Good morning Netizens...

I nearly always chafe myself when people, not knowing my true mindset, accuse me of being one-sided in how I approach politics. I listen to a lot of diverse views on the body politic, and more often than not I do hold an opinion, based upon my perceptions. What I am going to do this morning is just one of those “touchy issues” as I freely admit I have never been a true-blue believer in most of what the Fox News Network broadcasts as their version of the news. Despite having said that, I will also admit freely that what views they hold of President Barack Obama should always be defended, as it is part of the American discourse we call freedom of speech.

In this Fox news/opinion broadcast, courtesy of Youtube, we have Glenn Beck, who holds the position of being the Fourth most-popular talk show host in America and a Mormon, attempting to sell the concept that our country is most-certainly on the road to Socialism, if not Communism, and although I believe he does a better job of it than perhaps Rush Limbaugh, I question some of his postulates and theories. Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuwgHNtyD54

However, I do submit that some of what Beck is saying is painfully true. Isn't some of what our government is considering to do about our bank fiasco some form of socialism? After all, the government is planning to buy out the assets of certain financial institutions, aren't they? However, on the flip side of this coin, we have a quote attributed to Beck in which he says, “I am a conservative who happens to not be a Republican.” Elsewhere, he identifies himself as “Libertarian-leaning.”

Suggesting that a sitting President of the United States has communist tendencies is not necessarily forbidden fruit, simply because he has the right to express such an opinion, however inflammatory it might be. However, that does not mean I have to necessarily believe everything he says.

After all, Beck asserts he is a “self-educated man” who “spent more time in the parking lot than in class.” Admittedly as a former alcoholic and pothead, as far as I have been able to discern, Beck has no formal college education, but has a gift for biting humor that normally would anger people from such Liberal institutions of higher education as Berkeley. He doesn't make me necessarily angry. Sometimes he scares the bejesus out of me for like Rush Limbaugh, he has a huge groundswell of public support. Other times, such as today, he makes me think, and I believe that is as important as almost anything the government has to say.

Dave

---

---