FYI: If you in town Tuesday at 8pm Glenn Beck is coming to town to sign his new book. Whit and I are going if anyone wants to hitch a ride.
Now that politics have cooled down a little since the elections, I just couldn't not share these two articles from Glenn Beck's radio station. Sorry for the length, but its worth your time if you have 5 minutes.
1. Glenn Really Does Read Things
December 8, 2008
GLENN: I was out at, I think it was in Melbourne or Orlando. A guy named John Rossi, Dr. Rossi, he handed me a piece of paper. He said, would you read this. And I've been telling you on the air that when I meet people, I take all of the letters that I get and I read them on the bus or on the plane as I go from city to city. He said, you really do read things? And I said, yeah, of course I do. He said, read this. I want to share this with you. I think this is fantastic. He's never written anything before. He's just -- he just got up in the middle of the night and wrote this: "Once upon a time there was a very happy couple. Their names were freedom and capitalism. They married and had many wonderful children. Their names were independence, self-worth, hard work, dignity, charity, faith and hope. They all lived happily for many years and the children respected their parents and loved them both very much. But freedom and capitalism later had several naughty children, very naughty. They weren't so respectful and never appreciated their parents. Their names were wealth envy, environmentalism, animal rights activism, racism, feminism, ultra liberalism. These evil children blamed their parents for everything and hated their parents' freedom and capitalism. In fact, these unappreciative children began to hate their parents since they didn't realize their parents gave them everything they had and didn't realize that they wouldn't even exist without their parents. They hated their parents so much, they began to plot with their neighbors to kill their parents and to keep their home. Their neighbors' names were socialism and communism who on the outside were a very lovely couple but inside they were very, very ugly. They and their children, whose names were despair, poverty, suffering, and repression had been welcomed into every neighborhood they had lived in. But then thrown out after years of suffering and the loss of many lives. So late one night in total darkness because socialism and communism did everything in darkness and the way from the light of the truth, while everyone was asleep, wealth envy, environmentalism, feminism, animal rights, by their younger obnoxious brother, Hollywood, disguised by socialism and communism and let them into the house, freedom and capitalism. It wasn't hard for the two parents, freedom and capitalism, always left their gates and their door open for everyone. Wealth led the way because he knew the house oh, so well. The evil children led socialism and communism throughout the house, one room at a time. And one at a time they killed hard work, then dignity, then independence, self-worth, charity and faith. They finally found the room of freedom and capitalism and killed them as well. It wasn't hard to do, since freedom and capitalism always left their door unlocked and open for everyone. Only hope survived. Hope survived hiding in the closet. She ran out during the ensuing celebration. After socialism and communism moved in, things went well for a while but then they decided they didn't like freedom and capitalism's evil children, either. They wanted their own children to have the rooms in their new house. So late one night in total darkness because socialism and communism did everything in darkness and away from the light of the truth, they sent their children to kill freedom and capitalism's remaining evil children. Poverty and suffering killed environmentalism and animal rights first, for they were so hungry, they had to kill all the animals for food and the trees for their wood. And besides, why should animals have rights if people don't? Hopelessness killed liberalism, the retarded brother of communism. Then poverty, suffering, and repression killed feminism. The retarded sister of liberalism. And Hollywood, the young obnoxious son of freedom and capitalism, was also killed. Finally, wealth envy, who led the attack on his parents, died at the hands of poverty since there was nothing left to envy.
So socialism and communism and their children, poverty, despair, hopelessness, suffering, repression lived in the once beautiful home of freedom and capitalism which was now in great disrepair and they all lived sadly ever after. All that was left of the family of freedom and capitalism was hope who was quietly hiding in the woods.
He's going to make that into a children's book coming soon. I wish I could discourage him so then I could steal the material and make it into a children's book myself but unfortunately I don't have wealth envy. Not one of my children. I'm glad to see somebody was out there that gets up in the middle of the night and says, "Oh, I have an idea." Only, only in a country where freedom and capitalism reign can someone get up in the middle of the night, have an idea, hand it off to somebody in a bookstore who had another idea in the middle of the night and then two days later have that person read it and encourage that person to publish it into a children's book because he will encourage his listeners to go out and support that guy who got up in the middle of the night and jotted down a few ideas.
2. How Big is $1 Trillion
December 8, 2008
The Obama National Anthem...
GLENN: Obama says yesterday that it's going to only get worse? No. The economy's only going to get worse and that's why he's now talking about a $1 trillion, not bailout but stimulus package.
Let me give you a handle on how big $1 trillion is. NASA has a budget. You know the people, they send up space planes and the space station and all the satellites and everything else that NASA does? NASA's budget is $17 billion. The post office's budget is $34 billion. The Department of Labor is 10, EPA is 7. Treasury, well, this has got to go up. Can you check on this, Joe? It's only $12 billion, but they've got to be spending a lot more on ink and paper right now. Treasury department is $12 billion. Department of Energy is $24 billion. The Department of Transportation is $12 billion. Justice is $20 billion. Agriculture is $20 billion. Department of Interior is $10 billion. Department of Homeland Security is $120 billion. That's $286 billion for all of those: NASA, post office, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor, EPA, Department of Treasury, Department of Energy, transportation, justice, agriculture, and interior, $286 billion. Obama wants a $1 trillion stimulus package. By the way, if you add in the defense budget, the Department of Defense budget for 2009 is $515 billion. Half a trillion dollars. Add that to all of the other departments I just gave you, that's $801 billion. You still have $200 billion left before you reach the new Democratic stimulus package of $1 trillion.
Please, Republicans, Democrats, independents, crazy people, sane people, where's this money coming from? Remember, this is a stimulus package. This isn't a tax cut. This isn't "Let's not take the money from the people. Let's spend the money that we don't have." This is such a disconnect from our founding fathers. This is such a disconnect from everything that America has always stood for.
I read a quote the other day from probably the biggest hate monger. You know, you could call me a hate monger and everything else, but I've never seen anything like this. Don't help the needy completely. Get them to help themselves. You want to avoid dependence on government? Government should be their last resort, not the first of accommodation. Make them uncomfortable in their need: Ben Franklin. Thomas Jefferson said, "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." What does that mean? That the government takes your time.
See, we have replaced -- have you ever heard of the phrase "Time is money"? What does that even mean? "Time is money." The most valuable resource you have is time. Could you use more money? Yes. Would you rather have more money or more time? I don't know about you, but I'd rather have more time. In that time you could make more money, in that time you could spend more time with your family. If you are short on money, you are probably using almost every waking hour to be able to support yourself and your family. Use more time just to be with your family. Time is the most important commodity that we have, and time is money. Well, now does that -- what does that mean, time is money? It takes your time to make the money. The more they take of your money, they're actually taking your time. When they take your money and tax you higher, they're taking your time because it takes more time for you to make up that money. They are taking time from your children. They are taking time from your family. You've got to replace that money. When they take that money from Joe the plumber so they can help somebody else, Joe the plumber needs to replace that. So that means he takes an extra couple of plumbing jobs.
Thomas Jefferson: I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people." They take your time, they take your money and then they waste it, as he says, under the pretense of taking care of them. You know, I've been telling you about the perfect storm for quite a while and I now know how it's going to happen. I now know how the collapse is going to happen. I can't tell you how -- in what form it's going to prompt this, but I will tell you the destruction will come when they say we must do this, we must do it quickly, and we've got to do it for the good of the country. Under the pretense of protecting you, they will destroy America. Jefferson knew that the individual, the family, our churches, our local communities should take care of somebody in need because we can take care of them in a much more caring and quicker circumstance than the federal government 1,000 miles away could ever do. They're not in the position to do that. We have to help each other. We have to pledge to each other that we're going to be those September 12th people.
James Madison said, he warned that we would lose personal self-respect and freedom when government -- quoting -- can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare of seemingly good causes. Well, isn't that what they're doing now? They're employing money indefinitely. They just keep printing it. They just keep taking it and they just keep finding more and more good causes to spend it on. And he said when they do that, we'll lose personal self-respect and freedom.
Well, let's look at the two of those things. How do you lose freedom? How are we possibly losing freedom? Well, you want universal healthcare? Well, you better not smoke. You better not eat that transfat. You better exercise every day. And if you don't, well, then we're not going to take care of you. You're going to die on your own. If you have your own insurance and you have to pay for it, and the free market system says, "Hey, you can't do those things, otherwise you are going to have to pay for this insurance and you are going to have to pay more," you have a choice. You can have those transfats. You can say, "I'm going to be a big fat fatty, I'm not going to eat anything except marshmallows all day." But once you say the government has to take care of you and they have to take care of everybody equally, well, then you need to be baby-sat because you are going to cost an awful lot of money. But the government knows better. At least that's what the Progressives believed when they gave us prohibition. Who could actually say that alcohol is a good thing? Is there anybody within the sound of my voice that can actually say that alcohol is a good thing? You know, you give me the, "Oh, yeah, well, drink a glass of wine and it got..." whatever. I mean, are we really going to -- I mean, really? In the grand scheme of things, isn't alcohol a destructive force? You are using it for medicinal purposes? Okay. You know, cleaning wounds, sterilization, blah, blah, blah, fine. But on the grand scheme of things, alcohol is a destructive force. Here I'm a guy whose faith teaches no alcohol and I'm an alcoholic. There's nobody more anti alcohol than me. But you know what? You keep those liquor stores open. You keep producing that alcohol. You have the right to choose. You want to drink alcohol? God bless ya.
People ask me all the time: Glenn, do you mind if we have a drink? No, why would I mind? It's your choice. You know, if you're my friend and you're destroying yourself through alcohol, that's a different story. "Glenn, do you mind if we -- we're going to have a party. Is it going to make you uncomfortable?" No, this is making me uncomfortable. That conversation, that you think that I'm 4 years old, that you think I'm going to damn you to hell because you drink alcohol. You think, you know, I'm so fragile that I'm going to collapse if you're drinking alcohol. I'm not a progressive. I'm an independent. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in a plan. I believe in a plan that God actually made for all of us and that is free choice. You choose. But the Progressives, the same people who are bringing you all of these progressive things -- you know what drives me crazy is every time I see that commercial for Progressive Auto Insurance. That's not a coincidence, gang. The guy's a huge progressive that started it. These Progressives think they know better than you. They think that they can help you by limiting your choices. It's not a coincidence that the Progressives, the same people who brought you prohibition, are the ones bringing you all the antifat stuff and the transfats and the calorie counts on all of the menus. Are you this stupid? You know what? When they stop treating you like you're an idiot, maybe you'll realize, "Oh, gee, doughnuts are bad for me, cause a heart attack, I go boom down on the floor and die." When we start letting people die because of their bad choices, well, then we're okay. But you know what? People are compassionate and see, that's what always, that's what always hurts choice. It has from the beginning of time. What hurts choice is compassion. I say this as an alcoholic. Enablers, compassion, we can't let anybody fail. It's more compassionate. It is harder to let someone fail. When you let them fail, they grow. They get stronger. They learn from their choice. You don't take their hand and jam it on the stove. But what Progressives want to do is they want to take the stove away from you. They want to have the stove in a different house where only they can use the stove. They will give you what you need. Hot food from time to time. You can't have the stove; you might hurt yourself. You know what? My kid might burn his hand on the stove but he'll do it once. I'm not promoting that he's going to put his hand on the stove, and I'll try to teach him, but I'm not taking away the stove. The stove isn't bad. The burning of his hand isn't bad. The taking away of the stove is bad. How is it that it's more compassionate to just coddle people and just have them live in this world where they don't -- they can't even make choices. They can't learn, they can't grow. That's what we've turned into. We've turned into -- you know, Uncle Sam pisses me off. I didn't think I would ever get to a place where the guy in the stupid striped pants and the stilts would piss me off, but he's pissing me off. First of all, he's wearing the right kind of pants. They're striped. Uncle Sam should be in jail for fraud on the American people. For the same people that have fixed the economy so well, fixed the banking industry, the same people that designed the banking collapse, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd are now calling for a car czar and they are going to fix the auto industry. Well, no, no, no, thanks, thanks, but enough fixing from you two.
Whit and I went to Rexburg's free carousal and took a picture with Santa Claus in remembrance of our last date in the 'Burg.
Our parents, Derek, Pearl, Big B, Les, and Triz came up for our graduation weekend. It was a blast of a weekend that included: picture taking, grad ceremonies, walking, cards, swimming, hot tubbing, donuts in the parking lot, saying good byes, packing, cleaning, lots of snow, the great connection between Trevor and Richard-and now Brandon too, and we also all went and saw Forever Strong.
Derek, Richard and I drove the moving truck which was towing our car. And Derek followed us in his red Durango over 1500 miles to Saddlebrook, MO. Derek drove for 12.5 straight hours, very impressive. But even more impressive is that we didn't die. We made it in about 26 hours-straight through. I learned that I have a new state I dis-like the most, Nebraska. Thanks for your help SWAT and Rich.
I must give some love to my Garmin Nuvi. She has been everything to me the last few days. Her ability continues to amaze me. Admittedly sometimes I doubt her, but she has been right every single time so far. It was impressive she knew Idaho, but to also know Missouri the way she does is breath taking.
Brandon Roy dropping 52 points and beating Pheonix (who is one of the most annoying teams in the NBA to me, expect of course the great Terry Porter). Travis Outlaw also stepped up and was big. We play Denver Monday and Tuesday, once at home, once in Denver. Big games for us. Christmas Day the Mavs come to the Rose Garden.
In conclusion, it has been a great week or so. We have such great family and friends, we are very blessed and very lucky.
