The below is adapted from Glenn's monologue on radio today
I want to just explain something that is more of a personal note.
For the long‑term listeners and readers that are really trying to actually change their lives, I am convinced that we are the open‑minded ones and they are the closed‑minded ones.
How many things in your life have you changed in the last five years? How many things did you think you knew and your opinion has completely changed in the last few years? They try to say that we're closed‑minded, but we are the ones that have left the Republican Party. They are the ones that still bought in to the Democratic Party. And they bought into it hook, line, and sinker. And they still do. They still do. No matter how many times they're betrayed, no matter how many times their values are betrayed, they still hold on. So whatever. And I say this to the Republicans as well, those people who say "No, no, I'm telling you, John Boehner, he's my guy. Now that John Boehner is in charge, he..." Uh‑huh. How many times do they have to stick a fork in you?
I have learned, I think you have as well, that the answer does not come from Washington. The problem comes from Washington.
It's very easy to figure out what the problem is, but you have to change the language. You have to accept the true language and not the language that the progressives have given.
The progressives came in and they were exposed during the Woodrow Wilson administration because they became overzealous. They were exposed for what they were and so they had to change the Progressive Party, they changed the progressive name into liberal.
A classic "liberal" used to mean, and it does everywhere else in the world, that you are for small government, that you are for maximum freedom of the individual. Well, they had to change that. And so now we have been arguing conservative and liberal.
They're not liberals. They're progressives. And they are in both parties. And when somebody stands up and says "I'm fighting for you," if he's fighting for the Constitution and limited government, then he is fighting for you. But if he is fighting for expanded power over people's lives, he is not fighting for you, at least in the way that our understanding always has been.
What we all claim we want - and I know I want: Give me responsibility or give me death. Not just liberty. I'm not looking just for freedom. I am looking for personal responsibility that comes along with that freedom.
Now, we have given up on Washington, even though at the same time the ironic thing is we have never had more clout or power in Washington, I contend, for at least in my lifetime. We have real true constitutional watchdogs in congress and in the Senate, but we have given up, and we're starting now to pay attention to our own homes, which frightens me little bit because maybe we have not paid attention to our local issues as much as we need to because the progressives are busy taking over state by state and town by town. And you'll see it. And you'll see it but all the new regulations that your city is putting in. Those are all things to shackle a man.
But I have had an interesting summer for reasons that we'll get into some other point. I am going to change the way I work. We already have changed the way we work. I am going to focus more on the things that, quite honestly, bring me joy.
I have focused for so long on the things that have made me miserable. I have told you in the past ‑‑ and I know you feel exactly the same way ‑‑ that we have watched people kill the country we feel deeply about. Those on the left don't, but we do. We feel it's an exceptional place, and I feel as though I have seen a killer that I can identify, the progressive movement, and we have seen them lie their way into our child's bedroom every single night and smother it with a pillow. And every day we get up and we're like, "No, don't. No, no, he's a killer. He's trying to kill everything that you love. Don't. No, no. Will somebody listen?" And every night they come in.
This is what I feel like my job has been: To try to ring the bell. To warn you that there is somebody that's trying to smother everything that we hold dear and love and kill it. And we have watched them do it. And for the most part we feel at the end that they've been successful, and we haven't been.
That is not true.
But because of that feeling, I think that we have paid a real price in who we are. I know I have paid a price higher than I thought it was going to be, and I think my family was the next thing on that block. And I'm not going to pay that price. That is not a price that I will pay. I am just not willing to do it.
And so I am going to start focusing on the things that bring me joy, and Man in the Moon was the first step in that direction. And being able to lift people up.
The other day we had a woman in the audience.After the show we had the cameras go out and get comments from people and what they thought. This woman, she had I think blue hair or green hair. She was 20‑something, nose ring, and she didn't look like what anybody in the media would say is a Glenn Beck fan, but she was. And she said, "I just wanted to thank Glenn for giving me something and speaking the words that I didn't even know I needed to hear." She said, "Now I know. Tomorrow will be better. And I can make it. Because I'm the one writing the chapter. I'm the one writing the story." It was fantastic.
I started last week looking for music and everything else that is uplifting. We have always listened to, like, Christian music and stuff at the house, but that's not it. But for me, I want something else, and I want something fun, because I need to inject fun into my family life, while getting rid of all of the computer games and everything else.
Getting rid of electronics been a chore. But I have noticed a difference in my family since we turned the computers off. The computers are not allowed on while the kids are awake. I can go do my e‑mail and everything else when the kids go to sleep, but there are no games at all in the house. I mean, we took Wii away, everything. I made a rule: Anybody caught playing a game in this house, every computer and every electronic device in this house will go into the pool, and I mean it with everything in me.
I've already now seen the results of getting rid of it. It's good. You can still have the computer and everything else, but no video games. And we're just playing regular games as a family. And we have changed a few things. We're reading at dinner, we're reading our scriptures together and we're talking, we're playing a game right after dinner, after we all clean up every night. We're doing these things. And I've already seen a change.
The other thing I've done is I started trying to find songs - and I'm going to find them in different periods, but right now I'm stuck in the Forties and the Fifties because the songs back then, especially during the Great Depression, were different.I contend that we haven't really seen anything like it since the 1960s.
Go back and listen to That's Life by Frank Sinatra. Really listen to the words of That's Life. What is that saying? "You know I've been up, I've been down, I've been a king, I've been a pawn, I've been everything. And every time I pick myself up again and I tell myself, that's life." Now, that's the exact opposite of what our society's teaching. You would hear that song on the radio today; I don't think anybody would pen those words anymore! But that's what made us great. You look at the words of Accentuate the Positive, or Swinging on a Star. You look. Look at the words. You want to swing on a star and carry moon beams home in a jar? Or would you rather be a pig? Listen to the words.
So I put together, I think there's 30 or 40 songs that I put together, and we have been playing them in the house for the last week. And I looked at my wife yesterday and I said, "You notice a difference in the house?". I have.
I want you to go on a journey with me. I want you to try an experiment. And this isn't for everybody, but if you are tired of being sick and tired, change your attitude. I want you to say these words:
1) I am healthy
2) I am happy
3) I am an unstoppable force as I do His will.
I am a partner with the infinite, and as He tells me what to do, I am unstoppable.
You start putting positive in yourself because we have put enough poison into ourselves. This society is poison.
You change just your home and what you pour into your head every day. I've only done it for a week now, and I'm telling you there's a huge difference. A huge difference. Pour it into yourself. Do an experiment. See if it changes your outlook.
You change your outlook, you'll change your life.