The Glenn Beck Program - 'Optimistic and Hopeful'

00:00:00.000 The Blaze Radio Network, on demand.

00:00:09.960 Love. Courage. Truth. Glenn Beck.

00:00:16.460 Good news. The Austin bomber has been found, and he's dead today.

00:00:22.120 The last three weeks, if you live in the Austin area, people have been living in terror.

00:00:27.420 It came to an end late last night. It started on March 2nd.

00:00:32.320 Law enforcement looked totally baffled as a bomb, and then another one, and then another one, began going off in what seemed like random locations.

00:00:41.180 The killer appeared to be one step ahead of police the entire time, and yesterday, just yesterday, we were talking about, is this a group?

00:00:48.920 Is this somebody who has law enforcement experience?

00:00:51.840 A reward was offered, leaving many people to believe that the investigation was going nowhere.

00:00:57.420 But that all changed 24 hours ago, and it changed at the FedEx facility.

00:01:02.980 There's a sorting facility, and a bomb went off early yesterday.

00:01:07.880 One additional bomb was found at a separate FedEx facility several miles away.

00:01:13.240 And for the first time since March 2nd, the bomber had changed his tactics.

00:01:18.140 Rather than hand-delivering the bombs, which he had done for all the others, he was now using a delivery service.

00:01:24.980 Well, police tracked the package that exploded at the FedEx sorting facility to its original drop-off store in the small Austin suburb.

00:01:33.400 After checking the store's surveillance cameras, they caught a break.

00:01:36.740 There, on multi-camera CCTV footage, was the killer.

00:01:42.000 Police were then able to identify the bomber's car, his name, which still has not been released, and we, nor the Blaze, will release his name.

00:01:51.220 After triangulating his cell phone, law enforcement converged on a small motel.

00:01:56.100 The killer, which is being described as a 24-year-old white male, saw police moving in and bolted.

00:02:03.100 After a brief chase, he blew himself up.

00:02:07.800 So much is still unknown.

00:02:09.580 We don't know his motives.

00:02:11.560 Were the bombings truly random?

00:02:13.920 Was there a specific purpose?

00:02:15.540 Was he just trying to get famous?

00:02:16.960 Whatever.

00:02:17.380 Right now, all we know is this.

00:02:20.620 He's dead.

00:02:21.360 The most immediate question is, are there any more bombs out there?

00:02:26.180 Austin Police Chief Brian Manley stated that there is a time gap of at least 24 hours where they have no idea where the killer had gone or what he was doing,

00:02:35.200 which means he could have been making or delivering more bombs.

00:02:39.100 If you're in the Austin area, it is not over yet.

00:02:43.640 Stay vigilant.

00:02:44.380 But know that although some people think that this is meaningless to say, it's not.

00:02:51.080 Our thoughts and our prayers are with you.

00:03:00.940 It's Wednesday, March 21st.

00:03:03.480 You're listening to the Glenn Beck Program.

00:03:06.000 We have an amazing show for you today.

00:03:08.460 We have it's it's down syndromes, down syndrome day where we are supposed to, you know,

00:03:15.600 at least recognize that some people's lives are worth living if they have down syndrome.

00:03:20.760 We have an amazing guest coming up in about 30 minutes.

00:03:24.880 She has down syndrome.

00:03:25.940 And what the doctors said about her life is completely different than what her life is actually like.

00:03:33.960 She'll be joining us.

00:03:35.340 Steven Pinker is going to be with us in about 50 minutes.

00:03:40.060 And Riaz Patel joins us now.

00:03:42.420 Riaz is a friend and a guy that we've known on the program for about two years.

00:03:46.920 And we really became close when he went up.

00:03:48.840 Well, all of his friends were saying, you know, these these Trump voters are all crazy.

00:03:54.640 He went up and he went to Alaska on his own dime to spend some time with Trump voters.

00:04:00.060 And he came back and wrote an incredible op ed that said, no, that's not who they are.

00:04:05.040 We're not listening to each other.

00:04:07.100 And so we've kind of been on this journey together to to listen.

00:04:11.480 And you've actually gone out and you've put people together that are Republicans and Democrats are left and right and and libertarians and tried to find where we're missing each other.

00:04:25.880 Right. I think I think there were so many points that going between Dallas and L.A. and D.C. that people were saying things and they were talking across purposes that they couldn't actually hear each other or the thing that they were saying was being heard an entirely different way.

00:04:39.340 And so bringing these people together and really importantly, why I brought it to you is to do it without any agenda that wasn't going to skew a liberal or conservative libertarian just to say, when is the last time you saw a group of friends of friends sit down and have this honest conversation within the device?

00:04:54.480 And it's a tough conversation.

00:04:55.800 It's a tough conversation.

00:04:56.360 If you haven't and if you have a network or an editor pushing for something, it makes people even more afraid to do it.

00:05:01.360 So this is brought with as little bias, little re-editing, little manipulation, little agenda as possible.

00:05:06.300 Play the clip that you played for me yesterday.

00:05:09.160 That is a liberal saying, you know, look at all these Trump people were angry.

00:05:15.380 They're angry about gays.

00:05:16.780 They're anti-gay.

00:05:17.620 They're anti-gay.

00:05:18.660 Play this clip.

00:05:19.680 Listen to this.

00:05:21.320 That's fundamental.

00:05:23.040 That speaks to the Republican thought processes that they didn't want gays to have equal rights.

00:05:30.100 No, no.

00:05:30.900 Yes.

00:05:31.580 Why were they so mad?

00:05:33.280 I think the average civil human being will say to you, I don't care what you do in the privacy of your home.

00:05:41.180 I genuinely don't.

00:05:42.100 So why are the Republicans so opposed to it?

00:05:44.940 Why are they so opposed to Obamacare?

00:05:47.140 I think in part it's this phenomenon of, as conservatives see it, of federalizing every problem.

00:05:55.040 That there's a federal solution for every problem in society.

00:05:58.560 And we get crazy because it takes away our freedom and our recourse.

00:06:04.980 What can we do as an individual American when the federal government imposes, like Obamacare, is such an imposition financially to so many people.

00:06:14.380 There's no recourse.

00:06:15.840 And so you have this friendship of many years where she believes her friend voted and believes that she's anti-gay.

00:06:24.320 And this friend Marianne was like, I have gay cousins.

00:06:26.320 I have gay friends.

00:06:26.700 That's not true at all.

00:06:27.540 It's about big government and an executive order creating this.

00:06:31.600 They never had the conversation.

00:06:32.880 She had to literally stop her and say, no, no, no.

00:06:35.400 That's what I'm trying to get people to say is you're not hearing each other.

00:06:38.620 And so here's the thing.

00:06:39.500 If we don't hear each other, then we can't find any solutions.

00:06:43.220 Absolutely.

00:06:43.880 At all.

00:06:44.480 And you found another guy.

00:06:46.100 And do we have him on the phone?

00:06:47.020 You found another guy.

00:06:48.120 Yes.

00:06:48.500 Up in the Pacific Northwest.

00:06:50.880 Seattle, Washington.

00:06:52.500 Total progressive, liberal, liberal.

00:06:54.400 So a guy that we should not agree on anything.

00:06:56.480 No, I'm sure he might think you're the dark overlord.

00:06:59.280 Well, wait a minute.

00:07:00.400 Wait a minute.

00:07:00.860 Really?

00:07:01.680 So anyway, I'm too pale to be the dark overlord.

00:07:05.640 It comes from inside, Glenn, the dark overlord.

00:07:07.940 The exterior is very white.

00:07:09.740 The interior of the heart is black.

00:07:11.040 All right.

00:07:12.040 But I think, no, he is the exact, he is as progressive as possible, socialist-leaning.

00:07:17.440 And I would say in this work he does for poverty, real poverty work he's done, he's done his whole life, he's dedicated to it.

00:07:22.460 He's walking the walk.

00:07:23.360 He has found recently that the greatest solution we had in conversation is a melding of both.

00:07:28.360 The conservative principle of capitalism works and the liberal principle of giving people a bit of a hand.

00:07:33.800 And so he has this micro-loan program that I wanted you to talk about because I'm not just asking people to talk together to repair their friendships, although that's huge.

00:07:40.720 I'm saying the solutions to the problems that we all want to solve, poverty, crime, guns, will be in us listening and in the gray thinking that comes out.

00:07:49.460 Because there's, I don't even think it's gray thinking, I just think it's new thinking.

00:07:53.320 The systems of the past don't work.

00:07:56.160 The world has changed so much.

00:07:57.640 Yes.

00:07:58.380 Jeff Klein, executive director of soundreach.org.

00:08:02.900 Hello, Jeff.

00:08:03.420 How are you?

00:08:04.760 Hey, good morning.

00:08:05.660 How are you?

00:08:06.160 Hi, Jeff.

00:08:07.240 Am I the dark overlord to you, Jeff?

00:08:10.580 I, this is, this is not a good way to start.

00:08:20.060 It's an excellent way to start because it's, when I met him, I thought we would have nothing in common at all.

00:08:26.060 And now we have this beautiful friendship.

00:08:27.900 So to me, you know, the idea of Glenn Beck had so much false attached to it.

00:08:34.720 But what I wanted you guys to talk about is this, this program where you have this innovative solution that is really a blending of conservative and liberal philosophies.

00:08:42.620 So, so Jeff, here's the thing where we come, where I think the, the right comes from, you, you have to give people a, a hand up, not a handout.

00:08:52.980 They, they've got to work for it.

00:08:55.160 They've got to, you know, um, uh, take it on themselves because if everything is given to you, look what happens to rich kids most times.

00:09:03.520 Uh, and, and so, and capitalism has taken so many people out of poverty.

00:09:10.000 Now with that capitalism, uh, just pure capitalism without any moral sentiments, as Adam Smith would say is awful.

00:09:19.840 It's a invisible hand that'll choke the life out of society.

00:09:24.300 So how do we do good?

00:09:26.240 What have you found that works with capitalism as well?

00:09:30.380 Well, you know, I want to validate some of the things you're saying.

00:09:34.820 Um, I had been working in food banks for a number of years and, uh, doing anti-poverty work and just dealing with the, the scope and the size of the poverty problem in this country is, it just became overwhelming.

00:09:49.540 And, uh, you know, I, I've done a lot of research on behavioral, uh, psychology and what affects poverty behaviors.

00:09:57.400 And I started looking at, um, financial systems and how they can possibly work to help people out of poverty.

00:10:03.840 But, uh, you know, I, I do think that there is a, uh, you know, this, the size of the problem is overwhelming for so many people.

00:10:14.840 I mean, there are hundreds of millions of people struggling to make ends meet.

00:10:19.700 67% of the country can't come up with $500 on short notice in an emergency.

00:10:25.540 So I just started thinking, is there a way to use microfinance to help break down some of these barriers?

00:10:32.100 And what'd you, and what'd you find?

00:10:34.120 Well, um, you know, I, I took over a small agency in Tacoma, Washington called Sound Outreach about three years ago.

00:10:42.560 We were, you know, basically our, our role was to get people connected to food stamps.

00:10:48.020 I'm like, this is a Band-Aid to the problem.

00:10:50.780 Yeah.

00:10:51.160 And that's what conservatives would say.

00:10:53.340 That's what a lot of conservatives would say.

00:10:55.440 Yeah.

00:10:55.840 But, you know, nobody knows how to deal with this poverty problem in the right way.

00:10:59.220 And I, and I do think that, you know, that there is something to that hand up instead of the handout thing.

00:11:04.560 But, you know, in this country, achieving the American dream is more difficult than it used to be.

00:11:10.500 So I've been doing research on that too.

00:11:12.660 And just, you know, 4% of people in the bottom 20% of the socioeconomic system can make it to the top.

00:11:21.560 And there, you know, there are other countries that are doing it better.

00:11:24.780 So achieving the American dream is more difficult.

00:11:26.660 So, so what I did was I sort of changed over my agency to focus on financial counseling.

00:11:32.060 So we, you know, connect people to one-on-one coaching, checking credit scores, looking at budgets, setting financial goals.

00:11:43.200 But the other thing I did was I partnered, partnered with the credit union.

00:11:45.960 And so if you're meeting with one of our financial counselors, you can access a small dollar loan, like a micro loan, to help you out of a difficult financial situation.

00:11:56.340 So I'm really trying to tackle this barrier of how expensive it is to be poor if you have to go to payday lenders, if you have to use check cashing.

00:12:04.780 And it's really thoughtful, specific work about how to empower someone to be able to, to, to, to move it themselves.

00:12:14.880 This is the kind of stuff that Stu and I have been talking about for a long time, that there are, there are ways to, to specifically target the problem instead of coming out and helicoptering over the top and just saying, I'm going to throw cash out of a window.

00:12:31.300 Instead, looking at, for instance, my church is the, I think it's the second largest welfare organization in the world behind the United States government.

00:12:39.920 And it, but it doesn't advertise that in fact, probably is a little, you know, thrown rocks at me for say, saying that they don't advertise it.

00:12:48.440 They don't, it's not something that they wear on their sleeve.

00:12:51.900 However, there are things that you do.

00:12:53.600 For instance, if I'm in trouble and I've really, you know, I'm, I'm losing my house or whatever.

00:13:00.120 If, if I'm a tithe payer for, you know, a taxpayer, if I'm a tithe payer, they will come in and they will help stabilize my situation.

00:13:07.500 However, they require me to take financial counseling.

00:13:12.760 They require me to do certain things that show I am interested in turning this around myself and they'll help as long as you're helping yourself.

00:13:21.980 If you're not helping yourself, there's no place.

00:13:25.000 I can't help you.

00:13:26.460 How big a motivator is that to you, Jeff, in terms of harnessing the power of someone's motivation to better themselves, the capital dream?

00:13:32.840 I got the American dream. How is, how big, how game changing has that been when you can harness it?

00:13:38.420 Well, you know, all the research I've seen and actually just firsthand experience working with this population is when you don't have financial slack in your life.

00:13:47.400 Yeah.

00:13:48.460 Making decisions is difficult.

00:13:50.360 And so people say, oh, they put themselves in that situation themselves.

00:13:53.600 They're stupid. They're lazy, whatever.

00:13:55.100 However, really, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, if you're, if you run out of money before the end of the month, you're stressed and under stress, you make poor decisions.

00:14:04.160 So if you can give people slack, more financial slack in their lives.

00:14:08.920 So kind of the way this works is, you know, and Rias is totally right.

00:14:13.240 Like I'm a total flaming liberal, like have been forever.

00:14:16.160 We've known each other since we were in sixth grade, by the way.

00:14:19.280 It would be wonderful. It would be great.

00:14:20.920 But we don't have the political will or the social will in this country to get there.

00:14:25.480 So what do you do instead?

00:14:27.540 You give people more access to capitalism so that they can take advantage of the system the way other people do and get ahead.

00:14:34.740 So if you can't, if you have a poor credit score and you're paying high interest rates on your vehicle or you're paying high, most people don't know that a lot of your insurance premiums are based on your credit score, too.

00:14:47.640 So if you focus on credit building and get your credit score up, you can get more financial slack in your month by reducing your monthly payments on your premiums or your vehicle payment.

00:14:57.880 So now if you can't, if you can't get there, we've got a shortcut.

00:15:02.280 We can refinance your auto loan through our credit union partner if our financial counselor meets with you and sees, oh, you're paying on time.

00:15:11.900 You've paid on time 12 months on your vehicle at $550 at 29% interest.

00:15:18.480 You can afford 14% interest for sure.

00:15:22.760 If you're affording $500 a month, you could afford $300 a month.

00:15:25.920 So we can save someone $200 a month and give them more slack in their life.

00:15:30.680 Which is a game changer.

00:15:31.280 So, Jeff, thank you for coming on and sharing this.

00:15:35.740 I want to look into your program because what you've said here, I don't have a problem with.

00:15:40.440 Do you have a problem with this?

00:15:41.320 Any of this, Stu?

00:15:42.020 This sounds all good.

00:15:43.460 I mean, on the surface, this sounds all good.

00:15:45.200 Yeah.

00:15:46.200 I brought it to you because I...

00:15:48.020 That's really, that's nice of you to say.

00:15:50.640 And just to answer that question, like I've been friends with Riaz a long time.

00:15:54.440 Yeah.

00:15:55.080 And if he vouches for you, like any talk of Dark Overlord, like...

00:15:59.900 He doesn't allow me to make direct eye contact ever.

00:16:06.820 Jeff, thank you so much for the work that you're doing.

00:16:09.700 And thanks for coming on the program and having a conversation.

00:16:12.820 I appreciate it.

00:16:13.640 Well, thank you for having me.

00:16:15.140 God bless.

00:16:15.720 You bet.

00:16:26.400 All right.

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00:17:48.300 Here's what's interesting about that, that last, uh, interview and it's exactly what we're

00:18:03.120 looking for.

00:18:04.180 And that is people on both sides.

00:18:06.420 We can agree with Jeff in Seattle for different reasons.

00:18:11.460 Socialism won't work in America.

00:18:12.860 I just don't think it works anywhere.

00:18:14.420 He just says, we don't have the political will to do it.

00:18:17.200 So we agree.

00:18:18.160 However you say it, you guys are agreeing, right?

00:18:20.000 We agree that we agree that poverty is bad and we have to do something.

00:18:24.960 He has found because he says, okay, we don't have the political will for socialism.

00:18:28.880 Let's use capitalism and let's include responsibility for your own life.

00:18:34.880 There is nothing wrong with any of that.

00:18:37.780 And we should be able to, we should be able to have that conversation.

00:18:41.820 And yet it was a little frightening to have that conversation on the air.

00:18:44.940 Really?

00:18:45.760 Yes, because he is who he is.

00:18:48.400 And you have a knee jerk reaction, just like he would have a knee jerk reaction with me.

00:18:52.960 Yeah.

00:18:53.260 A knee jerk reaction of, wait a minute, I should be careful.

00:18:56.460 And you should be careful.

00:18:57.760 We should look at all of the details.

00:18:59.400 But everything we talked about on the air is a great solution.

00:19:04.200 And the talking is the key to talk, even though it seems scary.

00:19:08.560 He's this, I'm this, he may believe this, you may believe this.

00:19:10.820 In the conversations, which I'm trying to have are where those solutions are going to come from.

00:19:15.460 These creative, thoughtful solutions.

00:19:17.040 He needs to read a book called The Spirit of America.

00:19:18.980 It's an old book from the 1940s because he referenced the American dream twice.

00:19:24.360 The American dream was changed by FDR.

00:19:27.020 The American dream is I can come over and I don't have to go through guilds.

00:19:32.860 I don't have to have anybody's permission.

00:19:34.640 I can be whoever I want and I can chart my own course.

00:19:38.380 The American dream under FDR was changed to a house, car, chicken in every pot.

00:19:45.500 That's guaranteed outcome.

00:19:48.500 This, the American dream was guaranteed chance.

00:19:52.160 Everybody has an equal chance.

00:19:53.700 Everybody has an equal opportunity, not an equal outcome.

00:19:57.340 And that was changed.

00:19:58.400 And it's important that you decide which American dream you believe in.

00:20:02.440 Yeah.

00:20:03.340 Okay.

00:20:04.020 Riaz, thank you so much.

00:20:05.420 Thank you, guys.

00:20:06.020 We'll talk to you later.

00:20:07.700 Back in just a second with an amazing person whose life definitely is worth living on this Down Syndrome Day.

00:20:18.820 Glenn Beck.

00:20:20.700 Mercury.

00:20:21.260 Mercury.

00:20:21.540 Mercury.

00:20:21.640 Mercury.

00:20:21.680 Mercury.

00:20:23.680 You're listening to the Glenn Beck Program.

00:20:29.000 Member of the National Academy of Sciences, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, recipient of nine honorary doctorates, foreign policies, world's top 100 public intellectuals, also on Times 100, most influential people in the world today.

00:20:44.560 But then again, so was I.

00:20:45.360 So, I mean, that's kind of discredited.

00:20:48.680 Steven Pinker.

00:20:49.780 He's going to be joining us in about an hour and a fascinating conversation should be on the offing in about 35 minutes.

00:20:57.980 We have Karen Gaffney.

00:20:58.980 We have Karen Gaffney with us now.

00:21:00.500 Today is Down Syndrome Awareness Day.

00:21:02.900 And with everything that is going on with this push to eliminate people with Down Syndrome because they don't have any quality of life, I think, lessens our quality of life by a great deal.

00:21:16.420 Karen has spoken at TED Talks.

00:21:21.420 She has, you know, spoken, you know, at the state capitals.

00:21:27.400 And I wanted to get her on.

00:21:29.600 She has Down Syndrome.

00:21:31.660 She is also a champion swimmer.

00:21:33.400 She has, she has, she, is it swum?

00:21:37.060 The English Channel.

00:21:39.420 Swum.

00:21:42.200 She, she, she has crossed the English Channel and, and is, is an amazing individual.

00:21:51.840 And she's with us now.

00:21:52.840 Hi, Karen.

00:21:53.320 How are you?

00:21:54.600 I'm great.

00:21:55.180 Thanks.

00:21:55.800 Good.

00:21:56.560 Could, could you start with, because in your TED Talks, you talked a little bit about your fifth grade teacher.

00:22:03.000 And I think this goes to quality of life and if your life matters.

00:22:09.860 Yes.

00:22:10.360 My fifth grade teacher was very helpful to me when I showed up in her class.

00:22:15.500 It was her first year of teaching and she didn't know much about Down Syndrome until I came into her class.

00:22:23.420 And then, you know, she came to my high school graduations and grade school graduations.

00:22:28.840 And then later she moved to Germany and got married.

00:22:31.140 And we still stay in touch all these years.

00:22:35.120 We wrote letters back and forth to each other.

00:22:37.180 And then, later, I got a special letter from her.

00:22:42.460 And she told me that she was pregnant with a baby with Down Syndrome and she needed my help.

00:22:49.400 And so, she said it in her letter that there must have been a reason why I've had the cross.

00:22:56.820 And explained to me what she did.

00:22:58.600 She, um, what did she, what did she name her child with Down Syndrome?

00:23:07.740 She named her baby Mia Rose.

00:23:10.860 Right now, she's probably in the seventh grade.

00:23:14.440 She spoke PC, spoke English and German, and goes to a neighborhood school.

00:23:20.180 So, wait, wait, wait.

00:23:21.540 Her baby, her baby has grown up.

00:23:23.540 She's in what grade now?

00:23:25.600 About in the seventh grade right now.

00:23:27.460 And, and, and she is, she has Down Syndrome and she speaks too, she's bilingual.

00:23:34.460 Right.

00:23:35.200 She's too, too, I guess.

00:23:37.100 And she's also a swimmer.

00:23:38.500 So, so, Karen, you've obviously been paying attention to the news where, um, the case is being made that we should abort all Down Syndrome, uh, children, um, because there is no quality of life.

00:23:55.940 What are your, what, how do you feel when you hear things like that?

00:24:00.360 You know, that is the thing that makes me sad.

00:24:03.080 You know, I don't want to hear stuff about that.

00:24:06.200 I want to hear more positive things about wanting to help people like us live a great life.

00:24:16.980 I don't want to talk about being avoided or terminated.

00:24:21.640 They would say that you don't have a great life.

00:24:25.340 I do have a great life, you know.

00:24:29.140 I do.

00:24:30.100 I'm trying to get stronger every day, you know.

00:24:32.600 I try to do the right for the very best I can.

00:24:35.380 What did the, what did the doctors say when you were born that your life would be like?

00:24:42.100 That I want to be able to come out of my shoes or write my own name.

00:24:46.540 You know, I want to be able to do a lot of things, you know.

00:24:50.120 But I can't do it.

00:24:51.320 And I remember, you know, I also have a lot of accomplishments in my life.

00:25:00.280 You know, I graduated from high school with a regular high school diploma.

00:25:03.740 And then after that, I went to form a community college, where I got my associate's of science degree and a teacher's aid certificate.

00:25:12.380 I work at Oregon Health Sciences University right now, where I'm doing a lot of clerical work and data entry and recycling and scanning and all that stuff now.

00:25:22.900 And I'm also a president on my own project on innovation.

00:25:27.380 Karen, you know, the, I guess, I guess we can just, you know, people think that they can get rid of people if they're not really human.

00:25:43.860 They don't really have rights.

00:25:45.300 Or, I guess, you know, their, their, their case would be, you know, the quality of life really is, is, is lower than what a human should have to endure.

00:25:56.760 Do you have any thoughts at all on, on what makes a person human?

00:26:01.700 You know, I think what makes a person human is if they accept us for who we are.

00:26:07.600 You know, all lives matter, regardless of the number of premises we have.

00:26:11.880 And I think, um, we also have a place in this world as well.

00:26:19.660 That's what makes us human.

00:26:24.160 Karen, I appreciate the fact that you are, uh, speaking out.

00:26:31.840 I can't imagine what it feels like to have, to see people, um, talking about people like you.

00:26:41.620 And, and, and saying, you know, that we, we, that we'd all be better off without you.

00:26:47.180 I can't imagine what that's like to endure.

00:26:50.180 Um, but I applaud your bravery.

00:26:52.620 Uh, and I, I applaud you standing up and, and speaking out.

00:26:57.400 Is there, is there anything, is there anything that you want to express before we hang up?

00:27:07.960 Anything we missed?

00:27:09.000 I just want to say that Down syndrome is a life worth living and a life worth saving as well.

00:27:17.240 And we want to live a great, uh, a great life.

00:27:23.780 And I know that we do.

00:27:27.280 Karen, thank you so much.

00:27:28.580 God bless.

00:27:30.180 You bet.

00:27:31.540 Karen Gaffney.

00:27:32.000 This woman, she swam the English Channel.

00:27:50.560 She escaped Alcatraz 16 times.

00:27:54.240 16 times.

00:27:55.600 Didn't put her in Alcatraz, right?

00:27:57.020 Yeah, she has Down syndrome.

00:27:58.520 Of course we do.

00:27:59.440 No.

00:27:59.600 We are terrible.

00:28:00.420 No, I get, I guess, you know, that's swimming, you know, the, the channel between San Francisco

00:28:05.820 and Alcatraz, that was supposed to be impossible.

00:28:08.320 She's done it 16 times.

00:28:10.400 Wow.

00:28:10.920 She has, uh, conquered Lake Tahoe in 59 degree weather.

00:28:14.680 And she swims to raise funds, you know, to raise awareness for people with Down syndrome.

00:28:21.120 I constantly complain because my dressing room is only 59 degrees and I complain about

00:28:27.080 it every day to everyone that listened to me.

00:28:28.980 Oh, we all know it.

00:28:30.980 We all know it.

00:28:32.460 There's something wrong with the air conditioning.

00:28:34.080 It's just on all the time.

00:28:35.020 So it's 59 degrees in there.

00:28:36.420 I have to be in there for like one minute a day and I'm constantly complaining about it.

00:28:40.980 She swam in 15.

00:28:42.960 Just, just Lake Tahoe.

00:28:44.840 Just the Lake, just Lake Tahoe.

00:28:47.200 No big deal.

00:28:48.140 Yeah.

00:28:48.340 But you know what?

00:28:49.220 I will say this about her.

00:28:50.700 Certainly doesn't deserve to live.

00:28:52.660 Certainly shouldn't.

00:28:53.680 Well, she has one more chromosome.

00:28:55.560 Oh my gosh.

00:28:56.580 Get rid of her.

00:28:57.400 Let's all, let's all strive to get rid of people like this.

00:29:00.860 This is why this is such an important story today.

00:29:02.700 I mean, you know, like we could give you example after example, effort or example.

00:29:06.580 Of amazing people like this with Down syndrome who are thriving, who are thriving in this

00:29:13.200 world, who aren't burdens, who are thriving and achieving things that even if they are

00:29:19.780 a burden, they are human.

00:29:22.520 Right.

00:29:22.660 It doesn't matter.

00:29:23.360 You're right.

00:29:23.700 They are human.

00:29:25.060 It doesn't freaking matter.

00:29:26.460 Life is life.

00:29:27.360 Yes.

00:29:27.660 And you know, the idea that we're going to come out here and all try to celebrate this

00:29:33.240 wonderful achievement that as a society, we can get rid of the weakest among us in,

00:29:39.340 and obviously in this case, not the weakest among us at all.

00:29:42.620 It's just, it's, it's despicable.

00:29:44.400 And today's the day.

00:29:45.280 What is it?

00:29:45.640 What's the, do you know the natural name of the day?

00:29:47.500 I don't, I mean, I keep calling it a Down syndrome awareness day, but I don't know what

00:29:51.240 it's called.

00:29:51.800 Something like that.

00:29:52.580 That's what you're supposed to be wearing.

00:29:54.260 You're supposed to be wearing crazy socks.

00:29:55.660 Did you wear crazy socks?

00:29:56.500 I did.

00:29:56.900 Well, yeah.

00:29:57.720 Let me see his crazy socks, please.

00:29:59.540 Can you, let me, let me see.

00:30:00.800 What are they?

00:30:02.440 Heroes crazy socks.

00:30:05.020 You have to go here.

00:30:05.900 I mean, you, what do you have to, I mean, how long does it take you to get to your socks,

00:30:10.280 Stu?

00:30:10.500 I'm trying to find an Eagles logo.

00:30:12.200 They're Eagles socks, obviously.

00:30:14.800 Well, those are crazy that somebody bought Eagles socks.

00:30:17.780 They are.

00:30:18.200 I mean, not this year, but maybe last year, the year before, a year before that.

00:30:22.580 Yeah, 58 years or so before this year, it wasn't exactly popular, but that's the thing,

00:30:29.220 you know, this year, it is, because they won the Super Bowl.

00:30:33.800 But that's a whole nother story.

00:30:35.020 Not that crazy.

00:30:35.620 Did you wear crazy socks?

00:30:37.020 I did.

00:30:37.600 I mean, as crazy as I had in my, yeah, I mean, these are crazy.

00:30:40.700 Let me see.

00:30:41.200 Those are crazy.

00:30:42.020 Oh, yeah.

00:30:42.440 And they're kind of, would you say Christmassy?

00:30:45.700 No.

00:30:46.020 No.

00:30:46.920 No, they're more like.

00:30:48.920 Native American-y?

00:30:49.600 Santa Fe.

00:30:50.340 Okay.

00:30:50.560 Native American.

00:30:51.300 There we go.

00:30:51.640 That kind of thing.

00:30:52.680 Very nice.

00:30:53.240 And I will say.

00:30:53.820 I'm culturally appropriating the Native American Santa Fe lifestyle in socks today.

00:31:00.700 That's very nice.

00:31:01.520 Yes.

00:31:02.040 Thank you.

00:31:03.160 We've said this before, but we could, every day, all day, talk about this story.

00:31:10.100 And this goes from Down syndrome, but it goes really, it's focused on life.

00:31:15.100 And I think morally, make the right choice every day.

00:31:19.240 If that's all we talked about every day was ending the elimination of 60 million people in our country alone over the past half century, we could, we would be more, it would be a boring show.

00:31:33.820 No one would want to listen to it because it would get really boring, but morally, we'd be making the right choice.

00:31:39.200 But here's how we take the step in the right direction.

00:31:41.600 We start recognizing that we need to renew the enlightenment.

00:31:49.480 We need to renew the principles that the founders were living in that gave us the idea of this country, which is all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain rights, among them life, liberty, and property.

00:32:06.080 And you can't take any of those things away.

00:32:08.700 And you have a right to your voice and your own faith and to live it and to live your life the way you choose.

00:32:17.620 That you have a right and a responsibility to question authority and to question those things that everybody says, yep, that's the way it is.

00:32:27.940 Well, maybe, maybe it's not the way it is.

00:32:31.120 Maybe it's just the way it's always been, but that doesn't mean that it's always like that.

00:32:35.940 And we need to question those things.

00:32:38.700 And when we can celebrate the diversity of thought, I don't care.

00:32:44.200 Don't judge people on the, on their gender, their race, their abilities, judge them on the content of their character and, and, and, and how they think.

00:32:57.460 And how they move and how they make you think, you know, there's, there's gotta be something that is, is, is moving.

00:33:05.240 And when there's a moving body interacting with another one, everything starts to move.

00:33:11.380 It just changes things up right now.

00:33:14.280 We're trying to say, everybody stay in place.

00:33:17.340 This is who you are.

00:33:18.940 This is what you'll believe.

00:33:20.160 That's not right.

00:33:21.060 And, you know, the way to start, uh, saving people's lives, the 60 million lives is to recognize the value of every human being.

00:33:34.580 And right now, all sides, we're looking and we're starting to devalue people we walk around with.

00:33:41.720 And I won't be friends with you because you have a different opinion.

00:33:46.260 Yeah.

00:33:46.780 That doesn't, that doesn't lead to any place.

00:33:48.400 Good.

00:33:48.660 If you remember right after the election, there's a lot of stories about dating apps where you could ban Trump voters from contacting you.

00:33:56.860 And it's like, again, certainly politics are important.

00:34:00.520 I think I'd have a tough time being married to an, uh, uh, you know, a socialist, right?

00:34:05.380 Like, I think there are lines there and I understand that, but you know, the fact that you would, but I'm friends with socialists, right?

00:34:12.180 And you're going to eliminate 50% of the country because I mean, that's no, and they have nothing to offer.

00:34:20.880 They have nothing to offer.

00:34:22.760 I mean, you know, Tyler who works here at the studios, Tyler, when he was in his twenties was a, was a Marxist.

00:34:30.060 He was a Marxist.

00:34:30.980 He believed he went on a mission and he, you know, was like, Hey, these guys are working for Chiquita banana for like $6 a month, you know, and banana people are making some money.

00:34:42.720 He, he came back a Marxist and then he started living life and started listening and started learning.

00:34:48.520 And he was like, you know, my heart is better served through the system of capitalism.

00:34:54.760 Why would we say you believe one thing?

00:34:59.360 I dismiss you when you should be growing and changing.

00:35:04.080 You should be exploring every day.

00:35:06.800 By the way, we do that with Steven Pinker, his book enlightenment now coming up in just a few minutes.

00:35:12.580 All right.

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00:36:24.440 Rules and restrictions do apply.

00:36:27.440 Glenn Beck Mercury.

00:36:32.260 Glenn Beck.

00:36:38.160 So see Steven Pinker, if you don't know who he is, you need to find out who he is.

00:36:42.000 He is really amazing.

00:36:43.320 He's, he's, um, a, an atheist and he's a little hostile, I think sometimes to religion, at least in one of his books.

00:36:51.780 Um, but, uh, you know, disregard that if, if you're, you're somebody who believes in God as I do.

00:36:58.040 Um, but his stats on the quality of life and, and how, you know, capitalism and the Western way of life has changed the entire world is remarkable.

00:37:10.680 You want to feel good instead of going, everything's getting worse.

00:37:13.980 No, no, no, no.

00:37:14.900 Listen to Steven Pinker coming up next.

00:37:18.020 Glenn Beck Mercury.

00:37:26.620 Love courage.

00:37:29.560 Truth.

00:37:31.280 Glenn Beck.

00:37:31.980 Back.

00:37:32.620 I'm thrilled to have Steven Pinker, uh, on the, uh, on the program.

00:37:36.980 He is currently a professor of psychology at Harvard.

00:37:40.500 He has taught at Stanford, MIT.

00:37:42.520 He's won numerous prizes for his research.

00:37:45.860 Uh, he has done a couple of books.

00:37:48.260 One of the best books, um, really on, if you feel, if you feel like, oh man, things, everybody's just dying faster.

00:37:55.420 And the guns are, if you feel like things are bad now, read his book, the better angels of our nature, and you will see how good things really are.

00:38:05.660 And I would say the same thing is kind of true in this book enlightenment.

00:38:10.580 Now the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress.

00:38:14.380 Uh, he has two time, uh, Pulitzer prize finalist, uh, behind him, uh, humanist of the year, nine, uh, doctorates or honorary doctorates.

00:38:25.460 World's top 100 public intellectuals and time magazines, 100 most influential people in the world today.

00:38:31.240 But as I said earlier, I also won that.

00:38:33.800 So we're going to discredit that one and not give it to Steven.

00:38:37.300 Welcome to the program, Steven Pinker.

00:38:38.700 How are you?

00:38:39.960 Fine.

00:38:40.400 Thank you.

00:38:40.920 Go ahead.

00:38:41.480 So, so Steven, I am fascinated, um, by, uh, what you're writing about in the book.

00:38:46.800 But let me, let me start here.

00:38:48.760 It is studio.

00:38:50.100 You have some of the stats.

00:38:51.320 It is.

00:38:52.800 I'm a catastrophe.

00:38:53.720 I'm an optimistic catastrophist, um, and I see catastrophe everywhere, but I really believe

00:39:01.660 that if we use our brain and we are, and we, we root ourselves in some basic principles,

00:39:08.800 we're going to be okay.

00:39:10.080 I read your book and you get stats like this.

00:39:12.980 Go ahead.

00:39:13.540 Uh, over the course of the 20th century, Americans became 96% less likely to be killed in a car

00:39:18.380 accident, 88% less likely to be mowed down on the sidewalk, 99% less likely to die in

00:39:23.800 a plane crash, 59% less likely to fall to their deaths, 92% less likely to die by fire,

00:39:29.720 90% less likely to drown, 92% less likely to be asphyxiated, and 95% less likely to be

00:39:36.160 killed on the job.

00:39:36.880 I just had a guest on last hour said it's harder than ever to accomplish the American

00:39:41.140 dream.

00:39:41.860 And I said, I don't think that's true.

00:39:43.720 I don't think that's true.

00:39:45.740 Steven, help us out on that.

00:39:47.620 Start with the positives that are happening.

00:39:50.380 Yes.

00:39:50.940 The, uh, most obvious positive is that people worldwide are living longer.

00:39:55.340 You know, for most of human history, uh, a newborn baby could be expected to live on average

00:39:59.460 around 30 years.

00:40:00.500 Uh, today it's 71 years across the world and it's more than 80 years in the developed world.

00:40:06.240 So that, that's a start.

00:40:08.460 Um, it used to be that, uh, only, um, a small percentage of people could read or write.

00:40:13.860 Now, 90% of the world's population under the age of 25 can read, read and write.

00:40:19.060 Uh, the number of wars has been decreasing.

00:40:22.360 In fact, when Columbia signed a peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas last year, they brought

00:40:27.920 an end to the last war in the Western hemisphere.

00:40:30.100 So an entire hemisphere is free of war.

00:40:32.460 In fact, five, six of the world is now free of war.

00:40:35.220 Um, the crime rate is down in, um, uh, worldwide and certainly in the United States.

00:40:40.440 It's half of what it was in the seventies and eighties and early nineties.

00:40:44.700 Um, uh, global poverty, uh, has been decimated, has been slashed.

00:40:50.300 Now, less than 10% of the world's population meets the definition of extreme poverty.

00:40:55.500 It used to be 90%.

00:40:56.860 So the percentages have, uh, have absolutely flipped.

00:41:00.100 Uh, we have, uh, uh, an additional eight hours of leisure time just since the 1960s.

00:41:06.960 Um, we of course can access the world's culture, uh, with a device that we have in our, our shirt

00:41:12.860 pocket.

00:41:13.460 When I was a student, if you wanted to see a classic movie like Casablanca or The Seventh

00:41:18.060 Seal, you had to wait years for it to be shown at a local repertory theater.

00:41:22.240 If you were lucky enough to live in a city that had a repertory theater, uh, or on late

00:41:26.100 night television, any movie you want to see, you can stream on demand.

00:41:29.380 Uh, and that's, that's true of, uh, of art, of music, of culture.

00:41:33.380 Steve, go ahead.

00:41:35.080 Sorry.

00:41:35.320 Yeah.

00:41:36.060 In area after area, uh, even though you, it's hard to recognize it when you read the

00:41:41.380 news because the news is about everything that goes wrong.

00:41:43.920 Uh, but, uh, our lives really have improved.

00:41:46.660 And in a majority of countries, people say they're happier than they were, uh, decades

00:41:50.780 ago.

00:41:51.080 So Cleveland Clinic came out last week and they said that no longer is hunger.

00:41:56.860 The problem in the world is for the very first time, it's obesity is beating malnutrition.

00:42:04.540 And well, that's certainly true.

00:42:05.640 Yes, it's certainly true in the, in the developed world.

00:42:08.040 And, uh, of course, obesity is a problem, but as problems go, it's a better problem to

00:42:12.380 have.

00:42:14.000 Yes, it is.

00:42:15.800 But, but I didn't see that anywhere in the news.

00:42:19.720 And all I heard about was how kids killing kids in schools because of guns, uh, how that's

00:42:27.740 just getting out of control.

00:42:30.380 Well, it's, you know, uh, there are, um, the fact that there's been improvement doesn't

00:42:34.640 mean that there's perfection, that there's utopia.

00:42:36.820 There are always going to be problems and we have to deal with problems as they arise

00:42:41.080 in the, in the most intelligent way possible using data, using, uh, trying out policies,

00:42:46.560 see, see what works, learn from our neighbors who've tried out policies because no, no one

00:42:51.340 is omniscient.

00:42:52.340 No one knows what's going to work just sitting in the armchair, just from their sheer brain

00:42:56.360 power.

00:42:57.180 None of us is that smart.

00:42:58.600 We've got to let the world tell us what works and what doesn't work and use the entire world

00:43:02.760 as a laboratory.

00:43:03.860 Look at other countries, see what they've done.

00:43:06.040 Look at what state different states have done.

00:43:08.460 Uh, this is of course an old American, uh, idea that the states are laboratories and, uh, we

00:43:14.000 should learn from the policies that work.

00:43:15.640 We're kind of a scientific approach to, uh, dealing with policy and politics, which I

00:43:20.820 certainly advocate above our current tribal attitude where each side believes the other

00:43:25.780 other side is evil.

00:43:27.420 So that's kind of where I want to go because your, your book really is, it sets the, the,

00:43:32.580 the case out early on about the enlightenment and that what we're really losing here is the

00:43:39.140 ability to think and to discuss and to even recognize facts.

00:43:44.920 Um, I don't know if you saw on the news yesterday, but Cambridge Analytica, the, the, the, the people

00:43:50.760 that were trying to manipulate the election said that facts don't matter anymore.

00:43:55.120 It's all about feeling.

00:43:56.500 Yes.

00:43:58.540 And I mean, you know, many politicians have, uh, uh, uh, sense that for a while that, uh,

00:44:04.560 the way to mobilize people behind you is to whip up their emotions.

00:44:09.360 I think it's a bit, it's an exaggeration to say that, that, uh, facts don't matter.

00:44:13.620 Uh, you know, Pearl Harbor really did happen and nine 11 happened and, uh, we recognized, um,

00:44:20.460 racial discrimination in the, in the fifties and sixties.

00:44:23.060 And so I think that it's a bit of an exaggeration, we're not living in a total fantasy world,

00:44:26.620 but of course there are demagogues who will manipulate, uh, facts.

00:44:30.920 There are, there have always been, uh, you know, liars and, uh, and distorters of facts.

00:44:36.500 And of course, for the help of our democracy, we've got to do everything possible to keep

00:44:41.500 in touch with reality, to minimize the demagoguery where a politician will, will, uh, either defy

00:44:48.020 facts or, or, uh, distort them.

00:44:49.980 So, and that's what a free, free presses for among other things.

00:44:53.860 So are we getting that though?

00:44:55.160 I mean, you know, the majority now, 50% of millennials are getting their news from Facebook

00:44:59.840 alone.

00:45:00.660 Uh, and, and I don't think that nobody is being taught, uh, critical thinking and, uh, and,

00:45:08.960 and they're being taught what to think, not how to think.

00:45:11.860 And people don't, I don't think even understand how to find, uh, facts anymore.

00:45:17.440 Uh, yeah, I, I agree that, uh, we need better critical thinking instruction, uh, at, at every

00:45:24.500 stage of education, but, but, uh, but starting young because, uh, uh, cognitive psychologists

00:45:29.680 and that, that's my specialty.

00:45:30.960 I'm a cognitive psychologist, uh, have shown that, that we're, it's very easy to slip into

00:45:35.760 irrationality.

00:45:36.740 The human mind wasn't designed for modern statistics and mathematics and logic.

00:45:41.880 Uh, you know, we, we, we, our mind is designed for small scale villages and tribes.

00:45:47.800 Uh, we have all these fantastic tools now where we can correct our, our errors and our

00:45:53.060 biases.

00:45:53.880 And, uh, we, we do have to learn to use them because it doesn't come naturally.

00:45:57.520 We're left to our own devices.

00:45:59.480 A human being will just think in stereotypes and I will generalize from their own experience.

00:46:05.560 Uh, we seek evidence that confirms our beliefs and, and don't pay attention to evidence that

00:46:11.840 disconfirms them, our beliefs.

00:46:13.720 So there are a lot of ways in which we naturally are, uh, irrational, but these are obviously

00:46:18.140 correctable.

00:46:18.880 They, they must be because, uh, we wouldn't know that they were fallacies unless we had

00:46:22.620 some kind of standard of what's rational to compare them against.

00:46:25.760 And of course we've, we've, you know, we've set the man to the moon and we've eliminated

00:46:29.040 smallpox and we live longer and we, we design cars and planes.

00:46:33.220 So we're all obviously capable of rationality.

00:46:35.780 And the trick is to kind of instill a, uh, rational thinking.

00:46:40.160 And I agree as young as possible.

00:46:42.180 Okay.

00:46:42.200 So Steven, I'm going to take a break and when we come back, will you just take us through,

00:46:45.460 um, you know, a kind of a one-on-one on critical thinking and how, how do we break

00:46:51.580 that?

00:46:51.760 How do we turn the tide on that?

00:46:53.600 How do we get away from our emotions, uh, and, and start really just, as Thomas Jefferson

00:47:01.060 said, fix reason firmly in her seat.

00:47:03.460 How do we do that on a, on a mass scale or even in our own individual lives?

00:47:08.860 Steven Pinker in a minute.

00:47:14.620 The book is enlightenment now from Steven Pinker, the case for reason, science, humanism, and

00:47:19.700 progress.

00:47:20.260 We'll, uh, make sure we tweet out the link at a world of stew and at Glenn Beck.

00:47:24.020 Okay.

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00:49:29.220 Glenn Beck, Mercury.

00:49:39.520 Glenn Beck.

00:49:42.020 Steven Pinker, the author of the book Enlightenment Now, one that will give you hope that we're

00:49:48.900 actually going to make it, is joining us now.

00:49:53.300 Steven, can you go over just a little bit, and if you want to mix in however you want

00:49:58.100 to do this, but I have two questions.

00:49:59.740 One, can you give us a little 101 on critical thinking?

00:50:03.560 And two, you know, what the Enlightenment means and why losing that, we lose really America

00:50:12.820 and the West.

00:50:14.900 Yeah, so an example of critical thinking would be to examine the kind of fallacies that the

00:50:22.040 human mind just naturally makes unless it's well-educated.

00:50:25.560 So just to give you an example, many people have the experience where they had a dream

00:50:29.500 that something bad happened to a loved one and call them up, find out, oh, they broke

00:50:36.260 their toe that day, so they think, oh, I've got clairvoyance.

00:50:39.740 I can actually sense things that I don't know about through, you know, vibrations or some

00:50:45.880 sort of kitschy energy fields.

00:50:48.560 But the thing is, that's a failure of critical thinking because we don't take into account

00:50:53.660 the thousands of times that we have dreams that don't predict the future, we forget all

00:51:00.440 of those, we remember the lucky hits, and so we falsely conclude that there is something

00:51:05.680 spooky going on.

00:51:07.440 Or another example is the so-called gambler's fallacy.

00:51:12.040 If you're at the roulette table and you get red five times in a row and you bet on black

00:51:17.180 thinking, well, it's bound to come up black now because you think the idea, well, it's

00:51:22.100 50% red, 50% black.

00:51:24.460 So far, it's a lot of red, so it's due for a black.

00:51:26.960 Now, that can't be true because the roulette wheel doesn't have any memory.

00:51:30.240 It doesn't have any desire to appear fair.

00:51:32.760 It's a misunderstanding of randomness.

00:51:34.960 People think that the law of averages means that the numbers are trying to appear 50-50,

00:51:39.880 whereas the reality, of course, is that if there's any chance deviation, then it'll be

00:51:44.420 diluted when there are more and more spins in the future.

00:51:48.980 And we tend to underestimate randomness.

00:51:53.080 We think we see patterns in everything, and we forget about how many, the vast number of

00:51:59.280 possibilities for coincidences.

00:52:01.900 We're just surrounded by numbers.

00:52:03.600 We're surrounded by events.

00:52:04.920 I mean, who's to say that you might not look out the car window, see a license plate in

00:52:08.060 front of you, and maybe it's almost like your telephone number.

00:52:10.860 That just is going to happen by the law of averages, but people see deep meanings in them.

00:52:15.500 So critical thinking is to, the point is to teach people to avoid falling into these traps.

00:52:24.260 Also, to recognize that since we, it feels so good to have your beliefs confirmed, that

00:52:32.880 you feel noble, you feel wise, you feel like your own team, your own tribe is superior.

00:52:39.440 So we concentrate on all of the stories and studies and opinions that back up the opinion

00:52:46.340 that we have in the first place.

00:52:47.980 And we ignore all of the criticisms, the studies that may not come out our way, and get more

00:52:54.260 and more positive about our beliefs.

00:52:57.180 There's another trap that we fall into.

00:52:59.120 And we know it's a trap because we know that people in the past believed things that weren't

00:53:03.220 true.

00:53:03.420 People believed that the world was flat.

00:53:05.860 People believed that racial segregation was just the natural order of things.

00:53:12.960 But how do we break this team thing that we're in now that we're willing to switch long-held

00:53:23.320 principles because our team, it benefits our team or whatever.

00:53:27.580 How do you hold on to things that are true when they don't work your way, when society

00:53:35.260 is pushing the other direction?

00:53:37.760 Yeah, it's a huge challenge, and I don't have an easy answer.

00:53:41.200 But certainly being aware of the problem is a place to start, just to know that we're all

00:53:45.680 human beings.

00:53:46.740 We all have weaknesses.

00:53:48.700 And one of them is this kind of tribal team thinking.

00:53:52.580 There is a truth out there, and none of us knows it for sure.

00:53:56.120 It's a constant struggle to learn.

00:53:59.560 We can be mistaken, and we should recognize our fallibility and recognize our tendency

00:54:06.660 to fall into supporting whatever is good for the team, which is not necessarily what the

00:54:11.060 truth is.

00:54:11.980 I mean, it's really the attitude and mindset of science.

00:54:14.860 If you're doing science properly, you're letting the world tell you which of your beliefs are

00:54:19.420 true or false.

00:54:20.620 You don't walk in with certainty.

00:54:23.220 Of course, scientists are human, and they do that, but that's why we have debate and

00:54:27.880 argument and peer review, so that no matter how confident you are in your beliefs, if

00:54:32.700 the experiments show that you're wrong, or if there's a flaw in your logic, then there'll

00:54:36.860 be other people who will argue against you.

00:54:39.960 But we need more of that mindset, I think, in the political arena.

00:54:43.160 Steven Pinker is joining us.

00:54:44.760 He's the author of the book Enlightenment Now, which is an absolute must-read.

00:54:48.560 Can you give me, let's take you through, because you talk about this in the book, that income

00:54:54.940 inequality is not necessarily what we, you know, we're not thinking it through.

00:55:00.340 It's not necessarily the problem that most people seem to think that it is.

00:55:04.440 Can you take us through that?

00:55:06.700 Yeah.

00:55:07.220 I have a chapter on income inequality because it's something that has increased within rich

00:55:14.100 countries, and people often say, well, how much progress can there really be if we have

00:55:17.760 all this income inequality?

00:55:19.420 And I suggest that the problem is kind of misconceived, that it's not so much inequality that's

00:55:25.660 the problem.

00:55:26.540 There are other problems, certainly if the rich can buy elections or just pour money in and

00:55:32.120 have politicians do what's in their interest.

00:55:35.420 That's a problem for democracy.

00:55:36.800 But that's not the same as income inequality.

00:55:39.720 That's a problem with our laws that allow unregulated donations and without transparency.

00:55:47.820 There's also, of course, you do have to be concerned with kids, with the elderly, with

00:55:53.920 the unlucky, with the sick at the bottom end of the scale.

00:55:57.840 And I certainly believe in the kind of programs that we have, like Social Security and earned

00:56:03.280 income tax credit, that, you know, it's almost a dirty word to call it redistribution.

00:56:07.640 But there's a little bit of that, and all countries do it, all wealthy countries.

00:56:11.900 And it really has helped the poor.

00:56:14.200 The poverty rate, taking into account government benefits, has declined.

00:56:19.420 In 1960, about a third of Americans fell below the poverty line when you measure it in terms

00:56:25.280 of after-tax income.

00:56:27.240 Now it's more like 6% or 7%.

00:56:29.260 And I think we should concentrate our efforts more on helping the people at the bottom than

00:56:36.220 worrying about the gap between the top and the bottom.

00:56:43.200 Aren't we better, though, in poverty, not because of social programs, but because this system

00:56:48.980 actually works?

00:56:51.840 Yeah, I think there's a sum of each.

00:56:54.040 Certainly the fact that we've got this fantastic wealth-generating machine called Markets has

00:57:01.520 done wonders for poverty, both at home and across the world.

00:57:06.240 So when China switched from state control and dogmatic communism under Mao to free markets,

00:57:14.960 they made a huge dent in world poverty, just because hundreds of millions of Chinese were

00:57:20.780 lifted out of squalor and peasant existence to a kind of middle-class existence.

00:57:26.000 Stephen, hold on just a sec.

00:57:27.920 We've got to take a quick break.

00:57:28.920 Stephen Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now.

00:57:31.360 More in a minute.

00:57:38.540 Glenn Beck.

00:57:40.320 Mercury.

00:57:40.760 This is the Glenn Beck Program.

00:57:51.160 Foreign policies, world's top 100 public intellectuals, not elitists, intellectuals, somebody who is

00:58:00.140 pushing for return of the Enlightenment and is very, very optimistic and hopeful.

00:58:06.440 His book is called Enlightenment Now.

00:58:08.540 And the book is filled with stuff that's really positive, and I mean this without hyperbole.

00:58:12.420 It is the greatest human achievement in history, the things that have happened over the past

00:58:17.580 hundred years.

00:58:18.400 I mean, things have improved that much.

00:58:20.220 And Stephen, I wanted to ask you, you talk about this in the book, of when faced with really

00:58:25.760 positive things like the reduction in poverty, we as human beings tend to still search out

00:58:33.320 the negative, we tend to always, you know, oh wow, you know, poverty is down by so much,

00:58:38.640 but look at, you know, look at this recent incident of violence, look at, you know, this

00:58:43.940 problem with our food supply, look at this chemical we found somewhere in the water.

00:58:47.840 We're always looking for something to bring us back to the negative.

00:58:51.980 Why is that?

00:58:53.920 Yeah, in some measure that's good that we don't get complacent.

00:58:57.660 And it's because our ancestors, of course, were concerned about the problems in their

00:59:02.580 era that they came up with solutions.

00:59:04.980 And it's only good that we be aware of the problems that remain and some problems that

00:59:09.580 might be bigger than ever so that we tackle them.

00:59:13.060 But it is true that we tend not to appreciate the progress that we've made, partly because

00:59:18.080 we're wired for negativity.

00:59:20.820 We are much more worried about losses and what can go wrong than what has gone right.

00:59:26.440 And again, there's something somewhat adaptive about that because they're just, the things

00:59:31.180 that can go wrong can do you much more harm than the things that can go right can help

00:59:35.680 you.

00:59:35.980 Just think about how many things could happen to you today that would make you much worse

00:59:39.680 off, how many things could happen that would make you much better off.

00:59:42.860 Well, the first one is a longer list.

00:59:45.620 And indeed, we're right to be concerned about them.

00:59:48.760 But I think we've taken that too far because if we don't appreciate the progress that we've

00:59:54.140 made, we can throw our hands up and say it's hopeless, it's intractable, we're doomed.

00:59:59.500 So let's enjoy ourselves while we can and not even try to solve these problems because

01:00:03.040 they're unsolvable.

01:00:04.660 That is a danger.

01:00:05.800 I think we can also welcome in radicals who say, well, the system is failing so badly,

01:00:11.520 let's just bulldoze everything because anything that comes up out of the rubble has got to

01:00:15.280 be better than what we have now.

01:00:16.500 And that's dangerous too, because we know from Nazi Germany, from Maoist China, from

01:00:22.760 Venezuela, that if you have radical change in the hope that nothing could be worse, things

01:00:28.380 can get a lot worse.

01:00:30.280 And it kind of goes back to the theme of the book of the Enlightenment.

01:00:33.920 You said something earlier in the interview where you said, you know, we have to look at

01:00:40.660 where things have worked.

01:00:42.120 That's what our founders did when they put this together.

01:00:44.660 They didn't, like Iceland, say, hey, tweet us your constitutional clauses.

01:00:50.520 They did a lot of research on history, and they scoured history to say, this worked, this

01:00:59.400 didn't.

01:01:00.160 When it didn't work, why didn't it?

01:01:02.800 And it was the spirit of open questioning, open examination, without a team jersey.

01:01:12.140 That's exactly right.

01:01:14.340 When people say, kind of wonder, well, are you saying that we should go and read a bunch

01:01:18.740 of difficult European philosophers?

01:01:21.600 Does it mean we have to all read up Immanuel Kant?

01:01:23.880 And say, well, no, the greatest, the most prominent Enlightenment thinkers were our own

01:01:28.980 founders and framers.

01:01:30.600 Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton and Adams.

01:01:34.120 They were all Enlightenment thinkers, and exactly as you said, they tried to reason their way

01:01:39.400 to the best possible system of government, in large part by looking at history and what

01:01:45.100 had gone wrong and trying to learn from the mistakes of people in the past.

01:01:48.520 And it's really just a, I mean, my life changed when I read two things.

01:01:55.920 Immanuel Kant, where he said, there are many things that I believe that I shall never say,

01:02:00.420 but I shall never say the things that I do not believe.

01:02:02.760 I didn't understand.

01:02:04.020 When I read that, I thought, I don't even understand a world where you're afraid to say,

01:02:07.860 you know, what you believe.

01:02:09.220 I do now.

01:02:10.400 I understand that now.

01:02:12.560 And the other thing was from Thomas Jefferson.

01:02:14.900 Fix reason firmly in her seat and question with boldness even the very existence of God,

01:02:19.980 for if there be a God, he must surely rather honest questioning over blindfolded fear.

01:02:25.340 That's just a challenge.

01:02:27.460 Both of those, as Kant said, dare to reason.

01:02:31.880 Dare to understand.

01:02:33.100 Dare to reason.

01:02:33.720 Exactly right.

01:02:34.360 That would have to be the motto of the Enlightenment if there was one.

01:02:38.720 And we are the beneficiaries of the Enlightenment whenever we enjoy the freedom of American democracy.

01:02:45.380 But we are now kind of, as I see it, locked horns in a three-way fight of post-modernism,

01:02:52.620 that nothing is real, tribalism, and a few that are saying, no, no, no, let's challenge.

01:03:01.520 There's a lot of good stuff ahead, but we've got some really heavy lifting to do mentally.

01:03:06.320 Let's sit down and have that conversation and come together.

01:03:09.980 Which one is...

01:03:10.760 Go ahead.

01:03:12.580 Yeah, that's right.

01:03:13.360 That is largely my argument in Enlightenment now, that tribalism is a real threat to the ideals of American democracy,

01:03:23.680 the idea that Americans, or for that matter, any other nation, should be ethnically homogeneous

01:03:30.760 and should just compete for greatness against every other nation also competing for greatness.

01:03:36.160 We kind of tried that.

01:03:37.280 We got World War I.

01:03:38.320 We got World War II.

01:03:39.900 And the idea that nations can, number one, they can coexist because there are many things that benefit everyone,

01:03:47.540 that it's not a question if one wins, the other one loses.

01:03:51.660 And trade, of course, is the prime example.

01:03:55.060 But also that America is based on an idea, on a social contract, that there's no such thing as an ethnic American.

01:04:02.380 You can be Protestant or Catholic or Jewish or black or white or German or Italian or Hispanic.

01:04:09.340 We came together under an idea that governments can, if they're designed with the interests of the people in mind,

01:04:16.380 can enhance people's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

01:04:19.660 That's why we have a government.

01:04:21.620 And the government is not just a kind of an embodiment of a tribe.

01:04:27.080 It's a gadget.

01:04:28.020 It's a gadget designed to make us happier.

01:04:29.920 And we've got to design it so that it will do exactly that.

01:04:32.920 So is it really designed to, I mean, I read the Declaration of Independence, and, you know, it is our, it is our, not only our right,

01:04:43.060 but our duty to reform a government if it becomes hostile to the rights it's supposed to protect.

01:04:50.040 But what is interesting in the Declaration of Independence, it says, you just don't, you know, just don't shake it off and go,

01:04:56.620 well, that didn't work.

01:04:57.820 Let's come up with something else.

01:04:59.060 You have to shake it off and replace it with something that is better at defending those rights.

01:05:08.080 That's right.

01:05:08.760 And they said government shouldn't be rejected for light and transitory purposes.

01:05:13.480 So don't think, every time you have a complaint about government not working,

01:05:16.980 don't think that it's time to overthrow the government because you could end up with something much, much worse.

01:05:22.240 And, of course, we know that there are a lot of ways in which good democracy learns from its mistakes and reforms itself.

01:05:29.060 We should continue that process.

01:05:31.320 I've only got a few more minutes left with you, and I've got two questions that maybe you can try to condense quickly.

01:05:38.180 I am very optimistic because I believe that freedom, unlike anybody has ever imagined, is right over in the next 10 years because of technology.

01:05:51.680 But because, you know, I read enough on AI, ASI, AGI, I'm also very concerned, you know, that we're, I'm concerned about the goals that we are going to be putting in to, you know, AGI.

01:06:11.820 Where do you stand on this?

01:06:13.400 Are you optimistic that we make this transition or not?

01:06:17.560 Yes, about artificial general intelligence.

01:06:20.880 Yes.

01:06:21.120 I think any new technology has potential for harms and dangers.

01:06:26.180 And that was true of the technologies of the past.

01:06:28.260 When cars were introduced on the roads, a lot of people got killed before there were traffic laws, safety measures.

01:06:34.680 But on this one, the argument is you really have one shot to get it right.

01:06:39.900 Yeah, and I'm skeptical of that.

01:06:42.420 But just knowing people doing artificial intelligence research, now I'll tell you, you know, it's really, really hard.

01:06:49.020 The idea that we are going to come up with a magic formula and the magic algorithm and have a system that's not only going to be brilliant, but improve its own intelligence in zooming upwards.

01:07:01.300 I think there's a reason to be skeptical that there's a lot of fails.

01:07:05.380 It's a trial and error process.

01:07:07.320 And, of course, we have to build in safety safeguards as we develop them.

01:07:11.400 But I don't think it's going to shoot up beyond what we can control.

01:07:14.680 And I do have a discussion of that in Enlightenment now.

01:07:18.440 Let me let me just let me close with this.

01:07:22.680 There is something new going on, I think, and it is a willingness to break the barriers.

01:07:31.200 And I first started feeling it about, I don't know, six years ago in Silicon Valley, where it was beyond the tribes.

01:07:40.300 It was beyond left and right with some, not all.

01:07:44.000 And they were interesting conversations.

01:07:46.480 And now there are thinkers like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, of course, you know, yourself, the Weinsteins.

01:07:54.020 Do you sense that there's a new Enlightenment that is beginning?

01:08:00.000 I sure hope so.

01:08:02.020 And it can't all be people who agree with each other.

01:08:05.080 But there has to be a forum for debate so that the bad ideas can be winnowed out and the good ideas can survive on their merits.

01:08:14.720 But I do think that, yeah, that there are closed forums in radio, in academia, in government.

01:08:23.040 And if we open them up and have people hear opinions that they're not so used to, to get out of their comfort zone, then that's essential to further progress.

01:08:33.520 Stephen Pinker, thank you so much.

01:08:35.160 Appreciate it.

01:08:36.460 Thanks for having me.

01:08:37.520 You bet.

01:08:37.900 Bye-bye.

01:08:38.120 The book is Enlightenment Now from Stephen Pinker, The Case for a Reason, Science, Humanism in Progress, and does outline, I believe, the biggest story in the world.

01:08:50.480 It's the biggest story in the world.

01:08:52.580 In world history.

01:08:53.600 In world history.

01:08:54.200 It really is.

01:08:54.840 And we never focus on it.

01:08:56.200 This has all happened largely in our lifetimes.

01:08:59.300 In our country.

01:09:00.140 In our country.

01:09:00.860 And it's amazing.

01:09:02.060 My favorite Stephen Pinker story, of which I have one before this interview, was I was reading The Better Angels of Our Nature, which goes into one big focus of it is talking about how, you know, a lot of people think violence is constantly getting worse.

01:09:17.000 And he, in gruesome detail, goes through how bad things used to be in the world.

01:09:23.760 You'll read it.

01:09:24.420 I read parts of it to my wife.

01:09:26.200 And I'd be like, read it.

01:09:26.980 I'd be like, good heavens.

01:09:29.380 Listen to this.

01:09:30.400 And you'd just be like, oh my, I am really glad.

01:09:34.840 Yeah.

01:09:35.020 Even if I were born in a prison in Mexico today, I'm glad I was born today.

01:09:41.720 Right.

01:09:42.340 Yeah.

01:09:42.880 Exactly.

01:09:43.460 And you really get the sense, you know, it's better.

01:09:46.180 And one of the points he makes, and he goes through in great detail, of how we have this idea that wars are, we're always afraid of these flamed up wars all over the world.

01:09:56.020 And there's always this constant conflict.

01:09:58.080 And it's, of course, real at some level.

01:09:59.640 But it's actually getting better.

01:10:01.200 Less people are dying in wars now than they have in a very long time.

01:10:04.540 And I kind of just blurted that out on the air one day in a conversation.

01:10:08.660 And you know when we get fact-checked by these organizations.

01:10:11.420 It's always some conservative thing.

01:10:13.680 And it's always, they always beat us up and go crazy on those things.

01:10:17.120 And for whatever reason, PolitiFact fact-checked my statement that people are dying less frequently in wars.

01:10:25.780 And again, that was something I got from Steven Pinker.

01:10:28.040 And of course, when you get fact-checked, you're like, crap.

01:10:29.780 Like, did I get something wrong?

01:10:31.040 What did I do?

01:10:32.120 Well, they actually fact-checked it with Steven Pinker.

01:10:35.600 They called him up and they said, hey, is this true what this idiot on the radio said?

01:10:40.800 And of course, it was true because it came from Steven Pinker's book.

01:10:45.860 So they actually fact-checked my claim with my source.

01:10:49.700 That's funny.

01:10:50.700 And they still only gave me mostly true, which I, to this day.

01:10:55.220 He's an amazing writer.

01:10:56.720 So you know, he's a humanist.

01:10:58.280 So he is, especially in that last book, he does not like religion at all.

01:11:03.800 No, he's not a fan.

01:11:04.860 Not a fan.

01:11:05.860 And there's times when he was like, and another thing, marshmallow peeps.

01:11:10.920 Like, okay, Steven, put it down.

01:11:13.120 You know what he said?

01:11:13.900 You know, we don't all have to agree.

01:11:15.260 We can't all agree with each other.

01:11:17.020 And I really wanted to say, oh, Steven, you and I don't agree on a lot of stuff.

01:11:22.660 Yeah, but when you can go through an hour interview like that, right?

01:11:24.980 And this has happened with Penn Jillette as well with you.

01:11:28.120 You know, you totally disagree with Penn Jillette on religion.

01:11:30.300 But if you can talk for an hour like that and something sensible and get something out of it,

01:11:35.640 there's no reason you can't talk about those difficult topics with those same people.

01:11:38.400 Well, it's also, as Penn and I talk about, we could work hard on solving problems,

01:11:45.520 and it would be, as he says, 30 years before we'd ever get to a place to like, oh, yeah.

01:11:51.740 I mean, there's a lot of stuff that we can solve that we agree on.

01:11:55.460 All right.

01:11:56.400 Let me tell you about ZipRecruiter.

01:11:59.360 Every business needs great people.

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01:12:10.740 You put up ads there and people will.

01:12:12.480 No, that's good.

01:12:12.940 Can you imagine?

01:12:14.060 Do you remember when we used to have to call the library for, were you even with me?

01:12:18.840 Yeah, you were with me.

01:12:19.760 We would have to call the research desk at the library to get facts.

01:12:23.180 Yeah, or, I mean, you wind up with newspapers and you have to go.

01:12:26.740 Yeah.

01:12:26.960 Oh, it's awful.

01:12:28.300 Awful.

01:12:28.660 Think about what it used to be like to have to, you know, job post.

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01:12:52.300 And because it knows what you're looking for, it's like, that one is a perfect, that's a perfect resume.

01:12:58.060 That's the perfect person.

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01:13:16.280 ZipRecruiter.com slash Beck.

01:13:18.220 Find the right person fast.

01:13:20.940 ZipRecruiter.com slash Beck.

01:13:23.240 ZipRecruiter.com slash Beck.

01:13:25.220 Glenn Beck.

01:13:28.780 Mercury.

01:13:37.540 Glenn Beck.

01:13:39.160 There is an amazing op-ed that I read.

01:13:43.940 I was like, I've got to talk to this woman.

01:13:45.540 And it turns out she was in the Netherlands and I thought, oh, well, you know, she's not going to come out with it.

01:13:53.460 It's expensive, long distance.

01:13:55.760 I don't know why, but we reached out to her because everybody looked at me and went, you know, we can call her.

01:14:01.780 Yeah.

01:14:02.140 Uh, and, uh, so she's on with us next.

01:14:05.360 Uh, she is, uh, today is, I don't even know.

01:14:09.660 It is, uh, I got the, world sound world down syndrome day.

01:14:14.080 Okay.

01:14:14.540 So, uh, bring attention to down syndrome.

01:14:17.300 And, you know, we've been talking about down syndrome for the last few weeks because of another op-ed that I read in the Washington Post that said, you know, uh, they're a hassle and it's expensive and, you know, parents are sad and they don't have a quality of life.

01:14:31.500 So let's eliminate down syndrome and the kids that are, uh, are already formed in the belly of their mother.

01:14:38.460 Uh, our next guest says no.

01:14:40.260 And she's got a fascinating story.

01:14:42.620 Glenn Beck.

01:14:43.780 Mercury.

01:14:44.220 Mercury.

01:14:47.300 Love.

01:14:51.520 Courage.

01:14:53.240 Truth.

01:14:54.980 Glenn Beck.

01:14:56.480 My grandparents were Democrats.

01:14:57.860 They were Democrats their whole life.

01:14:59.300 They were, you know, FDR Democrats.

01:15:01.000 They were what was called blue dog Democrats at the time.

01:15:04.300 Those have become very rare.

01:15:06.080 They're not breeding a lot of those.

01:15:08.060 And the problem is anti-abortion rights.

01:15:12.460 That's the heart of the issue.

01:15:13.820 In 1978, there were 125 anti-abortion Democrats in the house of representatives by 96.

01:15:20.860 That number is down to 70.

01:15:22.740 Then by 2007, it was 32.

01:15:26.000 As of yesterday, it was three, nearly two, if not for Illinois representative Dan Lipinski's narrow victory.

01:15:36.920 Now he, he co-chairs the blue dog coalition.

01:15:39.980 I didn't, I didn't even know, I didn't even know they existed.

01:15:44.700 Many people assumed that Lipinski, the last of a dying breed of conservative Democrats, couldn't make it this far.

01:15:51.160 In part, because he stands by his beliefs.

01:15:53.760 He voted against Obamacare, the only Illinois Democrat to do so.

01:15:57.620 He supported over 50 bills that target Planned Parenthood.

01:16:00.860 He's one of only six Democratic representatives to vote in 2013 on abortion after 20 weeks.

01:16:06.820 And as such, he's been the target of various progressive groups.

01:16:11.120 Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Pro-Choice America, Emily's List, the Human Rights Campaign, MoveOn.org, SCIU, and the like.

01:16:18.480 This is an era of hysteria and polarization.

01:16:24.480 And politicians, like Representative Lipinski, are needed.

01:16:29.460 And quite honestly, we need them in both parties.

01:16:32.860 We need to not become monolithic and just say,

01:16:37.460 this is the only way, otherwise get out.

01:16:42.560 That's what's happening.

01:16:43.860 They're getting rid of anybody who believes in some traditional values on the left.

01:16:51.180 The Democrat who won the primary was all but promised a seat in the House.

01:16:55.220 Their Republican counterpart is a white supremacist, neo-Nazi Holocaust denier

01:16:59.880 who's been disavowed by his own party.

01:17:02.220 I don't think strongly enough, but disavowed.

01:17:05.520 So all it takes is for the Democrats to do the same, it would appear,

01:17:09.640 to elicit the disfavor of their own party.

01:17:12.180 And the way to do that is to have some conservative values.

01:17:23.240 It's Wednesday, March 21st.

01:17:26.080 You're listening to the Glenn Beck Program.

01:17:28.420 Today is World Down Syndrome Day,

01:17:32.620 where we have, you know, where the world should just take a moment,

01:17:38.060 especially this year and the years to come and say,

01:17:41.660 you know, I think the world's a better place because of people who have Down Syndrome.

01:17:47.920 I have a daughter of special needs and I, you know,

01:17:52.200 it's not something that you're like, oh man, I hope I have.

01:17:56.720 But when you are in that situation,

01:17:59.480 you find the beauty and the miracle in it.

01:18:02.860 And I think this says something about us that we are now eliminating through abortion

01:18:09.760 or our goal is to eliminate all people with Down Syndrome.

01:18:14.920 I think the world becomes a darker and colder place.

01:18:17.580 I read a great op-ed in the Washington Post and also on The Blaze.

01:18:23.860 There was another one written for The Blaze that is really good by Runeta Lindeman.

01:18:31.240 And she is with us now.

01:18:33.580 I know I butchered your name.

01:18:35.440 How do you say your name?

01:18:36.860 I'm sorry.

01:18:38.040 Well, it sounded good.

01:18:39.740 It's Renata Lindeman.

01:18:41.440 Thanks for having me, first of all, Glenn.

01:18:43.560 It's an honor and a pleasure.

01:18:45.140 You're welcome.

01:18:46.400 I'm thrilled to have you on.

01:18:47.700 I read your op-ed in the Washington Post and it was so spot on.

01:18:54.120 Can you take us through what your life has been and what you wrote in that op-ed?

01:19:02.840 I'll try in a nutshell.

01:19:05.640 So I was about 35 when I became pregnant.

01:19:10.620 And at that age, I was offered testing and I declined.

01:19:16.280 Testing for Down Syndrome, that is.

01:19:19.220 After birth, we heard that our daughter was born with Down Syndrome.

01:19:23.100 And, well, first of all, that is a major shock to us, to me.

01:19:28.580 And I had all these old-fashioned stereotypes that came to mind.

01:19:34.940 And, well, in a nutshell, very quickly we discovered life with Down Syndrome is not what we thought it was.

01:19:42.640 And you learn that Down Syndrome is actually very nice.

01:19:51.140 It's a child with Down Syndrome enriches your life and it makes you think that there's more to life than just success and money and career to chase.

01:20:01.420 And, well, shortly after my daughter was born, I started being an advocate for Down Syndrome and trying to raise awareness, getting rid of all the stigmas.

01:20:15.260 And I also heard, I became aware of the high abortion rate.

01:20:20.120 And this was 14 years ago now.

01:20:24.640 And, well, screening has become commonplace.

01:20:29.420 Every pregnant woman is offered screening for Down Syndrome nowadays.

01:20:35.000 And so I became a disability activist.

01:20:39.000 And we tried to raise awareness about the discriminatory and eugenic nature of the screening practice.

01:20:50.000 And we collect all sorts of information to show the world, show the United Nations with our project Stop Discriminating Down.

01:21:02.560 But also within the Down Syndrome community, how the screening, the routine offer of screening affects our families and reinforces discrimination, reinforces that stigma, reinforces that idea that Down Syndrome is something bad.

01:21:18.980 Can you help me out with something?

01:21:20.840 Because when I found out that you were a Dutch citizen, you lived in the Netherlands, I was really impressed by your courage.

01:21:29.160 Because there's some really spooky things going on that just scream eugenics, where the Netherlands are starting to price people and what they're worth and everything else.

01:21:43.500 And here is a part of the world that has a very proud heritage of saving Jews in World War II.

01:21:54.220 And doing everything they could to stand against the Nazis and all of these horrors.

01:22:01.360 And yet, at the same time, it was the German people that found out about the T4 program, about the, quote, undesirables or those not worthy to live.

01:22:13.320 The people who actually voted for Hitler stood up when they found out this was going on and said, you can't do that.

01:22:20.860 Don't do that.

01:22:22.280 Aren't we going to a place to where we're starting to be worse than the German population?

01:22:29.580 Yes, I agree with you, Glenn.

01:22:31.600 It's all very ironic.

01:22:33.640 That's not even the word to describe it, but it's much trickier this time.

01:22:40.840 The Netherlands was, in fact, the first country to introduce the new genetic screening test called NIPT, non-invasive prenatal testing.

01:22:48.800 It was the first country in the world that implemented this test into its public health care.

01:22:55.020 As of last year, it offers all pregnant women NIPT screening focused on Down syndrome.

01:23:03.480 The way it is done is very tricky.

01:23:06.560 It's done step by step.

01:23:09.980 Prenatal screening has been around for decades and first was offered to a very small group.

01:23:15.580 And then over the years, it intensified more screening, more tests.

01:23:20.780 The group of women became larger until it became what it is today, all pregnant women.

01:23:27.180 And it's all done with all these euphemisms like choice and freedom and women's rights.

01:23:33.540 And so it is, for some people, it's very hard to see what is actually happening.

01:23:40.220 So feminists are calling it our right, whereas they should see it.

01:23:47.240 And the ultimate goal of the screening is to save money.

01:23:53.260 Down pride and saving downs have collected evidence, and it's really out in the open.

01:23:59.980 So if the goal is to save money for health care purposes,

01:24:05.940 then why are feminists lining up to abuse, have their pregnancy and their bodies used for that purpose?

01:24:14.040 What is your answer to that?

01:24:17.240 I don't know.

01:24:18.140 I think it's been years of the mainstream media pushing that message,

01:24:25.040 using those euphemisms, freedom and right,

01:24:28.700 that people actually don't stop and think.

01:24:32.940 They just take over these words.

01:24:36.060 And, of course, freedom.

01:24:37.200 So if you criticize the screening practice that is currently happening, you must be anti-freedom.

01:24:46.900 It's like you just said, it's very polarized into pro-choice and pro-life or anti-life or, sorry, pro-life and pro-choice.

01:25:01.180 So, help me out on this.

01:25:04.960 Let me play devil's advocate.

01:25:06.760 And in this case, actually devil's advocate.

01:25:09.180 Yeah.

01:25:09.480 Look, you know, we have the technology to find out that there's a problem with a child.

01:25:21.680 If there was a problem where, you know, their liver was damaged and their kidneys were damaged and their heart was damaged,

01:25:31.180 you know, it would just, you wouldn't say, let's have that child born into the world because it's just, it's not going to live and it's not going to have,

01:25:40.680 you know, it's just going to be horrible for everybody, including the child.

01:25:43.920 But, I mean, why wouldn't we use this?

01:25:48.100 I mean, nobody wishes Down syndrome on somebody.

01:25:52.240 Well, that sounds all very reasonable, but it's not what is really happening.

01:25:58.300 First of all, you could screen, first of all, you could screen probably for almost everything nowadays.

01:26:05.280 But it's all cost-benefits analysis.

01:26:08.820 So they figured Down syndrome is pretty common.

01:26:12.880 It's one of the most common genetic arrangements, chromosomal arrangements that children are born with.

01:26:24.940 So they made that the focus of prenatal screening, whereas there are other conditions that are much more rare,

01:26:33.780 that have a much bigger impact on the life of the child and the health of the child,

01:26:39.700 that are not screened for.

01:26:42.120 So from that point of view, it doesn't make sense.

01:26:46.000 Well, it makes sense, but only money sends.

01:26:50.160 Would you be...

01:26:51.060 Screening is only used to enable abortion.

01:26:54.300 It's not used to help the child or the family.

01:26:57.700 So it doesn't really fit public health from that point of view anyway.

01:27:03.780 So would you be for, in the future, being able to gene splice?

01:27:09.340 So if the parents have a test and before the baby is formed, that they can gene splice and eliminate the defects?

01:27:21.400 Or are you...

01:27:22.620 Because I'm afraid of all of it because we're starting to make the uber-human,

01:27:29.740 the superman that the Nazis wanted.

01:27:33.560 You know, where do you stand on that?

01:27:35.300 No, I am completely on your side.

01:27:38.060 Most children are born with life...

01:27:43.620 Most children with Down syndrome, go back to my topic, have a healthy and happy life.

01:27:53.540 There are some children that are born with conditions that are not compatible with life,

01:27:59.820 and they will die shortly after birth.

01:28:01.940 But I don't think abortion is, first of all, I don't think abortion is a cure,

01:28:09.500 but the gene splicing and the manipulating and babies born out of three or more parents,

01:28:16.020 I don't think that is the way either, because it's that slippery slope argument.

01:28:22.160 Where are we going to stop?

01:28:23.340 And babies are not products.

01:28:25.340 That's first of all.

01:28:26.440 Do you worry at all?

01:28:33.220 I think that...

01:28:35.660 I mean, I think the world is made a much better place by our own personal, quote, defects.

01:28:43.280 And I think when it comes to Down syndrome, you know, it's like everything.

01:28:49.460 It does have its problems, et cetera, et cetera, and it's not all rosy and sunshine and lollipops

01:28:54.500 for the parent or, you know, for the kids and the later adults.

01:29:00.040 However, I really think...

01:29:02.380 I can't think of something that is deemed as a defect in the world

01:29:08.400 that is as so clearly positive to the world as people with Down syndrome.

01:29:17.080 Yeah, exactly.

01:29:17.880 That's what we live every day.

01:29:23.660 My children, who are now 12 and 14, I have two daughters with Down syndrome.

01:29:30.680 The way they are in life, their unconditional love, their ability to experience and live in the moment,

01:29:40.160 not to worry about things that I worry about,

01:29:42.640 but they have such an ability to enjoy life and to enjoy the moment

01:29:48.980 and to not let petty little things or worry about what happens 6,000 miles away from where I live.

01:29:57.720 They don't let things like that get them down.

01:30:00.500 They live now and they worry about the dance that they have on Friday night, things like that.

01:30:06.860 So it really grounds our family.

01:30:08.820 It really grounds me.

01:30:09.820 It puts everything in perspective, and we need people like that.

01:30:15.500 Well, we need people like you as well, and we are watching you from the other side of the planet.

01:30:20.660 Thank you so much for everything that you're doing, and thank you for your voice.

01:30:30.240 I think you meant that as a compliment.

01:30:31.760 It came off a little creepy.

01:30:33.000 We're watching her from the other side of the planet?

01:30:34.940 No, no, I've got cameras in her house.

01:30:36.380 Oh, okay.

01:30:36.660 Britta Lindeman, she's the spokesperson of Down Pride and Saving Downs.

01:30:42.220 By the way, you can get her Blaze op-ed on this topic at TheBlaze.com.

01:30:46.920 We just tweeted it from at World of Stew.

01:30:48.840 We'll also get it from at Glenn Beck.

01:30:50.080 Yeah, the headline is, what, feminists?

01:30:53.020 What is it?

01:30:54.380 You can open it back up.

01:30:56.020 Of course, obviously, you had to ask that question.

01:30:58.040 I did.

01:30:58.640 Aborting babies because they have Down syndrome is something no feminist should support.

01:31:03.860 That seems really obvious to me, and maybe not to the rest of the world.

01:31:09.320 Volatility in the stock market, wild swings in Bitcoin, constant turmoil in Washington.

01:31:14.780 What do you have to hedge the bet?

01:31:16.340 You know, it's funny.

01:31:18.140 People don't think of hedge funds.

01:31:20.740 And what hedge funds really are, it's just an algorithm that says, look, if this is going down,

01:31:28.040 that means that this is probably going to go up.

01:31:30.720 And so it hedges all of the bets.

01:31:33.920 And, you know, the algorithm can work faster than human beings.

01:31:37.580 And so, you know, generally speaking, if you're going to make an investment here,

01:31:41.440 the algorithm looks for the other side.

01:31:44.560 So in case it reverses itself, you don't lose anything.

01:31:47.780 Well, that's kind of what gold is.

01:31:50.140 It is the original hedge fund.

01:31:53.400 It is the original hedge against inflation, against insanity, against collapse, you know, all of it.

01:32:00.820 It has been around for centuries.

01:32:04.060 When things become unstable, that's when gold really kicks in.

01:32:08.680 Have you noticed the price of gold lately?

01:32:09.920 Now is the time to call GoldLine as things are relatively stable.

01:32:15.280 1-866-GOLDLINE.

01:32:16.960 1-866-GOLDLINE.

01:32:18.780 As, you know, the inflation rates go up, as the Fed starts to raise the interest rates,

01:32:26.620 you're going to see gold.

01:32:28.500 Historically speaking, this is the case.

01:32:30.200 Do better and better.

01:32:31.460 Call 866-GOLDLINE.

01:32:33.180 1-866-GOLDLINE.

01:32:35.000 Or goldline.com.

01:32:36.960 Do it now.

01:32:37.480 Glenn Beck, Mercury.

01:32:48.600 Glenn Beck.

01:32:50.000 There is one important story that is worth, you know, about a minute here.

01:32:54.080 And that is the court system yesterday saying that the woman who accused Donald Trump of,

01:33:02.200 you know, harassing her in her hotel room while she was a contestant,

01:33:06.780 or just after she was a contestant on The Apprentice, can move forward.

01:33:11.660 And they cited the Clinton case.

01:33:15.160 And so it's going to go forward.

01:33:17.720 And, you know, this could spell trouble if he did it.

01:33:22.020 And there's a blue dress.

01:33:23.520 And there's a lot on that one now.

01:33:26.420 You know, if they have the hardcore evidence and he lies under oath like Clinton did,

01:33:33.540 then there's trouble.

01:33:34.340 Yeah, I think two things here.

01:33:35.380 One, if you put Donald Trump in a situation where he has to testify on these things.

01:33:40.760 It's trouble.

01:33:41.180 You know, they can just, they can capture you with a wrongly worded phrase.

01:33:47.240 You know, they just, they can get you on a process crime.

01:33:50.100 And that is always a danger.

01:33:51.580 And that's why you don't want, you know, people testifying under oath if they don't have to.

01:33:56.540 Because that's obviously the goal here.

01:33:58.340 The goal would be to wreck him.

01:34:00.180 Not even if it has to do with the affair or just get him on something.

01:34:04.180 And the other thing is the death of the non-disclosure agreement is so consequential.

01:34:11.700 It is.

01:34:13.100 Thousands and thousands of people have had problems with their employers or other individuals.

01:34:17.140 They've signed agreements to say, look, you can have $130,000.

01:34:21.760 You can have $150,000.

01:34:22.980 But that, because that does, I'm not saying I'm guilty.

01:34:25.540 I'm just saying, you know, I'll give you this money and just go away and don't talk about it because it's a hassle for me to hear about it.

01:34:31.280 And that has, in some cases where women were really victims and other cases where it's just been a hassle for the employers,

01:34:39.340 has helped alleviate large problems for not only our legal system,

01:34:44.140 but also people trying to deal with these things against large companies who could come after them with all the force that they have.

01:34:49.480 And now, if you're a large company, why would you settle?

01:34:52.000 So, if you can come out and say, yeah, they paid me off, but I'm basically going to admit it except for the exact legal definition of admitting it.

01:35:00.560 That's trouble for our society.

01:35:03.220 Glenn Beck.

01:35:05.020 Mercury.

01:35:12.460 This is the Glenn Beck Program.

01:35:15.440 Welcome to the program.

01:35:16.580 Welcome to the studios.

01:35:17.840 Mr. Pat Gray.

01:35:19.560 Thank you.

01:35:20.040 Good to be here.

01:35:20.840 Thank you, Pat.

01:35:21.360 You know, I was writing a movie on demand the other night and didn't even think about what it was rated.

01:35:29.340 I just assumed.

01:35:30.660 And after the first, I don't know, 90 seconds, they said approximately 86 F words.

01:35:38.720 And I realized, hey, maybe this is R rated and I can't watch it.

01:35:42.760 What movie was it?

01:35:43.460 Thank you for your service.

01:35:45.600 It's a war movie.

01:35:46.780 It's a war movie.

01:35:47.120 Most of those are not.

01:35:48.420 Yeah.

01:35:48.860 I, you know, and I, I wasn't even, I, you know, wasn't even thinking, but anyway, I did some research on the movie because I was really interested in it.

01:35:55.800 And it's about, it's a true story about how broken our vets are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and how backed up the VA is and how the bureaucracy just turns them away.

01:36:11.880 You know, there's waiting lists of thousands and thousands of people to get into the centers where they can get some help because they're broken.

01:36:19.600 Um, and so they don't get the help they need.

01:36:23.580 They're not, uh, getting the treatment at all.

01:36:27.320 And so a lot of them in complete despair commit suicide.

01:36:33.720 As we know, it's 22 per day.

01:36:35.800 And when that happens, they lose their life insurance, lose their benefits, their families are destitute.

01:36:42.880 There's no way to even pay for a funeral, which is, uh, why I'm so in love with this, uh, dog tag furniture business from, uh, Troy, who is also a veteran.

01:36:52.740 And one of his buddies died from suicide, uh, when he came back from Iraq, uh, it was one of his battle buddies and he had no money.

01:37:01.660 The, the family had no money to bury him.

01:37:03.600 They get $300 from the government if they've committed suicide here, here you go.

01:37:09.420 And you know, the average cost of a funeral is what?

01:37:11.520 $7,000, which is, that's not even, that's a pretty cheap funeral.

01:37:16.300 Yeah.

01:37:16.900 Um, and wrong in and of itself.

01:37:18.420 And wrong.

01:37:19.100 When we buried my mom last year, it was 15,000.

01:37:22.240 So it's not cheap.

01:37:23.880 They give you 300 bucks and say, Hey, thanks.

01:37:26.100 Uh, you know, thanks for a service.

01:37:28.100 And so Troy started this business called dog tag furniture.

01:37:31.660 Where he sells these really beautiful American flags that you get for your home.

01:37:35.340 They're wood.

01:37:36.000 They're wood.

01:37:36.520 Yeah.

01:37:36.860 Yeah.

01:37:37.160 And they're really, really, really nice.

01:37:38.760 They're really beautiful.

01:37:39.340 Really nice.

01:37:39.920 And so he was, because he didn't know what to do for these guys and he was trying to help

01:37:44.820 his friend's family and he just turned some scrap lumber into this great looking, uh, he calls

01:37:51.600 it furniture, but it's these wooden American flags and it's really beautiful.

01:37:55.140 And so.

01:37:56.180 How much are they?

01:37:56.920 They're like 120, 125, something like that.

01:38:00.640 Um, but absolutely beautiful and absolutely, uh, worth it.

01:38:04.520 And all the proceeds go to helping the funeral costs of veterans who come back and commit

01:38:11.120 suicide.

01:38:11.540 Yeah.

01:38:12.020 It's, it's very cool because, uh, there are tons of veterans charities.

01:38:16.660 I mean, we've 72,000.

01:38:18.620 Yeah.

01:38:19.000 None of them help with this.

01:38:20.300 Not one, not one.

01:38:21.800 It's just this weird hole in that system.

01:38:23.720 Um, and you know, we, there's a lot of great charities doing a lot of great things, but

01:38:27.820 this is one thing that, I mean, this hits the families really hard, really hard, seven,

01:38:32.420 10, $15,000 costs.

01:38:34.400 Uh, you know, it's not like, uh, in addition to all the grief and, and terrible things that

01:38:40.680 go, are associated with it.

01:38:41.820 You know what it's like?

01:38:42.000 I've had two suicides in my family and I can't even imagine if we would have had to worry about

01:38:49.100 the funeral.

01:38:49.620 I mean, we weren't rich either time by any stretch of the imagination, but we could have

01:38:53.780 fair, we could afford to bury my, my brother-in-law and my, and my mom, uh, at the time.

01:38:59.540 Um, it's, what do you do with 300 bucks?

01:39:02.000 Nothing.

01:39:02.600 Yeah.

01:39:02.960 Maybe you can cremate them, but there's no service.

01:39:06.180 Not even, not even cremate them for that.

01:39:08.140 I've done, we've had, you know, family recently where that's been the case.

01:39:12.660 It was a heck of a lot more than $300.

01:39:14.220 Really?

01:39:14.540 I'll tell you that.

01:39:15.340 Jeez.

01:39:16.060 It's like, okay, we got what we wanted out of you.

01:39:18.820 Um, see ya.

01:39:20.660 And then you're just left to your own devices.

01:39:22.180 Well, the problem is, I mean, you know, you don't want to get into a situation to where

01:39:26.820 somebody says, you know, like, you know, my life insurance doesn't cover suicide.

01:39:32.000 No, right.

01:39:32.660 Mine's void.

01:39:33.520 Yeah.

01:39:33.800 If, so, I mean, you don't want to, you don't want to incentivize people because when they

01:39:37.720 get really down, then they're like, you know what?

01:39:39.940 I'm better off.

01:39:40.600 I'm worth more dead than a lot.

01:39:42.100 I mean, think of George Bailey.

01:39:43.820 I'm, I'm worth more dead than alive.

01:39:45.980 That was a movie, but no, I mean, jeez, I can't believe you'd bring something like that

01:39:50.320 up.

01:39:50.460 It's not even factual.

01:39:52.840 Um, no, he was on that bridge.

01:39:55.060 Now, had you started with the documentary, it's a wonderful life.

01:39:58.640 Yeah.

01:39:58.760 That would have been on board.

01:40:00.200 Right.

01:40:00.380 Okay.

01:40:00.940 But anyway, you, you, um, you know, you don't want to incentivize, but then you, we've got

01:40:06.100 to do something because they're, they're screwed up because we asked them to serve.

01:40:11.620 Yeah.

01:40:11.980 And they go through hell over there.

01:40:13.240 It's just, it's sheer living hell.

01:40:15.500 And when they come back, they need help.

01:40:17.400 And, and usually oftentimes the VA just turns their back on them.

01:40:21.720 Uh, the VA we know is, is just a massive government bureaucracy and they just don't function well.

01:40:28.040 And then when you have the numbers they have to deal with, a lot of these guys are getting

01:40:33.120 lost in that shuffle.

01:40:34.240 So it's 22 per day.

01:40:35.580 And if that's where we can, we come in, uh, you can help by going to dog, take furniture.com

01:40:41.340 dog, take furniture.com and buy one of these, these wood flags.

01:40:44.980 Troy gets nothing out of this.

01:40:46.360 He's he, he doesn't take a salary for this.

01:40:48.720 He gets nothing out of it.

01:40:50.060 So you don't want a flag, just give him the money and say, make the flag for somebody else,

01:40:55.160 you know, or whatever.

01:40:55.840 But, but, uh, this is a way to help these, these families.

01:41:00.080 Yeah.

01:41:00.480 And, and Trump obviously came in with a, one of his big mandates was to fix the VA and

01:41:05.840 that has not happened yet.

01:41:07.000 To his credit, he seems to be replaced.

01:41:10.060 It looks like he may be replacing some of the leadership he put in, um, because it hasn't

01:41:13.560 happened fast enough.

01:41:14.500 I, you know, it's just one of those things that's an excuse should happen.

01:41:18.220 I mean, that, that, that should be, it's a national crime.

01:41:21.660 It really is.

01:41:22.580 It is.

01:41:22.940 It's a national crime.

01:41:23.800 You remember Pat.

01:41:25.300 I mean, uh, I worked with Jim Lago years ago in, uh, in Corpus Christi.

01:41:30.980 He's still there.

01:41:31.660 He was a Vietnam vet and you know, he was really proud of his service.

01:41:35.540 When he got back, nobody else was proud of his service because it was Vietnam and you

01:41:39.660 know, that kind of, you know, twisted him and, and, and the whole Vietnam experience

01:41:44.120 kind of, kind of twisted him.

01:41:45.640 And, and, and I remember thinking, I don't ever want to be a part of a society that treats

01:41:50.140 our Vietnam vets the way we did.

01:41:51.560 And he was messed up too, right?

01:41:52.600 When he came back, he was messed up.

01:41:54.040 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:41:54.700 And he's great now.

01:41:55.820 Yeah.

01:41:56.580 Um, but when you, when you look at it, I think we're actually worse.

01:42:01.160 We may be worse.

01:42:02.220 We have, for instance, you know, yesterday they voted in the Senate to continue the war.

01:42:08.300 Now listen to this, to continue the war in, um, Yemen, Yemen.

01:42:15.700 Yeah.

01:42:16.280 And until recently, I didn't even know we were in a war in Yemen.

01:42:20.540 Yes.

01:42:21.260 So, but they didn't actually say we endorse the war.

01:42:25.100 We're going to fund the war.

01:42:26.280 They just said, no, the president can do that.

01:42:29.420 Now, Barack Obama is the one who started the war in Yemen.

01:42:33.620 We have a proxy war with Iran and we're fighting it with the Saudis.

01:42:40.100 Now, if we believe in that, that's good, but nobody even discussed it with us.

01:42:45.300 It just happened.

01:42:46.560 And so Mike Lee and Bernie Sanders of all people stood up yesterday and said, look, this

01:42:51.420 got to stop.

01:42:52.120 We have the power of war.

01:42:55.380 You can start something, but after 90 days, you come to Congress.

01:42:58.700 Well, it's been what?

01:43:00.000 Three years?

01:43:01.440 Long time.

01:43:01.780 Yeah.

01:43:01.980 Long time.

01:43:02.940 Nobody even knows.

01:43:04.160 We're sending people into harm's way for God only knows what.

01:43:08.500 We're having them fight in our name.

01:43:11.220 None of us even know they're killing themselves at record, record number.

01:43:16.820 They're broken.

01:43:18.380 We know that the VA is broken.

01:43:20.600 We know that they're broken and none of us really talk about it.

01:43:24.600 I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty horrifying what's happening.

01:43:27.660 It is horrifying.

01:43:29.180 It is.

01:43:29.440 And these are the people who are willing to do what the rest of us aren't.

01:43:33.140 That's a pretty tough job.

01:43:34.780 And it takes immense amounts of courage and patriotism and guts.

01:43:41.040 And, and, and then they're treated like this later on.

01:43:44.980 It's despicable.

01:43:46.360 Okay.

01:43:46.700 So it's, it's, it's dogtagfurniture.com and, and just go there.

01:43:51.060 They don't make anything on it.

01:43:52.240 This is just one guy trying to help pay for funerals.

01:43:55.020 It's not furniture like chairs and tables.

01:43:56.820 It's, you know, something to hang on the wall.

01:43:59.340 Yeah.

01:43:59.720 Okay.

01:44:00.560 Dogtagfurniture.com.

01:44:02.040 Can we just talk a little bit about, it looks like Bill O'Reilly was right.

01:44:07.000 I've been, you know, we have monitors in front of us.

01:44:09.360 And so I can see what, you know, Fox is doing, MSNBC is doing, and CNN is doing.

01:44:14.100 CNN, with all of the things that are going on, CNN has been almost nonstop Stormy Daniels.

01:44:22.440 Yeah.

01:44:22.680 And associated women.

01:44:24.840 Right.

01:44:25.240 Right.

01:44:25.680 I mean, it's just, and Bill said this was coming.

01:44:28.300 Yeah.

01:44:28.420 He said this was going to be the next big push.

01:44:29.800 And it seems like he was definitely right on the right.

01:44:31.320 Well, and especially with the news yesterday that she supposedly passed a lie detector test.

01:44:36.020 That's going to fire them up even more.

01:44:39.660 What?

01:44:40.820 The lie detector test thing is, I will say, very sketchy, sketchy science.

01:44:45.200 In fact, it's not science, but I go back and watch the Penn Jillette BS on the lie detector test.

01:44:52.620 It's fascinating how those things actually work, which really they just don't.

01:44:56.160 But still.

01:44:57.140 That's why you can't use them in court.

01:44:58.760 You can't use them in court.

01:44:59.620 But still.

01:44:59.700 They're unreliable.

01:45:00.540 You know, it's become a story.

01:45:02.740 And now.

01:45:03.660 It's an indicator, though.

01:45:04.960 One of the.

01:45:05.500 It's one indicator.

01:45:07.000 And one of the other women now who is coming after.

01:45:10.920 Playboy Playmate or whatever.

01:45:12.160 Another one who signed an NDA.

01:45:13.900 This is the third one.

01:45:15.200 Oh, somebody besides the Playmate.

01:45:17.260 Yeah, she was the reality show.

01:45:18.740 Yeah.

01:45:19.000 All right.

01:45:19.660 She was the first one.

01:45:20.740 She, to me, is the one that has the most credibility.

01:45:23.600 Because she was on Apprentice.

01:45:24.760 Because she was on Apprentice and she didn't say anything.

01:45:27.980 She wasn't going for money.

01:45:29.280 And she wasn't even when she saw him, you know, and he said, no, I'm good.

01:45:36.200 I don't.

01:45:36.920 She was like, OK, I've got to say something.

01:45:39.200 She stood up, said something.

01:45:40.460 Then she just dropped off the face of the earth.

01:45:42.780 And she only really got a bee in her bonnet when he said, no, she's a liar.

01:45:50.640 Then she was like, OK, no.

01:45:52.240 Yeah, that would piss me off, too.

01:45:53.300 No, no, no.

01:45:53.740 If it really happened.

01:45:54.440 Yeah.

01:45:54.940 I'm not a liar.

01:45:55.960 So she's suing the president just to correct that she is not a liar.

01:46:02.180 And she's like, he defamed me.

01:46:04.440 And so I'm suing.

01:46:07.460 Yesterday in court, they used the Clinton standard and said, if Bill Clinton can be sued for this, so can any president.

01:46:16.200 And so that one, to me, is going to be the one that I think causes the problem.

01:46:20.840 The Stormy Daniels thing and all that.

01:46:22.860 I mean, first of all, I mean.

01:46:25.420 Well, I think it's all priced in.

01:46:27.060 Yes.

01:46:27.500 I was going to say it's all priced in.

01:46:28.800 Did we not all kind of, you know.

01:46:31.420 Everybody's excused anything he did before, let's say, 2016.

01:46:38.060 Before 2015.

01:46:39.560 Anything that he did, we've all understood.

01:46:42.420 He did plenty.

01:46:43.560 I would say 2016.

01:46:45.080 I would say 1143 Eastern time.

01:46:51.260 That's probably more accurate.

01:46:52.940 I mean, you know, but it's all priced in.

01:46:56.000 It's all priced in.

01:46:56.960 If you don't like him, this isn't going to make you necessarily not like him more.

01:46:59.960 If you thought he had a problem with his character before, you probably have already priced that in.

01:47:04.540 If you think that he's great and you're going to excuse anything he's done before 2016,

01:47:08.740 then this isn't going to change your mind.

01:47:11.040 Here's the only tough part.

01:47:12.920 If you're an evangelical, you're a Christian.

01:47:14.920 Oh, it's not tough for them at all.

01:47:16.680 No.

01:47:17.380 The leadership, they're fine with it.

01:47:20.480 Right.

01:47:20.960 Because they're saying, because anything he did.

01:47:23.040 Yeah.

01:47:23.280 But he's denying all of this.

01:47:25.660 Right.

01:47:26.000 So if it comes out and there is a blue dress, well, wait a minute.

01:47:31.480 Then he was lying to you then.

01:47:34.540 And then that will be in the past.

01:47:36.040 It's a wonder how that works.

01:47:37.400 Then that one will be in the past.

01:47:39.480 Yes.

01:47:40.540 I think, though, it's more interesting to look at how this has changed us.

01:47:47.260 You know, I mean, look at this.

01:47:49.440 This is amazing.

01:47:50.640 Here's the poll.

01:47:51.480 And I want to make this.

01:47:52.740 This is very.

01:47:53.420 The wording on this is very important.

01:47:55.760 Do you agree with this?

01:47:57.000 That an elected official who has committed an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically

01:48:02.220 and fulfill their duties in the public and professional life.

01:48:05.140 This is not saying, do you believe Bill Clinton or Donald Trump?

01:48:09.180 Right.

01:48:09.360 It's not saying.

01:48:10.480 Do you.

01:48:10.980 Because you can say, oh, Stormy Daniels, I don't believe that with him.

01:48:14.160 That's not the question.

01:48:15.100 The question is, if someone does violate something in the ethical standards, can they perform their duties in the public life?

01:48:21.840 In 1998, when that question was asked, 77% of Democrats said it's a private matter.

01:48:27.300 No worries.

01:48:28.300 77%.

01:48:28.780 Now, of course, this is when Bill Clinton's going on, right?

01:48:30.620 At that time, Republicans, only 28% said it's just a private matter.

01:48:34.720 So 77% of Democrats in 1998, 28% of Republicans in 1998.

01:48:40.720 Now let's move to 2017.

01:48:42.640 Yeah.

01:48:42.900 Where now there's a Republican president.

01:48:44.520 Well, they all say the same thing.

01:48:46.200 Oh, they all very consistent values.

01:48:47.880 I'm guessing that it's still in the 20s and still in the 80s.

01:48:50.400 Now, Republicans, 67% say it's a private matter.

01:48:56.140 67%.

01:48:56.700 From 28 to 67.

01:48:58.120 Yeah.

01:48:58.500 For Democrats, only 26% say it's a private matter.

01:49:01.640 From 77 to 26.

01:49:02.980 Well, the good news is the numbers haven't changed that much.

01:49:05.740 It's just the people that have changed.

01:49:08.900 All right.

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01:49:26.140 They're ready.

01:49:27.800 Say they destroy the keypad and the siren.

01:49:29.740 Yep.

01:49:30.240 Still going to call police.

01:49:31.740 So maybe it's a little overkill, but I don't think so.

01:49:34.480 I mean, I want to keep my family safe no matter what.

01:49:38.540 SimpliSafe home security.

01:49:40.100 It is really great.

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01:50:06.220 Protect your home and your family today.

01:50:08.760 SimpliSafeBeck.com.

01:50:11.660 Glenn Beck Mercury.

01:50:25.740 Glenn Beck.

01:50:27.820 What are we going to do?

01:50:29.000 The Parkland situation is out of control.

01:50:31.560 Now they have found yet another sheriff's deputy asleep on the job, you know, a month after

01:50:37.700 the shooting.

01:50:38.800 Two kids have come into class with knives, and one was just expelled for making a bomb

01:50:46.440 threat at school.

01:50:47.600 And let us not forget that only 30 minutes before the officer was found sleeping on duty,

01:50:52.480 other deputies arrested the brother of the shooter for trespassing.

01:50:55.960 Yeah, and he eluded the locks and security.

01:51:00.300 And he said he just wanted to soak it all in.

01:51:02.280 Yeah.

01:51:02.460 Which is a good...

01:51:03.080 Wow.

01:51:03.500 Wow.

01:51:04.120 Holy cow.

01:51:04.740 The result of this, these multiple security issues over the past couple days...

01:51:10.640 Bulldozer?

01:51:11.360 Well, I wouldn't be surprised if they wind up just bulldozing this school and just breaking

01:51:14.940 it up into another district at this point.

01:51:16.340 This is turning it out to be such a disaster.

01:51:18.140 700 kids are absent from school today.

01:51:22.160 700.

01:51:23.960 Would you go to that school?

01:51:24.920 I don't think I would.

01:51:25.900 I don't think I'd let my kids go to that school.

01:51:28.420 I would be demanding that the sheriff is replaced.

01:51:33.300 How does he still have a job?

01:51:34.060 I'm surprised he's still there.

01:51:35.000 How does this guy have a job?

01:51:36.040 How does he have a job?

01:51:37.500 Disaster.

01:51:38.200 Yeah.

01:51:38.960 There's something really wrong in this whole district.

01:51:41.740 I don't know what it is, but man, if I were a parent, I would not be standing for it.

01:51:46.820 How can you, when you know the microscope is on you right now, how is your security not

01:51:51.280 perfect?

01:51:52.520 This is the time.

01:51:53.340 How is your deputy just not sleeping?

01:51:55.620 You gotta stay awake.

01:51:56.580 It's called Red Bull.

01:51:58.540 Yeah.

01:51:59.520 Stay awake.

01:52:00.660 That's one of the prerequisites.

01:52:02.660 Can you stay awake?

01:52:12.040 Glenn.

01:52:12.980 Beck.

01:52:13.980 Mercury.

01:52:14.500 Mercury.

01:52:14.660 Mercury.

01:52:14.780 Mercury.

01:52:14.800 Mercury.

01:52:14.860 Mercury.

01:52:14.880 Mercury.

01:52:14.900 Mercury.

01:52:14.940 Mercury.

01:52:15.000 Mercury.

01:52:16.620 Mercury.

01:52:16.700 Mercury.

01:52:26.580 Mercury.

01:52:27.580 Mercury.

01:52:29.480 Mercury.

01:52:29.860 Mercury.

01:52:30.020 Mercury.

01:52:30.820 Mercury.

01:52:31.240 Mercury.

01:52:32.120 Mercury.

01:52:32.620 isée Ant лишirt ус роб ist.

01:52:44.920 Mercury.

01:52:45.500 Mercury.

01:52:45.860 Mercury.

01:52:46.460 Mercury.

The Glenn Beck Program - March 21, 2018

'Optimistic and Hopeful' - 3⧸21⧸18

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