Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine

Glenn Beck is at the forefront of the Republican purity purge. He's constantly denouncing this or that GOP politician for deviations from his ideological line. Recently, he extended this into the past, attacking Teddy Roosevelt as a RINO because he once made an inoccuous comment about being in favor of wealth as long as it was acquired by means that weren't socially destructive (apparently Beck is in favor of socially destructive behaviour as long as it produces wealth for someone).

And yet, he's done the reverse here: he's tried to claim an icon of the Left as being on HIS side. Tom Paine, whose objection to onerous taxes was a) that the burden fell too heavily on the poor (so he proposed hiking taxes on the rich, including a top land tax of 100%) and b) that it was spent on court placeholders and the war machine instead of being used to help the unfortunate ("defense", meaning offense, is the one area Beck WOULDN'T cut if he were in power). Paine practically _invented_ the redistributive purpose which is precisely what Beck and his ilk hate so much about tax.

The Beckbots lap this stuff up. They've never read any Tom Paine: they've been told about Common Sense by someone who didn't understand it, and they don't know that he wrote anything else. Even the First Part of The Rights of Man would probably be too egalitarian for them; if they ever read Part Two (OMG socialism!), or The Age of Reason (ZOMG atheism!), let alone Agrarian Justice (OMFG communism!), their heads would explode. One might think that, once Mr Beck had told them the name, they'd at least look it up on Wikipedia. Do they have no curiosity at all? Are they actively afraid of learning anything?

The Right can't have Thomas Paine, Mr Beck. You might as well try to claim Karl Marx.

Thanks for your efforts to point this nation back to the law of the Constitution. Have priced copies of the Constitution from the Cato Institute, so I can send copies to my classmates from Arlington High School (Class of '56) who still live on the left coast in Washington state. God bless you!

If you are an American who feels in your gut that something is wrong in our country, but you can't quite put your finger on it, and you want to make sense out of your 'gut feelings', then this book is where to start your journey of discovery. It's easy to read, easy to understand, written using layman's terms, and has a listing of sources, should you choose to follow-up on anything contained within it's pages. This book is non-partisan, it was written for all Americans, no matter their political inclination.

I agree with the basic libertarian message of this book and I do enjoy the current information he provides on how politicians are basically ruining our nation with their pork spending and SELF entitlement programs. But Revolution by Ron Paul achieves the same in a much more sophisticated and aggressive manner.

I do believe that Beck's pacifist spin at the beginning of the book is also a bit too much (he doesn't need to convince everyone about his good intentions, since ANY book can theoretical incite violence and you would have a right to write it anyway in a 'free country').

If we should see it as a manifesto that somehow compares to the original one from Thomas Paine (Beck's laudable intention), it indeed falls a short (which I bet that he honestly can admit).

Nonetheless, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with the intention of the book, and if you are new to political thought and are just finding out that all governments are sleazy (wow if you do!), then this work is for you. If you are, on the other hand, a seasoned student of political theory, and have also a copy of Revolution by Ron Paul (which is also a very basic book but much better), then you can skip Beck and still fight for the same principles (with a bit more information).

In the end, I do hope this book continues on the top, since the basic ideals of Beck are better than the ones any politicians advocates in Washington.

In his new book, "Glenn Beck's Common Sense, The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine, by Glenn Beck with Joseph Kerry, Mr. Beck chooses as a rallying cry the thoughts of some or our greatest founding fathers and the best political thinkers of all time -- at least with regard to the appropriate governance of a republic. If you are alive in the US today the rallying cry that our Government has failed us is an easy criticism to make. Taking to the streets as interested citizens and banding together for the common good as political advocates for change should resonate with everyone.

Yet Beck doesn't write for everyone though he could have. Take for example his opening line, "I think I know who you are". He goes on to list about 32 characteristics of a person in the general population who is upset and would like to see political change. I counted about 32 characteristics of this person and found I have only eight. That's about 25% percent. So Mr. Beck doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does. That's a problem, but not a big problem, because one my characteristics, one he does not mention, is the ability to hold, as F. Scott Fitzgerald has said, "...two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." So I continued to read. Whereas he did not win me at hello, and he lost me occasionally at places where, for instance, he says in the context that our Social Security and Medicare obligations are upside down that, "...you many want to rethink your current family situation and have more kids." A stultifying statement if he seriously believes it. Yet I read on.

His agenda, tired and well trod, includes bashing any claim that climate change is actually occurring , standing up for our right to own handguns, and railing against the cancer, as he call it, of progressivism. Yet somehow, deep within the bowels of the book, not too deep it's only about a hundred pages long, and I can tell you specifically, "Chapter IV, the Perks and Privileges of the Political Class", he hits pay dirt. He's got about 15 pages of money here, no pun intended.

So in a book where he's got me pegged about 25% he's got a chapter with 100% of what I think. In addition he's got it right with regard to our two political parties not giving us sufficient options to truly be governed by ourselves. His call for change here is highly appropriate. But since all of these book reviews are more about politics and less about the particular book, I will close with a counter quote to his call to revolution, even a revolution of ideas, "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" as a chilling reminder of what happens when we cannot reach a solution. The source of this quote is left to the reader.