An
Open Letter to Glenn Beck by Thomas
J. DiLorenzo - LewRockwell.com - November 26, 2009
Dear
Glenn,
First of all, congratulations on deciding
to become a community organizer for the cause of liberty and
prosperity, as reported all over the media recently. You will
be a stark contrast to the Marxist in the White House who
boasts of his “community organizing” efforts for the exact
opposite cause, ACORN-style socialism as defined by its “People’s
Platform.” (His nationalization of banks, General Motors,
and possibly health care, and his administration’s bombastic,
anti-capitalist rhetoric, reminds me a lot of Lenin’s first
months in power.)
Glenn, I’m writing to offer a few suggestions
with regard to your upcoming community organizing efforts,
which I’m sure will attract huge media attention and could
potentially be very influential. First, you really need to
“man up” those “Five Pledges” of yours, especially Pledges
1 and 2. There you say you are in favor of a balanced budget,
and that government should not increase the financial burden
on taxpayers “during difficult economic times.”
I certainly agree with the last part of this
statement. Raising taxes during a depression is exactly the
opposite of what even a central-planning Keynesian would advocate.
This only highlights the fact that Obama is not a Keynesian
central planner, as Democratic presidents usually are (and
most Republicans as well), but a central planner of the Marxian
variety. Marxists want to destroy the existing economic system,
creating a social catastrophe that they hope will allow them
to foment a revolution and consolidate their political power.
Keynesians are merely neo-mercantilists who use Keynesian
ideology to pull the wool over the public’s eyes with regard
to their policy of perpetual political plunder under the guise
of a perpetual quest for prosperity.
But come on, Glenn, don’t fall for that Big
Government propaganda line about the alleged virtues of a
balanced budget. What the government establishment means by
budgetary balance is a devotion to endless tax increases to
fund all of their pie-in-the-sky special-interest spending
programs. According to this propaganda line a doubling, tripling,
or quadrupling of government spending, and the consequent
shrinking of private-sector prosperity, is perfectly fine
as long as taxes are also doubled, tripled, or quadrupled
at the same time. Americans already pay more in taxes than
medieval serfs did, so what’s so good about waiting for “good
economic times” to be plundered and robbed even more?
I notice that you frequently display a picture
of Thomas Jefferson on the television screen during your Fox
News Channel program. You would do well to dump those first
two pledges and, in their place, adopt what Mr. Jefferson
said in his first inaugural address:
[A] wise and frugal Government, which shall
restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise
free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement,
and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has
earned. This is the sum of good government . . .
Saying that government “shall not take from
the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” means there should
be no taxes on earnings. If you’re serious about calling yourself
a Jeffersonian, Glenn, you would advocate the total elimination
of income taxation (for starters), and not potentially endless
increases of it “during good times.” You should also abandon
that Pledge #3 about “energy independence.” Such rhetoric
is just another protectionist smokescreen, no different from
those who insist that we must free ourselves of foreign beef,
tomatoes, cars, etc. Isolating ourselves from the international
division of labor is a good recipe for economic disaster.
Your pledge #5 is also highly problematic.
You say, “I believe the United States of America is the greatest
country on earth and therefore will not apologize for policies
or actions which have served to free more and feed more people
around the world than any other nation on the planet.” The
problem with this is that you equate “the United States of
America” with the federal government. I think your confusion
stems for a misunderstanding of the difference between nationalism
and patriotism. A nationalist, as my old friend Clyde Wilson
has said, is someone who promotes the aggrandizement of the
state in all its “glory.” A patriot, in sharp contrast, is
someone who simply loves his country and its people.
Your statement is way too nationalistic. It
seems to be a version of the neocon propaganda line that “We
saved Europe from the Nazis in World War II, therefore, every
successive military intervention, no matter how misguided,
and no matter how many innocent foreigners are murdered, is
justified. The rest of the world should just shut up.” This
is what the neocons at the Claremont Institute and the American
Enterprise Institute would call “statesmanship,” but “arrogant,
imperialistic propaganda” would be more accurate.
Good luck with the Washington, D.C. rally
that you’re planning for next August at the Lincoln Memorial.
One more suggestion: Hold the rally at the Jefferson Memorial
instead. Lincoln was a tyrant who waged total war on his own
citizens, orchestrating the murder of some 350,000 of them,
including 50,000 Southern civilians. Jefferson was the founding
generation’s champion of liberty. In his first inaugural address
Lincoln first made an ironclad defense of slavery, including
a promise to support its enshrinement in the U.S. Constitution,
while threatening “bloodshed” and “invasion” over tax collection.
He said it was his “duty to collect the duties and imposts,”
and “beyond that there will not be an invasion of any state.”
The tariff on imports had just been doubled two days earlier.
“Pay Up or Die” was his message.
Contrast this, Glenn, with what Thomas Jefferson
said in his first inaugural address: “If there be any among
us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its
republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of
the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where
reason is left free to combat it.” This could not possibly
be more different from Lincoln’s “Do As I Say Or Die” commandment.
After all, secession or “separation” from the British Empire
is how America was created. Secession was “the” principle
of the American Revolution according to George Washington’s
Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering. Since the theme of
your television program on the Fox News Channel is “Refounding
America,” I think you should highlight and discuss the right
of secession and its virtues on your program every single
day. It is probably the only real hope that we have to escape
Obammunism.
If you’re not convinced, consider this: In
a January 29, 1804 letter to Dr. Joseph Priestly, Jefferson
wrote that “Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form
into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not
very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the
western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants
as those of the eastern . . . and did I now foresee a separation
[i.e., secession] at some future day, yet I should feel the
duty & the desire to promote the western interests as
zealously as the eastern . . .” In an August 12, 1803 letter
to his friend John Breckenridge on the subject of the New
England Federalists, who were at that time threatening to
secede from the union, Jefferson said that if there were a
“separation” then “God bless them both [North and South] &
keep them in the union if it be for their good, but separate
them, if it be better.”
As you can see, Glenn, Lincoln was in many
ways the anti-Jefferson, which is to say, an enemy of liberty.
Consider Mr. Jefferson’s most famous publication, The Declaration
of Independence. In that document the states are said to be
“free and independent.” Lincoln disagreed and waged total
war on the Southern states to “prove” himself right. They
were not free and independent, he insisted, despite the clear
language of the Declaration and of all the other founding
documents on this matter.
In his “Train of Abuses” condemnation of the
King of Great Britain Jefferson said “He has dissolved Representative
Houses repeatedly...” Lincoln imprisoned members of the Maryland
legislature, deported a Democratic congressman, and imposed
military rule on parts of the South that became conquered
territory during the war. This is no different from what King
George III did.
“He has made Judges dependent on his Will
alone,” Jefferson wrote. By suspending habeas corpus and imprisoning
tens of thousands of Northern citizens without any due process,
Lincoln made his will the law of the land, just as King George
III had done.
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices,
and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and
eat out their substance,” said Jefferson in the Declaration.
Myriad new bureaucracies, including an internal revenue bureaucracy,
were created to run the occupied states during the war, and
all states after the war.
“He has affected to render the Military independent
of and superior to the Civil Power.” This is exactly what
Lincoln did by suspending the writ of habeas corpus and ordering
the mass arrest of thousands of political dissenters in the
North during the war.
“He has kept among us, in times of peace,
Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.”
The legislatures of the Southern states did not invite a federal
invasion, as required by the “insurrection clause” of the
U.S. Constitution in cases of insurrections, which did not
exist anyway in 1861. The Party of Lincoln kept standing armies
in the South for a decade after the war while the states were
ruled as military dictatorships under the direction of the
Republican Party.
“He has combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged
by our laws . . .” Lincoln ignored the Constitution completely.
Nowhere is a president given the constitutional authority
to invade his own country, suspend habeas corpus, wage war
without consent of Congress, deport congressmen, shut down
hundreds of opposition newspapers, etc., etc.
“For cutting off our Trade with all parts
of the world.” Lincoln blockaded Southern ports during the
war, and was a lifelong protectionist of the worst kind. His
party imposed average tariffs in the 50 percent range for
almost half a century after the war.
“For imposing taxes on us without consent.”
The South did not consent to paying a doubled import tariff.
Lincoln kept the promise that he made in his first inaugural
address and launched a military invasion of the entire South
to force them to pay “his” duties and imposts.
“For depriving us in many cases, of the right
of Trial by jury.” How else could one describe Lincoln’s suspension
of habeas corpus?
“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring
us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has
plundered our seas, ravaged our coast, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting
large Armies, of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works
of death, desolation and tyranny.” Well, Southerners certainly
weren’t “protected” by Lincoln’s invasion of their country;
Southern ports were blockaded and Southern ships were sunk;
entire Southern towns were burned to the ground by the Union
Army under Sherman and others; the lives of some 350,000 Southerners
were snuffed out; hundreds of thousands of European mercenaries
were paid to wage war on American citizens by the Lincoln
regime. “Death, desolation and tyranny” is a perfect description
of the Lincoln administration.
Glenn, I know that you have praised Lincoln
for “persevering” in his mass murder of fellow citizens from
the Southern states until he finally “prevailed.” This of
course is an essential part of the neocon/Lincoln Cult party
line. It has been repeated endlessly on your own Fox News
Channel by all those neocons who keep telling us that we should
never, ever, withdraw our military from the Middle East until
“the job is finished” (which would probably be long after
we are both dead, if ever). But did you know that all other
countries of the world that ended slavery in the 19th century,
the British, Dutch, Spaniards, French, Danes, Swedes – all
did so peacefully without a war? And did you know that slavery
was also ended peacefully in all of the Northern states, including
New York where slavery still existed in the early 1850s? (See
the book, Slavery in New York.) I highly recommend that you
read Jim Powell’s excellent book, Greatest Emancipations:
How the West Ended Slavery, which describes in great detail
how the rest of the world ended slavery peacefully instead
of using slaves as political pawns in a war that was not about
them but was a struggle for political power, as all wars are.
This calls into question the fairy tale about
Lincoln and emancipation that all Lincoln Cultists repeat
endlessly. The war was all a part of some grand strategy to
free the slaves, they tell us. But what kind of “statesman”
would ignore all of world history including the history of
his own country (in the Northern states) with regard to how
slavery was ended and plunge his country into the bloodiest
war in human history up to that point? Is this “grand strategy”
that caused the death of almost 700,000 Americans and maimed
several times that number for life a praiseworthy one?
Glenn, if you are upset about the Fed and
its showering of corporate welfare on Wall Street banksters
and myriad other fat-cat corporations, you should also know
that Lincoln spent his entire adult life championing the “American
System” of Alexander Hamilton, which was the only policy plank
of the Whig Party that Lincoln belonged to for more than twenty
years before becoming a Republican. The “American System,”
which was really the corrupt British mercantilist system designed
for America, involved a central bank that would print money
to finance corporate welfare for railroad corporations and
others, along with high, protectionist tariffs which are also,
of course, a form of corporate welfare. It was Lincoln’s National
Currency Acts that resurrected central banking in America
and led to the creation of the Fed. No member of the old Whig
Party was a more forceful proponent of central banking – a
bank run by politicians out of the nation’s capital – than
Abraham Lincoln was.
What Lincoln’s Whig Party (which morphed into
the Republican Party after the Whig Party imploded in the
early 1850s) stood for was perfectly described by the famous
playwright and law partner of Clarence Darrow, Edgar Lee Masters
of Illinois, in his book, Lincoln the Man. It was a “political
system which doles favors to the strong in order to win and
to keep their adherence to the government. [It] offered shelter
to devious schemes and corrupt enterprises . . . [and] a people
taxed to make profits for enterprises that cannot stand alone
. . . . Its principles were plunder and nothing else.”
In light of this, I think it would be an absurd
farce to hold a rally protesting the Fed, corporate welfare,
bailouts, Big Government, etc. at the Lincoln Memorial. Thomas
Jefferson opposed every one of these policies, as did his
political heirs, the big majority of whom were Democrats and
neither Whigs nor Republicans. Hold the rally at the Jefferson
Memorial. Best of luck to you.