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Glenn Beck: Arguing with Idiots - The Nanny State

October 13, 2009
 Radio Clips

The Glenn Beck Program


Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government


by Glenn Beck

GLENN: Well, Arguing with Idiots, it is the way to win every argument on everything that is out there. I mean, Healthcare? Look up the chapter. Gun control? Look up the chapter on gun control. We give you their stupid argument and then we give you the way to beat it. For instance, when your friend says...

PAT: Yeah, you are always whining about the nanny state. You know what? People need guidance. If they don't get it, they will start eating like you; they'll weigh more than the entire State of Nebraska.

GLENN: First of all let's say that's true.

PAT: It is true.

GLENN: So what?

PAT: So go ahead and say it.

GLENN: It's true.

PAT: It's true.

GLENN: It's true. So what?

PAT: What do you mean so what?

GLENN: If I want to make my arteries flow as well as trying to suck a Twinkie through a straw, that's my business, isn't it?

PAT: No.

GLENN: By the way, I've tried sucking a Twinkie through a straw and it's almost, I stress almost, impossible.

PAT: Yeah, it's your business until I wind up having to pay for your healthcare because 400,000 people die of obesity every year.

GLENN: Wow, what a great stat. I've heard that over and over and over again.

PAT: I know.

GLENN: But if you look on Page 165 of Arguing With Idiots, you'll see the footnote that shows that the actual number is ridiculously exaggerated. It's actually about 1/16th of that number. But beyond that, isn't the real problem that you'd have to pay for my bad choices? I mean, if we'd stop trying to pay for everybody's bad choices, we wouldn't have to worry so much. I could live my life completely with a, you know, portable jar of mayonnaise in my briefcase and you could live yours with green beans and watercress and we'll see who dies happier.

PAT: Oh, please, I'm just talking about some common sense solutions here. Like listing the amount of calories on the menu of fast food restaurants like they did in New York City.

GLENN: Yeah, you are right. That's a perfect example.

PAT: I know it is.

GLENN: Yeah. Even though most of the restaurants already had nutritional information posted or in pamphlets for anybody who wanted it.

PAT: Oh, yeah. But you had to walk four or five steps to the right of the counter to get that.

GLENN: Uh huh.

PAT: Putting it on the menu makes it so much easier for people to make the smart choices about what they eat, way easier.

GLENN: Smart choices. You'll see the problem with these laws is you can check on how well they work, you see, and that's what researchers did. They found that only about half of the people even noticed the calories.

PAT: But still, it's worth it. If you are helping just half the people.

GLENN: Really?

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Well, it's not half.

PAT: What do you mean?

GLENN: Over 70% of the people who noticed the calories on the board completely ignored them. Overall according to your beloved New York Times, about 12 1/2% of the people said they made healthier decisions based opt menu.

PAT: Okay, but still. 12 1/2% of people are healthier.

GLENN: Oh, no, not so fast. Read the book, Arguing With Idiots. You see, people lie all the time about what they eat. So the same study went one step further. They waited outside of restaurants and paid the customers two bucks to get their receipts so they could actually see what they ate. The results? People actually increased the amount of calories they consumed after the law was in place.

PAT: Well, then how many laws are in effect every time you walk by the vending machine?

GLENN: See? See what happens?

PAT: You know what, Mr. Beck? Nacho cheese dust is not on the food pyramid, okay? Neither is Crisco oil.

VOICE: Arguing With Idiots available at bookstores everywhere, or order now at GlennBeck.com/bookczar.

Critical race theory: The revolution of constant whining

Flickr/GaryStevens

Most self-proclaimed Marxists know very little about Marxism. Some of them have all the buzzwords memorized. They talk about the exploits of labor. They talk about the slavery of capitalist society and the alienation caused by capital. They talk about the evils of power and domination.

But they don't actually believe what they say. Or else they wouldn't be such violent hypocrites. And we're not being dramatic when we say "violent."

For them, Marxism is a political tool that they use to degrade and annoy their political enemies.

They don't actually care about the working class.

Another important thing to remember about Marxists is that they talk about how they want to defend the working class, but they don't actually understand the working class. They definitely don't realize that the working class is composed mostly of so many of the people they hate. Because, here's the thing, they don't actually care about the working class. Or the middle class. They wouldn't have the slightest clue how to actually work, not the way we do. For them, work involves ranting about how work and labor are evil.

Ironically, if their communist utopia actually arrived, they would be the first ones against the wall. Because they have nothing to offer except dissent. They have no practical use and no real connection to reality.

Again ironically, they are the ultimate proof of the success of capitalism. The fact that they can freely call for its demise, in tweets that they send from their capitalistic iPhones, is proof that capitalism affords them tremendous luxuries.

Their specialty is complaining. They are fanatics of a religion that is endlessly cynical.

They sneer at Christianity for promising Heaven in exchange for good deeds on earth — which is a terrible description of Christianity, but it's what they actually believe — and at the same time they criticize Christianity for promising a utopia, they give their unconditional devotion to a religion that promises a utopia.

They are fanatics of a religion that is endlessly cynical.

They think capitalism has turned us into machines. Which is a bad interpretation of Marx's concept of the General Intellect, the idea that humans are the ones who create machines, so humans, not God, are the creators.

They think that the only way to achieve the perfect society is by radically changing and even destroying the current society. It's what they mean when they say things about the "status quo" and "hegemony" and the "established order." They believe that the system is broken and the way to fix it is to destroy, destroy, destroy.

Critical race theory actually takes it a step farther. It tells us that the racist system can never be changed. That racism is the original sin that white people can never overcome. Of course, critical race theorists suggest "alternative institutions," but these "alternative institutions" are basically the same as the ones we have now, only less effective and actually racist.

Marx's violent revolution never happened. Or at least it never succeeded. Marx's followers have had to take a different approach. And now, we are living through the Revolution of Constant Whining.

This post is part of a series on critical race theory. Read the full series here.

Will we EVER see justice in the FBI, Trump, Russia investigation?

Americans are losing faith in our justice system and the idea that legal consequences are applied equally — even to powerful elites in office.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) joined Glenn Beck on the radio program to detail what he believes will come next with the Durham investigation, which hopefully will provide answers to the Obama FBI's alleged attempts to sabotage former President Donald Trump and his campaign years ago.

Rep. Nunes and Glenn assert that we know Trump did NOT collude with Russia, and that several members of the FBI possibly committed huge abuses of power. So, when will we see justice?

Watch the video clip below:


Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

Glenn Beck: Rand Paul was RIGHT to say Dr. Fauci LIED about gain-of-function

The corporate media is doing everything it can to protect Dr. Anthony Fauci after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) roasted him for allegedly lying to Congress about funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.

During an extremely heated exchange at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Paul challenged Dr. Fauci — who, as the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, oversees research programs at the National Institute of Health — on whether the NIH funded dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Dr. Fauci denied the claims, but as Sen. Paul knows, there are documents that prove Dr. Fauci's NIH was funding gain-of-function research in the Wuhan biolab before COVID-19 broke out in China.

On "The Glenn Beck Program," Glenn and Producer Stu Burguiere presented the proof, because Dr. Fauci's shifting defenses don't change the truth.

Watch the video clip below:

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Critical race theory: A special brand of evil

wal_172619/Pixabay

Part of what makes it hard for us to challenge the left is that their beliefs are complicated. We don't mean complicated in a positive way. They aren't complicated the way love is complicated. They're complicated because there's no good explanation for them, no basis in reality.

The left cannot pull their heads out of the clouds. They are stuck on romantic ideas, abstract ideas, universal ideas. They talk in theories. They see the world through ideologies. They cannot divorce themselves from their own academic fixations. And — contrary to what they believe and how they act — it's not because leftists are smarter than the rest of us. And studies have repeatedly shown that leftists are the least happy people in the country. Marx was no different. The Communist Manifesto talks about how the rise of cities "rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life."

Studies have repeatedly shown that leftists are the least happy people in the country.

Instead of admitting that they're pathological hypocrites, they tell us that we're dumb and tell us to educate ourselves. Okay, so we educate ourselves; we return with a coherent argument. Then they say, "Well, you can't actually understand what you just said unless you understand the work of this other obscure Marxist writer. So educate yourselves more."

It's basically the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, the idea that when you point out a flaw in someone's argument, they say, "Well, that's a bad example."

After a while, it becomes obvious that there is no final destination for their bread-crumb trail. Everything they say is based on something that somebody else said, which is based on something somebody else said.

Take critical race theory. We're sure you've noticed by now that it is not evidence-based — at all. It is not, as academics say, a quantitative method. It doesn't use objective facts and data to arrive at conclusions. Probably because most of those conclusions don't have any basis in reality.

Critical race theory is based on feelings. These feelings are based on theories that are also based on feelings.

We wanted to trace the history of critical race theory back to the point where its special brand of evil began. What allowed it to become the toxic, racist monster that it is today?

Later, we'll tell you about some of the snobs who created critical theory, which laid the groundwork for CRT. But if you follow the bread-crumb trail from their ideas, you wind up with Marxism.

For years, the staff has devoted a lot of time to researching Marxism. We have read a lot of Marx and Marxist writing. It's part of our promise to you to be as informed as possible, so that you know where to go for answers; so that you know what to say when your back is up against the wall. What happens when we take the bread-crumb trail back farther, past Marxism? What is it based on?

This is the point where Marxism became Marxism and not just extra-angry socialism.

It's actually based on the work of one of the most important philosophers in human history, a 19th-century German philosopher named Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

This is the point where Marxism became Marxism and not just extra-angry socialism. And, as you'll see in just a bit, if we look at Hegel's actual ideas, it's obvious that Marx completely misrepresented them in order to confirm his own fantasies.

So, in a way, that's where the bread-crumb trail ends: With Marx's misrepresentation of an incredibly important, incredibly useful philosophy, a philosophy that's actually pretty conservative.

This post is part of a series on critical race theory. Read the full series here.