Poor Glenn. People are just out to get him. That includes police investigators, now. His show might get clamped down, hard. We'll see if FOX is the American law abiding network, or the network for violent whacked out paranoid militia types - only.
And we shall see which sponsors will stick with Beck and FOX once they get visits and requests from police representatives, and their attorneys.
Your 1st Amendment Rights do not cover inciting disturbed paranoid persons to violence against public servants.
You shout "FIRE !!" in a crowded theater, and people get hurt from that FALSE ALARM, police will be teilling you about your other set of rights.
After watching Glenn Beck yesterday, I was absolutely appalled. It wasn't just because Beck is an irresponsible wingnut. There was something else - something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
And then, it hit me.
Glenn Beck is using drug dealer arguments.
To be specific, Beck is trying to exonerate himself from blame by avoiding any responsibility for his own actions or words. For months, we've seen Beck working as the fearmonger-in-chief, making Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh look like sedate entertainers. Beck's "9/12 project" is, in one way, a call to action. But in another way, it's a call to arrogant self-pity (poor, pitiful me, no one could understand because I'm uniquely patriotic and "I just love my country.") and the worst kind of sarcasm.
Let's briefly outline Beck's argument:
1. Blaming anyone other than Poplawski is crazy.
2. I can't be responsible for other people's actions.
3. All I'm doing is providing a public service.
4. The fact that so many people share my concerns is proof that what I'm saying is very important.
5. Poplawski would have acted that way "no matter what."
6. Anyone who doesn't think the way I do is "irrational."
I think part of the reason I got upset was Beck's protests of innocence. He was like the guy who claims that he was just "holding the drugs for a friend" or the guy who says "I just gave the guy what he wanted. He would have gotten it from someone else if not from me."
Glenn Beck is talking, thinking, and acting like a drug dealer. The mind-altering substances he's dealing are his words, which are designed to skew people's sense of reality, make them delusional, and incite fear and anger. Beck might not "try from his own supply", but he knows exactly how to pull on the heartstrings and he's zeroing in on disgruntled working-class Americans who have given up hope that democracy can work for them.
Words can hurt. Words can heal. Words can medicate. Words can literally change a listener's mind. Combine those words with some visual imagery and you've got a powerful cocktail of mind-altering medicine capable of turning unbalanced and disturbed 23-year-old citizens into cop-killing madmen.
If Beck fails to understand this, then he's an idiot.