Anyone who's taken a class in logic or has a firm grasp on the reasoning process can see, after five minutes of watching Glenn Beck, that he has no fucking clue how to construct an argument. It's a shame, considering that arguing his "case" is his very profession. Worse still that millions of people follow his flawed lines of reasoning into believing lies. What's important to follow are not the lines of reasoning, which never really connect in a logical way, but the false conclusions. He's not looking at a problem and following reason to conclusions; he's coming up with conclusions and fashioning a line of associative thought back to the original problem.
It's selectively picking out certain bits of information and ignoring others in order to make the process fit the desired result, much like the way Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration selectively chose certain bits of intelligence in order to make the argument for going to war with Iraq.
Of course, Beck's goal is not to prove his argument. It's to incite dormant prejudicial passions, get the dwindling Republican base riled up and angry at the changes taking place in this country.
The Sunday Times Week in Review section has an article examining the line between political anger and violence. Check out this quote:
The Fox News host Glenn Beck, a galvanizing figure for the Tea Party protesters, might have offered the most inventive explanation for the isolated instances of violence when he said on his radio program that the Democrats were inciting protesters by walking through their ranks on the way to the Capitol. "I can guarantee you they walked out and said,'What the hell do you have to do to these people to get them to kill us?' I swear to you!"Breaking that statement down here would be a waste of time. Besides, Jon Stewart does a much better job of lampooing Beck in the clip below. But take a hard look at conclusion Beck is trying to convey: should someone murder a Democrat Congressman, it would be ok because the Democrats are essentially asking for it.
That's the conclusion. There's no argument at all. The phrase "I can guarantee you," we all know, is usually stated by someone trying to prove a proposition without a shred of proof, while "I swear to you" is what you hear from used car dealers unwilling to extend a guarantee.
Below is one of the funniest stand-up impersonations Stewart has done on the Daily Show. Anyone who hasn't seen Glenn Beck can learn all they need to know from the clip.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Conservative Libertarian | ||||
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To be fair, even FixNews anchors can't help but mock Beck:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Moment of Zen - Glenn Beck Cries | ||||
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