Glenn Beck primes the pan for retaking Congress

By Seth Richardson

Tearmonger Glenn Beck is at it again with his new book “Arguing with Idiots.” In stores now, Beck’s new book is chock-a-block with all the facts and data one needs to successfully and authoritatively rebut the Left’s preposterous proletarian propaganda.

One small problem is that Beck is advocating wrestling with pigs, and as the old saw goes, “When you wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

The idea that facts are going to change the minds of the lunatics who are at the moment in charge of the asylum is a bit too credulous to be of much use in preventing what’s coming. Where was this book before Obama was elected, when we really needed it?

To be fair to Beck, Obama played a masterful game of demagoguery in his presidential campaign, promising “change” and never delivering a hint of exactly how much or what sort of change he had in mind, so Beck can perhaps be excused for not be as prescient as he usually is when it comes to clear thinking and common-sense about political intrigue.

Beck’s unfortunate failure of his future-reading para-psychic abilities and his only-slightly dilatory Revere-esque ride through the countryside must be forgiven in light of his sterling defense of liberty and Paine-like speaking of truth to authority that has tossed iron bar after pole into the tracks of the tank-like Obama juggernaut. It may not be enough to stop it, but it’s certainly slowed it down and caused it to veer off course.

Of many small victories, one of the most satisfying is the discomfiture of ACORN’s former Embezzlement-Concealer-in-Chief Wade Rathke, who has been sitting silently in the gloom, at the center of the web of false-front organizations he controls, quietly plucking the threads.

Now Rathke, like Tolkein’s giant spider-like monster Shelob from the Lord of the Rings, has been flushed from his lair and is recoiling from the brilliant light of truth, and has been fatally stung by the sword of Justice wielded by the small but doughty Samwise-analog of fortitude and courage, Glenn Beck.

Rathke, raging in frustration, told the Washington Post “It’s balderdash on top of popoycock. It is a tactic they are trying to aggressively use to attack Obama… to paint the president and anybody else they can as radical.”

Well, not exactly. It’s certainly an attack on Obama and the people around him, but if there is any painting going on, it’s coming from Rathke and his ilk as they attempt to paint the cadre of Leftist radicals and self-avowed Communists that Obama has surrounded himself with as “moderates.”

But enough about Rathke and his whinging, he’s just imitating a stuck pig.

“Arguing with Idiots,” subtitled “How to stop small minds and big government,” while perhaps a half-a-day late and fifty cents short in preventing the oncoming apocalypse, will certainly provide plenty of “I told you so” moments in the coming months and years. The hope of the Republic when Obama was elected was that he and the Democrats would go insane with power and would be unable to restrain themselves, which is clearly coming to pass. Beck’s position in the debacle in Washington has been, like a latter-day Thomas Paine, to put out the call for vigilance and waken the sleeping giant that is the American spirit.

Beck covers all the bases in the book, from defending Capitalism to the nanny state and universal health care. Twelve chapters cover the bulk of the disputes between liberal/progressive/socialists and libertarians and conservatives. This is no dull, academic recitation of facts either. Using his inimitable style, “the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment,” Beck infuses this book with humor, satire and cutting sarcasm that keeps the reader chuckling and giggling while simultaneously stimulating them into the occasional “Amen, brother” ejaculation.

Beck plays the Interlocutor and schizophrenically plays the “Ideeot” foil for his analysis and debunking of the common stupidities of the well-indoctrinated lumpen proletarian. “So not only do you not want to penalize oil companies, you actually want to help them make even more money by letting them slaughter innocent polar bears and arctic seals,” whines the Ideeot. Whereupon Beck proceeds to shred the vacuous argument in detail. This is the specious-claim/authoritative rebuttal format of the main text of the book, and it’s a very effective way of demonstrating the idiocy of the Left’s propaganda by using their verbatim nitwit arguments against them.

Filled with amusing asides labeled “A.D.D Moments,” and appearances by “Guest Ideeots” like Barney Frank, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and a host of other quotables (if not notables), and flashy graphics, the book is a pleasure to read, if a bit, well, attention-disordered from time to time. One needs the discipline to finish a paragraph or section before being distracted by the many asides and boxes of amusing and enlightening information, so that one does not lose the thread of Beck’s cogent and typically hilarious butchering of the sacred cows of the Left. Barbecue anyone?

The meticulous analysis and documentation of sources found in the 25 pages of references and links to original source materials provides at least a year’s worth of reading for purchasers. By the way, if you intend to follow up on the source material, be sure to buy a magnifying glass at the bookstore when you buy the book. If you’re over 40, you’re going to need it because the citations are in micro-type, which is the only thing that allows the references to take up only 25 pages of the book’s 325 pages.

Beck’s new book may not be completely effective in changing the course of the insanity that’s overwhelming common sense and clear thinking at the moment, but everything he says needs to be said so that when it comes time to throw the bums out of Congress and retake control of our out-of-control government, the research has been done and the arguments marshaled.

That task Beck has been working at relentlessly, and “Arguing with Idiots” is a valuable resource for those who know that becoming informed and adept at debunking Obama’s idiocy will be of inestimable importance in the next Congressional election and into the future. Buy it today, study it and learn the lexicon of Truth, Justice and the American Way…you’re going to need it.

© 2009 Altnews

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