Who's afraid of the big, bad Beck?

Apparently a lot of little piggies on the political left.
Who would have thought that conservative radio talk show personality and author Glenn Beck would create such a stir among left-wing progressives that news stories debating the actual size of the crowd at his "Restoring Honor" event in Washington, D.C., last week actually became headliners?
Glenn Beck. One man, one voice.
And he causes the left such pain that he is actually considered "dangerous" to America, a threat to her freedom and her way of life.
That figures. Whenever anyone dares to challenge the political left, its headhunters are summoned en masse to start chopping.
The assaults against Glenn Beck are so asinine that all I can do is laugh. Getting angry seems inappropriate somehow, because the accusations are so baseless that it is comical to even think about them.
Glenn Beck the racist.
Oh, yes, this is usually the first accusation leveled at any conservative voice that speaks up and out against the political left. The very first thing lefties do when a guy like Beck speaks is to liken him to Adolphe Hitler.
Well, of course. Beck, like Hitler before him, is a white male. Also like Hitler, he's an effective speaker who inspires his audiences. Other than that, I fail to see any further similarities.
Listen more critically at the messages of the two, and you will find they are distinctly different.
Hitler advocated for a return to German national pride by blaming a scapegoat for his country's economic problems. Beck has consistently spoken about traditional American values on his radio program; the same message he conveyed at last week's rally.
What's wrong with wanting a return to the traditional values of the American Revolution? To regard certain unalienable rights--life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness--as God-given through grace, and not ordained by men. To value that all men (and women) are created equal under God and are deserving of His unalienable rights. To self-govern and self-regulate the way our nation's founding generation intended. To choose to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing without the government having to tell us what that right thing is. To treat others by God's Golden Rule--Do unto others as you would have done unto you. To love thy neighbor as thyself. To care for and about one another. To take responsibility and hold ourselves accountable for our own actions. To believe that hard work pays dividends and that things must be earned. To trust in the individual instead of the individual's government. To set the individual free to follow opportunity and pursue his happiness...Those are traditional American values. Those are the values Beck has spoken of consistently.
Those are not the values that Hitler spoke of. They are not the values of a tyrant, a demagogue and a racist. They are the values of an American citizen who believes his country has strayed dangerously away from them and toward the values of Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao and others who "inspired" their people to their own destruction.
The fact that Glenn Beck held this rally on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech in the exact same spot (on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the National Mall) does not make him a racist. I know Al Sharpton wants us to believe it does. He wants us to believe that Beck did it to spite King and to insult the memory of America's most profound civil rights leader.
It never even enters the mind of the progressive leftist that perhaps Beck did it out of respect and reverence for MLK. That maybe, just maybe, Beck held the late Rev. King in such high esteem as to stage his own positive message of change on the anniversary of MLK's historic message of change.
No, no, that can't be it. It is impossible for a conservative, a right-winger, to revere MLK, because all conservatives are racist. The intent had to be sinister. It just had to. There is no other rhyme or reasonable explanation for it.
And so it goes. Glenn Beck is a racist because he organized his event to coincide with the memory of MLK. There's just no way the man could have done that to honor MLK. No way at all.
Beck is also a racist because, as the Associated Press reported, the crowd was vastly and predominantly white.
Naturally.
Any time a largely white crowd gathers, they can have only one thing on their mind: Racism. Makes perfect sense.
I am amused at how progressive leftists react toward conservatives. There is no attempt to debate, or even understand. No invitation to compete in the arena of ideas. No rules of engagement. No sportsmanship. Leftists approach conservatives with a cutthroat attitude: Kill or be killed.
There is no debate; understanding is for conservaives to practice and the left-wing to preach; the arena is closed to anyone right of center; the only rules that apply are the ones the left makes; and sportsmanship is only for conservatives to follow.
Leftists are predictable in their knee-jerk reactions toward conservatives. Everything is akin to a five-alarm fire. It's an emergency. A conservative as influential as Beck has become represents a clear and present danger to the left's political power, entrenched in Washington, D.C. for over half a century.
I remember when Rush Limbaugh crashed the left's party, going national with his talk show in 1988. He was summarily dismissed as a rabble-rowser, a racist and neo-Nazi, a chauvinist, a homophobe, and especially a blowhard.
Because he said things the left didn't want itself or anyone else to hear, he was not taken seriously. But after the 1994 Republican Revolution, the left couldn't ignore Limbaugh anymore. Every chance the left got, it took words out of context, ignored context, and focused on what it wanted to see and hear, so that the public would see and hear it, too. The left tried to sabotage Limbaugh by using his words against him.
But the trouble was that 20 million listeners completely disagreed when the left tried to paint Rush as a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot; an uncaring, mean-spirited Scrooge. Why? Because 20 million listeners actually listened to what Limbaugh really said and what he meant. Rush was always very good about qualifying his remarks; but the left didn't want anything he said qualified. What mattered is that he said it; therefore, he must be exactly what they tried to paint him as.
Funny, isn't it, that the left is trying to do the exact same thing to Glenn Beck that it tried to do to Limbaugh and failed? It is leveling the exact same accusations against Beck that it leveled against Rush.
What the left historically does is try to defeat its opponents through character assassination. Attack a person's character and you place their credibility in question. Do that and the debate suddenly shifts from the issues to the individual debating them.
It is classic evasive maneuvering.
Avoid debating the issues at all simply by attacking the debater.
Leftists are masters at this, because debating the issues is the last thing they want to do. When it comes to reason, rationale and right, conservatism just makes more sense to most people. Get into a rationale over the economy with a conservative and you might as well arm wrestle a Gorilla.
The left does not want to be humiliated any more than it already has by those throughout history who have plied the socialist trade only to fail miserably. So, debating opponents would be self-defeating. It is far easier and more gratifying to the hyenas on the left to just go below the belt and assault someone personally. It weakens them and their argument, turning them from formidable foe to easy prey.
Unfortunately, bringing Beck down is going to prove just as hard for the left as bringing down Limbaugh, an effort now 22 years in the making and still counting. Meanwhile, the listenership for both continues to rise. Go figure.
But try the left has and try it shall continue, because debating conservative voices is not an option. Going tete-a-tete over the issues won't work; and besides, the political left is afraid of guys like Beck and Limbaugh.
The political left is truly afraid of anyone willing to stand up to it and say that it is wrong. Why? Because the left knows it. But it would sooner eat its own crap that it dishes out to the rest of us than a slice of humble pie.
Case in point: Former President Bill Clinton in his first four-year term whined over national airwaves that Rush Limbaugh had three hours a day to say whatever he wants, and that he (Clinton) didn't have that.
Well, boo-hoo, Mr. President. Cry me a river. Rather than challenge Rush on the issues, Clinton, one of the most savvy left-wing politicians around, just whined. He couldn't spin his way out of Limbaugh's web of reason, so he avoided it like the plague.
Imagine the President of the United States, the most powerful single person on the planet, afraid of engaging a single other obscure individual in a debate of ideas. The President, who on a whim could have dozens of cameras on him at any moment, and dozens more microphones at his disposal, complained that one man had three hours a day to speak his mind.
I know the lefties on here probably don't think it's funny, but I sure do. A vast, powerful political machine like left-wing progressivism, entrenched for decades in the culture and infrastructure of Washington, D.C., afraid of the voice of one man.
After all of this, I realize why.
Because tens of millions of ears are listening to him. And what's more, they think he makes sense and they agree with him. He is articulating what they believe in their hearts, but have felt silenced and intimidated by a culture that seeks to punish conservatives simply for being who they are.
Now, that's scary if you're a left-wing progressive. Millions of conservatives suddenly inspired to stand up and shout, "no more." Not even the little piggy's brick house can stand up to that.