First it was WrestleMania, now Glendale will be playing host to another form of white trash entertainment, though boring and preachy by comparison.
This Saturday, April 10, wingnut lip-flapper extraordinaire Glenn Beck will be in town as part of his "American Revival" tour, a grueling eight hours of Beck and assorted conservative nobodies, blathering on about how our wayward nation needs to find god. And no, not a god, but "the" god.
"We're being told now that we're not a country of faith," claims Beck in his video teaser for the event. "Yes we are."
Thing is, there are already these things called "churches," which are free of charge -- save for the donation plate -- where you can get your weekly dose of fire and brimstone, and usually only at the loss of an hour or two. So why pay $25 to $125 to hear this weeping imp's palaver for a full day?
The answer is that there's a sucker born every minute, and, ever the uber capitalist, Beck's eager to vacuum up every quarter he can get out of those willing to swallow his sermons on the evils of Barack Obama, liberalism, and public anything.
Beck remains the most annoying, cloying, insincere pundit of our time. I don't care if the guy traded ideologies with Rachel Maddow, and his physical attributes with Eva Mendes, he'd still be an unctuous snake-oil peddling pain. As it is now, he reminds of Pee-wee Herman minus the yuks and the highwaters
But why should I care if Beck can part fools from their dollar bills? Some folks pay good money to be tortured in S&M dungeons, I hear. Hey, it's a free country.
All the same, spitting in the wind though I know it may be, I'd remind the Beckophiles of this little thing called the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads,
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."
Religious freedom? You've got it in spades here in the U.S. of A. Just do us all a favor, and spare us the government, or the public schools or any other such entity shoving it down our gullets.
Yeah, I know, it's on the money: "In God We Trust, [all others pay cash]." It shouldn't be there, but it is. Teddy Roosevelt regarded it as a form of sacrilege, but we all know what a big pinko atheist he was.
On the ads for his Faith Hope and Charity themed-event (sounds like three ecdysiasts, I know, but it's from St. Paul), Beck mentions Thomas Jefferson at length, citing him as the inspiration for a moral revival in our country.
"Sadly, today Jefferson's words fall on deaf ears in our halls of power," writes Beck or one of his flunkies, "and the key to turning this country around lies in returning to the bedrock values that were instilled by our Founding Fathers and inspired by our creator. Glenn Beck's American Revival is the beginning of that process -- a daylong event with the goal of reviving Jefferson's beliefs and your country."
Here's one belief I'd like to revive of Jefferson's: deism. Like other Founding Fathers, Jefferson was not some Holy Roller who bought the bunk that the Bible is infallible. In fact, Jefferson was skeptical of religion and its hocus pocus, so much so that he went through the Gospels and cut out all of the miracles, leaving only the philosophy of Jesus Christ.
It's commonly referred to as the Jefferson Bible. Maybe Beck should order a copy.
Or Beck could look up quotes from Jefferson, like, "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law," or, "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."
Ah, yes, the wisdom of the immortal Jefferson. I don't think he and Beck would have gotten along as chummily as Beck presumes.
