered, oh yeah, John Boehner cried, too. That's right.
In fairness to the Vice President, Obama needs to keep Biden locked into a closet or an undisclosed location for at least 78% of the year for national security purposes alone. You let that guy our for five or ten minutes, and the next thing you know he's having drinks with Ahmadinejad and he's giving away nukes secrets, so you've gotta keep that name down.
Is this a lack of education and a lack of interest in our nation's past? I'm speaking as a whole, because I know you are engaged. You wouldn't have made Road to Serfdom a number one best seller if you weren't interested in American history. Many Americans are. But the media can just bash Sarah Palin, the public can bash Sarah Palin for her remarks on Paul Revere and nobody says anything because nobody knows the truth.
A couple weeks ago they called Sarah Palin stupid and every other name in the book. It's not new to the Palins. They're used to it, I'm guessing by this point. But historians were immediately asked about this. Yes, believe it or not, THIS is the story -- and one of the only stories -- the press ruthlessly investigated. Sarah Palin. Well, they pointed out, the historians did, a 1798 letter written by Paul Revere, where he describes how after his capture by the British officers, he warned that "there would be 500 American there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the way up." (The Massachusetts Historical Society)
That's what Sarah Palin said he did. Several Boston historians said, y'know, Palin's correct... One Boston University historian, Brendan McConville, listen to this, said:
"Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, 'Look, there is a mobilization going on that you'l be confronting,' and the British are aware as they're marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing -- she was right about that -- and warning shots fired. That's accurate."
But wait. There's more to this story. Despite the historic evidence on her side, he added that he wasn't convinced that Palin's remarks reflected scholarship. Quote, "I would call her lucky in her comments."
[Editor's note: BECAUSE SHE'S DUMB, SEE? SO IF SHE GETS SOMETHING RIGHT, IT MUST BE LUCK. IT CAN'T BE PROOF THAT THE DUMB-MEME IS, WELL, DUMB ITSELF. /soapbox]
Really? What a lucky stab in the dark, huh? Others weren't quite as kind. One historian, even with the matching letter and Sarah Palin's comments, then went on to not only discredit her, but he said he wasn't sure that Paul Revere was telling the truth. So, the historians put you in a position to where they're saying -- for political reasons -- no no, you can't even listen to the guy who wrote the letter, the guy who the story is about, Paul Revere. No, no you gotta listen to us. They're so desperate to mock and trash -- for political purposes -- they are willing to distort and ignore political fact for political gain, historic fact for political gain.
They also bashed, remember when she told a Tea Party crowd, "Party like it's 1773"? The media, of course, thought she was referring to the Declaration of Independence, which of course was signed in 1776. And it has become an accepted Palin Gaffe. But if people knew their history they would have turned on the media a lot earlier. They would know that she was referring to the Boston Tea Party. TALKING TO A TEA PARTY, TELLING THEM TO PARTY LIKE 1773... which is the year the Boston Tea Party happened.
The same thing happened when we, this program, talked about the 3/5th clause in the constitution and when Michelle Bachmann was assailed for saying our Forebearers fought against slavery. We're no longer teaching the truth in America, and the truth is so clear. You want the 3/5th clause? Go back and read Frederick Douglass, go back and read his own words. He makes such a clear case for it. He says, in one of my favorite phrases, I'm paraphrasing, "So, stop with the three-fifths clause."
[Editor's note: Douglass's text reads "So much for the three-fifths clause; taking it at is worst, it still leans to freedom, not slavery; for, be it remembered that the Constitution nowhere forbids a coloured man to vote."]
What are our children learning? They don't know about history, they don't know about America. But they do know Che. Well, they know about a kinder, gentler side of Che. The buy the t-shirts to show solidarity with a glorious communist revolutionary. What they're not taught about Che might make them rethink the t-shirt, but then again, I don't know how many of us are even thinking anymore. Che hated America, and generally was a pretty evil dude. In fact he wanted to destroy America. Quote:
If the rockets had remained, we would have used them all and directed them against the very heart of the U.S. including New York, in our defense against aggression. But we haven't got them, so we shall fight with what we've got. (London Daily Worker, November 1962) Our every action is a battle cray against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the peoples' unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. ("Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life")
Does it sound familiar? It's Che, but it could be a lot of revolutionaries that are currently working in and around our government. Che was also a racist. Does anyone wearing a Che t-shirt or carrying a Che purse know that? On the Africran-American, quote:
The negro is indolent and a dreamer, spending his meager wage on frivolity and drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving. (The Motorcycle Diaries)
He was a murderer, quote:
To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution and a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate." (Ernesto "Che" Guevera)
How do you feel about your t-shirt when you hear this one? Love of a murderer, quote:
I feel my nostrils dilate, savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood." (The Motorcycle Diaries).
Che was personally responsible for overseeing at least 163 executions. More than a hundred of these were just political prisoners deemed to be traitors. Our society has glorified him, and somehow or another our founders and our constitution have become irrelevant or somehow or another evil. If an animal like Che can, over time, have his history twisted to the point that he is an international icon, and our constitution can be made irrelevant and oppressive, we stand no chance of survival.
But there is good news. America is waking up. Sanity isn't completely dead.
We told you about a story out of Arizona and a top education official said yesterday that the ethnic studies program -- you remember, the one we told you about that called for the overthrow of the United States government and had the students chanting for it because they were all revved up by former hippie revolutionaries -- the superintendent said that course violated a new state law, and if they don'y cut the class, they risk losing about 10% of their funding, about $15 million. The media describes this new law as controversial. Well, I want to tell you how controversial this is. Ask yourself, here it is.
This new controversial law, as it is described by the press, bans K-12 programs that, quote:
Promote the overthrow of the U.S. government [Beck: How controversial!], promote resentment toward a race or class of people [Beck: How controversial!], are designed primarily for pupils of one ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity. [Beck: How controversial!]" (The Arizona Republic, June 15)
I always thought white power would be bad. What's the difference if you just change the color? It's not controversial. We're being led astray, intentionally.
About a week ago, I asked you, and I told you, what do we have, 11 shows remaining, 10 after tonight, on this network. We have tried to do history, and I think there are many on our crew, including me, and many in our audience who have learned things on this program in particular about African American history that nobody has ever-- that none of us knew.
We asked you a few days ago, in our last 11 shows, if we did a show on history, what would you want? The number one thing was another session with my good friend, David Barton. [Beck joins a table with three men.] Who, by the way [to Barton] is this the first time you've been on TV since you were on the show with Jon Stewart?
DB: That might be.
GB: You did a good job. I warned you, I said you're not going into a friendly place, but you handled him quite nicely.
DB: It's a fun conversation.
GB: It's hard to debate the facts when you're sitting across from David Barton. I should have actually called Jon Stewart and said, I warned you.
[Beck introduces the panel]
David Barton is the founder and president of Wall Builders, Josh Charles is the co-author of the Original Argument, the translation of the Federalist Papers, and Chris Stewart is the author of Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World.
[Editor's Note: This is the first time that Beck has fully referenced that The Original Argument is a book. He did not say that he is the other co-author. I wonder what kind of skeezy end-contract Fox created that gagged Beck from self-promotion. Promoting GBTV is one thing, but his own damn book? Gimme a break.]
[Editor's note: Transcribing conversations is tough, so I may take liberties -- describing an exchange rather than typing it word for word, etc.]
Okay. I want to start with the audience, because you're going to direct this program today. Where do you want to start? [Shot of the audience. Man in blue shirt raises his hand. There is a bald, white-bearded man in the audience who is wearing a white shirt. I cannot tell where the beard ends and the shirt begins. He is also wearing wire glasses. I choose to believe that Santa is a Glenn Beck fan.]
Blue Shirt Man, in a gravelly voice: I sit down in the offices of some great members of the U.S. congresses and Senate. Bachmann, Pence, Demint, Colonel West, and I ask 'em, How do we get back to the basics, back to the constitution? And they say, we gotta go back, and we gotta learn it. And I say, how do we learn the constitution when some of our own Republicans that we put into office are against the constitution? So, I ask you, who is more dangerous? Is it George Soros and his minions, or is it some of these camouflage Republicans that we put in office, and they screw us in our back?
Beck: I think the most dangerous of us [turns to table] and let's talk about this historically, I think the most dangerous of us is us. Because it's our responsibility, is it not?
DB: Congress is a reflection of us, it reflects our lack of knowledge. Now, I will say one caveat. I, aside, did the same sort of thing the NAEP did with the history institute. [Editor's note. This guy has a Southern accent. I used to be able to translate drawl much better. Yikes.] They took the questions that you have to know to become a citizen if you are an immigrant. If you know nothing about America and start from ground zero, here's what you have to know to be a citizen. They gave that to citizens and 71% of them didn't know enough to become a citizen of the United States. Here's the pill, though. They gave it to elected officials as well. Elected leaders scored lower on the test than the citizens did.
Beck: I believe that, I believe that.
Grizzly blue shirt guy nods with a caustic grin. [Editor's note: Hey, I wanted to know the answer to your question -- which is more dangerous of the two; not which other group is more dangerous than both of those two...]
[Editor's note: In college, I had a friend that spent a summer working for Disney. It, apparently, was a hardcore interview process, but he finally made it through, packed up his stuff, and drove to Orlando. He didn't know what job he was going to have. He was assigned to live in Disney apartments with other college/summer employees like himself. It was like college-camp. Or something. For the week before they started working inside the Magic Kingdom and then once a week after that, they took Disney Classes. They had to wear neckties to class. They learned about the history of the park, about Mr. Walt Disney and his vision, they learned the lingo to be used ("vomit" = "protein spill"), they learned about the business structure and their valuable place in the machine. When I visited my friend that summer and he took me into Disney World, we stopped at every bush and tree, and he told me the unique story behind it. Honestly, it was a little creepy for me, a then-twenty year old pot head hipster, to see what I could only describe as Disney brainwashing. I digress. I also spent one day working at the Disney Store in the mall when I was eighteen. I quit after training. Training, itself, was too intense for me. The company extended the same business philosophy to that little store in a mall in Chicagoland suburbia. My original interview didn't show them that I was not the right person for them, but their training video showed me that I was totally wrong for them, and I did them the favor of quitting. I mention this to show the extent to which the Disney company understands that its employees and representatives -- and, yes, they do see their Disney stores as being representatives of their parks -- MUST be knowledgeable of their company's history, language, rules, culture, and general practices. This is the frickin Disney Store. This is Disney World. It requires more education of its employees -- even glorified paid interns, like my college friend -- than our elected officials in whom we trust the welfare of our nation. /soapbox]
CS: You know, as an officer of our government, an officer representing the people, whether they're military officers or congressional leaders or congresspeople, they swear an oath to the constitution, and yet we don't require that they understand the constitution. There are a couple of congressmen and senators who make a point of carrying a pocket constitution around with them [editor's note: I do this!], and generally they're ridiculed for that. "Oh isn't that quaint."
Beck: I used to be that guy, I used to be that guy who used to make of fun "Oh, gee, we're a republic, not a democracy"-- Hey, give it a rest. It DOES make a difference. I used to be a guy who ridiculed people who walked around with a pocket constitution, 'cause you immediately think "pocket protector", like oh Hello, Mr. Geek, how are you today? But you know what? That's all we have. Josh was on the air with me today and we were talking about, we call it now the Good 'n' Plenty clause -- that John Conyer said... the General Welfare clause. And we were, at the time, saying, "What the... I don't even know where that is, that doesn't even he exist." He didn't even know the constitution. When we were taling about the 2000 page bills-- the Federalist Papers, what do they say about basically 2000 page bills?
JC: Basically, if the law is too complicated for people to understand it, that's a dangerous tipping point for any country where the people can't understand it, it's unintelligible for the people who are even writing it, and that's what's happened. We've become an administrative state where the government is so pushing itself in areas that it can't go or these congressmen, congresswomen can't possibly be experts on the things that they are legislating on so they literally consign that responsibility to experts.
Beck: Which Federalist Paper is it, do you remember which one? Sixty--
JC: 62
Beck:-- that says if you can't understand it, if you can't understand the bill, then people can't navigate in their own lives, and you can't do business. [Editor's note: You have to pass the bill to know what's inside it!] Yesterday we heard the president say to-- NBC said to the president, "How can you fix this economy if you can't get businesses to open up the purse strings?" And his response was "well, we've got a lot of complex things going on, like ATM machines." ATM machines? That's it? Like, it's Rosie the Robot out dispensing cash. That's not it. It is in the Federalist Paper. Number 62, read it. He says -- Madison -- in that, if it becomes, if a law becomes so complex that people won't be able to understand it, business won't be able to do business. Because they'll be trying to figure out the laws, and they won't be able to move forward. It's our fault. We have to study it and hold their feet to the fire.
Back in a sec.
COMMERCIAL
I'm sorry, I just saw my lovely daughter off to the side who's in town for Fathers' Day. Hello, Mary.
We're back with David Barton, Josh Charles, and Chris Stewart. And I have to tell you, and I know I've said this all week, Chris Stewart is a new friend of mine [Beck holds up Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World], and I read other one of your books while on vacation, and I called him up -- my wife about killed me -- I called him up and said, "you, sir, are a genius," and wanted to talk to you about it. This is your new book. It is called The 7 Tipping Points that Saved the World and would you agree that we are at a tipping point now?
CS: Well, yeah, I absolutely would. If you call me a genius, I have to mention that you are the only person in the world who has ever done that, so... [everyone laughs] I hope I can get a tape of this. But yeah, I think we are at a tipping point. When we look at the coalition of events that are converging now and some of the things in our culture that are dividing us now, and I don't think we can sustain this like we have. Now, I don't think we need to be ignorant. I think that we went through times in our past that were very, very dangerous, more so than now. But this is a time when we need to come together.
Beck: But what we had at that time we don't necessarily have now, or we're at the beginning of it, and that was an understanding of the constitution was solid, that divine providence, that God was involved, right?
DB: That's what the question is now. We have a world view conflict we've never had before. We had a big fight over slavery and abolition and such , but there was still an acknowledgement of the constitution and that God had a hand... not now. We're now at the point where we're looking at elections and saying, "Uh, do I choose saving the economy or saving the constitution? Let's save the economy." And if we go in that direction, we'll lose everything. [Editor's note: this is one of my deepest fears. Shuddup, you.] We're toast.
JC: James Wilson was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and when he took the constitution back to his constituents to get it ratified, he said at the very end of his speech after admitting the constitution was not perfect, he said that I am bold to assert that this is the best form of government ever offered to the world. And so that right now, in terms of solving this problem, there is that lack of boldness.
DB: There is another aspect, too, and that is when you look at George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, you look at James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, all these guys who were part of it. They said this thing is a miracle. George Washington said that there is no act of providence any greater than what we just had-- he told Lafayette this, what we just had to do in this constitution, you'll find no act of providence greater than what we just had now--
Beck: I believe it
DB: And if we dismiss that, Daniel Webster once said about the constitution, "Miracles do not cluster." One time in 6000 years may never happen again. Hold onto the constitution. Because we're holding onto a divine miracle. If we lose that, there's no guaranteeing another miracle will happen like this.
Beck, to the audience: He's bumming me out.
CS: And I actually think an extension of that point. It's easy for most of us to look back on our founding fathers or that foundational time and say, yeah those were miraculous events, the preservation of George Washington's life, the miracle of fog on the Eat River that occurred just a few miles from here, and then the creation of the constitution. We can list many things and then look back and say, "I'm comfortable calling that a miraculous event." But I think there's a couple questions from that. One is, why did those things take place? Why was it so important that this nation be preserved, created and preserved? And then the second question I think that is a fair question is why do we not think that that can happen now? If you talk about this being a tipping point, why can't we expect for a miracle to happen now--
Beck: I do.
CS:--and preserve us?
Beck, to the audience: How many people believe -- and think of this carefully -- believe in the protection of divine providence for our nation? Truly believe that.
[Me: does not raise hand.]
[Most of audience raises hands.]
Beck: Kay. How many people believe that you could see, in your lifetime, true Moses-style miracles?
[Me: does not raise hand.]
[Most of audience raises hands, but less than previous question. Beck raises his hand.]
Beck: I've got news for you. I do. I have seen the shadows of them, and I believe they're gonna happen. I really do.
[Me: Sometimes being an atheist is lonely.]
CS: I've got a great example of that, I think. In 1980s I was a lieutenant pilot, of course, preparing like all the military to fight the Russian forces as the fought to fold the Russian gap in Germany. [Editor's note: I may have garbled that sentence.] And I remember flying with a friend of mine, we were kind of talking while we were in cruise, and he asked me a question, he said essentially, "do you think we'll ever see the fall of the Berlin Wall?" And I remember thinking and very clearly answering him, saying "yeah, I think we will, but not in my lifetime." And it was not 18 months later that we sat there with our mouths open and watched that whole thing go away. And if anyone says to you, "oh yeah, we saw that one coming," I just don't believe it. It's like guys who say, "I was at Woodstock." Everyone claims it, but it's not what it is.
[Beck makes a joke about CS not being at Woodstock.]
CS: But military intelligence, or intelligence organizations, no one could have predicted that would happen the way it did in such a short time, and how can you look at that and say what a miraculous event! And how many people have access to--
Beck: Lemme reverse that now. How many people do you know that now say, "this could never fall apart"? Y'know, "Could America fall apart?" "Oh no, not in my lifetime." Yeah...
DB: If you don't understand your foundations, it's really easy for it to fall apart, because you don't know what you're defending and protecting.
[Editor's note: I'm thinking about the political shenanigans ongoing in Madison this year, particularly with ethics being defined by legality and interpretations of minutia of a few words in this law or that law, rather than any bipartisan discussion of the intentions of any of it. Both sides are guilty. I could easily point fingers at the "This is what democracy looks like" Sheep and ask them to get educated about rights, liberty, etc. before causing a ruckus, but their elected representatives -- and mine -- on both sides of the aisle are just as guilty of pulling out bits and pieces of legal horse shit to further a motive that is in no way tethered to constitutional ideology or the original intentions for this nation.]
Beck: I'm gonna put you on the spot -- and I only have one minute, so I'm gonna break early and when we come back, I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask you to tell a story, 'cause this is one of my favorite stories about the Constitutional Convention and when they're -- I think it's the delegates of New York -- and they're thinking about cheating. And they're like, can you give us some candy here, 'cause we gotta take this back to New York, and I mean, have you seen the people on Broadway? They get pissy. [DB laughs.] And, so, he said, how can we live with ourselves if we don't do the right things now? One of my favorite phrases of Washington -- you know what I'm talking about? [DB: mhmm] -- one of my favorite phrases of Washington. And I contend that we are the people that he spoke about in that.
DB: Yeah.
Beck: And we'll go there next.
COMMERCIAL
Tonight we have 11 programs left of the Glenn Beck Program on the Fox News Channel and tonight we wanted to bring the history one more time -- at least one more time -- in the next 11 days, and we wanted to talk to David Barton, Josh Charles, and Chris Stewart. Before we went into the break, I asked David to tell a story of George Washington. It's one of my favorite new Washington stories -- new for me -- where they were at the Constitutional Convention and they were arguing back and forth -- Josh you probably know this, too -- arguing back and forth, and I think it was New York that said, "C'mon, help us out. We've gotta have something here--" and Washington spoke up and said, "We can't compromise." And I'm paraphrasing here. He was more eloquent than I could ever be. He said, "How can we live with ourselves at the end if we would now compromise here, with this opportunity. We have to do the right thing." He said, "The event is in the hand of God. Let us raise a standard--
DB: that the wise and just can repair."
Beck: Do you believe that he expected us, that we are now to be the wise and just? That we're not, but we need to be.
DB: Yeah. He also gave a speech after that where he said that providence has plainly put it in the hands of the people and if it gets off track, that'll be the people, but I [Washington] can't believe that will ever happen. That his optimism was so high, and that's what he expressed. John Adams shortly after that gave a speech where he says every citizen has to become, for himself, a statesmen. He has to judge and read every legislative act, because that's the only way to keep the whole accountable, you have to know what they are doing, because they'll tell you stuff. So they went through a-- It's really a kind of different time frame in that they had representative government, but they did it very different than we do today. If you look at their elections back then, any candidate who put himself forward for office was automatically disqualified for office. You went into the polling booth with a blank piece of paper, and on it you said, "Uh, I want Glenn Beck for mayor, and I want Josh to be my senator" and then they would count up the names, and they would go, "they chose you for mayor, do you want to be the mayor?" and you had a choice at that point, and you never ran for office.
Beck: WOW.
DB: People recognized their leaders.
Beck: That's fantastic.
DB: The statement that Sam Adams said was that if you put yourself forward for office, you will become a dangerous party man. And that was his statement.
Beck: Can I tell you something? In my church, it's all done with callings like that. You don't become a bishop, you're called. And I was told when I first joined my church that if you ever want a calling, if you ever want to become a bishop, you'll never make it. And I said immediately, I am printing up buttons: Beck for Bishop. [Laughter.] Lemme go to Scott [in audience], because I think you have a question that kind of fits here.
Scott: Well, I was-- one of the recurring themes has been the contest between good and evil, and one of the things that always concerned me during the period of slavery is why more Southern Christians weren't morally stand up and understand the moral imperative of why slavery was so wrong. Did it boil down to economics? And also, why were we the only country in the world who actually fought a war over emancipation? All the other countries and Europe didn't do that, and why did men of goodwill turn a blind eye to it for so long -- or, seemingly goodwill -- which seems to kind of be a theme today, that we have people of goodwill that turn a blind eye to the morally right thing to do. So that's kind of the whole discussion...
Beck: Before you [DB] start, lemme just say this. Why are so many people turning a blind eye to sex slavery that is still going on all around the world? Stoning of homosexuals in Iran. And we don't really seem to care. To whatever. You can name them, and it seems as though people are asleep, but people are no different [turns to DB] are they, now than they were then, on turning a blind eye? You can come up with a million different reasons for it.
DB: I think that we have a tendency to be less involved now, because we watch things on TV and we elect people to represent us, and each member of Congress has 607,000 constituents, I'm just one and they won't listen to me... and so we have talked ourselves, by the tens of millions into thinking that we're impotent and have no ability to do anything. That I think is one difference from previous generations is that we have a mentality that says I can't make a difference, and yet the polling numbers still remain consistently high -- this week 61% of the nation said that having abortion was morally wrong, that's a pretty strong number. 62% came out today and they said they think marriage should be between a man and a woman only. No exceptions. That's strong. But we don't see that kind of political impetus... but going back to the slavery thing, when John Quincy Adams finished his term as president of the United States, 1825-1829, he went in -- the only president ever to become a member of Congress -- he went in with a nickname, the Hell Hound of Abolition. He was not going to let go of that issue until he ended slavery, that was his nickname throughout -- he spent 17 years as a one issue congressman. And when he got there, he looked around at all the representatives and the overwhelming majority were from the Northern states that were anti-slavery, they had already ended slavery. He said, the difficulty that we have in Congress is they keep looking at slavery as an economic issue, not a moral issue. He said, if we can't make it a moral issue, if we keep it as an economic issue, then we'll never end it. Well, it finally became a moral issue because of things like the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act, all this other stuff going on, you had a lot of--
Beck: Isn't it interesting that what's happening now in America. Everything -- capitalism -- it's becoming a moral issue. That capitalism hurts people. The border issue. Everything is social justice.
DB: That's right.
Beck: Everything is social justice. Is that where that came from?
DB: Well, that came, actually, after the Civil War. It didn't come from back there at that point in time, 'cause they still had the clarity of not making things that weren't moral into moral issues. Now we try to shroud everything with a moral respectability and that tells us we're supposed to automatically back off and allow it, but it's not. But you do have the issue that when the people finally recognize it as a moral issue, the election of 1861, the people overwhelmingly said, "we want a platform. We've got a Republican platform for president, for house, for senate, we want them in, they promise to abolish slavery." Eleven planks, nine of them abolish slavery, they put them in. It was then that half the congress resigned and said, "These guys... if they're gonna abolish slavery, we're leaving." We always say the South seceded from the North? It was not. It was a group of political leaders who said, "we're not going to be a part of ending slavery." And that was the inability of Congress to handle what the people had said through elections. They refused to do what the people said.
[Me: Congressmen leaving when other elected representatives did what their people wanted them to do? Can you imagine if that happened now? Oh, wait a minute...]
Beck: Back in just a second.
COMMERCIAL
Tonight we're talking a little bit about history with David Barton, Josh Charles, and Chris Stewart.
Beck: Chris, we were talking a little in the break about the power of the individual and the tipping points. I'm struck by the fact that there are these moments that aren't necessarily leaders that it's taken by.
CS: Yeah, it can be an individual. In this case, he emerged into a great leader. It's hard for us I think to understand what a crisis and a pivotal moment the Civil War was for our nation -- and by extension, for the rest of the world, 'cause what would the next century had looked like had we not had a united United States? It was imperative that this nation stay together. And, of all the people who hated Abraham Lincoln in the South, there were about as many who hated him in the North.
[Me: I'm refraining from making a Palin comparison here.]
CS: He didn't have very many friends. And if you read the press at the time, that becomes very very clear. He must have felt, 'I am alone' so many times. And yet, really the story of hope that comes out of that. Here was a man who stood up to do what he felt was right against opposition from almost every corner, and yet what a difference it made. And it was one of those tipping points. He changed not just the future of this country but the future of this world, because of that courage.
Beck: What would the founders tell us -- or the Federalist Papers tell us -- about our role.... How do we prepare people to be Abraham Lincoln or that person, the guy in front of that tank in Tiananmen Square?
JC: Well, the authors of the Federalist Papers make it very clear that a moral and virtuous people ultimately solve the problem, and they keep the system going. Benjamin Franklin himself thought the system would fail after 50 or so years in his call for unanimity, he says at the end of all of this the people will be prepared for nothing less than despotic government. But it's kept going, because a morally virtuous people -- and I believe that in this day and age, people of faith will make the difference. In Isaiah, they're called repairers of the breach, when the exiled are coming back from Babylon. Chronicles, the Lord is looking throughout the land to look for those whose hearts are fully committed to them and to strengthen them. They're gonna make the difference. When you go to Wilmington and you show the power of prayer... I still talk with Robin Morris, and she has had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people come from across the country and even from different countries, and they just want to set up prayer houses. People of faiths will make the difference; all of these problems will begin to be solved there.
Beck: I wanna take a break, because I want to go to Laurie Martini, basically on that point, in a way, what could be the most recent tipping point. We'll do that next.
COMMERCIAL
Beck, to audience: Laurie, how are ya?
Laurie: I'm excellent.
Beck: Where are you from?
Laurie: Longport, New Jersey.
Beck: Oh, I'm sorry for that. [Audience laughs.] Alright, go ahead.
Laurie: Um, I wanted to know what you feel is the most recent tipping point, and in particular if this country's support or lack of support for Israel is going to become the cause of the tipping point.
Beck, to the table: Who wants to take it?
DB: Well, I'll tell you, historically that has always been a tipping point for nations, the way they threat-- and I've got to go back to the founding fathers and what they did at the Constitutional Convention, 'cause when you look at what George Mason said and what Luther Martin said, they gathered on the aspect of national accountability. They said that everyone of us account to God, but nations also account to God, and it was George Mason who pointed out that nations don't account to God in the next world, they account in this world. So, if you believe that there is a god, if you believe we are accountable to God, and you take something as simple as Genesis 12:3 where he makes a perpetual covenant and he tells Abraham and his descendants, "however they treat you, that's how I'm gonna treat them. They bless you, I'll bless them."
Beck: That stinks on ice.
DB: Yeah. But that's what you see historically. Whether it be the Middle Ages, through World War I, World War II, through modern history the position a nation takes toward Israel determines their economic fate and their political fate more than anything else.
Beck: Name the countries, Josh. Go!
JC: Syria, Rome, Babylon, Germany. All of the above.
Beck: Aw, stop showing off. [JC laughs.]
CS: You know, I might make a more practical rather than historical observation that is this -- and I probably should say this -- in my time in the military I had a chance to work and train and exercise with countries from all throughout that region, and one observation that I took away from that that I'm certain of is Israel is perhaps our closest and only true friend in that region of the world.
Beck: Oh yeah.
CS: If they are our ally -- and they are -- then we need to recognize that.
Beck: It is the end of the West if we don't support them and they fall. It is the end of our lifestyle. Agree? [He points to each at the table and they all agree.] Does that answer? [to audience]
Laurie: Thank you.
Beck: Stinks on ice, too, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Lemme see if I can get one more quick question. Yes, Peter. [Points to audience.]
Peter: Glenn, when do you think this apathy started? Is there a historical time point you can point to in the country when people stopped believing in politicians and paying attention? [Laughter.]
Beck: [comical coughing] Woodrow Wilson.
Peter: And how many generations of apathy do we have to undo?
DB: Well, Woodrow Wilson is a period of great economic prosperity, and in the scriptures God told his people, 'you're going to get that prosperity, and when you do, you're going to forget me.'
Beck: Right.
[Me: I'm remembering the episode where Beck talked about the Jospeh & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat's Pharaoh's prophetic dreams: seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. I sorta tuned out while he was talking, because I kept singing Joseph lyrics in my head. Damn. Now I'm doing it again. His coat was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve...]
DB: Forget me, and it's gonna sink.
Beck: It really was, this was a time bomb that was planted, you know, starting with Teddy Roosevelt. The Progressive Era, time bomb planted. And they started the ball rolling. They thought it would go off a lot sooner than it has, I think. But this is it. This is when the time period is. Now it requires us to do our own homework, do our own research, and return to the basics and the principles. Back in just a sec.
COMMERCIAL
Special thanks to our guests tonight. We'll see you tomorrow with the Quiz Show. The things you learned on this show -- or did you?
[Editor's note: I will probably recap the game show with Questions and Answers, omitting chatter and whatnot. Prediction: this will either be fun to watch but not very deep, or this will be a great list of research points. A Launchpad, if you will, for summer work while Beck is away.]
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