As my father often repeated, "A fair day's work for a fair day's pay." Which of these areas does Glenn Beck believe the Communists and Nazis excelled in? Is he holding in reserve a secret cache of obscure speeches by Hitler? If his listeners heard those words (which real liberals and real conservatives subscribe to) emerging from Hitler's mouth, would they be confused?Īnother quote from Beck. It involves a living wage and decent working conditions. It involves freedom of speech and the practice, or non-practice, of religion. It involves a trial in a fair legal system. What is social justice, anyway? I think it involves civil rights and liberties. He needs material to fill his daily hours of air time and fuel his fans with one-liners they can pass off as thought. Remember that TV show where couples raced up and down aisles seeing who could jam the most loot into their carts? Beck loads up from the shelves of the Discount Screwball Supermart. Conservatism is a political and ethical philosophy that exists in another universe from Beck's shopping cart. Nor, for that matter, could a genuine conservative identify with a flywheel like Beck. I do not remotely identify with the ideologies Beck wants to tar and feather me with. ![]() I am also patriotic, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values. Conservatives, on the other hand, are moderates, patriots, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values. Liberals are socialists, community organizers, Marxists, traitors, communists, haters, Nazis, elitists and, in general, liars. In the Beckian theology, a conservative is merely a conservative. You would think that if it's possible to be a conservative it's also possible to be a liberal. What Beck has demonstrated, in a singularly inelegant way, is an increasing tendency of the extreme right to automatically describe its opponents in negative buzz words. I know now, and did not know before, that before statehood the Mormons in the Utah territory provided universal health care and care for the poor as a matter of their duty. Not for the first time, he was dead wrong, and the mountains of Utah rang with the thunder of outraged Mormon elders. "My church doesn't," said Beck, who is a Mormon. Beck's oversight is that all religions teach social justice. I suspect he might currently be in between congregations. Such a person might be a real piece of work. What I would enjoy hearing is one single clergyman from any faith in America, appearing on Beck's program to agree with him and denouncing social justice. Nor, for that matter, does he ever say, A wop bop a lu bop, a wop bam boom! It is quite true that nowhere does Jesus say that. What are the words "social justice" code for? Why, Nazism and Communism, says Beck: "Social justice was the rallying cry-economic justice and social justice-the rallying cry on both the communist front and the fascist front." Beck even went so far as to cite Jesus Christ, saying, and I quote: "Nowhere does Jesus say, Hey, if somebody asks for your shirt, give your coat to the government and have the government give them a pair of slacks." Well, Beck has me there. ![]() They're all down on this social justice thing. Do you suppose the cardinal texts? I know some priests pretty well, and two ministers I went to high school with, and a rabbi, and I have a Muslim friend who teaches that faith in Chicago universities, and I work with a Buddhist, but it's no use asking them. I was on the brink of picking up the phone and asking Francis Cardinal George if he was down on this whole social justice thing, but then I recalled that I no longer use the telephone. Go alert your bishop and tell them, 'Excuse me are you down with this whole social justice thing?' If it's my church, I'm alerting the church authorities: 'Excuse me, what's this social justice thing?' And if they say, 'yeah, we're all in that social justice thing'-I'm in the wrong place." Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. What were Beck's unifying words? "I beg you, look for the words social justice or economic justice on your church web site," he told his audience.
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