Best of the Program with Professor Michael Rectenwald | 9/19/18

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Hi, everybody.

Welcome to the podcast.

Stu is here.

So good to have you.

We're here in beautiful, sunny Los Angeles, California.

Never want to leave until later on.

I could stay here until maybe Thursday night.

It's just, it's one of those forever places.

Anyway,

today's podcast is a lot of fun.

We start with

the, I think, the controversy that we've all been waiting to have, but it's just been so politically oppressive that we haven't been able to speak our mind and ask the question, Burt and Ernie, are they gay or what?

Vitally important to our future

to sort that one out.

You would not believe the conversation on social media yesterday about Burt and Ernie.

It is, we've gone insane.

They're puppets made of felt.

They have glue on eyes.

We also also have as close to a real answer to that question as is humanly possible with felt puppets.

Yes, we do.

And that is in the podcast today.

Also, we are going to cover a little bit of Kavanaugh, and we look at it from the eyes of Clarence Thomas and what he said when he was being confirmed in 1991.

Yes, and we'll also get into the idea of is there a way we can look at our addiction to outrage and quantify it from the perspective of looking at how we see the other side and how we see ourselves.

Yes.

And that you kind of have a section of this in the book, which is out now if you want to pick it up at bookstores or Amazon.

But it is a it's it's it's weird because you answer these questions and you know you're guilty of some of them.

I know, at least I was.

I was.

Yeah, you look at the other side and you're like, okay, well, they are definitely doing this.

Which kind of goes to a little bit more of your outrage.

But we break down in today's podcast the three different kinds of outrage or the three tactics of those who are engaged in this peddling of outrage and what it does to them.

It's fascinating.

When you hear it, you will absolutely say, oh, yep, that's true.

That's absolutely true.

All on today's podcast.

You're listening to

the best of the Glenbeck program.

It's Wednesday September 19th Glenn Beck

Did you see Frank Oz?

Did you see what Frank Oz what here's Frank?

He's Yoda.

Okay, Frank Oz is Yoda.

He created the character.

He voiced the character.

He's Yoda.

He also a well-known pansexual, by the way.

Right.

He also is the creator of, you know,

the Eagle.

What's that, the Eagle, Burt the Eagle, or whatever he is,

Burton Ernie,

Animal.

I think he did Miss Piggy.

Okay.

He's been there since the beginning.

So he writes about the writer Saltzman.

He tweets this yesterday.

It seems Mr.

Mark Saltzman was asked if Burt and Ernie are gay.

It's fine that he feels they are.

They're not, of course, but why the question?

Does it really matter?

Why the need to define people only as gay?

There's so much more to being a human being than just straightness or gayness.

Oh my gosh.

We have to destroy Frank Oz now.

Did you hear what he just said?

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, so Tom writes in.

Why are they not gay?

I'm not arguing, I'm just wondering.

Why are they not gay?

Well, there's a couple reasons.

They're puppets, for one.

Second,

because they're not.

They're just not.

I don't know.

Why are you gay?

He said, because I created Bert.

I know what and who he is.

Then somebody else chimes in.

You may have created him, but you don't seem to to realize or appreciate what he meant to thousands of little boys growing up.

You digging your heels in

with

what seems like disgust is disappointing.

Frank writes, how odd you see my feelings as disgust.

If your feelings are being perceived as disgust, it's because you're so adamant that they're not gay.

He's the creator of of them.

It's him.

He's the one.

He knows.

He created them as best friends who live together.

It's the odd couple.

Was the odd couple...

Was that a gay couple?

Do you remember the show at all?

The Neil Simon, you know, Oscar Madison and

Felix Unger?

Yeah, and they just brought it back, too.

It was all at least.

It was a bad insult, yeah.

So

they're not gay.

They live together.

That's what those two are

reminiscent of.

Two people that don't agree, that live together.

What a concept.

Maybe we should stop listening and worrying about if they were gay and let's just concentrate on, wait a minute, they were created for what?

To show that two people who disagree with each other, who aren't like one another,

can live side by side.

No, Frank, you're wrong, and I need to shut you up.

Boy, did you miss the point of Burt and Ernie?

So he goes on.

He writes,

so Ben writes and says,

Representation matters, Frank.

Frank says, yes, it does, when it's an honest representation.

What would you make the representation of these two characters as gay, honest?

Do we need to see them bang?

If a mother tells me her son's roommate is actually his partner, I don't say that's not an honest representation.

Whew

Frank says, Well, okay, it really doesn't matter.

What matters is that that people see positive views of themselves and others in Burton Ernie.

Wait, but isn't it dishonest to call them just brothers or friends?

I thought this was about honesty.

Oh my gosh.

It's important for characters to be explicitly declared queer, because the mainstream will quote them as straight by default.

Agreed, Frank writes, when a character is created to be queer, it is important that the character be known as such.

It's also important when a character who was not created queer to be accepted as such.

Oh my gosh.

I

won out.

I won out.

I won out.

I won out.

I won out.

I won out.

Okay, so here's the thing.

So I'm...

I'm,

you know, just writing down some thoughts.

And I think about all of the joy that Sesame Street has brought all of us and brought me in particular.

I used to love watching the Muppets, sometimes I still do.

And I started thinking about all of the joy of Frank Oz, and then I started to think of,

you know, Jim Henson.

And then I remembered, you know, Kermit the Frog.

And I was like, oh man, I love Kermit the Frog.

He is so great,

right?

Then I started thinking about the rainbow connection.

And I wanted to look up, I wanted to play this song and

listen to the words.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side?

Because rainbows are vision, but only illusions.

And rainbows have nothing to hide.

Right.

So we've been told.

And some choose to believe it.

But I know they're wrong.

Just wait and see.

Someday we'll find it.

The rainbow connection.

The lovers,

the dreamers, and me.

Okay.

Okay, so, all right, okay, so, all right, that made me happy.

And I thought, wow, there's kind of a lesson to be learned there.

I should have stopped there.

I should have stopped there.

But instead, because I have itunes music, I noticed that there's other people who have sung the Rainbow Connection.

For instance, other people, you mean the first person?

The first one was a frog, right?

So this would be the first.

I mean, if you want to be technical, it was a puppet.

And it was Jim Henson that sang the song.

That seems like.

And then I thought, oh, this might be nice to hear.

I didn't know Sarah McLaughlin did it.

It doesn't even sound like her, does it?

No.

And I'm thinking to myself, okay,

that's not good.

Gwen Stefani did a

rainbow connection

as well, and she kind of sounds a little something like this.

rainbows and what's up on the other

side?

Okay, I thought no, no, I can't handle it.

Oh, wait a minute.

Oh, the carpenters did a

lot of money.

Oh, boy.

Why are there so

come on?

Okay, how about Kenny Loggins

did

Rainbow Connection?

You go to Kenny Loggins.

You can go to

Ben Martin.

You can go...

Here's my...

This is...

We don't need any more versions of this song.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No.

You need this one.

This is...

This one's just...

Why are there so many

Willie Nelson?

Okay, so

I just want you to know

there are many things to be outraged by.

Many things to be outraged by.

You could be outraged that they are straight instead of gay.

But then

there are real reasons to be outraged.

The rainbow connection should only be sung in the voice of Kermit the Frog.

Period.

No one else should do it.

And I am taking a very hard stand on that.

So that's a legitimate outrage.

That one is legitimate.

You talk about in the book that there are some things that you should be outraged about.

Yes.

And you're identifying.

Yes.

Forget about the Supreme Court.

Okay.

Forget about the Supreme Court.

Forget about what that means for justice, for our children going forward.

Forget about that.

And Burton Ernie being gay?

No.

The outrage that we should be concentrating on is the rainbow connection.

There's only one version, and there should always remain only one version.

The best of the Glenbeck program.

We are doing a Glenbeck podcast this weekend.

It's an extra.

If you subscribe to the Glenbeck radio show and the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, on the weekend, and in fact, this weekend or next weekend, you're going to be getting two of these.

You get an extra show.

So on Saturday, you will receive the Glenn Beck podcast, which this week is an interview with a guy that most people have not heard of.

And I think he is fascinating.

I brought him in because I wasn't sure who he was.

I started reading his book, Springtime for Snowflakes.

And he was a, he's a former, what he describes as a libertarian communist.

In the interview, I asked him, what the hell?

How does that work?

And he had a really quite interesting answer.

But he has worked in the university system his whole life, and he has been part of deconstruction, and he knows the postmodern movement inside and out.

He has been part of the radical Marxist left until recently.

And he talks a little bit about

what happened to him and why he woke up.

Let me give you cut one here.

He begins to wake up.

Yeah, it was a Twitter.

I'm sorry, it was a Facebook post that I made.

It was a joke.

There was a student at the University of Michigan who posted, when asked by the university or given the right to

use any pronoun he wanted and to enter it into the system under his profile, chose, quote, His Majesty.

I thought it was hilarious.

And so I posted, I simply posted a link to that article, having, you know, thousands of leftist friends, a lot of trans friends at that time.

And the

vitriol, the outrage, the hysteria was just unbelievable.

Why?

They called me everything from a transphobe to

committing discursive violence.

A phrase I will explain later.

Yes, please.

of treason,

you know, on and on and on, just for posting a link to an article with no comment and I said this is this is unbelievable and then I realized that everybody was everybody was kowtowing to this kind of ideological pressure everybody I knew they were all careful not to say something that would offend this crowd

this trans crowd and this social justice crowd and they were scary

so he goes on then to

start his his own Twitter handle and it was what was it deplorable NYU professor professor now here's a guy who is a published communist he has written white papers widely distributed for communists he's respected by the left and everybody else he decides okay this is getting out of hand and he decides to start writing Twitter posts here's what happened next I had an NYU student newspaper reporter contact me and said, you know, know, these tweets are really something else.

Are you really an NYU professor?

This was through a direct message, and I said, yes.

And so she asked me if I would sit down for an interview, and I said, yes.

I wasn't sure I would go on the record, but I would talk to her.

So we did that.

And after I was done talking to her, I thought, there's really nothing, what I've said here needs to be said.

And I actually want to put my name on it, frankly.

Because I think

there's nothing objectionable in some, you know, there's nothing fundamentally abhorrent or deplorable about about it.

It's just another viewpoint, and it's a vantage point I think needs to be aired.

And

that went in the paper.

She took a picture of me laughing, and that made the heresy, you know, somewhat

redoubled.

And then all hell broke loose within my university.

You were called in the middle of a class, were you not?

I was called out in the middle of the class by the dean and said, you know, can you come over to see me?

And I said, sure.

And I've kind of had an idea what it was about.

Although I was saying that this really is happening.

I'm being called in for my political views.

And so I go over and

he comes up really close to me, about pulls me into the office.

I come into the office.

He pulls me real close with by a handshake, you know, Michael, I want you to know this has nothing to do with your Twitter account or of the publicity you're getting.

I said, oh.

And sure, sure.

And then he said, just after that.

Wait, hang on, before this.

Yeah.

You are a well-liked professor.

Well-liked.

I was well-liked.

Students love me.

My student evaluations are very high.

I mean, I have done everything you're supposed to do.

You were liked by your peers up until this time.

Most of my colleagues liked me.

Okay.

There were a few that didn't.

That's fine.

It's always going to happen.

And I had done everything that an academic is supposed to do, published widely,

committee work, all that stuff.

I was a good citizen.

Okay.

I said the wrong thing.

And then he said, no, have a seat.

And if you don't mind, I would like the head of human resources to join us.

Uh-oh.

But this has nothing to do with what you say.

We just need to have a talk.

Turns out that

he is presented with a choice.

We're very concerned about you.

We think these tweets, and this has nothing to do with the tweets, but we think these tweets are a cry for help.

And your co-workers are beginning to be concerned about your mental health.

So

we could either deal with this publicly and fire you, or you could just take a medical leave of absence.

So basically,

agree with them that he's going crazy.

Here he is on why it was important to talk about this.

Cut three.

I said this from the beginning when Trump got into office or before he got into office even.

Oh, I guess it was after, when he founded the resistance.

I said the resistance would be far worse than Trump.

And I think that's been the case.

I mean, the resistance is really unhinged, and

it's fueled by all kinds of

ideological error, I think.

And it's fueled by a conviction, an absolute conviction of total moral certainty.

And that's what's scary.

When people believe they're absolutely morally superior and certain,

and they're absolutely right, they become like Antifa.

Well,

it is why totalitarianism always ends in massive death.

Bloodshed.

Because if

you get to a point, I've asked this question from the left and the right.

Just let's imagine tomorrow you have your way and everybody you've elected is in and all of that, you still have 50% of the country that doesn't agree with you.

That's right.

What are you going to do with them?

Well, even, you know, this is, most Marxists won't admit this, but Marx himself said you have to kill them.

There has to be a terror.

And they got this idea of the terror from, of course, the French Revolution and the aftermath.

You know, they said that that is the model.

After a revolution, you must go on a terror spree.

You must get rid of ideological opponents and you must get rid of the bourgeoisie if they cling to their bourgeoisie character.

Otherwise, you know, if they're willing to convert, then fine.

But people are killed for having the wrong thoughts.

That's basically what it comes down to.

Now, this is a guy who claimed just a few years ago to be a communist.

And

you will understand it in this conversation that we have with him this weekend.

His communism was

more theoretical, I think.

It was more, you know, next time we can do it right.

You know, that's what you always hear.

Well, they did it wrong.

Next time we'll do it right.

But so it was theoretical.

He believes in, you know, sharing and all of this stuff, the utopian stuff.

It's all good.

It's all good.

But when he started to see how people are being shut down, how you're being isolated, how you're being chased out of the square, how you're being fired, what names you're being called, he realized they're going to kill.

This is the way communism always begins.

It starts nice, and then it goes wrong.

And he started to see the very first

signs of this going wrong.

It's no longer, hey, you know, we should be nice to each other.

We shouldn't, we should say handy capable instead of handicapped because it makes people feel good.

Now it is

shove.

And the next step is shoot.

If you don't do it, they're going to, they're shoving people now.

You will do this.

And we'll shove you into that position.

And if not, we'll banish you from society.

Well, the only thing left after that is shoot.

And he saw that happening.

And I asked him, you know, these are all intelligent people.

How do these intelligent people start using these postmodern tactics?

Here's what he told me.

One of the main things that has been inaugurated by the left is cultural relativism.

And cultural relativism also brings with it a more relativism.

But the main thing about cultural relativism is that you can't from

your culture, you're not allowed to criticize people of another culture because

you're suggesting that your culture is better than theirs.

And that's...

So when I meet, and this actually happened, I met, I asked for a meeting with people of GLAAD.

This is when the height of

Ahmadinejad throwing people off the building, you know, gay people off the building, torturing them, killing them.

Russia is starting to take driver's license away and absconding people at night, and they're never seen again because they're homosexual.

You can say, well, their culture is different, so I can't comment.

But we all know

killing someone because they're homosexual is a no-go zone.

How come they won't make that step?

Well, there's another aspect to it, not just the relativism.

The other thing is the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

And

they are the enemy of

Western civilization.

All right.

So intersectionality is how many times, that's why.

Basically, how many, yeah, how many power vectors are intersecting you and subordinating you.

And does that give you the hierarchy?

Once you have more vectors, the lower you are, the higher you are.

Right.

This is why there's a race to the bottom in the oppression Olympics, as it's called, rather derogatorily.

You want to rush to the bottom because when by the time you get there, you're going to be on top.

This is a fascinating conversation, and it is

part of the message of the book that came out yesterday, Addicted to Outrage.

It is, this is an in-depth explanation

by somebody who has lived it and taught it.

And it's what gives me hope that things can change because a guy who was a published communist can come out and say, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute.

This is going off the rails right now.

And they are doing everything they can to destroy this guy.

You need to hear his voice.

You need to hear

what he can teach us because there's so much of this postmodern nonsense that our kids know.

If you send your kid to college and they're coming home, they're coming home with a different language.

They're coming home with ways and knowledge and a mission to deconstruct everything.

And if you can't speak that language, if you don't know what those words are or mean,

everything changes.

You now look outdated, you now look like old mom and dad that just don't get it.

And more importantly, I think we have to address this with our kids before we send them even to high school.

Because it's all being taught.

And they need to be aware of it and have the ammunition to fight against it before they encounter it.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

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Okay, this is the point where the Brett Kavanaugh saga becomes absolutely toxic.

The Kavanaugh situation couldn't be any more flammable as it is, yet Senator Dianne Feinstein pulls out a flamethrower.

Hey, everybody, look what I just got from Elon Musk.

It is the favorite playground of outraged junkies.

She says Republicans are trying to block an FBI investigation into the allegation of the California College professor Christine Ford that Kavanaugh has has been accused of sexually assaulting at a high school party in 1982.

Remember, her deal is we are trying to block an FBI investigation.

Now, as a 126-year veteran of the U.S.

Senate, you would think that Feinstein would know the kinds of things that the FBI can investigate.

But apparently, you'd be wrong.

Apparently, she and many of her fellow Democrats don't know.

Perhaps they forgot,

or they have such little

respect for the American people that they think, you just don't know because you're just a bunch of hayseed hicks that just don't know what the FBI does.

You hear FBI and you're like, oh, they investigate everything.

The feds do not, they're not in the habit of looking into suburban high school parties that happened in the 1980s.

Really?

Wait a minute, Cletus.

What?

To explain to America's lawmakers what the FBI does,

the Justice Department had to issue a statement.

It says, The FBI does not make any judgment about the credibility or significance of any allegation.

The purpose of a background investigation is to determine whether the nominee could pose a risk to the national security of the United States.

This allegation does not involve any potential federal crime.

So the Democrats were hoping for this epic, you know, Mueller-length investigation, risky business gate.

Smarticus will appear.

Unfortunately, they have to settle now for some testimony from Kavanaugh and Ford, which is scheduled for Monday.

That is, if Christine Ford even agrees to to show up.

Late yesterday, her lawyers submitted a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee requesting that law enforcement do a full investigation before anyone testifies.

Oh, so we could delay some more.

Democrats turned Kavanaugh's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into an embarrassing circus of sad clown activists.

Imagine what they might have up their sleeve or on their nose on Monday's testimony.

The left is already billing building this as a sequel to the 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas fiasco.

Anita Hill herself wrote in the New York Times yesterday that the committee has a chance to do better by the country than it did three decades ago.

You gotta be kidding me.

Does anybody even know the Clarence Thomas Anita Hill story anymore?

Apparently not.

But here's the good news.

If there's one thing we've learned from Hollywood, it's that sequels made 30 years after the original usually really suck.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program, and we really want to thank you for listening.

So I don't know if you've seen, but

while Maduro, the president of Venezuela,

was having dinner the other day, he solved the economic problems of Venezuela.

Now, he was out having a steak.

This steak cost him $235.

Now, that's not because of inflation.

Those are American dollars.

He paid $234 American dollars for a steak for him in a restaurant.

I think I know what you're saying.

You're saying, good for him.

Take a moment after your incredible leadership and rise from a normal, everyday bus driver to these heights of leading this incredible, glorious socialist revolution.

Reward yourself.

People are literally eating doctors, lawyers.

Wait, they're eating doctors and lawyers.

No, no.

Doctors and lawyers.

People who are very successful and wealthy are having one meal a day, and many people are eating cats, dogs.

They've already eaten the animals in the zoo, and they're down to now rats that the people are eating.

Huge amounts of people have left as well,

millions, many of them doctors and lawyers

going to other islands and becoming sex workers, right?

Hundreds of thousands, by the way, have come to the United States in this process as well.

Hundreds of thousands of

Venezuelans escaping that regime have come here.

And they've come from, they've gone all over the hemisphere, really.

And it's terrifying.

And it's so amazing to look at how far we've come so fast.

It is not that long ago that people like Sean Penn were visiting and praising

Hugo Chavez, Danny Glover,

Michael Moore, these people who were telling us that this was the future.

and that this our experiment was

failing compared to theirs.

And it was a very common conception.

I think we have a montage.

This one came from Mike, Sarah, I think, audio montage about some of the comments from Venezuela from a few years back.

Listen to some of these.

Venezuelans head to the polls this Sunday, and President Hugo Chavez is almost certain to win re-election.

He's apparently as popular at home as he is unpopular with so many people in this country.

He's made Venezuelans feel proud to be Venezuelan again.

And that is something I think that

really no other leader has ever done in that country before.

In fact, they were doing the opposite.

Here we go in Venezuela.

In 2002, we were much, if we had succeeded in Iraq, I do believe that Mr.

Chavez would have been under even more pressure.

It's the most colorful media that they're there.

You can say anything you want in Venezuela.

They have a better election process than we have.

Wolf Ugo Chavez is a thorn in the side of the U.S., but polls in Venezuela show that that's going to continue.

He is one of the most important forces we have had on this planet and I will

wish him nothing but that great strength he has shown over and over again.

I do it in love and I do it in gratitude.

My friend President Chavez made headlines when he stood before the United Nations and called President Bush the devil.

I didn't plan to call him a devil, but it came from my heart.

And if it comes from my heart, then that's because for me, it's it's true.

Well, no one else is Hugo Chavez.

There's not two Hugo Chavezes in the world, never mind in Venezuela.

Thank God.

Now, remember, there was,

remember how much they loved that whole devil thing?

They loved that.

They loved that Bush

smelled of sulfur.

Remember this?

And, you know, people were making trips down there and praising this regime and the system behind it.

That was only, you know, what, 10 years ago or less.

Some of those quotes were even more recent than that.

In fact, if you go back and you look at popular culture, you will see, as we will show you here, in the show Parks and Recreation,

there was a whole episode that

was

building

the economy of Venezuela up

and denigrating us.

The concept was, and it's a funny show, and it was a funny episode.

But the concept was the Parks and Rec Department had the Parks and Rec Department from Venezuela, their sister city, some city in Venezuela, come visit them.

And, you know, it's just one of these dumb government things.

And it was interesting to see because you saw

the streams they went down with the comedy.

They were militaristic, they were chauvinistic, they were, you know, dismissive.

But one of the big threads was how great it was in Venezuela as compared to the United States.

They couldn't believe how bad it was in the United States because Venezuela was so good.

Listen to this.

This is only from a few years ago.

This is, let's start with Venezuela Venezuela doesn't have budget issues.

Think of the state of the affairs down there right now.

This is how this was being portrayed to the American public just a few years ago.

Listen.

I'm trying to turn a giant dirt pit into a community park, but I need $35,000.

And the city doesn't have enough money in its budget.

I do not understand.

You've never had a budget shortage?

Now, listen to this Marx's philosophy.

Venezuela is blessed with massive oil reserves, massive and tremendous.

I do not believe.

The state sells the oil and keeps all the money and

we build whatever we want.

Wow.

Well,

now I do not understand.

I feel like my English was very clear.

Can I repeat?

Venezuela, Venezuela, my country, has a lot of oil.

Oil is food for cars.

The Venezuelans are very confident people.

So, again, like they've never faced a budget crisis.

They don't even understand it.

Remember, Venezuela, when we were going through a heating oil crisis, Venezuela, through the Kennedys, if you remember right, were giving the United States free oil for

poor communities in the Northeast, and it was all from Sitco.

Kennedy was doing commercials

for the Venezuelan government, basically.

Propaganda

to say how much they were helping us.

Here's another clip from Parks and Rec.

This is when the delegate comes after their town called Pawnee.

We are also sister cities with Kaesong, North Korea.

Their town is far nicer.

We haven't been here for a very long time, but what we have seen is really, from the bottom of our hearts, truly depressing.

Really, really sad stuff.

It's funny because Antonio said to me, help me turn this car around and say we're sick or something or that we lost our way.

Of course, that would be rude to you.

Alright, and this is, they actually go to visit the park.

Now, the concept of the show at the beginning is there's this big pit, dirt pit, and she wants to turn it into a park.

So she brings the Venezuelan delegation not to the dirt pit, but to a very nice park in America.

Here's that clip.

Here we are.

Take it in, boys.

This is an embarrassment to America.

I'm sorry?

You are right right to want to correct this.

Correct what?

This is the giant pig of dirt you were telling us about, is it not?

The one you want to turn into a park?

No, no.

This is already a park, and it's one of our best-loved parks.

Why are the trees so small?

They're not that small.

Besides, size doesn't matter.

Yes, it does.

Our trees are huge.

We build tunnels through them.

The parks in Baraco are far superior.

The park in my hometown, Parque de Reste, we have a monorail and we have an aquarium and

the Jaripa amphitheater is huge.

Lady Gaga played there last week.

Great.

Well, we don't have Lady Gaga and I don't think she's going to come here unless her career takes a very bad turn.

But we have something more beautiful than Lady Gaga.

Democracy.

Right.

Right.

But let's make sure that everyone knows that the Marxism and the utopia, the socialist utopia that is Venezuela, is thriving while we are not.

Until they're not, just a few short later,

a few short years later, and no one is being held

accountable for their shower of praise for Hugo Chavez and the plan.

of bringing Venezuela into the leadership of the world.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program

Where did all of this outrage come from

because

it's truly a brilliant system that has flipped this thing upside down and made the conservatives look like like the angry ones, okay?

That we're the ones that have started this outrage.

No, no, no, we're not.

Because you have to look at what kind of outrage people are expressing every day just on today's program.

We have talked about how many different stories, Stu, that are not outrageous, beginning with Bert and Ernie are gay.

And Frank Oz, the guy who designed and created Bert and Ernie, saying, no, they're not.

They're just good friends.

They are two people that I put together, that I made out of felt, I want to remind you, that are like the odd couple.

They're two people that don't agree, but it teaches kids that we can live together side by side.

Well, that's not good enough.

People were outraged yesterday when he said this.

They must be gay.

Wow.

That seems pretty worthless.

They're puppets.

Is that real outrage?

Is that coming from the left or from the right?

Well, that's coming from the left, right?

The outrage is coming from the left.

Okay.

And so, how do we respond?

Usually either laughing very hard at them

or, you know, getting a little angry at the way the world is turning into insanity.

Okay.

How effective has been laughing at them?

How effective has that been?

It feels good.

Feels good.

How effective has it been?

It doesn't change a lot of minds.

No, it doesn't change anything.

In fact, they don't care.

They don't care.

We, by us dismissing this and saying, you know, it's just a bunch of few crazies.

Look at how a few crazies have changed the world.

We just laugh and say they're pathetic.

They're ridiculous.

There's just a few of them.

And there are just just a few of them.

This is just a very powerful group of people, but it's very small.

We laughed at them.

We dismissed them.

And look where we are now.

So now we've been pushed to the wall and we get angry.

But let's look at outrage here for a second.

And this is part of the book that was released yesterday.

I urge you to pick it up for you and a friend addicted to outrage.

Let's just look at

the three different or four different kinds of outrage.

There are actually three.

It leads to the fourth.

Outrage that signals virtue.

This is chapter three.

One of the most effective ways to demonstrate one's own social value is by wearing the trappings of outrage on behalf of others, especially if the others are in a minority social group.

The earlier you are and the more loudly you demonstrate that you're outraged, that some or another group has been wronged, the more virtue you demonstrate.

Got it?

If you want to build yourself up, if you want to be popular, all you have to do is

signal virtue.

And that requires you to be the leader and the most loudless,

the most

loud voice in the room.

Next,

outrage as a shield.

Another reason why it's effective is because it acts as a shield from judgment.

If you are morally outraged, it functions as a mechanism to protect the purveyors of the outrage against any evaluation of their own actions, tactics, honesty, or morality.

Now, think of this.

Use

Brett Kavanaugh.

The people who are outraged that the Republicans could just go on

and dismiss this woman,

they are so outraged that Brett Kavanaugh might or might not have done this.

It stops

any charges of saying, wait a minute.

This is immoral what you're doing.

Don't you talk to me about morality.

I don't see you standing up for the woman.

Right?

So it acts as a shield.

If you are outraged,

the outrage excuses you from having to tell the truth or exhibiting any moral behavior.

It just opens up the runway.

Next, outrage as a weapon.

Outrage is also an exceptional weapon that can pierce the armor of nearly any foe.

It's like a bow with three magically tipped arrows, shame, guilt, and fear.

Moral outrage expressed against opponents can strike them with any one or all three of these instruments at any given time.

The instant that someone outside of your tribe slips up, says or does something that you think has the slightest chance to work to your advantage if you can paint them as insensitive, racist, politically incorrect, outdated, judgmental, insulting to a protected class or group, that person has opened up the opportunity to attack with a weapon that they cannot possibly resist.

So, look at this again.

What happened?

Signaling virtue.

Outrage one.

I cannot believe, I cannot believe Brett Kavanaugh wants to take away birth control, and he's a guy who has raped a woman.

And if you don't see this, you are a bad human being.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

He's not going to take away birth control.

Are you telling me that you're supporting the guy who you have no sympathy for this woman who has come to the table?

You have no sympathy.

You are so hard-hearted that you can't see her plight.

That is shield from moral judgment.

But it also is,

I'm going to inflict fear into you.

I'm going to drive fear deeply into you by shaming you, by guilting you, by calling you out.

So now there's two targets.

Now there is Brett Kavanaugh and you.

And you can't do anything about it because they have the arrows.

of shame, guilt, and fear.

And they have the shield.

And they have already projected themselves to the world as the knight in shining armor.

So,

first thing we have to do

before you look to dismantle it, you have to understand

what happens to the person that is doing that.

What happens to the person that is addicted to outrage in the way that I've just described?

Now, see if this doesn't fit the way you look and understand or feel about the left.

And I probably would assume that they feel this way about us.

What happens to that person?

Who are they after they've used all three of those tactics of outrage?

I'll describe that person and tell me it's not spot on the money.

So,

outrage first signals virtue.

Next, it shields that person from any moral judgment themselves, and it provides the greatest weapon that can pierce anyone who disagrees.

But here's what it does to the person

using outrage as this tool.

Listen to this.

This is page 22 of Addicted to Outrage.

By far the most destructive aspect of outrage addiction is that over time, it tends to overtake and replace the addict's identity.

They surrender the responsibility of developing a caring, rational human persona.

Hallmarks of genuine and healthy human personalities tend to be smothered below a facade of impulsive, manic, emotional responses driven by the addiction.

Rather than actual empathy for the misfortune or suffering of others, addicts respond with oversized and obnoxious levels of self-righteous indignation, always scattering blame against the alleged perpetrators of the crime, against some victims, or against humanity itself.

Rather than quiet, reasoned introspection, addicts instead make a grossly obvious, grand spectacle of their sympathy and protestations that bespeaks their inner disquiet and self-loathing.

Wrongdoers didn't simply make a mistake, they've acted in a subhuman manner and must be castigated from the tribe, fully and wholly shamed in the public square, ostracized from the group, and ultimately destroyed.

Only this victory will fill the void, the hole that has been left in the moral outrage addict, the hole left by the absence of an actual human soul.

This is why outrage addiction is so dangerous to our culture and to mankind.

It deprives human beings of genuine humanity, replacing it instead with an outwardly facing caricature of the virtuous human being wrapped around a rotting corpse.

Look, it's not that all outrage is wrong all the time.

There are times, of course, when outrage is perfectly appropriate and reasonable as a response to actions we see in others.

As with any addiction, the problem is not the chemical or the behavior itself of the addiction.

America isn't having an opioid crisis because opioids are inherently bad or evil.

It's the abuse and the involuntary need of the object of the addiction.

The unhealthy dependence upon the thing in order to feel or to function, expressing moral outrage has become the automatic compulsive response to anything that we see or hear that challenges our tribe's beliefs and instantly and automatically supports the outrage of others is even more important.

That's the concerning thing.

Moral outrage is simultaneously

a badge of honor and a shield against any objective judgment.

And that makes it destructive and divisive.

Outrage addiction has replaced constructive dialogue and suppressed genuine empathy and warmness.

It's no wonder suicide has become the 10th leading cause of death in America, because we don't have any authentic conversations anymore or express actual sympathy when others are suffering or being abused, we only express outrage instead.

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