Glenn Beck vs. the Leftists
Glenn Beck, stalwart champion of self-empowerment and the entrepreneurial spirit, considers “social justice” and “helping the poor” code language for the redistribution of wealth: “If you have more than I do, share!”
The 46-year-old Beck, a hyper-mobile, fast-thinking, word spouting radio/TV “performer,” as the trade magazine Talkers refers to him, is the ultimate capitalist. According to Forbes (April 26), his various enterprises, which are constantly expanding like the universe itself, bring in more than $30 million a year, which he shares, not necessarily equally, with his staff of 34.
He sees President Obama salivating at the thought of biting ino a larger slice of his income, as well as the average working American’s, to satisfy his redistributionist hunger.
Karl Marx should be amoulding in his grave by now, along with his failed economic theories, but in the eyes of the Beckmeister, Barack “Robbin’ Hood” Obama, still believes it’s okay to take from those who have to give to those who don’t have.
The struggle to eliminate the Unterklasse and create a truly egalitarian society is the favorite theme of liberal social theorists. It’s not so difficlt to do, that is, on paper and in college schtuss (Yiddish, “bull”) sessions. Utopians, with all sorts of well-meaning schemes, have had their go at it for centuries, but poverty remains a part of the human scene.
The 1st-century Galilean rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, understood the human drama well enough to say: “The poor you will always have with you…” (Matthew 26:11; John 12:8). Some Christian apologists try to say that’s not what Rabbi Jesus really meant. But he said what he said.
He was on his way to a death he dreaded, and anxiety had crept into his marrow. Perhaps he did speak from out of his desperation. Nevertheless, we have his words. Two thousand years have passed and the poor are still with us, as he knew they would be.
Jesus had a respect for money (see Matthew 18:23-34; 20:1-16; 25:14-30). He came from poverty and never rose above it. His apostles were no better off, save for Judas Iscariot, the group’s treasurer, the sly one who knew how to misappropriate what funds they had.
On today’s political front, we have the Left and the Right, and the Left lives with the dream of finally overcoming poverty. This is the moment for them to have their glory, for now there is a postmodern utopian at the nation’s helm who is determined to make the dream of his fellow Leftists a reality — in the name of social justice, Glenn Beck’s bete noire. (Beck speaks of it as “collective redemption through the government.”)
The redistributionists Beck opposes are bull-dozing their way ahead in their campaign to “transform” America. Undermining faith and religion, it should be noted, is part of the process.
Roy Hanu Hart, M.D.