Glenn Beck has finally, completely lost it

[Fireball]

Schools are indoctrination camps? Some are, yes. They're called "Christian" schools, where they teach students to deny science and ignore history.

No one who takes Glenn Beck seriously deserves so much as a shred of respect.

Gotta be honest here you have become more and more difficult to take seriously.

I personally don't agree with Glenn Beck but your line about not giving those who do a "shred of respect" and your crap about religious schools (I went to public school myself) indoctrinating students make you sound about as far out as Glenn Beck.

Why should I respect those whose opinions in part based on the ravings of a dry-drunk paranoid maniac?

I was very specific about what I consider indoctrination -- teaching kids anti-science nonsense under the guise of "Christianity" (note that I don't consider them all that Christian).

[Chrisoc13]

Schools are indoctrination camps? Some are, yes. They're called "Christian" schools, where they teach students to deny science and ignore history.

No one who takes Glenn Beck seriously deserves so much as a shred of respect.

Gotta be honest here you have become more and more difficult to take seriously.

I personally don't agree with Glenn Beck but your line about not giving those who do a "shred of respect" and your crap about religious schools (I went to public school myself) indoctrinating students make you sound about as far out as Glenn Beck.

Why should I respect those whose opinions in part based on the ravings of a dry-drunk paranoid maniac?

I was very specific about what I consider indoctrination -- teaching kids anti-science nonsense under the guise of "Christianity" (note that I don't consider them all that Christian).

Because if you want to have any sort of a conversation with people who disagree with you you probably need to have a "shred of respect" for them. I don't agree with Glenn Beck (haven't listen to enough of him to know if I ever would honestly), but I know people who do agree with some of what he says who certainly still deserve my respect.

Painting with a broad stroke is not a good idea. Makes it hard to take you seriously or want to engage in real conversation.

[Fireball]

Because if you want to have any sort of a conversation with people who disagree with you you probably need to have a "shred of respect" for them. I don't agree with Glenn Beck (haven't listen to enough of him to know if I ever would honestly), but I know people who do agree with some of what he says who certainly still deserve my respect.

I don't. I don't want to have any interaction with the sort of person who would give credence to that childish wailing buffoon. Nothing good can come from them.

I converse with people I disagree with all the time -- respectable, but wrong, people who draw their opinions from respectable sources, not a modern day Father Coughlin. It's an enjoyable exercise because their opinions are based on something credible and debatable, even if I disagree with them. There can be an exchange of worthwhile viewpoints. That's not possible when the source of such a viewpoint is Glenn Beck.

[LawBeefaroni]

Beck is a mouthpiece, one of many.

If he was a mouthpiece he'd still have his FoxNews gig.

He's on Clear Channel. What's the difference?

A mouthpiece typically works for on on behalf of someone or some organization. While at Fox, he was supposed to be a mouthpiece for whatever agenda they were promoting. At Clear Channel he is just another piece of programming up for sale.

Glenn Beck speaks for himself. Any lunacy is his and not the result of some one else's agenda.

He's just having trouble distinguishing the act they created from reality.

[Chrisoc13]

Because if you want to have any sort of a conversation with people who disagree with you you probably need to have a "shred of respect" for them. I don't agree with Glenn Beck (haven't listen to enough of him to know if I ever would honestly), but I know people who do agree with some of what he says who certainly still deserve my respect.

I don't. I don't want to have any interaction with the sort of person who would give credence to that childish wailing buffoon. Nothing good can come from them.

I converse with people I disagree with all the time -- respectable, but wrong, people who draw their opinions from respectable sources, not a modern day Father Coughlin. It's an enjoyable exercise because their opinions are based on something credible and debatable, even if I disagree with them. There can be an exchange of worthwhile viewpoints. That's not possible when the source of such a viewpoint is Glenn Beck.

It's a shame you feel this way. There are very few people in the world not worth conversing with to some degree in my opinion. Your painting with a broad stroke such as you have in this thread makes me shy away from interacting with you in threads.

You should go back and read rm9's post. I found it to be rather insightful.

Sent using tapa

[killbot737]

And no one is opposed to police forces having assault rifles, are they? I don't want the guy next door to me to have one, but I don't care if SWAT teams do.

My friend owns at least four firearms that fit the nebulous "assault rifle" rules. Actually five, according to New York (an M1, it has an 8 round magazine and it's a bitch to single fire the thing). A few of them actually look scary, but they all have wood shoulder stocks.

They have never killed anyone, and I'd trust him with them a lot more than the SWAT roid-ragers who enjoy killing dogs and grandmothers more than being law enforcers.

[Fireball]

Because if you want to have any sort of a conversation with people who disagree with you you probably need to have a "shred of respect" for them. I don't agree with Glenn Beck (haven't listen to enough of him to know if I ever would honestly), but I know people who do agree with some of what he says who certainly still deserve my respect.

I don't. I don't want to have any interaction with the sort of person who would give credence to that childish wailing buffoon. Nothing good can come from them.

I converse with people I disagree with all the time -- respectable, but wrong, people who draw their opinions from respectable sources, not a modern day Father Coughlin. It's an enjoyable exercise because their opinions are based on something credible and debatable, even if I disagree with them. There can be an exchange of worthwhile viewpoints. That's not possible when the source of such a viewpoint is Glenn Beck.

It's a shame you feel this way. There are very few people in the world not worth conversing with to some degree in my opinion. Your painting with a broad stroke such as you have in this thread makes me shy away from interacting with you in threads.

You spend, what, 20 minutes or an hour each day talking or thinking about politics? I do it from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. You have to filter people out, and it's not hard to identify worthless crazy from a mile away -- they think the government was behind 9/11, or they think the President's birth certificate is questionable, or they believe that there's an overarching Marxist conspiracy to undermine American freedoms, or they listen to Glenn Beck or Mark Levine, or they post at Freerepublic.com. Nothing productive comes from conversing with those people.

There's only so many hours in the day, and if I'm going to get anything done that means anything, I can only deal with people who are baseline rational.

[Chrisoc13]

Because if you want to have any sort of a conversation with people who disagree with you you probably need to have a "shred of respect" for them. I don't agree with Glenn Beck (haven't listen to enough of him to know if I ever would honestly), but I know people who do agree with some of what he says who certainly still deserve my respect.

I don't. I don't want to have any interaction with the sort of person who would give credence to that childish wailing buffoon. Nothing good can come from them.

I converse with people I disagree with all the time -- respectable, but wrong, people who draw their opinions from respectable sources, not a modern day Father Coughlin. It's an enjoyable exercise because their opinions are based on something credible and debatable, even if I disagree with them. There can be an exchange of worthwhile viewpoints. That's not possible when the source of such a viewpoint is Glenn Beck.

It's a shame you feel this way. There are very few people in the world not worth conversing with to some degree in my opinion. Your painting with a broad stroke such as you have in this thread makes me shy away from interacting with you in threads.

You spend, what, 20 minutes or an hour each day talking or thinking about politics? I do it from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. You have to filter people out, and it's not hard to identify worthless crazy from a mile away -- they think the government was behind 9/11, or they think the President's birth certificate is questionable, or they believe that there's an overarching Marxist conspiracy to undermine American freedoms, or they listen to Glenn Beck or Mark Levine, or they post at Freerepublic.com. Nothing productive comes from conversing with those people.

There's only so many hours in the day, and if I'm going to get anything done that means anything, I can only deal with people who are baseline rational.

I'm telling you from personal experience some people who believe some of what Beck says are baseline rational. Sure some of them have a share of crazy ideas, but from watching you post here for years you have an ability to drop into what I think is crazy land just as easily.

I don't need to work in politics to have a valid opinion on the matter, or a valid opinion on who is crazy. I would guess working in politics you find yourself more in an "us vs them" mentality and insulate yourself with people who think as you do. While you may spend your day thinking more of politics the spectrum of people you interact with probably is not representative of the population as a whole. It's the nature of an adversarial system, but working in politics probably skews your view on what worthless crazy is.

Edit: I guess what I'm getting at is it's all about perspective. What is crazy to you may not be to another, and honestly a lot of what you say is crazy to me. But I don't think you are crazy, I just think some of your ideas are and when you are not going off in broad strokes of drama I don't mind hearing your ideas even if I disagree with them. You may find that there are people who agree with some of what Beck has said that are worth talking to. I know I have. Simply writing off that entire segment of the population as worthless crazy (no idea how big it is at this point) is a bit of a drastic move IMO, considering you yourself are more on the fringe than the general public. There is a bit of irony in it.

Not worth discussing here anymore and I don't have time to right now, just wanted to point out that I thought it was ridiculous to say they are not worth talking to. A bit of the pot calling the kettle black from my perspective.

[Zarathud]

In Fireball's defense, they're not worth talking to for his political purposes. No one who seriously believes that Glen Beck is rational will have any chance of voting Democrat or listening to any of his progressive ideas.

Frankly, those groups will use any attempt by Fireball to justify their fears and are a waste of his professional time which can be spent persuading moderates and the general public that his perspective isn't so crazy. I think that's what Fireball is trying to say -- he's trying to operate to achieve a political objective. I suspect Glenn Beck just sells the crazy for profit.

[Fireball]

It's not just extremists on the right who are acolytes of Beck or Rand who I write off; the same is true for folks on the left like LaRouchies. We have a group of LaRouchies who come by our office every now and then. They don't get to meet with my boss, or with me. It's not a useful use of my time, and certainly not a useful use of my boss's time.

[msduncan]

The amount of ammunition represents a bulk purchase of several years' worth of ammunition, based upon previous years utilization, for a vast number of Federal law enforcement agencies, not just DHS, done in advance for cost savings and because of the uncertainty of future budget allocations. Given the massive disruption all Federal agencies are suffering due to the sequester, and likely future budget cuts, that's just good financial planning.

The Iraq war expended less than 6 million rounds of ammunition per month. The amount of ammunition that DHS just purchased under direction of THIS administration is enough to sustain a hot war for roughly 20 years.

And DHS did it for domestic use. What active "hot" war are they anticipating occurring on American soil that will last for 20 years?

As for the armored vehicles. 2700 of these:





I never thought I'd see anything like that on the streets of this country.

[Zarathud]

I think they call that a CAR in Texas.

[RunningMn9]

So, the issue here is that you don't know why DHS bought 1.6 rounds, so clearly it must be because they are preparing to engage in war with the American People(tm)? Things I learned today because of this stupidity:

1) The United States Coast Guard is now a part of DHS. They use bullets.
2) Border Security is part of DHS. They use bullets.
3) The Social Security Administration has its own office of investigation, complete with armed special agents.

Also, I found this to be a more reasonable article on the topic.

[RunningMn9]

I should also note that snopes is telling me that the DHS didn't buy or repurpose 2700 MRAPs, and that the story on that originated from someone's reading comprehension fail last year.

[Smoove_B]

[Kraken]

I read that Snopes is a tool of the socialist conspiracy, but Snopes says that's not true. I don't know what to believe.

[hepcat]

It seems as long as people get tossed some meaty scraps like pot legalization or gay marriage, the public at large is content to look the other way while this happens.

You so rarely see anyone equate civil rights (in the case of gay marriage) with bread and circus style government.

[tgb]

-- We have domestic drones being purchased and equipped to spy on Americans.

It's not as if drones are going to be used to spy willy-nilly on anyone and everyone. They're going to be amongst the tools that law enforcement will be able to use to have surveillance on people they suspect of crimes, just like wire taps, automobile surveillance and current forms of airborne surveillance. We have aircraft flying overhead all the time monitoring folks for law enforcement, or policing highway travel speeds. Why are drones particularly objectionable?

-- Expansion of the Patriot Act, domestic spying, wire taps, etc

I don't like the PATRIOT Act, and am disappointed in the White House's position on it, but we hardly live in a police state, even under the most extreme interpretations of it.

-- The White House having to be cornered into backtracking on the idea that drones could strike Americans on American soil.

What the Attorney General actually said was that in a "September 11" type situation, such extreme measures could be taken to prevent a catastrophe -- ie, shooting down the planes before the hit the World Trade Center. I don't see that as an unreasonable position.

-- 1 billion + rounds of ammunition, north of 2000 armored personnel carriers bristling with gun ports, and hundreds of thousands of what the government itself labels as "assault rifles" being purchased for homeland security

The amount of ammunition represents a bulk purchase of several years' worth of ammunition, based upon previous years utilization, for a vast number of Federal law enforcement agencies, not just DHS, done in advance for cost savings and because of the uncertainty of future budget allocations. Given the massive disruption all Federal agencies are suffering due to the sequester, and likely future budget cuts, that's just good financial planning.

The 2,000 "armored personnel carriers" aren't "bristling with gun ports," they're repurposed mine-resistant personnel craft that have been demobilized from use oversees used to safely transport law enforcement officials into dangerous situations. The same sort of repurposed vehicles have been used for decades. The wind down of overseas warfare operations provided a chance to cheaply replace the vast majority of in-use vehicles across dozens of law enforcement divisions. How is that unreasonable?

And no one is opposed to police forces having assault rifles, are they? I don't want the guy next door to me to have one, but I don't care if SWAT teams do.

-- All out assault from 4 different angles on the 2nd Amendment

All Constitutional rights are subject to reasonable limitations, even the Second Amendment. Nothing being discussed is even all that dramatic. Life flourished and freedom bloomed even during the period when the oh-so-scarrrrry "Assault Weapons Ban" was in effect, the most expansive of proposals being discussed, and one unlikely to pass. There is no threat of any kind to American freedom in limiting magazine sizes, requiring universal background checks, and the other small ball proposals being bandied about.

-- One of the most lock-tight non-transparent administrations in history despite their promises

More transparent than many, less transparent than some. Not as transparent as I would like.

You're right. There's no way anyone could get the idea that they shouldn't trust the government. There's not a thing that should make an American wonder what their government is evolving into at an accelerated rate under this administration. Nothing at all.

Everyone sing along with the voices in the back of MSD and Glenn Beck's head:

Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody's coming to get me
Just say you never met me
I'm running underground with the moles
Digging in holes

Hear the voices in my head, I swear to god it sounds like they're snoring
But if you're bored, then you're boring
The agony and the irony, they're killing me

I'm not sick, but I'm not well
And I'm so hot, cos I'm in hell

I'm not sick, but I'm not well
And it's a sin, to look this well

I'm too terrified to walk out of my own front door,
They're demonstrating outside I think they're gonna start the third world war,
I've been to my local head shrinker,
To help classify my disease,
He said it's one of the cases of acute schizophrenia he sees.

Well the milkman's a spy, and the grocer keeps on following me,
And the woman next door's an undercover for the K.G.B.,
And the man from the Social Security
Keeps on invading my privacy,
Oh there ain't no cure for acute schizophrenia disease.

I've got acute schizophrenia, paranoia too,
Schizophrenia, schizophrenia,
I've got it, you've got it, we can't lose,
Acute schizophrenia blues.

I'm lost on the river, the river of no return,
I can't make decisions, I don't know which way I'm gonna turn,
Even my old dad, lost some of the best friends he ever had,
Apparently, his was a case of acute schizophrenia too.

I got acute schizophrenia, paranoia too,
Schizophrenia, schizophrenia,
I've got it, you've got it, we can't lose,

They're watching my house and they're tapping my telephone,
I don't trust nobody, but I'm much too scared to be on my own
And the income tax collector's got his beady eye on me,
No there ain't no cure for acute schizophrenia disease.

[Zarathud]

Glen Beck admits that his brain was offline for many years.

Beck said he rarely slept, but was never tired.

After taking a test for people with traumatic brain injury, and testing in the bottom 10%, Beck said he was told he had between 5-10 years before he would no longer be able to function.

After months of treatment and changing the way he eats, sleeps, works and lives -- along with hormone treatment and intensive physical therapy -- he believes he has reversed the process.

"My brain is back online in a big way," he said. "I have received a clean bill of health."

[Carpet_pissr]

I don't wish anyone pain and suffering, but that explains a LOT (I hope). Some of those videos in recent years...oof. Now that his brain is back online, let's see if the content it produces is less abhorrent and ridiculous.

[LawBeefaroni]

"Adrenal fatigue" is just a basket of complaints and symptoms. It's not a disease. I'm not sure what's going on here.

He took a test for people with traumatic brain injuries? Did he have a traumatic brain injury (I don't know his history)?


Without knowing more this just kind of sounds like a classic "nervous breakdown" out of 1950's Hollywood. Not that I need to know more, he can do whatever, but the article makes it sound like there was some kind of concrete clinical diagnosis but there isn't on listed anywhere.

[Holman]

Beck is intense, like fanatically intense, so I could certainly believe that he stressed himself to the breaking point for years on end. Perhaps Fox cut him loose (he had low ratings but still commanded a niche) because he became impossible to work with?

He made a big deal about his failing eyesight (macular dystrophy) some years back. Given the prognosis announced at the time, his vision should be significantly impaired now. Is that so?

[Zarathud]

I believe you meant to use the word insane instead of intense, Holman.

[GreenGoo]

"Adrenal fatigue" is just a basket of complaints and symptoms. It's not a disease. I'm not sure what's going on here.

He took a test for people with traumatic brain injuries? Did he have a traumatic brain injury (I don't know his history)?


Without knowing more this just kind of sounds like a classic "nervous breakdown" out of 1950's Hollywood. Not that I need to know more, he can do whatever, but the article makes it sound like there was some kind of concrete clinical diagnosis but there isn't on listed anywhere.

The quotes in this thread are just a bunch of nonsense. If the article has more detail, great, but it sounds like a bunch of made up self diagnosis pseudo internet medical make believe.

I'm sure glad changing your diet can reverse the conditions normally associated with severe brain trauma though. And the fact that he's "managed to reverse it" himself is just a wonderful bit of self congratulatory wonderment.

Glenn has cured himself of a "disease" that he himself has told us he had. Will wonders never cease.

[LawBeefaroni]

"Adrenal fatigue" is just a basket of complaints and symptoms. It's not a disease. I'm not sure what's going on here.

He took a test for people with traumatic brain injuries? Did he have a traumatic brain injury (I don't know his history)?


Without knowing more this just kind of sounds like a classic "nervous breakdown" out of 1950's Hollywood. Not that I need to know more, he can do whatever, but the article makes it sound like there was some kind of concrete clinical diagnosis but there isn't on listed anywhere.

The quotes in this thread are just a bunch of nonsense. If the article has more detail, great, but it sounds like a bunch of made up self diagnosis pseudo internet medical make believe.

I'm sure glad changing your diet can reverse the conditions normally associated with severe brain trauma though. And the fact that he's "managed to reverse it" himself is just a wonderful bit of self congratulatory wonderment.

Glenn has cured himself of a "disease" that he himself has told us he had. Will wonders never cease.

But what an unimpeachable and easy way to excuse several years of strange behavior.

[GreenGoo]

But what an unimpeachable and easy way to excuse several years of strange behavior.

It's gibberish. The only people convinced by that are the people who were inclined to take him at face value before. And perhaps those who want to believe the things he said he didn't really mean and this gives them an out for believing Glenn is a person worthy of sympathy rather than scorn.

Shrug. My wife is a neurosurgery nurse and the stories she tells me I can believe a head injury could cause all sorts of weird stuff. If Glenn wants me to believe he was "sick" he needs to provide me with some evidence before exclaiming that he is now cured.

I of course agree with your sentiment though.

[Holman]

I believe you meant to use the word insane instead of intense, Holman.

Well, sure, but he's intense about it.