xfdfx BECK-01
<Show: BECK>
<Date: November 25, 2009>
<Time: 17:00>
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<Tran: 112501cb.258>
<Type: Show>
<Head: BECK for November 25, 2009 - Part 1>
<Sect: News; Domestic>
<Byline: Glenn Beck>
<Guest: Jason Wright>
<Spec: Politics; Policies; Government>
GLENN BECK, HOST: Well, hello, America. Welcome to THE GLENN BECK PROGRAM.
Tonight, here are the questions that we need to ask ourselves. You need to ask yourself: Do I have a right to own things? Can you own things?
Where is God? And does not a question for God, that's a question for us to ask, where is he.
And do I matter? How can I make a difference?
It's kind of a different take on THE GLENN BECK PROGRAM because it is the weekend of Thanksgiving. Let's put -- get some perspective here.
Tonight, we have to ask ourselves one more question -- this phrase -- a quote from the extremist revolutionaries: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Is that -- that's what's in the Declaration of Independence, but is that what they really meant? The answer is no.
This was a change. Do you know what it was changed from? I'll tell you here in just a second.
(MUSIC)
BECK: Well, hello, America. Happy Thanksgiving. I'm glad you're joining us. Thank you for being here.
I have been preparing for this holiday by eating non-stop for about eight months now -- hence, the chin. I just want to get my stomach in shape. It's the only exercise I do, eating pudding.
Anyway, a great time of year because we are reminded that we have a lot to be thankful for in this country. Please, I beg of you, pray like you've never prayed before and give thanks for the amazing time. As bad as things may be, we still are living in the most amazing time and the most amazing country in the history of mankind.
We often take the simplest things for granted. We must stop doing that. We must look at each and every freedom that we have and be grateful. We must be grateful for our homes, even if we are struggling to stay in them.
We don't realize how fragile our liberties really are. You remember the way it was on September 11th. On September 11th, we realized, oh, my gosh, our country is fragile. It could be snatched away at any given moment.
As you're sitting in your home tomorrow, I want you to think about your home -- you know, the phrase used to be a man's home is his castle. A man's home is the shelter from the storm.
It's been purchased by you. It's been painted by you. It's been decorated by you. It has your pictures in it. It is yours -- or is it?
Right now, the poorest of the poor, they don't have the money to stay in their homes and that's why SEIU and ACORN and the president and everybody is fighting to keep those people in their homes. The poorest of the poor, they don't have the money to go against the big, evil, rich bank or companies that want to take those homes. That's the whole housing crisis.
Keep people in their homes, because the home is sacred. You own it. Unless we can take that home as the government, and give it to somebody else who will give us more for that property in tax dollars.
There's a new story out of Brooklyn, New York, today. In Brooklyn, families want to keep their home. They don't have any desire to move. But no, no, no -- Brooklyn sees a ton of tax dollars to be made.
This isn't about the developer. No, there's a rich developer involved, but this is about the government getting those tax dollars. I have been telling you for the last few days, they're going to find any way to squeeze the maximum amount of tax dollars out you, and they will crush anyone who stands in their way.
Real estate tycoon and owner of the New Jersey Nets, Bruce Ratner, wants to build a new home arena for his team on a $4.9 billion 22-acre site in Brooklyn, New York. So, he's willing to take the homes. The homeowners -- they don't want to sell. The transit authority has a rail yard there. They don't want to move it.
So, what does the well-connected real estate tycoon do? Well, he goes to the government, and voila! New York's Court of Appeals, this is the highest -- this is the supreme court in New York, they use the state's Use of eminent domain for the Atlantic Yards Project in Brooklyn.
Let me show you the last time this happened. It happened in New London, Connecticut. Suzette Kelo was her name. You may remember her, because she was a homeowner in New London, Connecticut. She had the not for sale sign on that house.
Look at that, nice house, right? It was her dream. This is -- this is a home of her own.
Until the progressive politicians decided they were going to act on that dream, because they had a dream as well. They had a vision for their town, and they wanted to revitalize it, and they thought bringing in a big company would help them. They decided that the town's savior like be a giant drug manufacturer, the drug company Pfizer.
So, they picked out some land, great for Pfizer, bad for Suzette. Her home was right where Pfizer wanted it to be, and the town wanted those tax dollars. They were practically coveting those tax dollars, couldn't wait.
Well, she didn't want to move, so she fought. In this system of government, we have always fought for the small guy -- well, not anymore. The case made its way all the way to the United States Supreme Court in 2005. The state used the public use argument under the Fifth Amendment.
You may be thinking how is forcing people to sell their homes to a private drug company in any way public use ? Well, it's a good question. And here was their explanation: If an economic project creates new jobs, increasing tax revenues and revitalizes the depressed tax urban area, then that project qualifies as public use.
That didn't make sense to me then. It doesn't make sense now.
The court went along, 5-4 count.
How is the economic growth in New London? Wow. You want to see the new plant?
This is -- this is a progressive idea in action. Look at this --this is it, baby. Well, that's where it would have been, but they mowed Suzette's house down, they got rid of her and everything. But now, it's just an empty parking lot, because, yes, Pfizer decided not to build the building.
So, all those people in New London forced to sell their homes, you know, for the greater good, got -- you know, got this. Not a revitalization, you know, project, and I'm not a revitalization expert, but that doesn't look like an upgrade from Suzette's home. Maybe it's just me.
This court decision basically rendered the term public use in the Fifth Amendment meaningless. And now, all we have to show for it is that beautiful empty dirt lot.
It was hailed as victory by progressives, helping many at the expense of just a few. The Times called it a setback to the property rights movement as if property rights was a movement. It's not a movement. It's a right.
Pfizer is still keeping the land, by the way. They bought it cheap and got a huge tax break to move there. So, they're not going to --you know, they'll let it sit empty but they're not going to get rid of it. So much for creating jobs and tax revenue and revitalization. Once again, the government to the rescue.
Is this America -- let me ask you this question -- is this what the pilgrims had in mind when they hopped on to that boat and ventured out into the ocean into the unknown? They were trying to get away from a government that would tell them how to live their lives and what God to worship and everything else. Do you think they'd be happy about land grabs for a basketball stadium? Or money grabs?
How about these two stories? In California, the state this month has just implemented a 10 percent tax. Their excuse -- well, they said it's not a tax. They think of it as an interest-free loan that's been forced upon the citizens of California.
Wow, what a great deal. Let me get this straight. I get to make you a loan for the money, I don't get anything out of it, and I don't have any choice, and then I get IOUs at tax time, which California has already done. Gee, where do I sign up for that?
Perhaps the most egregious abuse of power comes, again, out of New York where they're like grabbing land now. They've decided to spend over $2 billion to bail out the MTA. Well, where did $1.5 billion come from for that bailout? Well, a retroactive payroll tax, of course. Yes, they just invented a next tax bracket and then went back into the time machine, I don't know if they the flux capacitor, and then just took the money that they -- that you already have been taxed on.
I don't know about you, but where I come from, that's call theft. Stealing. Criminal.
Taking from some and giving to others is only a byproduct of the real goal of the progressive movement. Control -- control of your life. They'll tell you where to live. They know what's best for you and the town. They believe you will always choose your selfish interest over the collective interest, and the self doesn't matter to progressives. So, they feel it's necessary to tell you what to do.
Look what they're doing in Massachusetts with health care. They have a bill now that under an emergency, it will allow the government to apply the force vaccinations. OK, that's been done before -- but in this bill, you can also go into a person's house and destroyed unspecified things that the state feels should be destroyed.
Get the hell out of my house!
How about your property rights? How about your property rights when this government took over G.M. or Chrysler? If you were a bondholder, you just lost and you didn't have anything to say about it. They just came, violated the bond market, and just took it from you!
That was your money. That was your decision, and the government just took it and gave it to the unions.
How about the banks? If you were a shareholder, it didn't really matter. You got screwed. They just took it from you.
Let me ask you this question: How's the little guy? I mean, if it were you, if it were your home, if it's your share of Chrysler, how are you making out?
Is it you or the private drug company in New London that's making out best here?
Is it you or the real estate tycoon in New York that's really making it?
Is it you or is it the politically connected -- you know, the ones who are really in with the right people?
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really seeing the great benefit for the little man or you. Look at the cities with the most poverty. Progressives have been in control of the top 10 highest poverty cities 92 percent of the time since 1965. Progressives destroy the little man, and now, they're just taking homes, because they can, for other private entities to use.
Pilgrims would be smacking us upside the head with those big funny shaped hats that they used to wear if they saw the direction that we were headed in. They fled their oppressive government in favor of sailing dangerous waters across a vastly largely unknown ocean in hopes of finding a new land and then not being killed by the American Indians. I mean, for all they knew, they've sailed around forever just to get the hell away from an oppressive government and then to be eaten by, you know, a lion or a tiger or a bear.
They came here in the hope that they could survive and then have something. That something was called freedom.
We are stomping all over the pilgrims this holiday, and everything they risked. It doesn't seem to matter.
Do you know the line I started at the beginning of the program? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You know that originally wasn't life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It was originally life, liberty and property.
Do you know why it of changed? Thomas Jefferson wrote, Life, liberty and property, but they changed it because the founders, you know, those evil-hating, those slave masters, those people that just hated everybody -- they wanted to stop slavery and so they said we have to lose the word
property because the South will say it's in the Declaration of Independence, and it must always remain there because we have slave owners. We owned people.
Right, well, you're losing now property. It's not about the slaves. It's about property. Life, liberty and property.
Let me show you how far we've come. The new basketball arena, where they're planning on building, because of blight, we just tear down those homes.
I already showed you the blight in New London they had to tear down, but here in New York, there was another area that was filled and riddled with blight. And the wealthiest man in New York at the time, he was the George Soros, his name was John D. Rockefeller. He just lived a few blocks from the blight and he wanted that blight out of his neighborhood.
Well, he originally was going to build a giant opera house, but then he got into a squabble with them and he decided to build some other buildings.
Let me show you some things that nobody ever looks at. Do we have the full screen of the buildings? It's 30 Rockefeller Plaza. 30 Rockefeller Plaza, you always see these pictures of 30 Rock, but they are giant, giant buildings. This is 30 Rock, NBC Building, OK? And this is a multi-block, Radio City Music Hall is over here, Simon Schuster Building is over here, across the street is part of the Rockefeller Plaza, behind is the ice rink.
But there is something that really bothered me when I was walking to work with Rockefeller Plaza, because this is a streamline icon. This is a building that everybody has seen. This was the quintessential America set of buildings.
But then there's this building and this building. This is -- oh, I don't even know -- Victorian. They just stuck out. I didn't understand. Why would you have those two buildings there in this multi-block project?
Bring up the picture of the construction site back in the 1930s when they were building this. Can you do that?
Here it comes. Here are the two buildings. Why were they there? That's weird. Let me show you this.
Here is 30 Rock. It comes down like this. And here's these two little strange buildings. Why?
Well, they were held by two different peoples. One of these buildings -- I think it was this one -- was actually owned by a guy who was just holding Rockefeller hostage. I mean, he was -- I mean, he was asking for a bazillion dollars and, you know, Rockefeller was, like, that's ridiculous.
But this building was actually owned by a family, it was an Irish bar (ph), been in the family for a long time. They had come to America and they wanted to run their own business and they wanted to run a bar. Well, prohibition was about to end and they knew this was going to be a great location. They weren't going to sell.
The most powerful man in the country in a blighted community could not take the property from these two people. This guy, he said, I'm not paying that price. This guy, no matter what he tried, the most powerful man in the world, could not take this property.
Thirty Rockefeller Plaza, and all of Rockefeller Plaza was supposed to be a monument, a monument to America, and American ingenuity and the future of America. And I -- I tell you, it is. That's why these two oddly Victorian-style buildings in the art deco streamlined masterpiece of Rockefeller Plaza stand there. It is a testament to life, liberty and property.
Let me show you again New London. As much as -- as much as Rockefeller Plaza is a testament of past in America, this is a testament to the America that we are building today.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: I can't -- maybe it's just me, but I cannot believe we're here on Thanksgiving weekend. My wife said to me last weekend, I think we should just buy a tree, you know, this weekend and set it up. And I'm thinking, what? It could have been March, as far as I was concerned, time has just flown by.
As you're gathering with your friends and relatives, I would ask that you would -- I would ask that you would talk to your family and just watch your family, and ask yourself what really matters. We need to use this holiday season as time to renew ourselves.
What matters? You know, we were just talking about life, liberty and property -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's not about property. It's about rights.
It's not about -- really, I mean, the thing that matters is it your new car that's parked in the garage? Is it -- s it the fact that you've always given your kids or you have the best brand designer clothes stuffed in your closet? Is it imported custom made furniture fit into the house?
If you're like me, you are quickly coming to a place to where you realize what's going on, you realize what's on the line, and you're willing to lose every material possession you own. It doesn't matter. What matters are our loved ones, our children, and the freedoms that are still intact. We still have everything. Material stuff is just that -- stuff.
I don't fear the future and I don't -- I just want somebody to tell me the truth, and I want somebody to recognize in Washington what America really is. It's not stuff. It's an idea, an ideal.
It's the individual, but it's more than that. It's each of us with our families, our family values. It's a set of guiding principles by which we have lived, and which we live our lives.
And when we disconnect from those principles, well, then, the country becomes a reflection of us. We must reconnect with those principles that our fathers and their fathers lived their lives for for the past 233 years.
You know, everything is too-big-to-fail, but nobody talks about the little guy. Nobody talks about the individual.
And let me ask you this question -- please ponder this over the holiday season. Heaven forbid anything happens, God help us if al Qaeda would come -- but imagine if somebody could succeed in blowing up any of our great American icons. If they destroyed all of Washington -- let's just pretend that we would be as lucky as we were with the World Trade Center and everybody was gone or most people were gone -- and they destroyed the Washington Monument and everything else, all of our enduring symbols, all the monuments we've always treasured, would it matter? I don't think so.
The monuments are meaningless. The monuments are there to remind us who we are. But we have forgotten. We have become about the structure.
We are the people that defeated the most powerful empire on earth as a group of ragtag farming colonists. We were the people that explored, we mapped. We tamed the West. We crossed the mountains in wagons.
We stunned the world with technical marvels, defeated the Nazis, we defeated the communists. We walked on the moon. Nobody else has ever done that.
We are Americans, rich or poor, we have always believed in the rugged individualism and self-actualization. We are not the people that I think the people in Washington think we are. We are not fearful people. We are not people to give in or give up. We're not about to give in to some new whiny mentality where oh, somebody help me. That's not who we are.
The only one that is too-big-to-fail is you. And the only one that will -- the only one that will create your failure is you.
The only way the United States government or the United States of America, or we fail as a collective, is if we fail as individuals. And the only way that guarantees that we as individuals will fail is to depend on the government to prop us up. That is just not who we are.
And for me, I am thankful for that.
Right now, in America, there are a lot of people that have been thinking about, Oh, jeez, I've been sitting in traffic all day, or, Do we have enough turkey to serve, or, Oh, jeez, your mother is coming tomorrow, whatever it is -- but I would like to share some thoughts about what we should really be thinking about this Thanksgiving and the story of the first Thanksgiving. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)(NEWS BREAK)
BECK: Well, hello and welcome back. I would like to be a little politically incorrect, but then you can take four days off and forget about me and how offensive I am. But I want to talk to you a little bit about Thanksgiving.
What do you have planned? If you're like most Americans, you'll just all be watching football, and we'll stuff ourselves with too much food. And then, you know, one of us - and that will be me -you know, undo my belt a little bit and just think, I'm going to sit on the couch.
That's the way most of us have celebrated Thanksgiving for years. When we give any thought to the meaning of Thanksgiving, it is usually just real quick. It is the origins and we think of the pilgrims eating turkey with the Indians but that really isn't the true story of the original Thanksgiving in America.
I have read a great book recently and I urge to you get it. It's Bruce Feiler's book, America's Prophet. It is all about the role that Moses played in America. Actually, when you talk about Thanksgiving - Thanksgiving began on Clark's Island. It is about 20 miles from Plymouth Rock.
During the first days in the new world with the pilgrims, they believed that they were going to build a new Promised Land. It was on a stormy Friday evening in 1620. A band of nine pilgrims, half a day from their families - you know, they had to sail away on this little boat. And they were a half a day away from the Mayflower.
They were scouting the Massachusetts coastline for a suitable place to settle. Well, it was the morning, and they barely escaped with a skirmish with the Indians and now they were scared. They were lost. They were out of food. Their oars were broken. They had washed up on a shore.
It nearly overturned in this heavy storm. Well, they made it back to shore, but they only made it on what is really almost - it's a little island but almost a sandbar. The next morning, they drive their sails in search for food.
But they discovered that it was the Sabbath now, and rather than sailing back to their families, they spent the rest of the day resting, worshiping, and giving thanks for their deliverance. Even though shipwrecked, lost, under siege, hungry, their families were away, they gave thanks. They honored the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
They gave thanks, thanks for being delivered from the hands of the Indians, from the storms, from the tyranny of the king. That was America's first true Thanksgiving. The pilgrims were so devoutly religious that everything they had done for the past two decades had been to prepare themselves to fulfill their dream of creating God's new Israel.
They wanted to live a new covenant. When they embarked for the new world, William Bradford proclaimed their mission was as vital as that of Moses when the Israelites - when they went out of Egypt.
As I look at the problems of our day, one of the things I look back to is the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, the religious sensibilities of those who wrote it. You know, we have this wall of separation of church and state.
That is not what the colonists who solidly cemented those states wrote in their founding documents. If you look at Article 2, it reads in part, and remember, this is Massachusetts, It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society publicly and at stated seasons to worship the Supreme Being, the Great Creator and preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested or restrained in his person, liberty or estate for worshiping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience.
This is Massachusetts. Today, in that same state, you would be boiled in your own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through your heart just for thinking such thoughts and God forbid you bring a Christmas cookie for the other kids at school. That's how far off course we have drifted.
But, let me show you something. We really are - you know, I read a great line the other day that said it is the duty - it is the duty of every person to remember that each person still, every day, is part of the group that left Egypt. We left Egypt. We left a ruler. We took and left the Pharaoh and we went out. This exodus is freedom.
That's what America is all about. That's what every generation should be about, making sure that you leave the tyrant and you are free. But everybody focuses on this part and not enough on what happened at the mountain, because this is where things really shook apart.
People were willing to go back to Egypt. We should go back to Egypt. We had it better, because we were wandering around in the desert. But this is the important part, because this is where God said, you know, there's 10 things, if you just do 10 things, you'll be free, and you will be in the land of milk and honey. Just 10 things. Just do these things.
You know, I find it very interesting that so many people want to take these 10 things out. Boy, we can't even talk about those 10 things, because they're just crazy, those 10 things. No, no, no. We try to erase that, and all we're left with then is Egypt.
But let me show you something. Tiffany, can you get me what's on the top of the - can you put on the prompter what is on the top of - this is the Washington monument. This is the Washington monument. Just like in Egypt. Isn't that strange?
There's something here at the top of the Washington monument that I don't even know if most people even know. See, we were founded on principles, principles that were imbedded everywhere, everywhere. What is it, Tiffany? It's actually printed right here, Praise be to God, inscribed at the top of the Washington monument.
Nobody can even see that. It wasn't for people to see. There's no building higher. You cannot build higher than this monument, which, strangely, is Egyptian. A Bible was placed in the cornerstone with a lot of other things. But you will also see the Jefferson Memorial. Have you read the words there? The Lincoln Memorial. Read the words of our founders.
Do you know what the first seal of the United States was supposed to be? The first seal of the United States, the great seal of the United States - this is what Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin wanted it to be.
They wanted it to be a pillar of fire, a chariot with the Pharaoh, the chosen people with the split waters and Moses with the 10 commandments. That was the seal that they wanted.
Progressives have built up this wall of separation between church and state and it's nonsense. It is not what we were founded on. We were found on 10 little safety tips that nobody can even put in any public building anymore or dare we utter them.
Let's take down that fictional wall. It never existed. It was to protect the churches. Save the republic. Let us be grateful to God. Let us be grateful for the incredible blessings that he has poured out on each and -
I remind you one more time, the poorest among us, if you are living in this land, even if you're about to lose your job and your house, you are still living at the greatest time in the greatest country with the greatest blessings of any time in the history of all mankind.