How to Tell Millennials Progressivism Is the Exact Opposite of Progress

Yaron Brook, head of the Ayn Rand Society, joined Glenn's radio program on Wednesday to discuss how perceptions of freedom and equality are changing in America and around the world. He also introduced his new book, Equal Is Unfair.

Glenn brought up the challenge of navigating strategically-named concepts that give the false impression of offering more freedom and equality.

"How do you get the youth away from the word progressives and progress, when progressivism is the exact opposite of progress?" he asked.

Brook agreed with the premise.

"Well, the left is being very clever about this," Brook said. "I mean, they have managed to take words, take concepts and adapt them to their use, and pervert them. Liberal used to mean free market, free thinking."

Read the transcript below for the full conversation.

GLENN: Yaron Brook, friend of ours and the head of the Ayn Rand Society here in America, welcome to the program.

YARON: Thank you.

GLENN: He's got a book called Equal Is Unfair. He was here a couple weeks ago, and I said, "My fault. I'm sorry. I didn't even know you had a book out. Come back and talk about the book." So we want to talk about it because it's really an important thing because people -- we're now talking about a universal minimum living wage. Giving everybody, you know, a stipend to live on. And I want to talk about that. I also want to talk -- because you just got back from Europe.

YARON: Yep.

GLENN: And there is something happening in Europe. It's eastern Europe. But they are more free market than probably anybody in the world right now.

YARON: Well, what I'm finding is places in the world that have experienced communism, have experienced some form of fascism, and are so poor and are oppressed, the young people are rising up. They want something different. They want something new. They want -- they're willing to be radical. They're willing to consider new ideas, whereas you find in western Europe and even in the United States, young people -- as long as the new i Phone comes out on time, right? Life is good. Why challenge myself? Why push myself? Radical and upset a lot of people when life is comfortable.

So Brazil -- Brazil is fascinating. Thousands of kids out in the streets demonstrating for freedom. For freedom.

GLENN: Like real freedom.

YARON: Like real freedom. I'm not saying all of them get it. But more of them get it than I think -- as a percentage than anything we see in the West.

Again, Brazil, they've lived under all these different regimes. They were promised that they would be middle class. Remember the Bricks (phonetic) -- Bricks were going to take over the world: Brazil, Russia, China, India. It hasn't happened, which is no surprise, really. But it hasn't happened. And they're upset.

GLENN: Because everything is so corrupt.

YARON: Yeah, they're poor. They want to be middle class. They want to be rich. And they're saying, "Nothing we've been promised is happening." And they're willing to look at ideas that I think Americans and others have forgotten, take for granted, ignore, because they want to be mainstream. They want to be cool. They want to be part of -- they want to be -- they want to be what their professors want them to be.

GLENN: Can I -- because you're probably one of the few in the world that we can actually talk to about this, who has probably thought this through.

You know, we're looking at a disruption of about 50 percent of all jobs in the next 20 to 30 years. Technology is going to disrupt absolutely everything.

YARON: Sure.

GLENN: So there -- so the amount of unemployment is going to be outrageous. And I shouldn't say that. The amount of displacement is going to be outrageous. Not necessarily unemployment.

YARON: Yep. Yep.

GLENN: And people are thinking now -- and I think all governments need to think, what do you do in this period of great change so you don't have revolution in the street?

Now, one of the solutions is this minimum living wage.

YARON: Yeah. Sure. This is the easiest solution. And this is a government solution. I would say the last people in the world you want thinking about this problem is anybody in government.

GLENN: Government.

YARON: This is not a government problem. I strongly believe in a separation of state from economics. If I had the opportunity to rewrite the Constitution -- if I could be that arrogant -- I would include a separation of state from economic -- they have no business in it. Central planning cannot solve this issue. The market will solve it. How? I don't know. We have today tens of millions -- globally hundreds of millions of jobs that 50 years ago you could not have imagined would exist.

GLENN: So do you think if we had a separation of education and state, we probably would have would be safer than we are now?

YARON: Well, I have four separations that I would put into the Constitution: Separation of state from ideas. I don't think government should be in the business of ideas. Religion is one set of ideas. I think it should be separate. But I think generally the government is there to protect our rights. Period. Full stop. That's it.

If you want to be a communist under a free society, that's okay. Get your friends together, go start a commune, be pathetic and miserable in that commune, to each according to his -- from each according to his ability, each according to his means. As long as you're not opposing it on people, you can do your own thing in a free society. That's the beauty of freedom.

Separation of state from economics. The government has no economic policy. There shouldn't be a Treasury Department, in the sense that there is today. Economic advisers. Central planning doesn't work. It doesn't work big. It doesn't work small. It just doesn't work, and it's immoral. It's wrong for the government to impose their values on us as individuals. So it's morally offensive, and it's economically stupid.

Separation of state from education. State has no role in education. And the reason our educational system is breaking down is, as corrupt and awful as it is, particularly in the inner cities, particularly for poor people -- everybody is always concerned. When they say privatize education, what will happen with the poor kids? Well, it can't be worse than it is today with these poor kids, right? Think about the educational quality they're getting from a public educational system. So I'd like to privatize the whole system and get the government out of it. One of my disagreements with Thomas Jefferson is over the University of Virginia and the idea that the state should be involved in education.

And fourth is separation of state from science. Let's get the state out of science so that we can have scientists unincentivized by government grants and politics and all of that, decide about global warming, about stem cells. Left and right, when government intervenes in science, it corrupts the science.

GLENN: Yeah. Isn't it -- does it amaze you that the scientists don't realize that the government -- which is not controlled by religion this time, is doing the same thing that they were doing to the scientists when it was controlled by religion?

YARON: I think the scientists to some extent recognize that. But what option do they have? If you're dependent -- as our scientific world has evolved to a position to where if you're not getting grants from the government, how are you going to continue doing the science or some of the science that you want to do?

Now, some people have integrity. But the fact is, most people just go with the flow. And if the government is giving them money to do X, they're going to do X. And if you do a government study and at the end of the government study, you discover that everything is great. Life's good. No problems. Nobody is going to renew your grant. Nobody wants to hear that.

But if you say, "The end of the world might be near. I'm not sure. I'm not convinced, but there's a possibility that we are heading towards a catastrophe. I need to study this further." Guess what, you're going to get tons of more money flowing your way, particularly if the end of the world is being caused by something like industry, progress, capitalism, which certain people in the intelligentsia and the government would like to believe are the cause of all our problems.

GLENN: How do you get the youth away from the word progressives and progress, when progressivism is the exact opposite of progress?

YARON: Yeah. Well, the left is being very clever about this. I mean, they have managed to take words, take concepts and adapt them to their use, and pervert them. Liberal -- liberal used to mean free market, free thinking.

GLENN: Classic liberalism.

YARON: Classic liberalism. And to some extent, when you go to a place like Georgia or Ukraine and so on and you talk about liberal ideas, they understand them to mean in eastern Europe and in the West, to some extent, as pro-capitalist ideas, pro-freedom ideas. So they've done that to the word "liberal." They've done it to the word "progressive." These are anti-progress ideas. And, you know, part of it is -- you know, and the same is true on the other side, right?

Are we really -- does anybody really want to be a conservative? What are we conserving? Aren't we really -- those of us who believe in free markets and freedom, we're the real progressives and liberals. We're not trying to conserve. We're trying to push forward. We're trying to grow and develop.

GLENN: Well, you know the person who named us conservatives. Do you know where that came from?

YARON: No, no, I'm not sure.

GLENN: FDR. FDR was the one who said, "This group of people, they are conservatives. And they're trying to conserve these ideas, and it won't work." And we just embraced it. We just allowed him to label us.

YARON: Well, partially it came from way back from really the French Revolution, where the French Revolution was deemed to be the progressives.

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

YARON: You know, where the real action was. This was the good guys. And the British looking at that said, "Oh, wait a minute. That's a bad idea. We need to conserve our institutions and --

GLENN: Sure. Sure.

YARON: So the conservative movement really starts in England as a rebellion in a sense the French Revolution. And nobody saw -- and this was one of the great tragedies of history -- nobody saw that there was a third alternative that was a revolution, but not the French Revolution. And that was the American Revolution. The real revolution. Because everybody was so Europe-centric, that they viewed anything that happened in Europe as important. And what happened to those 13 colonies, that's the margin. That's not as significant. So the American Revolution was what is really meaningful historically. The French Revolution is a footnote at the end of the day. It's America that moved the world forward, that progressed us.

GLENN: So do you see -- we're talking to Yaron Brook. He's the author of Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.

Do you see, with the fight over facts today, the war with the media, the war with the White House, the war against left and right -- I mean, it's getting insane. We're all living in a movie that none of us would believe, if we were sitting around the script-writing table, we'd all say, "Nobody is going to buy this movie."

Do you see enough people saying, kind of like we are, of I'm just tired of all the labels, I'm tired of all of it, none of this stuff works, I want to find reason and find the way out through this?

YARON: You know, I can't be optimistic here. No, I'm not seeing enough people doing this. I mean, I don't consider myself right or left anymore.

You know, I'm done with those labels because they're so perverted, so distorted, they're meaningless. I view everything in a sense and in terms of what America is, what it represents, and what is going on today. So I believe America is individualism. That's the essential characteristic of what America is. The American Revolution is about the individual first, placing the individual at the core. Everything is about protecting that individual and his freedom.

Everybody today on the political map -- everybody on the political map is a collectivist of one sort or another. On the right, they're collectivists. On the left, they're collectivists. America first is an awful slogan. I couldn't vote for John McCain when he came out of the Republican Convention with the term "country first." It's not about country. It's not about America as a geographic place.

GLENN: It's about the idea.

YARON: It's about the idea. But the idea is the individual first.

GLENN: Yes.

YARON: The state is there. The only purpose of the American state -- and should be the only purpose of every state -- is to protect us.

It's a policeman. It is a judge when there are disputes between us, and a policeman and a military. And other than that, it's supposed to leave us alone to live our lives as we see fit. That's what the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means. It means you have the freedom to act in pursuit of the values necessary for your life, free of coercion. And the government is there to protect you from people who would coerce you. And, of course, the biggest violator, as the Founders knew and warned us, the biggest violator is government.

GLENN: Is government.

YARON: And today, left and right, they want to violate our rights.

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The Truth Behind the 5G Airline Hysteria | Brendan Carr | Ep 130

The rollout of 5G has begun across the country … except at airports. Rumors are everywhere that the new 5G networks could cause massive — and deadly — disruptions to air traffic. But is this a factual fear, or does it belong in the same bucket as the billion other conspiracy theories surrounding 5G? Population control, invisible propaganda, hundreds of birds that die all at once, wavelengths that microwave your brain ... And what about the less far-fetched concerns about what 5G could usher in: Increased Big Tech monitoring, ESG scores, the metaverse? Since President Biden isn’t doing anything to calm America’s fears, Glenn sits down with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to cut through the noise and separate fact from fiction. Yes, Carr explains, there is a lot to be concerned about. But he also details why he’s so optimistic about the potential a 5G-powered world could have.

WATCH: The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of 21st-Century Fascism

The Great Reset is not just an elitist idea — it’s not even a socialist utopian concept. It’s a real-world fascist threat to every American from Wall Street to Main Street. It’s happening now in policies and cultural shifts big and small, obvious and subtle, from environmental promises to corporations going woke. But the mainstream media, global elites, and politicians brushed off the Great Reset as “nothing to see here.” Another myth they push: “The World Economic Forum is just a conference for elites who have no REAL power.”

Glenn Beck first exposed the Great Reset almost two years ago, and the globalist cries of "conspiracy theorist" soon followed. They said he believed the WEF was a “master cabal calling the shots from some evil underground lair.” But Glenn Beck never said that. Instead, he uncovered the true intentions of global leaders in finance and politics by simply highlighting their own words.

This week, the same global elites are doubling down on their agenda at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda virtual event. But still, the global elites — like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey — are trying to downplay the WEF’s influence to stop people like us from interfering with their plans. The oligarchy will prosper in the new world order they’ve designed. You will not.

So Glenn unveils a master chalkboard based on his best-selling new book to outline the threats from globalists and why we must stop their agenda if we hope to keep the precious freedoms we still have.

Watch the full episode of "GlennTV' Below:

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RADIO

Explaining Washington’s rumored FORCED QUARANTINE law

Despite what the mainstream media may say, on January 12 Glenn DID fact-check a claim he made on Tucker Carlson about a rumored Washington law that could force citizens to quarantine or isolate. In this clip, Glenn clarifies his original statement, explaining that the law in question has been on Washington books since 2003 and therefore is NOT a result of the COVID pandemic. But Glenn also explains the more concerning context he — and those in the mainstream media — missed too: the fact that this law didn’t seem too farfetched for Washington citizens should be VERY concerning to us all.

RADIO

Follow THESE 8 STEPS so we can REVIVE our republic

It’s a new year, and every new year comes with New Year's resolutions. This is when we resolve to lose weight, join a gym, or finally read those books on our shelves. For many of us, the New Year's resolution has become a kind of joke, because deep down, we know the new diet won’t stick and that reading a book a day isn’t really sustainable. The real issue is that we usually create resolutions that are too idealistic and broad, like, “Be healthy.” When it comes time to deliver on those resolutions, we don’t know what to do, so we quit.

But the idea of resolutions is still a good one. It is good to set new and better goals for ourselves. The secret is keeping them attainable.

You will hear many people, like me, tell you that 2022 is the year to save the American republic. Well, that is a great idea, but what do we actually DO to make that happen?

I know this audience is already resolved to save America, so I want to offer you some specific, actionable ways to do that.

Here are some “Practical Steps to Revive the Republic.” It is by no means a fully comprehensive list. We will find a broad array of ways to save our nation. This list is a jumping-off point for the New Year for folks like us who love this country.

Practical Steps to Revive the Republic

1. Get married and have a family.

Mother Teresa said, “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”

Family is the first system of government we enter. It is where we are taught the virtues necessary for self-government. Children denied love and guidance when they are young struggle to successfully enter society, let alone the reality of their own lives. We call them “mal-adjusted.”

Ronald Reagan addressed the nation in 1986, saying:

“Consider, for example, that the philosopher-historians Will and Ariel Durant called the family ‘the nucleus of civilization.’ They understood that all those aspects of civilized life that we most deeply cherish — freedom, the rule of law, economic prosperity and opportunity — that all these depend upon the strength and integrity of the family. If you think about it, you'll see that it's in the family that we must all learn the fundamental lesson of life — right and wrong, respect for others, self-discipline, the importance of knowledge, and, yes, a sense of our own self-worth. All of our lives, it's the love of our families that sustains us when times are hard. And it is perhaps above all to provide for our children that we work and save.

“Some have suggested that in today's world, the family has somehow become less important. Well, I can't help thinking just the opposite: that when so much around us is whispering the little lie that we should live only for the moment and for ourselves, it's more important than ever for our families to affirm an older and more lasting set of values.”

If you are concerned about the fall of the American republic, remember that liberty is always just a generation away from success or demise, and the children we raise make all of the difference.

2. Tell the truth.

“When you have something to say, silence is a lie.” –Jordan B. Peterson

Lying is really easy. It seems to take the mess of the present and push it into the future. But lying makes the world like a mine field of constructed reality – one wrong step and it will all blow up. To maintain a lie costs the liar in consciousness, attention, and productivity. Enough lies make you useless. Useless people have very little capacity for self-government.

In 2021, we rightly pointed out, “The media lies!” “The politicians lie!” “The doctors lie!” “The celebrities lie!”

But if we lie too, can we expect better from them? If we are silent in the face of lies, when we KNOW they are lies, then how can we expect things to improve?

If we each agreed to stop lying and to tell the truth today, can you imagine how much better tomorrow could be? Theodore Dalrymple, the pen name of the English writer and psychiatrist, said it perfectly: “When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.” We have to embrace and promote a way of life worthy of liberty – and that starts with me, you, and all of us.

3. Study history and read old books.

There is nothing new under the sun. It’s likely that the struggles of today were deliberated years ago by our ancestors. Perhaps they have some good ideas worth considering. We won’t know unless we study them. The American system of government was revolutionary not because the founders were somehow superhuman (although God was clearly with them) but because they embraced the lessons of the past. If you think practically, looking at the future is impossible, but moving into the future, regardless of where you look, is inevitable. The only concrete information we have is in the past. If you are being presented with a “new idea,” check with the past first to see how that idea will play out. If you love the American republic, study it. If you want to navigate the future, read old books.

4. Own. Don’t rent.

Many of us likely watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” over the holidays. This movie makes an explicit case for the correlation between home ownership and human dignity. The greedy villain. Mr. Potter, wants to keep the people of the town in his rental apartments and is threatened by the movie's protagonist, George Bailey, whose Bailey Building and Loan business is helping people own their own homes.

Home ownership matters. Not only does it set you on the path toward true self-reliance and out of the grips of the “Mr. Potters” of the world, but it also creates local buy-in, which makes our communities stronger. A 2001 Harvard study found:

“Strong and consistent evidence indicates that homeowners are more likely to:

a) be satisfied with their homes and neighborhoods;

b) participate in voluntary and political activities; and

c) stay in their homes longer, contributing to neighborhood stability.

To be metaphorical: It turns out that when we put down roots, we care more about the local soil. But right now, we are seeing the death of home ownership in exchange for perpetual renting. Even people with the financial capacity to buy a home are forgoing it for the ease of renting. But if we want to save our republic, we have to tend to our local communities. We have to take ownership over where we live.

Before our Declaration spoke about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” John Locke was talking about the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. When he said “property,” he was talking about the holistic ownership a man can have over his destiny. The right to own property is about self-determination. In essence, it is about the right to own yourself – to own your destiny.

If you can buy a home, do it. If not, take on the mentality of a homeowner in your community, not a passerby.

Whenever possible, own, don’t rent.

5. Dump the tea into the sea.

Over the past two years, the government has grabbed at power like a drunken man in a strip club, losing all decorum, restraint, and sense of place in the greater society. But what is more disturbing is that we complied. After “15 days to slow the spread,” we stayed unnecessarily locked down physically, emotionally, and financially for almost two years.

Remember the last time kings tried to hold us down? I’m not saying to turn to violence. I am saying we should just start saying “no” to the government overreach – PEACEFULLY, respectfully, and deliberately.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.”

Maybe the lovers of the American republic need to start getting into, as the left loves to say, “good trouble.”

6. Know your rights AND your responsibilities.

We all love talking about our rights. In fact, the word “rights” is being conflated with a narcissistic tendency to think we deserve the whole world to conform to our way of life. Yet our inalienable rights are eroded every day. If you haven’t read our founding documents, now is the time. We can’t protect rights that we can’t define or are ignorant of. But along with rights come responsibilities. We are accustomed to turning to the government to solve everything – to heal all of our “boo-boos.” It’s reflexive at this point.

“There are so many poor people ... I’ll call my senator!”

Yes, the government has a role in general welfare, but the government is bad at solving most problems. I would love to hear a politician, when asked about an issue, say, “Yes, I agree that is a problem, but the government should not be the one to solve it.”

Can you imagine?

There are plenty of issues in our communities – plenty of people who need help. We have to start helping them. Knowing the government will “help the poor” and lock them in cycles of poverty, we need to develop other solutions in our own communities. There are many important issues to address. We have forgotten whose job it is to address them. When we fail to love our neighbors, the government steps in as a poor and destructive substitute.

7. Say “republic” more than “democracy.”

You can’t turn on the news without someone telling you about the fragility of our “democracy.” In President Biden's Inauguration Day speech, he broke the record for the number of times the word “democracy” was used in an inaugural address. When politicians call for abolishing the Electoral College, they call it “undemocratic.” A Pew Research study found that 58% of U.S. adults think the Constitution should be amended so that the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide wins. This would no doubt make America more democratic. But America is not a democracy. We don’t live in a democracy for good reason. The founders understood that “majority” does not mean “right.” That isn’t to say our founders didn't infuse our system with the best of the democratic values, but they ultimately decided in favor of a new system – a very delicate order of checks and balances and delegated power and representation. This was to provide protection against the whims of faction or, as we call it today, “the mob.” It’s the leaders of our modern mob who love to exchange the word republic, which is what we really are, for democracy. Words have meanings. Many young Americans believe they live in a democracy. When discussing America, make sure to use the word republic.

Federalist No. 10

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking.

8. Learn from people you disagree with.

Perhaps this needs no explanation. We have so much we can learn from each other in the honest pursuit of truth. Our forefathers didn’t ensure our freedoms of conscience and association for nothing.

Here's how the conversation went on radio Thursday:

Follow THESE 8 STEPS so we can REVIVE our republic youtu.be

Glenn's Show Prep