Comments on: Glenn Beck’s Anti-Wilson Crusade

By: Vermontah

Vermontah — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:03:27 +0000

Beck is nuts. He needs to have a note pinned to his jacket and taken away

By: Must-Reads of the Week: Diabolical Republicans, Strategic Patience, Weiner, China, New York City, -20 Questions, & Glenn Beck’s Obsession With Woodrow Wilson - 2parse

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:44:27 +0000

[...] Beck’s Woodrow Wilson Obsession. David Frum puzzles on why Glenn Beck focuses so much on Woodrow Wilson as the beginning point of all things progressive and source of evils in the modern world. There are so many more logical choices, more progressive [...]

By: Gramps

Gramps — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:33:06 +0000

DFL // Apr 15, 2010 at 5:18 pm wrote: Jackson was certainly a small-government conservative, at least for American citizens. Indians were not American citizens in the early 19th Century. They were foreign nations to be conquered so that America could grow.

Jackson had his glaring faults…one, obviously was his attitude toward Native American’s…! I have no truck with him in that respect. I’m aware most can’t relate to his adventurous, wild side as a soldier…that’s the leadership detail that intrigues my thought…with all due regard for his unfortunate prejudices.

By: Gramps

Gramps — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:58:34 +0000

Now I know Independentand Western Academic and others’, may not appreciate Olde Hickory’s bad arse attitude…

However, as an olde soldier I appreciate and have a rather hardy, enthusiastic, lusty, affinity, for the discontinuity, mayhem and just his; plain, sorry, bad arse, attitude on general principles…!
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/jackson.html

Some wag once said, he…jumped thru a closed window in the White House…to win a bet?

That’s truly an exclamation point…!
HOOOAAH…!

By: DFL

DFL — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:18:34 +0000

Jackson was certainly a small-government conservative, at least for American citizens. Indians were not American citizens in the early 19th Century. They were foreign nations to be conquered so that America could grow.

By: CAPryde

CAPryde — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:39:42 +0000

I’m assuming that you just don’t understand, DFL, but I’m going to extend you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you got so worked up by the sight of disagreement that you missed the point. I’ll quote myself one last time before letting it go:

“the author should feel free to explain how Jackson’s policies square with a conservative interpretation of government that abhors excessive power in the executive, celebrates checks and balances in the government, and holds the highest respect for the rights of individuals and believes that government should not restrict their freedoms.”

Bizarre screeds about how “might makes right” and random taunting do not qualify as an explanation and application of long-agreed-upon conservative principles apply in this situation. Either you have a real point, or you don’t.

By: Oskar

Oskar — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:43:40 +0000

My paternal grandfather’s kid brother took a whiff of gas in his lungs as a doughboy in Meester Veelson’s War To Make The World Safe For J.P. Morgan’s Loans.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:59:17 +0000

DFL:

World history is the story of invasions of one people taking the lands of another by force.

Absolutely. Look at a political map of the countries of the world. Except for natural boundaries like the English Channel or the Korea Strait or the oceans, nearly every border was set by conquest and war . We humans love to fight.

By: Brutus1776

Brutus1776 — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:04:19 +0000

Michael Lind elucidates some key points along the history of political thought. Where he maked the epic failure is when he steps on the soap box usually occupied by Shadia Drury, Nicholas Xenos, Lyndon LaRouche and countless others in an effort to blow the whistle on “Straussians”. He should have continued his piece along the lines that points out the mischaracterizations of the past, the criticisms from the West Coast and where they are right, and perhaps mentioned names of the countless scholars from all over the country (and his pot-shots at U of Dallas is just stupid, considering the Claremonters had it out with UofD’s very own Mel Bradford some years back, and reeks of a T-sip’s [longhorn] jealousy:). So the point of his article goes from “where the Right is wrong about the Left and the past” to “there is a secretive Straussian network of these highly erudite professors re-shaping history”. Really? I would LOVE to see Michael Lind go toe-to-toe with Matthew Spalding, Tom West, Paul Rahe, the ‘Godfather’ of the West Harry Jaffa, or even Jonah Goldberg which he attacks and places on the level with Glen Beck. Furthermore, but even dragging this whole “Straussian” label through the mud, what does Lind (and indirectly, yourself Mr. Frum) hope to do to those other self described “Straussians” like Pierre Manent, Harvey Mansfield, Walter Berns, or countless others? I am saddened that reputations of highly regarded PhDs in the fields of Political Science, Philosophy and Classics were thrown under the bus as snake-oil salesmen for the masses by two lawyers.

By: Independent

Independent — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:56:22 +0000

Western Academic, like many here, bring the hammer to the nail’s head by saying: “(Frum’s) distaste for Beck seems to cloud (his) judgment in regard to the actual, substantive philosophical disagreements between Wilson (and Progressivism generally) and the principles of the Founding.”

I’d state it a tad differently.

It isn’t that Frum has distaste for Beck –he hates him because it’s convenient for Frum to remind his new-found farLeft friends, he’s one of their gangbangers.

Frum has to continue his quest of appeasing FarLeft pundits because his colleagues and peers have turned their collective back to Frum… he’s a pariah, an outcast, a disloyal, dishonored gun4hire for the MSM elite and liberals. He’s willingly made himself the tool and fool of the Left and Democrats because that’s the only place he could gain some limelight and attention –by speaking outlandishly, outrageously and seemingly-out-of-school from the mainstream GOP and conservative thought. He thinks guys like Larry King, Steve Colbert, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Joy Behar and the ladies on The View love him for it –when they truly don’t, they’re just using him as a counterweight to the rise in power and resurgence of the GOP and conservatives.

So now he’s reduced to bashing Beck and Bush, pounding Palin, chiding Cheney, trying hard to gut Gingrich, go rip on the GOP, trashing the Tea Party and anything else that will help him “sell himself” as the new Tool and Fool of the farLeft.

Mind you, Frum is not a foil for the farLeft –he’s a Fool and Tool of the farLeft. He readily drinks their Kool Aid and they celebrate, encourage him for the venture –and his willing embrace of career suicide. Just like they did Scottie McClellan –until he figured out being a tool is being a fool.

DavidF will get there, too. He’ll come to conclude –probably sitting alone in some vacant airport hallway– that his life is far more shallow now, after his defection and supreme act of betrayal, than the vain glories gained in the limelight of the Left.

Oh the other hand, any guy who thinks Andrew Sullivan is a role model (like DavidF does) may never be able to come the the right conclusion about his betrayal.