He's a fuck*ng clown, and sure, possibly emotionally imbalanced. He's an entertainer whose single aim is to make money, with which I have no problem. His hero these days is
Tyler Perry.
Beck says the only major difference between Perry’s product and his is politics. “[Perry] has the luxury of not doing the political stuff, which is really where I want to be as a company,” he says. “I just happen to believe the Republic is on fire and it wouldn’t be as effective if I had Pluto come out with a cartoon fire hose to put it out.”
But many of his ideas are ugly and hateful and he clearly has influence. Half of my maternal family are rabid Beckians. Also, although I've disavowed LDS theology and haven't practiced for years, it's still very important to me culturally. Beck seems to dig up the ugliest of Mormonism of the last half-century or so and champion it. Salon has an
interesting piece on Beck and Cleon Skousen, whom Beck claims as an important influence. Most of you may not have heard of Skousen, but he was a paranoid racist, associated with the John Birch Society and generally caused discomfort among LDS church leaders. In fact, I understand that the LDS church distanced itself from Skousen, which is significant because many leaders had fringe conservative views back then. Really, he was, and remains, a thorn in the side of any reasonable believing or non-believing Mormon. And Beck is carrying his torch.
The LDS church has recently been a bit soft, though vague, on immigration. Just this week it released an
official statement. I would just love to see the church come out, guns blazing, like it did for Prop 8, criticizing the Arizona bill and calling for amnesty or something like it, and encourage its members to contribute money to politicians and causes that support its views. I'm not arguing here that the church really holds views like that, because I have no idea, or whether that's the correct action to take. I would just love to see some of these self-righteous Mormons on the far right shit their #####, and then scramble to either justify their views or reverse them without seeming to flip-flop (see Mitt Romney for how not to do this). Conservative Mormons look down on their liberal brothers and sisters with the confidence that their political views are supported officially, and I would just love to see the tables turned for once. I haven't been been a practicing Mormon in years and apparently I'm still bitter about this.
This rant brought to you by ambien-resistant insomnia.
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