Learn more about Glenn Beck's Broke Now Available! |
GLENN: I just talked to Kevin Balfe, the co author of Broke. He just came in. He runs the publishing part of my company and I was just telling him last night, I picked up Broke, 1:00, 2:00 in the morning and I picked up Broke and I was reading it again. I was looking for specific things in it. It is a great, great textbook. I was looking for historic parallels and I was looking for parallels and I re-read the part on Rome. This is in the beginning, the opening pages. How did we get here? That's the first section, how did we get here? It talks about Rome and what they did is pushed for intellectual mediocrity, quoting Gibins from The Rise and the Fall of the Roman Empire, "the minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level. The fire of genius was extinguished." So what happened was they didn't cherish learning anymore. See if you see the parallels here. Quoting Broke, "a society that seeks to equalize the minds of men doesn't cherish real learning. Education becomes the right of the few. The elite, in Rome's case, the priests. In our case, the Ivy League." Don't tell me that the modern day priests aren't those in academia. They are. You're too stupid to understand it. You don't know. You have to come to us for the answers. The masses must accept their interpretation. Well, isn't that what happened with the Tea Party. You people are too stupid. You don't understand. The academics, the elites in both politics, in banking and in the Ivy League, you must accept their interpretation. Likewise, a society that seeks to equalize incentives for work doesn't cherish individualism. In Rome, heavy taxes, some of which were paid not just in money but in food, goods or livestock, ate away at the incentive to work hard. By the time of the emperor Diocletian he forced male children to adopt the profession of their father. By that time, all motivation, drive and individual initiative had vanished.
I am going to be introducing something, several things next year, but I named one of them last night. Remember this term "E4." It is our way out. We must empower ourselves. We must rekindle entrepreneurialship. We must concentrate on education ourselves. Don't talk to me about the ivy league schools. Don't talk to me about college. Ourselves, you must concentrate on education yourself, and we must be enlightened. We have to restore these things. Over time, that inevitability results in the tempered spirit that Tocqueville wrote about which leads to fewer risk taking entrepreneurs, lower economic growth, fewer jobs and generally speaking, a society that is forced to fund itself via debt rather than productivity. The number of Romans reserving pay was so much larger than the of those paying taxes and because of the enormous size of the assessments, the result, as one historian put it, the multiplication of unproductive services, such as, the administrative bureaucracy and heavy military spending. It combined to place an intolerable strain on the producers of primary commodities. All of these things are happening. As the size and strength of the Roman government grew, personal ambition withered and a decline of civic vitality quickly ensued. People were accustom to sending huge churches of their pay to the government and seeing nothing in return.
It goes on in Broke to talk about what the teachable moments are there. What we have to do and what are the parallels here. The great news is that last night, and I hope that you get this lesson and I hope your neighbors get this lesson. Everyone in the Tea Party, everyone that two years ago called this program or could relate to, I'm alone. It's just me. This is overwhelming. We can't conquer this. Remember this moment. This was just a small step in your education and in my education that you do make a difference. One man can change the world. That it doesn't matter how far behind you are if you apply yourself and you use principles, it doesn't even matter how corrupt the other side is, the other side will destroy itself. Don't worry about the other side. Stand for something. This is the problem with all of these political ads that were happening. What do those political ads do? They suppress the vote. Why? Because most people say I don't want to be a part of that they all suck. They all are awful. Did you know that Ron Brown is molesting your children right now? Really? They're on the couch next to me. No, Ron Brown is there, too. Call Ron Brown's office and tell them stop molesting my children. By the time you get to the election you're like I don't really care. They all suck. We must be different. And I mean really, really mean it. No matter what arrows they throw at you and this is very hard. I haven't been able to do this yet. No matter what arrows they throw at you, stay on message. And the message is I can do it. I do make a difference. I am worthy. I am capable. I am an American. I am a Constitutionalist. I am a parent of a child that will have a brighter future than the one I see today.
You stay on that message and you continue to connect with people that are of like minded and you strengthen those beliefs. You will turn around and look at last night in the coming months and years and say, we thought that was a big deal. We thought that was a big deal. It was just the first step. Look what we have accomplished now. Look what has happened. Teddy Roosevelt started the Progressive party. It was called the Bull Moose party. He thought that there should be a third party. He thought that mainly because the Republicans didn't want to run it because he went all progressive. So he decided he was going to run as a third party. Well, he lost, and so the Bull Moose party, the Progressive party, went away, and instead, they went inside and the first place they went inside was with Woodrow Wilson. After that, it was infecting both parties. It's time for the Tea Party, at least on Capitol Hill, to become the constitutional caucus because I don't know what the Tea Party stands for, but I do know what the constitution stands for. When I say what the Tea Party stands for, I do, but the average person doesn't and after two years of Tea Party bagging or whatever, study the constitution on Capitol Hill. Surround yourself with like minded people on the constitution. Let the Tea Party do exactly what it's done and that is, go inside. I haven't been a big go inside guy. I really I think I have been on this program a couple of times saying whatever. I'm not a party guy. I'm not a political strategist. I can just tell you history repeated itself last night. You went inside and you grabbed it the right way through primaries. Now learn from the progressives because that's what you are doing. You are reverse engineering the progressive movement. You are going in and you are instead planting the seeds of the constitution. You are instead repairing the constitution and repairing our history piece by piece and that's what they did. Took them 100 years. We don't have 100 years, but we have to be strategic and we have to get inside both parties. The constitution should be a no brainer for both parties but it ain't. Let's make it so.
