This was originally posted on Live Oaks on January 29, 2010. Comments have not been migrated.
Glenn Beck can be both illuminating and infuriating. As an example of the latter, he recently made a statement on his radio show that the states have a right to institute universal health care, hand out free cars, etc. if the citizens of that state want such things. He stated that the federal government is barred from such actions, but the states are not. In other words, he is not opposed to violating individual rights; he just wants it done on a more local level.
This is a typical approach by conservatives. They do not oppose government power over the lives and property of individuals. They just want that power to be exercised by state and local governments. To these conservatives, universal health care, entitlement programs, and business regulation are perfectly acceptable, so long as they are implemented on the state level.
This unprincipled thinking is primarily why the Republicans have lost control of Congress. They occasionally oppose violations of individual rights on the federal level (and even then that opposition is precarious and inconsistent) but not on the local level. They do not challenge the premise that the individual must be forced to sacrifice for the “common good”–they merely want to argue over who will make that determination.
If the people want it, Beck said, then virtually anything goes on the state level. But why does he apply this only to the states, while denying such power to the federal government? Beck’s answer is: The Constitution.
The Constitution limits the power of the federal government, but not the states. The Tenth Amendment reserves for the states those powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. According to Beck, while the federal government has limited powers, the state governments do not. This isn’t a defense of individual rights; it is an invitation for the states to establish fifty separate tyrannies.
Beck is not opposed to government using coercion to implement the “will of the people”. Whatever his good points (and there are many), Beck does not defend individual rights as a matter of principle. For all of his talk about honor and integrity, he is sadly lacking in rational principles.
Recently, Beck has been attacking the Progressive Movement from the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as its current manifestations, and rightfully so. But ironically he shares some of that movement’s basic premises. The Progressives, largely animated by German Idealism, argued that “the people” should have a greater voice in government. Beck, who is animated by religious mysticism, concurs, only he wants that voice to be expressed in the state capitals rather than in Washington.
Beck demonstrates why conservatives are losing the intellectual battle. They have accepted the same basic premises as the Left, and they just want to bicker over the details. They aren’t opposed to slavery, they just want the masters to be closer to home.