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TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

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RIP Personal Responsibility

March 06, 2008
 Radio Clips

The Glenn Beck Program


Glenn Beck on the Insider Webcam - and exclusive feature available only to Insiders...

GLENN: The other part of personal responsibility that I would just like to point out. If you went and borrowed money for a house, you might have to leave the house and rent an apartment if you can't make your payments. Now, I know that's been turned into something harsh and ugly and hateful. I like to call it personal responsibility yet again.

There's a story in The Wall Street Journal today about how there's this guy, I don't know, I hate these stories. Bill Muckenfutch, hard working, makes shoe leather. That's all he does. Skins cows, makes them into shoe leather. All day long cow blood comes home every night, buckets of cow blood in his boots and yet he feeds his children. He works hard making shoe leather out of cows. Lately things have gotten so bad for Bill Muckenfutch that, well, he's had to make shoe leather out of cats, neighborhood cats. But that's all right because many of the houses have been abandoned and so like, homeless cats are now living and they're like, they're tramp cats. They're coming in on the boxcars and the empty trains and the cats have been setting fires trying to warm themselves. So Bill Muckenfutch thinks he's doing them a favor by pounding them into little cat head and making them into shoe leather. Well, Bill used to take home a monthly salary of $2100. Every month Bill would make $2100 and for the first time Bill was afforded the opportunity to buy his own home. This is in a time when he didn't live in a neighborhood full of cats. He took advantage of his right as an American to own his own home. So he went to his local bank and there Bill Muckenfutch filled out an application. The bank said to him, "Bill, you make shoe leather. You're trying to buy a $400,000 house." Bill said, "That's right, I'm making shoe leather, work hard every day. And at night just so I can have my right of a house, I spend my night on a second job making cats. Making shoe leather out of cats later if things get bad. So I'm good for this loan." The bank said, "Well, we can get you into a 100% loan and you can do interest only for the first five years." And Bill said, "That's great. How much is the loan?" The bank said, "$1800 a month." "But I only make $2100 a month." "That's right. You may get down to some point where you have to eat those cats." "Well, I don't want them to go to waste." "That's right." I mean, why just make them into shoe leather when you could eat them as well." "Yeah. And I can drink the buckets of cow blood that's in my boots, too, if things get really bad. This sounds like a good deal. What happens after five years?" "Well, then you'll have to pay the interest and the principal and as it stands right now, that payment would be $2200 a month." "But I only make $2100 a month now." "Yes, I know. Be kind of tough, huh? You might have to round up more cats." "Oh, I'm sure everything will be great. That's five years. Ha, I'm a gambling man, although I never go to Vegas because gambling's wrong. But I'm sure everything will work out okay. Thank you, Mr. Banker. Where do I sign?" "Right here." "That's great. Well, I've got to go drain some cows full of blood and also round up some cats just in case there's a hard time right around the corner, but I'm sure there won't be because things always get better. There's never a down turn in anything."

Now, I've elaborated a little bit on the story of Bill Muckenfutch that I read in The Wall Street Journal today but now Bill is blaming the banks. Apparently Bill was not smart enough to figure out when he had to pay the interest and the principle. It was over what he was making in the good times. "I mean, I thought there would be an end supply of cats." Unfortunately for Bill he now knows there's an endless supply of hats. It was a simple misunderstanding. Bill says he was misled. He swore they said cats and not hats. So Bill would like you to bail him out.

Now, I don't know about you but I don't think so. I mean, I think it's fantastic that Bill had the opportunity to own his first $400,000 house. I think it's fantastic for a guy who makes shoe leather out of cows and cats, that he had the opportunity just to do that. But now that people are saying, gee, I don't want my shoes made out of cats; maybe Bill should take some personal responsibility, downsize his life, get into an apartment. I'm just sayin'.

Why is it we're responsible for everybody else's -- and I know that's hate mongering. Talked to somebody just the other day and they said, "Glenn, you can't let people -- what, are you just going to let them lose their house?" Hang on. Is this a trick question? "You can't let them lose their house." Well, I mean, I'm not really the one deciding that. I don't know about you. I'm an innocent bystander in Bill Muckenfutch's mortgage. I mean, Muckenfutch signed the contract. It's between him and the bank. How am I involved all of a sudden if you -- "You'd just let him lose his house?" Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know there's this crazy thing called "Apartments" that are available now. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. "It's like these people are going to lose their house. What are they going to live in? Garbage cans?" No. They will probably do what my parents did and file for bankruptcy. That's what my parents did years ago, had seven years of hell. Lived in a lower standard of living, couldn't get a loan, drove old cars, reset, and what do you know. They're okay. They made it. "You're just going to let your parents file for bankruptcy?" Well, I didn't have the money at the time to stop it as a family member and, gosh, I didn't think it was right to ask all the neighbors to bail them out of their bad decisions, but I'm glad I'm learning the new personal responsibility in America where if your vote doesn't turn out the way you wanted it, you just go vote again. Even though it's a decision you made, just do it again and then somebody else foot the bill for it. And that somebody else might just be Bill Muckenfutch who is out at night every night catching cats to make shoes (whispering). Life in America just isn't fair.

Want to Defeat Tyranny? The Epic True Story of America's FIRST Freedom Fighters

Faced with an oppressive government that literally burned people at the stake for printing Bibles, America's original freedom fighters risked it all for the same rights our government is starting to trample now. That's not the Pilgrim story our woke schools and corporate media will tell you. It's the truth, and it sounds a lot more like today's heroes in Afghanistan than the 1619 Project's twisted portrait of America.

This Thanksgiving season, Glenn Beck and WallBuilders president Tim Barton tell the full story of who the Pilgrims really were and what we must learn from them, complete with a sneak peek at the largest privately owned collection of Pilgrim artifacts.

Watch the video 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: How to prepare YOUR family for coming electrical BLACKOUTS

Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden's nominee for comptroller of the currency, admitted she wants to fight climate change by bankrupting coal, oil, and gas companies. Alarmingly, Biden's U.S. special climate envoy, John Kerry, seemed to agree with Omarova when he said "by 2030 in the United States, we won't have coal" at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, earlier this month. But that could end in massive electrical blackouts and brownouts across the nation, BlazeTV host Glenn Beck warned.

Carol Roth, author of "The War On Small Business," joined "The Glenn Beck Program" to explain what experts say you can do now to prepare your family for potential coming power outages.

"It's interesting. Usually when I go out and talk to experts in areas that are not 100% core to my area of expertise and I say, 'I would like to give you credit.' Usually I get, 'OK, here's how you credit me.' But everyone is like, 'No, no. Let me tell you what happened, just don't use my name.' And this is across the country," Roth said. "This isn't just a California issue, which obviously [California] is leading the nation. But even experts out of Texas, people who are monitoring the electric grid are incredibly concerned about brownouts or blackouts now, already. So forget about 2030."

"You want to have a backup source of power," she continued. "Either a propane, diesel, or combo generator is something that you're going to want to have. Because in a state, for example like Texas, I'm told that once the state loses power, it will take a minimum of two weeks to restore plants back to operations and customers able to use grid power again. So, this isn't something that we've got nine years or whatever to be thinking about. We should be planning and preparing now."

Watch the video clip below to catch more of this important conversation:

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.

Let’s thank the Pilgrims for defeating Socialism this Thanksgiving

This year marks the four hundredth anniversary of the first Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims and their Wampanoag allies in 1621. Tragically, nearly half of the Pilgrims had died by famine and disease during their first year. However, they had been met by native Americans such as Samoset and Squanto who miraculously spoke English and taught the Pilgrims how to survive in the New World. That fall the Pilgrims, despite all the hardships, found much to praise God for and they were joined by Chief Massasoit and his ninety braves came who feasted and celebrated for three days with the fifty or so surviving Pilgrims.

It is often forgotten, however, that after the first Thanksgiving everything was not smooth sailing for the Pilgrims. Indeed, shortly thereafter they endured a time of crop failure and extreme difficulties including starvation and general lack. But why did this happen? Well, at that time the Pilgrims operated under what is called the "common storehouse" system. In its essence it was basically socialism. People were assigned jobs and the fruits of their labor would be redistributed throughout the people not based on how much work you did but how much you supposedly needed.

The problem with this mode of economics is that it only fails every time. Even the Pilgrims, who were a small group with relatively homogeneous beliefs were unable to successfully operate under a socialistic system without starvation and death being only moments away. Governor William Bradford explained that under the common storehouse the people began to "allege weakness and inability" because no matter how much or how little work someone did they still were given the same amount of food. Unsurprisingly this, "was found to breed much confusion and discontent."[1]

The Pilgrims, however, were not the type of people to keep doing what does not work. And so, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery."[2] And, "after much debate of things" the Pilgrims under the direction of William Bradford, decided that each family ought to "trust to themselves" and keep what they produced instead of putting it into a common storehouse.[3] In essence, the Pilgrims decided to abandon the socialism which had led them to starvation and instead adopt the tenants of the free market.

And what was the result of this change? Well, according to Bradford, this change of course, "had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been."[4] Eventually, the Pilgrims became a fiscally successful colony, paid off their enormous debt, and founded some of the earliest trading posts with the surrounding Indian tribes including the Aptucxet, Metteneque, and Cushnoc locations. In short, it represented one of the most significant economic revolutions which determined the early characteristics of the American nation.

The Pilgrims, of course, did not simply invent these ideas out of thin air but they instead grew out of the intimate familiarity the Pilgrims had with the Bible. The Scriptures provide clear principles for establishing a successful economic system which the Pilgrims looked to. For example, Proverbs 12:11 says, "He that tills his land shall be satisfied with bread." So the Pilgrims purchased land from the Indians and designated lots for every family to individually grow food for themselves. After all, 1 Timothy 5:8 declares, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

We often think that the battle against Socialism is a new fight sprouting out of the writings of Karl Marx which are so blindly and foolishly followed today by those deceived by leftist irrationality. However, America's fight against the evil of socialism goes back even to our very founding during the colonial period. Thankfully, our forefathers decided to reject the tenants of socialism and instead build their new colony upon the ideology of freedom, liberty, hard work, and individual responsibility.

So, this Thanksgiving, let's thank the Pilgrims for defeating socialism and let us look to their example today in our ongoing struggle for freedom.

[1] William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856), 135.

[2] William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856), 134.

[3] William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856), 134.

[4] William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856), 135.

WATCH: Science journalist Matt Ridley reveals the little coronavirus 'WRINKLE' in the number 7896

Image source: Video screenshot

Like most people, biologist and science journalist Matt Ridley just wants the truth. When it comes to the origin of COVID-19, that is a tall order. Was it human-made? Did it leak from a laboratory? What is the role of gain-of-function research? Why China, why now?

Ridley's latest book, "Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19," is a scientific quest to answer these questions and more. A year ago, you would have been kicked off Facebook for suggesting COVID originated in a lab. For most of the pandemic, the left practically worshipped Dr. Anthony Fauci. But lately, people have been poking around. And one of the names that appears again and again is Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance and a longtime collaborator and funder of the virus-hunting work at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

If you watched Glenn Beck's special last week, "Crimes or Cover-Up? Exposing the World's Most Dangerous Lie," you learned some very disturbing things about what our government officials — like Dr. Fauci — were doing around the beginning of the pandemic. On the latest "Glenn Beck Podcast," Glenn sat down with Ridley to review what he and "Viral" co-author Alina Chan found while researching — including a "fascinating little wrinkle" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology called "7896."

Watch the video clip below or find the full interview with Matt Ridley here:

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.