Highjacking my blog.

Wow, so many updates, in such a short time!

In family news, my cousin got married over the weekend. I'm super happy for her, but kinda bummed I didn't get to be there. All the pictures on Facebook are beautiful and she looks so happy, so that is all that really matters anyway.

Now, to come to my main point: For those of you who occasionally listen when I get going on my crazy rants, you know that I sometimes get obsessed about a specific topic, research the heck out of it, and bring it up whenever it is remotely relevant, with whoever will listen. Unfortunately for Paul, she is the only one who really puts up with it, and this results in her spending a week hearing about nothing but the British Royal family, or Mao and the Great Famine, or whatnot. I normally refrain from using this as a way to force people to listen to my ramblings, but you can all just blame her for not having been on Skype for the last few days.

The last two days, my newest obsession has been Glenn Beck and the Restoring Honor Rally. I watched his full speech that ran about an hour and have been doing some reading up on him. I don't know how much y'all know about Mr. Beck, but I didn't go into it expecting that much. Our political views don't exactly line up, and in the past he has said some...interesting things. For instance, a couple of months ago, on his tv show, he recommended a book written in the 1930s by a known anti-semite and nazi supported. He also claims that his business is entertainment, not politics, and I just don't see how that could be true. I was actually mildly pleased to find out that he didn't come across as crazy as I was expecting and I did agree with some of the things he said. But there are a few small things that I would like to say:

1) I really don't see a cause for the imminent destruction of the U.S. (and the rest of the world) that he seemed so very concerned about. He said over and over that the States was at a crossroads, but he never specified what exactly caused them to arrive at this crossroads. He did, however, specify that this can be avoided through charity, hope, and faith.

2) Someone forgot to give him the memo that Church and State are separated in America. He is a religious man, that's cool. Even better, he seemed to promote interfaith cooperation (even if I didn't fully buy it). The problem I do have is how he tied faith, patriotism, and politics so tightly together. To be a good American, you have to be married, have a family, and go to church. That is blatantly not true and insulting to the millions of Americans. If he believes that prayer is answer to the problems facing America, it that's his right, and I would be inclined to agree that it certainly can't hurt. But he took it just that step too far by saying that it was people's patriotic duty to pray. I won't even go into all the problems I had with what he said about families.
3) I feel it is irresponsible for him to stand in front of thousands of people and tell them to tithe 10%. He is a very rich man; Forbes estimated that from March 2009-March 2010, Beck earned $32 million. I understand that giving $3.2 million is very generous, but that still left him with $28.8 million. It is an entirely different thing to give 10% when you only make $25,000. That $2,500 is going to be harder to do without, especially since apparently you are less than human if you don't have children. I just don't think that it is his place to tell people to do that. He kept saying that change starts in the church, again implying that if you didn't follow exactly what he told you to do, you didn't love your country enough.


(Cute picture of our neighborhood Mini-Oro to distract you from the fact that I am still talking about Glenn Beck.)

As far as I can tell, the whole point of his message was the importance of hope, charity, and faith. And I agree that it's a good things to tell the truth (somehow the practical application of hope is to always tell the truth...), to financially support causes you believe in and to freely practice religion if you so choose. I don't think anyone could argue that these things are dangerous or harmful. But then he keeps talking and takes it too far. I suppose it is entirely possible that this tendency that annoys me so much could very well be the thing that makes him so popular. Fox News is full of conservative reporters saying that the government is too involved in the lives of individuals and that the Democrats are hurting the U.S. But, he stands out when he takes that, along with some random facts, and comes out with his conspiracy theories that everyone is out to destroying American conservatives.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure it's sacrilegious to refer to the Constitution as being the holy scripture of the U.S. Oh, and unless I missed the part of the Bible that refers to Americans as being God's chosen people, I think Beck might be wrong on that one.

Ok, this is getting pretty long, so I'll finish up now. In my readings, I have come across quite a few people who strongly dislike Beck, but the most entertaining critique has come from Stephan King, who described Beck as "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother."