The Glenn Beck Program - The Best of Glenn Beck! - 7⧸4⧸18

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

00:00:06.420 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:00:11.240 Love. Courage. Truth. Glenn Beck.

00:00:18.540 Political activism has infected one of the most important institutions in America.

00:00:24.140 Yes, McDonald's.

00:00:26.240 McDonald's. McDonald's, in California, has flipped its golden arches upside down to resemble W.

00:00:35.200 Get it? M, which is bad, because a man starts with an M like McDonald's.

00:00:42.660 He turned upside down, and now it's a woman. Wow! Another W word. 1.00

00:00:47.140 McDonald's is, you know, is following suit with all the digital platforms.

00:00:57.140 You know, maybe I'm crazy, but I think this is just, you know, a cheap publicity.

00:01:02.420 I don't think there's not a single woman that I know or respect that would be driving by going, 1.00

00:01:07.300 you know what? Suddenly, I am going to have that quarter pounder with cheese.

00:01:11.280 They respect me. I mean, they employ women at all levels.

00:01:15.820 Many of the customers are women. Many of the customers are not women.

00:01:19.280 You know, they make sure that they have boy and girl-centric happy meal toy options.

00:01:24.240 I mean, do we need to really celebrate women even more?

00:01:27.700 How about we get a transgendered Ronald McDonald? 1.00

00:01:31.040 And Grimace has always been, I don't know if that's a man or a woman.

00:01:36.180 He is, he's cis-neutral.

00:01:40.000 Anyone with a brain cell knows this is a pandering marketing campaign, and it's working.

00:01:45.120 Everyone is covering it. But will it do anything?

00:01:48.560 I mean, does anybody think, oh, you know what?

00:01:50.940 I'm going to fight for that gender inequality in our society because McDonald's has turned their sign upside down. 0.98

00:02:01.480 I'm guessing it's not going to sell an extra hamburger.

00:02:04.180 I'm just guessing, no.

00:02:06.420 I would argue that McDonald's already does a great job at eradicating inequality between the sexes.

00:02:13.220 We're all equal when we pull up to that drive-thru and that window late at night

00:02:17.100 and embarrassingly bark out an order and ask for two Big Macs and large fries.

00:02:22.740 Something that all of our mothers would have said, do not eat that crap. 0.73

00:02:27.140 We do it, male or female, and we all feel the same shame.

00:02:43.360 Do the ends justify the mean?

00:02:47.100 Are there real white hats and black hats anymore?

00:02:51.740 Can you actually be a white hat taking down a black hat if you've done them in nefarious ways?

00:03:03.460 Are you wearing a gray hat or are you wearing a black hat?

00:03:07.940 There are so many things today that we'd all like to see dishonest bad media go away and collapse on its own weight.

00:03:19.860 We might even cheer when something like Gawker, which was a despicable website.

00:03:26.120 When Gawker went out of business and had to shut down, we might all cheer.

00:03:31.980 However, are we comfortable with the idea that a billionaire can conspire and make that happen, even though the end is good?

00:03:45.820 Ryan Holiday is an author.

00:03:48.780 He wrote a great book called Trust Me, I'm Lying, which is a fantastic read to go back to see how the news you see every day gets to you.

00:03:56.780 It's a sausage.

00:03:59.260 It's incredible.

00:04:00.260 You'll find teeth and shoes in it.

00:04:02.140 You have to read that.

00:04:03.400 The new book is Conspiracy.

00:04:04.920 Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue.

00:04:09.000 And it brings us through this entire story.

00:04:12.440 And Ryan joins us now.

00:04:13.880 So, Ryan, can you tell this story like only you can?

00:04:18.100 Tell this story before we get into what we are supposed to learn from it.

00:04:21.440 Well, it's an almost unbelievable story.

00:04:25.060 In 2007, Gawker Media, a gossip website in New York City, has a Silicon Valley arm called Valleywag, and they out the Silicon Valley investor, Peter Thiel, as gay.

00:04:36.900 He's at that point the founder of PayPal.

00:04:39.880 He was an early investor in Facebook, but a relatively unknown person whose sexuality was known to his friends, but he was not publicly gay.

00:04:48.980 He's humiliated by this.

00:04:51.880 He's frustrated by it.

00:04:53.040 He's hurt.

00:04:53.840 Gawker's headline, I believe, was Peter Thiel is totally gay people.

00:04:58.040 So, imagine your most sensitive secret being made public in such a flippant way.

00:05:03.920 And he finds this not to be illegal, but to be disgusting.

00:05:08.320 Hang on just a second.

00:05:10.220 Ryan, when this happens with Gawker, is this, because I find Gawker despicable.

00:05:16.560 They've done things to me and my family that are just despicable.

00:05:19.540 But on this, people were saying, well, we should out people because that's only going to make, you know, people more comfortable with, you know, with gay people if they know you're around them all the time.

00:05:32.940 So, were they using the ends justify the means at that time to do something good, or are they just dirtbags?

00:05:39.800 I think it's a little bit of both, right?

00:05:42.140 I think they thought, why should he get to keep this secret?

00:05:45.820 And I think they also thought, why should it be a secret?

00:05:50.680 This isn't something to be ashamed of.

00:05:52.900 But the truth is, he didn't want it to be public.

00:05:56.540 And I believe that's his prerogative.

00:05:58.420 Yeah, it's his story to tell, not anybody else's.

00:06:01.180 And so he sort of despairs of being able to do anything about it for five years.

00:06:06.100 He just sort of sits on this.

00:06:07.660 He's frustrated, he's hurt by it, but he can't do anything about it.

00:06:12.520 And it's only in 2012, when Gawker makes another enemy, they run a illegally recorded sex tape of the professional wrestler Hulk Hogan,

00:06:26.080 that Teal sees the opportunity that he's been looking for this whole time, that he'd been looking for.

00:06:31.980 He'd hired a lawyer to spot opportunities like this.

00:06:34.980 He approaches Hulk Hogan, and he says, look, what they did to you is not only despicable,

00:06:39.340 I think it's illegal both federally and in Florida where you're a resident.

00:06:43.900 I will fund this.

00:06:45.280 Teal approaches him through an intermediary.

00:06:47.100 This is totally in secret.

00:06:48.640 I will fund this case as far as you're willing to take it.

00:06:52.160 And he approaches a number of other people of similar cases.

00:06:55.020 And then for the next four years, this case winds its way through the legal system, and he eventually wins a $140 million bankruptcy-inducing verdict against Gawker in Florida

00:07:10.520 to the shock of all onlookers and legal strategists at the time.

00:07:15.660 And he achieves that thing that he had set out to do in 2007, which was to both get his revenge and to prevent this website that he believed to be evil from doing what it did to people.

00:07:29.960 So I know, Peter, he is a very, you know, generally quiet guy.

00:07:38.080 You know, he's an odd duck.

00:07:41.500 He's a really nice guy.

00:07:44.760 Doesn't seem like a guy who's driven by vengeance, but does sound like a guy or feels like a guy who will take all the time necessary in the world.

00:07:54.840 He is not in any hurry.

00:07:57.640 He'll wait until it's right.

00:08:00.620 Well, that's what's so brilliant about what he did.

00:08:03.000 I think most of us, when something is done to us, we react.

00:08:06.780 We respond, right?

00:08:08.060 A fight breaks out.

00:08:09.780 A conspiracy, to me, is more something that brews, that develops.

00:08:13.680 And that's what was so brilliant about Peter.

00:08:15.820 He didn't, he said, look, what they did to me I don't think was right.

00:08:19.040 And I'm angry about it.

00:08:20.960 But it's never good to be driven by anger.

00:08:23.820 And so instead, he stepped back.

00:08:26.340 He never forgot what happened.

00:08:28.020 But he looked for an opportunity where he actually had legal ground to stand on, where he actually could have an impact, where the public would be so universally repulsed by what these people did, that he would have a shot at making a difference.

00:08:43.320 And so I think both that patience and that ability to be strategic is why he was able to solve a problem, if that's what you want to call it, that many other powerful people had looked at and said, basically, there's nothing you can do about this.

00:08:58.740 But he didn't do, did he become the thing that he despised?

00:09:04.140 I don't get the impression that he did.

00:09:06.580 He did this on the up and up.

00:09:10.420 The only thing, the reason why it's a conspiracy is he didn't want to be out front.

00:09:14.300 But now that it's known, he doesn't mind.

00:09:16.880 I mean, he's owning it now.

00:09:18.060 Sure.

00:09:19.360 Look, I think secrecy is a fundamental element of a conspiracy.

00:09:23.740 And I respect that he was willing to see that the optics of a billionaire being publicly in front of this thing completely changes how the public would look at it.

00:09:34.320 But he said to me, he got this advice from one of his friends.

00:09:37.400 His friend said, Peter, you have to choose your enemies carefully because you become just like them.

00:09:43.200 And so that's really the danger of, you know, spending nine years scheming to destroy or ruin someone or something, is that you study them so much, they consume so much of your mental bandwidth that you can kind of become like them.

00:10:00.000 I don't think that he became anything like Gawker.

00:10:04.420 But, for instance, there's a seminal moment in jury selection where they notice that overweight female jurors are the most sympathetic to their case. 0.96

00:10:15.620 And now that's not disgusting, but there is an element of unpleasantness in selecting a juror to then exploit their most vulnerable body issue.

00:10:26.200 But don't you think that that's done in the court system every day of the week?

00:10:32.760 Well, I agree.

00:10:35.020 But my point is I think we tend to be idealists about change.

00:10:40.960 We think that we can make change without getting our hands dirty or without dealing with some of this unpleasantness.

00:10:48.080 And so there's compromises in pursuing something of this magnitude.

00:10:52.380 And I think Peter was so committed to what he was doing that he felt that that end did justify – that means did justify the end.

00:11:01.680 So Ryan has spent a lot of time with Peter Thiel.

00:11:05.460 Peter Thiel, this is not an anti-Peter Thiel book.

00:11:07.820 This is – Peter worked side by side.

00:11:10.760 He had unprecedented access to Peter.

00:11:14.000 And while Peter didn't – I don't think, Ryan, unless there's another conspiracy – he didn't fund this book.

00:11:21.120 He just gave access.

00:11:23.480 More with Ryan Holiday.

00:11:25.060 The book is conspiracy.

00:11:26.660 And there are some tough questions that we have to ask ourselves.

00:11:30.260 More in a minute.

00:11:31.000 Glenn Beck.

00:11:33.320 This is the Glenn Beck Program.

00:11:36.360 Addicted to Outrage.

00:11:38.160 A new book from best-selling author Glenn Beck.

00:11:40.520 Because everybody needs to be outraged about something that is entirely meaningless.

00:11:45.500 Something that really makes no difference or is none of my business whatsoever.

00:11:50.740 But I need to be really outraged.

00:11:52.640 Addicted to Outrage.

00:11:54.700 To stir us up and get us toward anger.

00:11:57.540 And we are addicted.

00:11:59.200 Addicted to Outrage.

00:12:00.820 Pre-order your copy now at Amazon.com or download a preview on iTunes.

00:12:04.420 We're with Ryan Holiday.

00:12:08.700 He is the author of a book called Conspiracy.

00:12:11.300 Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue.

00:12:16.120 It's a really – it's a very tough question that we have to tackle.

00:12:19.400 But I want to get a couple of more facts out of the way here before we do with Ryan.

00:12:22.940 Ryan, a couple of things that have been picked up from the book.

00:12:24.860 One thing that Peter had conversations about his strategy trying to get Gawker to go away.

00:12:34.400 And they discussed at least seemingly – it comes off a little flippantly – but at least

00:12:38.900 considered doing things that were actually illegal when it comes to the approach.

00:12:45.260 What was the example, Stu?

00:12:47.840 Well, I'm sure Ryan can walk us through the examples.

00:12:51.580 I don't have them in front of me.

00:12:52.740 Sure.

00:12:52.940 Go ahead, Ryan.

00:12:53.900 It struck me as a little bit of a tempest in a teapot of the media coverage because it's

00:12:57.120 like getting in trouble for thinking about speeding and then not speeding.

00:13:00.680 But if you think about Thiel's position, he finds Gawker to be this great evil.

00:13:06.060 He's trying to do something about it.

00:13:07.520 But as a billionaire, he has essentially limitless resources.

00:13:11.000 He's also the majority owner of one of the most powerful intelligence and defense companies

00:13:16.440 on the planet.

00:13:17.240 So he has these immense resources.

00:13:20.220 And so it's a question then of which of them is he going to use and what limitations is

00:13:26.580 he going to impose on himself?

00:13:28.960 So theoretically, could he hire private detectives to follow Gawker writers and attempt to find

00:13:36.640 dirt on them that would be embarrassing?

00:13:38.740 Could he start a rival website that would focus nothing but nothing on their personal lives?

00:13:44.860 Could he bribe employees to leak information to him?

00:13:50.080 Could he lobby politicians to go after them?

00:13:54.320 There's many things that he could do.

00:13:57.040 But what he decides actually early on after sort of laying all these options out on the table

00:14:02.340 is that he wants only to do what's legal and ethical because he's both, I think, an ethical

00:14:10.000 and moral person, but also because at some point your involvement is made public.

00:14:16.400 At some point you win.

00:14:18.540 And then the public looks at what you did and they judge you for this, right?

00:14:22.860 And so his belief was that if they accomplish this thing they were trying to accomplish with

00:14:28.080 unethical or illegal means, the victory wouldn't stand.

00:14:32.940 And it would also be, as we were talking about earlier, it would be Pyrrhic in the sense that

00:14:36.980 it would come at a great cost to himself because he would have had to become the thing that he was

00:14:43.500 trying to change in the first place.

00:14:45.500 I have to tell you, I am, you know, this is kind of being spun as an anti-Peter Thiel book.

00:14:50.920 And just that alone speaks volumes.

00:14:55.100 I mean, there, I don't know how many billionaires there are that would have the self-control that

00:15:01.100 he had to say, no, I want to do it.

00:15:03.720 I want to do it the right way.

00:15:05.240 Can you tell me anything?

00:15:06.000 Because you have an exclusive in this about a guy named Mr. A.

00:15:10.760 What is, who, I know you're not going to tell me who, but what is Mr. A's role?

00:15:15.480 Well, that is one of the weirdest twists of this story, this incredibly well-covered story.

00:15:19.940 I think people thought, I guess myself included, thought like Peter Thiel was involved on a

00:15:25.380 day-to-day basis.

00:15:26.760 And in fact, he sort of follows the startup model, which is in 2011, he has dinner with

00:15:33.460 this promising young college graduate who has told Peter he has an idea.

00:15:38.180 And they sit down to dinner.

00:15:39.840 And this kid says, Peter, I think I can solve your Gawker problem.

00:15:43.760 I think that buried in their archive of posts are illegal acts or acts that make them vulnerable

00:15:52.200 to civil judgments.

00:15:54.140 And I think he says, if you give me $10 million in three to five years of time, I think I can

00:16:00.280 make something happen here.

00:16:01.740 And basically on the spot, Peter invests in this kid.

00:16:04.360 And this kid is Peter's go-between, his operative, who hires the attorneys, who vets the cases,

00:16:12.600 who makes the decisions day-to-day.

00:16:15.020 And Peter is, in the way that Peter puts $500,000 in Mark Zuckerberg's hands, and he goes and

00:16:21.660 makes Facebook, Mr. A goes and makes this conspiracy a reality.

00:16:26.200 So what do you think Mr. A is going to be doing now?

00:16:30.820 Well, I would imagine when you solve a problem for a billionaire like this, the world is sort

00:16:36.040 of your oyster from that point forward.

00:16:38.400 I think he's got basically limitless options now and has one patron who's probably willing

00:16:45.800 to back him on any project under any condition.

00:16:49.140 Holy cow. 0.89

00:16:50.280 What was Peter's motivation in cooperating with you, Ryan, on this book?

00:16:57.820 Well, as I'm sure you guys have seen, just seeing the coverage and now talking to me,

00:17:02.900 this is a story that has been intensely covered, but with such bias and such sort of tribal instincts

00:17:10.420 on behalf of the media, because the media sees what happens to Gawker and they think,

00:17:15.480 oh, that could happen to us.

00:17:17.160 Let's circle the wagons.

00:17:18.460 So there's been this incredible amount of judgment about what's happened, and I think

00:17:22.720 that's greatly impacted the coverage, right?

00:17:26.280 It's to such a degree that Peter has become, in many people's eyes, this sort of James Bond

00:17:32.360 villain, and that's really not what he is when you meet him and you see what he did and why

00:17:37.900 he did it.

00:17:38.840 And so I think, you know, I'd written critically about Gawker many times, you know, myself.

00:17:43.260 My emails were once hacked and leaked to Gawker.

00:17:45.900 And so I know what that feeling is like.

00:17:48.760 So I was willing to at least be fair.

00:17:51.240 You know, I told Peter, look, you're not going to get to see the book before it's printed.

00:17:54.460 You're not going to have any input on it.

00:17:56.380 I'm going to play it down the middle.

00:17:57.740 But I think he at least believed that I would play it down the middle rather than, you know,

00:18:02.600 holding him up as the villain if that wasn't true.

00:18:04.760 So, Ryan, there's there's if I'm just trying to think this through a billionaire, say George

00:18:13.100 Soros, who is not a friend of mine, if he decided to to go after me and I was doing some

00:18:21.040 with the blaze was doing things that that that were blatantly illegal.

00:18:24.600 And I don't mean, you know, death by a million paper cuts with a billionaire could do.

00:18:29.000 I don't think I would have I don't think I would have sympathy for Peter if he had just

00:18:33.760 been paper cut after paper cut technicality after technicality, just keep him in court

00:18:38.080 and bleed him dry.

00:18:39.560 I don't think this is a problem for the First Amendment.

00:18:45.000 If they're going after things that are really, truly illegal and they're big.

00:18:51.800 And I'd like to get your response on that when we come back.

00:18:56.240 What does this mean for the First Amendment that a billionaire can mark somebody and then

00:19:03.020 take them out?

00:19:04.920 Is that good for the Republic when we come back?

00:19:09.080 I am I'm currently on a couple of week rant of we've got to do something and how that

00:19:21.240 always leads to bad things.

00:19:22.620 You just don't make good decisions when you're angry, upset emotionally.

00:19:26.660 We've got to do something.

00:19:28.520 It usually also means I'll I'll violate my principles because I want this pain to stop.

00:19:35.760 So what are our principles?

00:19:37.140 I, I don't I didn't like Gawker.

00:19:40.700 Gawker did some things that were dangerous for my family.

00:19:45.000 I thought they were despicable people and I did wish them to go out of business, but

00:19:52.680 I wouldn't have done anything to get them to go out of business.

00:19:57.880 And I like the way Peter Thiel did this.

00:20:01.080 He waited in to see, is there something that they have done that breaks the law when they

00:20:05.420 had Hulk Hogan?

00:20:06.740 They that that was an illegally recorded tape.

00:20:10.400 And for what?

00:20:11.740 What what was the purpose of exposing that?

00:20:14.680 So Peter took them to court on that.

00:20:17.700 The problem is, is he's a billionaire, has unlimited sources.

00:20:21.600 And are we setting a precedent that that somebody who has an axe to grind can put another company

00:20:29.940 out of business?

00:20:30.920 One man can put a media company out of business if they want to.

00:20:35.600 Are we did anybody learn that lesson in a negative way?

00:20:40.240 Ryan is with us.

00:20:41.020 Ryan Holliday is the author of the book Conspiracy.

00:20:43.920 Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Anatomy of Intrigue.

00:20:47.720 What have you come to, Ryan, on that?

00:20:50.180 Well, that is the big question.

00:20:51.940 And it is potentially scary to think that a billionaire could shut a media outlet down.

00:20:57.580 And then when you step back, you know, your point about not reacting emotionally.

00:21:01.680 Well, did Peter actually do anything new that doesn't happen every day anyway?

00:21:06.080 The ACLU, the Sierra Club, the NRA, they back cases all the time that they think move their

00:21:14.560 ideology forward or stands up for one of their constituents.

00:21:19.540 And so the idea of a wealthy person backing a lawsuit, not out of financial gain, but out

00:21:24.720 of ideological alignment, is actually, you know, not remotely new.

00:21:29.280 And if you were to ban it, society would undoubtedly become a worse place.

00:21:33.660 Why shouldn't your rich uncle be able to support you against a person who, you know, ran into

00:21:40.400 you with their truck?

00:21:41.460 So there's the legal question, which I think he did everything right.

00:21:47.080 And then there's the ethical question, which I think he did everything right.

00:21:50.680 Um, uh, but you have to ask that, that ethical question too.

00:21:56.660 Uh, and would you have felt different if he would have taken Gawker on with, with almost

00:22:02.900 frivolous lawsuits and just done death by a thousand paper cuts?

00:22:06.540 Do you think it would have been a different story for you?

00:22:09.800 Absolutely.

00:22:10.420 Because there you're not actually attempting to win.

00:22:12.920 You're not attempting to have your, your argument validated.

00:22:16.340 You're attempting to, uh, to destroy someone first for something that they may have not

00:22:22.420 actually done wrong.

00:22:23.260 And so Peter's decision, for instance, not even to attack on first amendment grounds, because

00:22:27.800 he believes that that is, is sacred, but, but to look instead at the individual's right

00:22:34.100 to privacy, right?

00:22:35.160 Is there a newsworthiness in this sex tape?

00:22:38.920 Uh, or is there a copyright claim here?

00:22:41.880 He, he specifically did not sue them on say frivolous libel or defamation grounds because

00:22:48.600 he was worried about the precedent that it might set.

00:22:51.240 And he didn't believe there was, you know, anything wrong there.

00:22:54.600 So his distinction is, is, is really, really important.

00:22:58.760 And, and I think, you know, a potential hypothetical would be what if, uh, a liberal had backed, uh,

00:23:06.180 Shirley Sherrod in her lawsuit against Breitbart when they ran that deliberately edited manipulative

00:23:12.420 tape of her in, I believe it was, uh, 2011.

00:23:16.620 And I don't think many of the people who are deeply upset about what happened to Gawker,

00:23:21.580 I don't think they would be upset if Breitbart had gone out of business in 2012.

00:23:25.860 I think they'd be cheering it the exact same way.

00:23:28.520 So, uh, go ahead, follow up.

00:23:30.180 Very interesting.

00:23:31.020 Yes, that's absolutely true.

00:23:32.360 I wanted to get your take up quickly on, uh, I can't remember the guy's name who actually

00:23:37.580 wrote the story.

00:23:38.940 Um, but he, he's been become somewhat of a cause celeb on the left of a guy.

00:23:44.720 Cause he's not the guy, he's not Nick Denton who ran, uh, Gawker, but the guy who actually

00:23:49.280 just did the post.

00:23:50.020 He's a, you know, he's a lowly convoluted area.

00:23:52.320 Yes.

00:23:52.640 Yes.

00:23:52.880 He's, you know, and like just a, you know, a writer and he's working for Gawker, not making

00:23:56.560 a ton of money.

00:23:57.180 He, he, and he was involved in this lawsuit and, and he has been presented as this guy

00:24:02.820 who got in the middle of this thing and he was helpless in this situation.

00:24:06.300 And now he has no chance of making any money.

00:24:08.620 He owes like, you know, an ungodly amount of money, uh, for this lawsuit and can't do

00:24:13.400 anything about it.

00:24:14.120 He wasn't wealthy.

00:24:15.020 He didn't own Gawker.

00:24:16.540 Give any perspective on that and how you see that, that went, how that went down.

00:24:20.020 Yeah.

00:24:20.480 So in a way he, he's just doing his job.

00:24:22.460 Like Gawker publishes these stories all the time.

00:24:25.760 It's so unremarkable when he gets the whole Kogan tape that Nick Denton, the CEO, isn't

00:24:30.180 even notified, right?

00:24:31.340 The case that bankrupts the company, the CEO doesn't know about it until after it's published

00:24:37.040 because that's how run of the mill it actually was.

00:24:40.100 And so, yes, it, it, it was unfortunate that this individual, this writer doing this job

00:24:44.660 takes the full brunt of it in, in the public eye, uh, you know, during the trial and then

00:24:50.540 is held liable, uh, the, the jury, uh, says, uh, holds him personally liable for about a

00:24:56.620 hundred thousand dollars of this hundred and forty million dollar judgment.

00:25:00.140 But what people forget is that months after the verdict, Peter and, and, and Hulk Hogan

00:25:05.740 settle with Gawker that releases, uh, both Denton and, and Delario from these individual

00:25:12.980 claims.

00:25:13.640 And they're able to, to walk free that, you know, they didn't, they, they were not necessarily

00:25:18.280 ruined by it.

00:25:19.380 And Peter said like, look, my goal was to destroy Gawker, not to ruin these people personally,

00:25:25.880 but individuals are held accountable for their actions and that's life.

00:25:31.940 I mean, we all have choices, uh, no matter if everybody else is doing it, we still have

00:25:36.080 a choice.

00:25:36.860 Um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm so intrigued by Peter.

00:25:39.840 I think he is a, I think he's a real force for good.

00:25:42.540 And I think he is a, I think he's a deep and thoughtful man, um, uh, that doesn't make

00:25:48.200 everything that he, everything that he does, uh, right or good, but he, he really seems

00:25:53.900 to think about things.

00:25:56.620 And he, um, I heard him say once, I, it's not that I, I think I'm right.

00:26:02.400 I, I'm not even sure if I'm right.

00:26:04.600 I just don't think other people are even thinking about these things.

00:26:08.420 Yes.

00:26:09.100 What does that tell you about him?

00:26:10.280 He would say that even about this case, that it's often not that, uh, he was right and

00:26:16.180 other people were wrong.

00:26:17.180 It's that Gawker wasn't even, Gawker just assumed that this whole Cogan case would get

00:26:22.440 settled.

00:26:22.820 They weren't even taking it seriously.

00:26:24.320 And so Peter is a person who has theories about the world and he's willing to, as Nassim

00:26:30.140 Taleb would say, put some skin in the game, right?

00:26:32.380 He's, he's willing to, to throw some weight behind them and see what happens.

00:26:36.600 And I think, uh, to me, the lesson of what happened and what I tried to write about in

00:26:40.740 the book is that you can fundamentally disagree with what Peter did.

00:26:44.780 And you can think that it's dangerous and alarming that Gawker doesn't exist anymore, but there

00:26:49.820 is something to study a lesson to learn about how this guy did it and why he did it and how

00:26:57.260 he was able to effectuate the change that he believed needed to happen outside of, you know,

00:27:02.940 writing op-eds or putting out a petition, you know, he, he, he, he made real change in

00:27:09.200 the real world where other people said there was nothing you could do about it.

00:27:13.420 And to me, that's a lesson that that in some ways, that's an inspiring thing right now in

00:27:19.640 this society where we're stuck, you know, on both sides of the aisle.

00:27:24.240 We, I think we just feel like change can't happen and hear a guy made something happen.

00:27:29.940 Yeah.

00:27:30.660 When, when I saw that in the book, that, uh, that phrase, um, I, I, I thought to myself,

00:27:37.320 that is something that, uh, the, the world is not even, um, rewarding now.

00:27:43.380 It doesn't reward you to think it doesn't reward you to think out of the box and to think

00:27:47.780 differently.

00:27:48.740 Um, and it doesn't reward you to say, I'm not sure if I'm right.

00:27:53.100 I just want us to think about that.

00:27:55.260 Uh, and, uh, and that's really what we're missing.

00:27:59.880 And the irony is that in some ways, Gawker was part of that problem, right?

00:28:04.780 I think one of Teal's objections to them is not just the despicable things that they did

00:28:09.440 and the violations of privacy, but as the site that just sort of made fun of everyone

00:28:14.780 for every mistake, every failure, every personal idiosyncrasy, they were disincentivizing people

00:28:22.460 from thinking outside the box, from being weird and weirdness is where innovation comes from

00:28:28.460 and creativity.

00:28:29.240 And we should want people to take risks and turn out to be wrong.

00:28:33.260 What we don't want to do is mercilessly mock them to the point where nobody tries anything

00:28:39.360 because they don't want to end up on the front page of Gawker.com or, or any website.

00:28:44.460 Ryan Holiday.

00:28:45.640 Thank you very much.

00:28:46.820 Thanks for having me.

00:28:48.840 I think we sold you on that story.

00:28:50.340 That's a, that's a pretty, uh, Ryan, Ryan tells it well, and there's a lot in here that

00:28:54.720 has not previously been reported on it.

00:28:56.840 Conspiracy, Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the anatomy of intrigue by Ryan Holiday.

00:29:01.760 I'd also, we should have Ryan back on at some point, uh, for trust me, for trust me, I'm

00:29:06.240 lying.

00:29:06.640 Yeah, it is.

00:29:07.620 He is a guy who has a firsthand, uh, firsthand experience really with, um, uh, with fake

00:29:17.360 news.

00:29:18.060 Yeah.

00:29:18.520 I mean, it was really kind of his job as a PR person, uh, and he knows how it works

00:29:24.640 and it's really fascinating.

00:29:26.360 So we'll have to have his, uh, quickly on the, he, the concept of that book was that

00:29:30.240 he would, you know, those weird stories that bubble up to the national media and you're

00:29:33.900 like, how do we even hear about that?

00:29:35.420 It was his job to try to get them elevated from, from a blog to local media, to regional

00:29:42.000 media, to national media, to try to get attention for clients and all sorts of stuff.

00:29:46.840 So he was like in the media manipulation business for a long time.

00:29:50.920 And you know what it goes to, remember the first thing that I said when we went to CNN

00:29:54.140 and I said, I'm really uncomfortable with this, the ingesting of news.

00:29:58.640 Oh yeah.

00:29:58.880 Because if you make one mistake, it's, that is your basis forever.

00:30:03.620 Uh, and it's interesting because what he did was it was on a blog and then he would call

00:30:08.080 the local news and say, did you see this?

00:30:10.100 This blog, you see this blog.

00:30:11.540 And they would use that as a credible source.

00:30:13.680 And then he'd go to the regional news and say, did you see this in the newspaper?

00:30:17.740 And it got more credible as it went on.

00:30:23.480 Now, more of the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:30:26.880 I resemble that remark.

00:30:29.240 News from Dunder Firmeline, Dunder Firmeline Sheriff Court.

00:30:39.840 Dunder, a man ended up behind bars after being found in a Dunder Mifflin street with an offensive

00:30:49.040 weapon.

00:30:50.600 Scott Walker is 39 years old at the James Bank Hostel.

00:30:54.840 James Street, he appeared, uh, from, uh, custody at, uh, Dunder Mifflin, uh, Sheriff's

00:31:03.920 Court.

00:31:04.460 He did admit on Saturday in Appling Crescent, a public place that he was in possession of

00:31:12.360 an, uh, object which had a blade or was sharply pointed.

00:31:18.520 I have to remember we're now starting to confiscate all weapons.

00:31:24.280 Uh, like, uh, knives, uh, like, uh, knives, uh, and he had a blade that was sharply pointed

00:31:35.900 at, uh, namely a potato, uh, uh, potato, uh, potato peeler.

00:31:40.780 Uh, defense solicitor, Selena McKay said, her client suffers from significant learning difficulties,

00:31:50.500 which had been lifelong, and he had absolutely no idea that a potato, a potato peeler was

00:31:58.960 a dangerous, uh, weapon.

00:32:00.440 But in all fairness, neither did this reporter.

00:32:05.620 This has been another highly intoxicating episode of Drunk News.

00:32:11.060 A potato peeler.

00:32:13.480 Guy goes to jail for a potato peeler.

00:32:16.940 Does make more sense when you say it.

00:32:18.680 And it says, yeah, yeah, but that's a very dangerous weapon.

00:32:23.020 Have you ever.

00:32:23.660 Well, it's dangerous to the potatoes.

00:32:26.120 Potatoes.

00:32:27.140 Potatoes are the most untrustworthy of all of the vegetables and root vegetables.

00:32:34.980 It's the only the only ones with eyes.

00:32:36.300 They have eyes everywhere.

00:32:37.780 On all sides.

00:32:38.840 They're watching you all the time.

00:32:40.560 You have to sneak up and you have your potato peeler, your potato peeler, you can use a

00:32:47.700 knife, but potatoes know what knives are. 1.00

00:32:51.480 And so the potato peeler, they're like, oh, that's just not a knife.

00:32:54.900 It's actually a very dangerous weapon.

00:32:57.540 It can take your eyes.

00:32:59.040 Uh, joke about this all you want, but imagine if you're the, you know, you're Mr. and Mrs.

00:33:03.820 Potato Head and you're seeing a potato peeler.

00:33:06.200 Imagine the horror film that that is for the potato.

00:33:08.880 Mr. Potato Head was not asked for comment at this time.

00:33:13.400 He is at home resting comfortably with his wife.

00:33:19.940 I, uh, I, this is what we're getting down to gang.

00:33:23.060 So they're, they're legitimately arresting people.

00:33:26.740 Arresting people for potato peelers.

00:33:27.500 Who had a potato peeler.

00:33:29.320 Putting them in jail.

00:33:31.120 And the defense was, oh, he's a complete imbecile.

00:33:36.260 That sucks.

00:33:37.380 It sucks when that's your defense.

00:33:39.160 I mean, that's crazy.

00:33:40.560 We use that.

00:33:41.000 We hear that a lot in politics though.

00:33:42.860 It's kind of the, the standard line of defense for every politician these days.

00:33:46.800 Ah, I'm just an idiot.

00:33:47.840 I'm sorry.

00:33:48.360 Okay.

00:33:51.140 Uh, listen, my, my client, uh, is this a moron?

00:33:59.100 I would accept that.

00:34:00.280 Wouldn't you love to hear that from somebody who was like, okay, Judge Roy Moore?

00:34:05.540 Of course, he's a moron.

00:34:08.040 It would be interesting to see that as an approach.

00:34:11.260 It would be effective.

00:34:12.060 I think Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, uh, Rodham, uh, Clinton.

00:34:19.740 She, she, she didn't make a lot of mistakes.

00:34:23.920 She's just a moron. 0.93

00:34:25.480 She was, your honor, when she was taking all of those things, she doesn't break, she's

00:34:34.060 just a moron.

00:34:38.160 It works.

00:34:39.820 I don't think there's enough, the ego cannot be violated in that way for most politicians

00:34:45.340 though.

00:34:45.700 They can't take that.

00:34:46.320 Only a moron would say that.

00:34:48.060 Cause this works.

00:34:51.720 Put down that potato peel.

00:34:53.140 Glenn Beck.

00:34:55.280 Glenn Beck.

00:34:57.160 As you know, uh, one of my heroes is George Washington.

00:35:00.100 And I have to say that this is probably, this is probably the greatest day, uh, since he,

00:35:05.360 since he passed away.

00:35:06.280 I mean, he's looking down on us today and going, thank you.

00:35:09.020 Thank you for somebody.

00:35:10.060 Somebody finally did it.

00:35:11.500 George Washington university are in our nation's capital has been molding minds now for almost

00:35:16.740 two centuries.

00:35:17.480 And it's, it's of course, one of the most prestigious and highest ranked institutions

00:35:22.420 in America.

00:35:23.720 And every student though, it is grace, the hallowed halls of GW have, have come away with a great

00:35:29.680 education or so we thought.

00:35:31.020 So we thought until now, um, they had a deficiency in their expensive education.

00:35:36.820 And finally, one brave professor at GW is, is stepping up to do something about this deficiency.

00:35:44.480 He's, he's tackling one of the most troubling problems of our time.

00:35:47.940 And one that really would, none of us have the courage to talk about.

00:35:52.500 He is leading a life changing seminar on quote, Christian privilege in America.

00:35:57.960 There, I said it.

00:35:59.560 Okay.

00:36:00.520 Finally, it's out Christian privilege.

00:36:03.480 It's been the, uh, non GOP elephant in the room since America's founding, really that

00:36:09.060 Christians get all the privileges. 1.00

00:36:10.660 Well, that in white people, oh, and men, white men, Christians.

00:36:14.840 Oh my gosh, they're the worst.

00:36:16.680 The founders set it up that way, you know, in the constitution, uh, it's in the bill of

00:36:20.860 rights.

00:36:21.140 Look it up.

00:36:21.720 White privilege, male privilege, Christian privilege, you know, white privilege is so five minutes

00:36:27.220 ago.

00:36:28.020 Christian privilege is really what's keeping everybody down. 0.99

00:36:31.340 Actually white privilege is still a thing, but that's also, um, uh, mentioned under the

00:36:37.620 seminar's, uh, learning objectives.

00:36:40.080 So, uh, but I guess white privilege kind of goes hand in hand with Christian privilege, 0.53

00:36:45.120 doesn't it?

00:36:45.600 I'm not sure anymore.

00:36:47.340 Tomato, tomato, who knows?

00:36:49.880 The professor is Timothy Kane, and he plans to explore how Christians in the U S experience

00:36:55.300 life in an easier way than non-Christians. 1.00

00:36:58.940 Hmm.

00:36:59.280 Yeah, I, I probably, because we're about 70%.

00:37:03.960 We claim to be about 70 or so percent Christian.

00:37:06.920 I don't know if anybody's actually living it anymore, but yeah, I'm sure it'll include

00:37:12.460 a full analysis of the way, you know, Christians, for instance, in Sutherland, uh, Sutherland Springs,

00:37:18.040 Texas have experienced, uh, life in an easier way since last November.

00:37:23.460 In his seminar description, Professor Kane asked, even with the separation of church and

00:37:27.640 state, are there places where Christians have a built-in advantage over non-Christians?

00:37:32.900 Of course, of course, absolutely.

00:37:35.280 Like magical places like, uh, California, because I'm sure he's going to discuss the

00:37:39.840 special Christian privilege of the California cafe owners who get to play their Christian

00:37:44.540 music whenever they want in their privately owned business.

00:37:47.360 Oh, no, wait, hold on.

00:37:48.880 Sorry, it's backward.

00:37:50.200 They don't actually get to enjoy that special privilege.

00:37:53.500 They were actually singled out because they were Christian and they're about to be evicted

00:37:58.480 from the building where they run their business and have run it for 11 years because one person

00:38:02.920 complained.

00:38:04.260 If Professor Kane honestly thinks Christian privilege exists in America, much less the

00:38:10.620 world, I don't think he gets outside of his bubble very often.

00:38:14.860 A more enlightening seminar might, might be one on the progressive university privilege to

00:38:21.260 help us understand how professors like Kane continue to get paid for coming up with crap

00:38:27.380 like this.

00:38:28.200 Our universities are becoming indoctrination camps.

00:38:46.380 That's all they are.

00:38:48.000 They're teaching your kids the things that they really need to know.

00:38:50.880 No, my kid needs to know math and science and literature.

00:38:54.460 That's what my kid needs to know.

00:38:55.760 And you're not teaching him any of that.

00:38:57.140 You're teaching him all this bullcrap of privilege.

00:39:00.200 You know what?

00:39:01.300 Here it is.

00:39:02.180 Here's the lesson everybody needs.

00:39:03.940 Life is not fair.

00:39:06.820 You may not get everything that you want.

00:39:10.740 You may not get anything that you want.

00:39:14.200 But continue to pick yourself up and keep going.

00:39:18.440 The Constitution and with Lady Justice, who is blind, is not supposed to be granting special 1.00

00:39:28.860 favors for anyone, no matter their color, their creed, no matter what it is.

00:39:35.320 You break the law, you go to jail.

00:39:37.820 You succeed, good for you.

00:39:41.060 Keep going.

00:39:41.620 And now that you have more things, more stuff, we'll protect people from stealing that from you.

00:39:48.860 That's the lesson.

00:39:50.460 Now, can we get down to math and science, please?

00:39:55.720 Charles Murray is an author.

00:39:59.480 He's a scholar.

00:40:00.900 He's a brilliant political science mind from MIT.

00:40:04.400 And he has his B.A. in history from Harvard.

00:40:08.720 He's written several books.

00:40:10.180 He's controversial because he looks at the facts and then says them no matter what people

00:40:15.180 want to think.

00:40:16.980 He wrote The Bell Curve.

00:40:18.760 He wrote Losing Ground, which, you know, was credited as the reason why we had the Welfare 1.00

00:40:25.900 Reform Act of 1996.

00:40:28.220 He's also written What It Means to Be a Libertarian, In Our Hands, Real Education.

00:40:32.400 And then Coming Apart, which I just finished reading, and I know I'm way late on it because

00:40:37.960 it came out in 2012.

00:40:39.300 But it's a fascinating look at America and how we are coming apart.

00:40:45.400 What has changed?

00:40:47.100 He also has his recent book out, By the People, Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission.

00:40:51.080 We wanted to get him on because he's a fascinating man.

00:40:54.680 We'll have you looking at things in a completely different way quickly.

00:40:58.420 Welcome to the program, Charles Murray.

00:41:00.540 Thanks, Glenn.

00:41:01.260 Glad to be here.

00:41:01.800 So, Charles, let's start with this.

00:41:05.600 Any comments on the Christian privilege thing?

00:41:09.980 Well, it's actually laughable.

00:41:14.500 I understand that it's serious and that I would be very unwilling to pay $60,000 a year

00:41:20.640 to college these days, like I did with my kids in earlier years, because it's gotten so bad.

00:41:28.500 So, I'm not laughing because it's not a problem.

00:41:32.060 I'm laughing because it's so silly.

00:41:38.620 The privilege is the one you refer to.

00:41:40.720 If you want to talk about privilege, it is that if you go to Harvard or Princeton or Yale or a variety of other highly prestigious colleges, you get interviewed by places that aren't going to interview you for jobs.

00:41:55.020 I mean, I'm talking about Goldman Sachs and things like that.

00:41:59.400 That's privilege when you get access to that kind of job opportunity that can make you fabulously wealthy.

00:42:07.100 There are a whole variety of things that the new upper class, which is my label for this educated class, have going for them, whereby they have crafted a world that is perfectly suited to what they do best.

00:42:24.000 That's privilege in a real, concrete, powerful sense that makes any Christian privilege trivial. 0.88

00:42:33.820 So, you know, in reading your book, it's just fascinating the way you use stats and the way you view things and compare apples to apples.

00:42:44.320 But, you know, you wrote this in 2012, and it is all it's all heavy on the tree now.

00:42:53.040 This fruit is very ripe.

00:42:54.680 Can you can you kind of go down a little bit and explain what is happening to us right now?

00:43:02.740 Well, yeah, just so this is the Cliff Notes version of the argument.

00:43:06.820 It's real simple that you had two things happen about half a century ago in the 1950s thereafter.

00:43:13.560 And one was that you had the good schools in this country became much more willing to take kids from all over the country.

00:43:23.440 I went to Harvard in the fall of 1961 from Newton, Iowa.

00:43:28.560 I would have never thought of applying to Harvard 20 years earlier.

00:43:33.000 That was one thing that happened.

00:43:34.500 And in a sense, Glenn, that's good.

00:43:36.560 I mean, you know, kids with talent get a chance to fulfill it.

00:43:40.180 That's great.

00:43:40.760 But what that did was over time, as the decades went on, it created a kind of new culture of all these kids who are really, really smart and who who become isolated from each from the rest of the country.

00:43:58.120 I love I love in your book the way you describe this, that because we all went to school with a geek.

00:44:03.540 I mean, I went to went to school with a guy who was a math genius, first chair violinist.

00:44:09.860 He had perfect pitch.

00:44:11.340 I mean, the guy was, you know, and good looking.

00:44:13.560 And I just I wanted to stone him to death.

00:44:15.500 If I would have lived in biblical days, I would have led the charge. 0.95

00:44:18.400 But, you know, I don't know what he's doing now, but he was very isolated in some ways because he was so smart.

00:44:26.960 And, you know, I, I always you know, when when he went off to college, I always wondered what that was like, because now he was in a group of a bunch of other really, really smart people.

00:44:39.820 And the way you describe this and what happens is fascinating.

00:44:44.120 And it's much, much different than it used to be.

00:44:48.760 You know, think about this way, Glenn, if you're talking about, let's say, people with high IQs and let's just say that's people with IQs of 130 above, which I hasten to add, does not make them wise.

00:45:01.940 It does not make them generous.

00:45:04.540 It's not associated with any of these other virtues.

00:45:07.920 It's just they're real smart.

00:45:09.360 OK, in 1900, only five or 10 percent of that really, really smart subset even went to college.

00:45:19.780 Most of the people who were super smart were working as factory workers.

00:45:23.960 About half of them were housewives. 1.00

00:45:26.540 And you had you had a huge mix in the country.

00:45:29.960 And what's happened now is that you have these kids who are super smart, who increasingly are going to school with each other.

00:45:39.880 And they're getting jobs in the same kinds of cities afterwards.

00:45:43.840 Let me give you a quick example that'll give you an idea of it.

00:45:49.100 When I went to Harvard in the fall of 1961, if you walked outside Harvard Yard, you were in a sort of middle class Boston neighborhood.

00:45:58.680 You know, there are hardware stores.

00:46:01.100 There were little grocery stores.

00:46:03.700 There were it was this was not an elite place outside the precincts of the walls of Harvard.

00:46:09.960 You go to Cambridge, Massachusetts today, and it has glossy little restaurants of every considerable kind.

00:46:18.580 You know, all sorts of boutique shops.

00:46:20.540 It has not just one, but two whole food stores within walking distance of Harvard Yard.

00:46:26.280 It is an unclaimed man, which is completely different from the way it used to be.

00:46:33.120 And once you're in that enclave at the age of 18 as a freshman, you're likely to stay in that enclave for the rest of your life.

00:46:40.700 And you are also likely to think this is the way real people live.

00:46:45.700 And you begin to look down on real people.

00:46:49.220 And and I want to take that now.

00:46:51.240 You've just described the elite.

00:46:52.660 I'm going to take a break and come back.

00:46:54.460 You describe what's happened to the the other half of America. 0.93

00:46:59.240 Charles Murray is the author of the book Coming Apart.

00:47:01.760 The State of White America, 1960 to 2010. 0.66

00:47:06.140 Fascinating book.

00:47:07.640 We'll get back to him in just a second.

00:47:09.380 Glenn Beck.

00:47:11.620 This is the Glenn Beck program.

00:47:15.060 Addicted to outrage.

00:47:16.760 A new book from bestselling author Glenn Beck.

00:47:19.000 Because everybody needs to be outraged about something that is entirely meaningless.

00:47:24.100 Something that really makes no difference or is none of my business whatsoever.

00:47:29.380 But I need to be really outraged.

00:47:31.960 Addicted to outrage.

00:47:33.320 To stir us up and get us toward anger.

00:47:36.160 And we are addicted.

00:47:37.820 Addicted to outrage.

00:47:39.440 Preorder your copy now at Amazon.com or download a preview on iTunes.

00:47:44.100 The best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:47:46.960 Charles Murray is the author of the book Coming Apart.

00:47:49.260 The State of White America, 1960 to 2010. 0.66

00:47:53.060 I started reading it here recently and I'm just fascinated by it.

00:47:57.080 Because it's all starting to happen now.

00:47:59.260 And it's all being misdiagnosed.

00:48:01.880 People are saying that it's racism on the left.

00:48:04.980 And the right is saying that it's elitism.

00:48:07.520 But there's actual reasons for why this is coming apart.

00:48:11.800 And we're not addressing any of those.

00:48:13.880 So Charles just explained why the elites have started to pull away from the average American.

00:48:25.840 And it's because they they they used to go to college in their own area.

00:48:31.700 And what the colleges weren't elite like they are now.

00:48:34.920 And you would pretty much go home and you you'd pretty much live the same kind of life as everybody else around you, which is not happening.

00:48:43.100 Yeah, you were mixed up with all sorts of other people, too, because, look, here's an example.

00:48:48.520 In an elite neighborhood like the North Shore of Chicago or whatever, which used to be prestigious in 1960, the same way it is now.

00:48:58.160 But in 1960, the wealthy executives in the North Shore of Chicago were mostly married to high school graduates, you know, and you go to those same kinds of neighborhoods today.

00:49:12.160 They haven't married the girl next door.

00:49:15.180 I'm talking about the guys now who are very successful.

00:49:18.380 They've married the graduate from Yale Law School that their company was litigating against and that fell in love with.

00:49:25.080 You've got you've got people being reinforced in these these bubbles.

00:49:30.340 Here's an example for you, Glenn.

00:49:31.920 And if you live in a an affluent neighborhood and you send your kids to even to the public schools, if it's in a rich neighborhood, you're probably not going to have your child meet anyone who makes whose parents make a living with their hands.

00:49:50.340 They're not going to meet anyone who isn't real smart.

00:49:53.600 And as a result, they get to be twenty five, thirty, thirty five years old.

00:49:59.760 And they sort of assume that all these people out and fly over country are really stupid and really can't be trusted to manage their own affairs.

00:50:08.340 And it's we smart people who have to make the choices for them.

00:50:12.580 It's a very common attitude.

00:50:14.740 So tell me what's happening to the to the, you know, other half of America.

00:50:19.340 Well, things started to fall apart of it.

00:50:24.020 And now I'm in the book.

00:50:25.700 I talk exclusively about white America. 0.81

00:50:28.380 And the reason I did that, Glenn, was originally just because I didn't want people to think these problems are only in the black community, Hispanic community.

00:50:37.340 As it turned out, there were even bigger problems going on in white America that we realized a lot of demoralization. 0.57

00:50:45.440 That demoralization came from all sorts of things.

00:50:48.400 Part of it was the economy.

00:50:50.660 Another part of it was the ways in which white working class Americans who were applying for the police academy or for the firefighting academy found that they weren't getting in because affirmative action, even though that, you know, they'd taken the entrance examinations very well.

00:51:08.340 Affirmative action was making it harder for them.

00:51:10.220 There were a variety of other things going on that undermined the role of the male as, you know, putting food on the table and a roof over the head.

00:51:22.860 And, you know, the respect he got for that, that was being undermined by feminism in large part, by the sexual revolution in another part, though, because guess what?

00:51:34.180 Well, a lot of guys in their early 20s who were getting all the sex they wanted to without getting married didn't feel any strong urge to get married.

00:51:42.920 So marriage rates fell.

00:51:45.600 They plummeted in the white working class.

00:51:48.280 And all of these things just change the nature of life in white working class neighborhoods for the worse.

00:51:56.200 So now we have a group of people who are, you know, if you don't if you don't finish high school, you're most likely to marry somebody who didn't finish high school.

00:52:05.520 If you went to college, you're most likely to marry somebody who went to college.

00:52:11.200 So it's it's it's a normal, natural thing, I think.

00:52:18.020 And and I don't necessarily think that's anything nefarious.

00:52:22.940 It's just the way it has it has happened.

00:52:26.080 But it is splitting us apart.

00:52:29.140 Is there a way to put this back together?

00:52:31.760 Well, you know, I don't believe in government programs as a way to do that.

00:52:38.060 Right.

00:52:38.460 I don't think I don't think it's going to help to try to force people to have more contact with each other because you're right.

00:52:44.520 People are doing what comes naturally.

00:52:46.720 Look, when you get married, you want to marry somebody who gets your jokes.

00:52:50.680 You know, you want to marry someone who you can talk to and so forth.

00:52:54.000 Well, that does leave people with common interests and to some degree, common abilities to marry each other.

00:52:59.580 There's nothing wrong with it.

00:53:00.500 But here's the bad part, which is that life gets really thinned out when you are cocooned in this elite bubble.

00:53:13.220 I live in a town of 152 people, 60 miles out of D.C.

00:53:20.460 I'm talking to you right now, looking out my back window over the farmlands next door.

00:53:25.940 And we moved here in 1989 in large part because I didn't want my little children at that point to grow up only knowing the people who lived in northwest Washington.

00:53:37.100 OK, so hold on just a second, Charles, as we get to what can we do and not a government program.

00:53:44.220 And I also want to talk to him a little bit about our own responsibility when it comes to social media.

00:53:50.660 What's happening to us there when we come back.

00:53:52.960 Glenn Beck.

00:53:54.260 Hey, it's Glenn.

00:53:55.100 And I want to tell you about something that you should either end your day with or start your morning with.

00:54:01.120 And that is the news and why it matters.

00:54:03.920 If you like this show, you're going to love the news and why it matters.

00:54:07.200 It's a bunch of us that all get together at the end of the day and just talk about the stories that matter to you and your life.

00:54:13.580 The news and why it matters.

00:54:14.780 Look for it now wherever you download your favorite podcast.

00:54:20.020 Talking to Charles Murray, author of many, many books.

00:54:24.800 We happen to be talking about Coming Apart, the State of White America, 1969 and 2010. 0.69

00:54:30.500 It's a must read.

00:54:31.380 It's a really great book.

00:54:32.200 But Charles, you were talking about, you know, in 1989, you move your kids to the farm so they, you know, they wouldn't get caught in this trap.

00:54:41.440 I did the same thing.

00:54:42.600 We have a farm in a town of like 500 people.

00:54:45.820 And while I can't live there because I work in the city, you know, we spend all of our time off there.

00:54:52.580 And, you know, the kids, you know, when they're here, they're not putting their they're not putting their arm in the back of a cow.

00:54:59.140 You know what I mean?

00:54:59.840 To check if she's pregnant. 0.99

00:55:00.940 But out there she is.

00:55:03.160 And my kids and I have really learned an important lesson that the people in many ways live a better life.

00:55:13.800 In some ways, you know, the back of the cow, not so much, but it's just different.

00:55:18.820 It's just different.

00:55:19.640 Now, the way I often put it is that life just has a lot more texture when you're engaged with people who are not all lawyers.

00:55:30.380 They're not all rich.

00:55:32.700 You have neighbors who still help each other, who work with each other.

00:55:38.620 You have things going on that are real life in small communities when you get out of these enclaves.

00:55:45.680 And you ask for the answer.

00:55:47.780 The solution is for people who are currently living in these elite bubbles to realize life is more fun if you get out of them.

00:55:55.620 So you talk also about the the middle of America that the other half that didn't go to an elite college.

00:56:05.100 They're tending to lose some of the moral principles.

00:56:10.980 Yeah.

00:56:11.640 And then the collapse of marriage is the biggest problem here, because what makes communities work, whether they're urban communities or small towns,

00:56:20.380 is the married couple that are trying to create an environment for their kids that is good.

00:56:26.280 And that's why you have the little league teams that the fathers are coaching.

00:56:30.300 That's why you have people attending the PTAs.

00:56:32.960 That's why you have all sorts of these interactions.

00:56:36.940 And once marriage goes downhill, single guys don't very often coach little league teams.

00:56:44.220 You know, single dads don't. 0.81

00:56:45.220 And and this problem, I have no idea how you fix, except, I guess, Glenn, just as I want to say to the people in the bubbles that life is more fun outside the bubble.

00:56:58.880 I want to say to people who are not getting married that a good marriage is the best thing that will ever happen to you.

00:57:05.760 And it's worth just going way out of your way to try to find that.

00:57:10.680 And my daughter was going to Fordham and she met her now husband and she was a junior, I think, maybe a sophomore.

00:57:19.980 And she said to me, you know, she was talking to me about him and I really liked him.

00:57:24.320 And and I said, so is he the one she said, yeah, he's the one I said.

00:57:27.720 So when are you guys getting married?

00:57:28.760 And she said, well, not until after we get out of Mary, not till we get out of college and then we'll, you know, settle down.

00:57:34.420 And I said, what? And she said, Dad, you know, it's just that people don't do that anymore.

00:57:40.420 You know, the world just frowns on you.

00:57:42.140 And I said, wow, I didn't think that my child would care about appearances.

00:57:47.340 I said, you when you find the right person, spend every second with them in marriage, it changes everything.

00:57:55.640 And they are happily married now.

00:57:57.400 And she got she got married almost right away.

00:57:59.460 But her her her professors looked at her when she said, I I'm not going to be here.

00:58:04.060 I'm going to you know, I'm getting married.

00:58:06.000 They all looked at her like, what is wrong with you?

00:58:10.060 Yeah.

00:58:10.720 And then an awful lot of that is exaggerated, too, once you get into the elite school.

00:58:16.080 So even to get married in your 20s is considered too young and you don't get married until you're 33, 23, you're already making a quarter million dollars a year.

00:58:28.460 And, you know, that kind of approach to life, I think, is missing the point in lots of important things.

00:58:37.780 One of the really interesting points you make, we're talking to Charles Murray, by the way, author of the book Coming Apart.

00:58:42.620 One of the really interesting points you make in the book is how sort of the great society welfare programs of the 60s led to sort of a degradation of the four pillars of American exceptionalism.

00:58:58.840 You just talked about marriage, the others being religiosity, industriousness and honesty.

00:59:03.920 Can you talk about the relationship between those programs and the changes in our attitude of those main points of American exceptionalism?

00:59:10.720 Yeah, they're pretty simple in all sorts of ways during the 1960s when you greatly expanded the scope of things that government did for single women, for example.

00:59:23.680 It made it economically a lot more feasible to have a baby without a husband than it used to be.

00:59:30.920 I'm not saying it was easy.

00:59:32.020 I'm not saying that they were, you know, getting rich from having babies on welfare.

00:59:35.800 No, but it became possible in a way that had not been possible.

00:59:40.240 Well, guess what?

00:59:41.100 When it becomes easier economically, then more women start to have babies in those circumstances. 1.00

00:59:46.780 And then the stigma starts to erode.

00:59:49.260 Because when you've got one girl in the high school class who's pregnant, that's kind of a tough position to be in.

00:59:56.660 When you've got six, seven, eight or nine, when you start to have a daycare center for the babies, you've got a problem in terms of the stigma.

01:00:03.280 So the stigma goes away.

01:00:04.960 That was the one thing.

01:00:06.060 The whole problem with crime, the 1960s is when crime started to shoot up and continue to shoot up for the next three decades because of changes in the criminal justice system, whereby the old rather simple formula, you commit a serious crime, you're going to go to jail, that broke down.

01:00:27.600 People now talk about the incarceration, mass incarceration.

01:00:31.480 Well, learn your history.

01:00:33.780 The crime surge started when we stopped incarcerating people who committed serious crimes, and we've been trying to catch up with it ever since.

01:00:42.320 We've got a lot to answer for, Glenn.

01:00:44.540 I think you're a baby boomer like me.

01:00:46.820 And we were advocating all sorts of policies in the 1960s and 70s, which were just a disaster for the culture.

01:00:58.260 That would be my sister that did that, not me.

01:01:00.260 Not me.

01:01:01.240 I'm born in 1964, so I'm at the very last year of that.

01:01:05.720 And, you know, I'm kind of sitting here watching it and seeing that, you know, it doesn't work, and nor do the policies that we're talking about today.

01:01:17.300 I mean, today we're talking about the shooter in California, the killer that went out and tried to kill people at YouTube.

01:01:26.000 She's crazy. 0.60

01:01:27.460 She's out of her mind crazy. 0.99

01:01:29.280 But nobody's talking about what is the underlying problem.

01:01:34.080 We had a lot of guns forever in America.

01:01:37.980 You could go in as a, you know, a 10-year-old kid and go into a store and buy a gun and bullets in the 1960s.

01:01:44.880 It wasn't a problem.

01:01:46.360 There's a hole in our society right now that none of us seem to want to address.

01:01:51.040 And it's a cultural hole.

01:01:53.560 It is.

01:01:54.700 And the problem is that it seems to be getting worse.

01:01:59.060 Here's a problem we haven't talked about.

01:02:00.940 In 1960, if you were a guy of working age and you were reasonably healthy, you were in the labor force.

01:02:08.520 I mean, if you weren't in the labor force, everybody got in your back, whether it was your girlfriend or your parents or your – or the other guys would get in your back if you weren't either working or looking hard for work.

01:02:21.040 Now we've got, even in a time of full employment, you've got something in the order of 15% of working-class guys in their 20s, 30s, 40s who aren't even looking for work.

01:02:34.580 That is a new phenomenon whereby you have a breakdown in the social fabric that makes it – that's another thing that contributes to the deterioration of life in working-class America.

01:02:46.400 How did that come about?

01:02:47.420 Once again, it became possible to exist at the margins of society in ways that it was much harder to exist in previous years, and a lot of that was cultural.

01:02:59.440 You were a bum if you behaved that way, and you're no longer a bum.

01:03:03.440 Talking to Charles Murray, I want to continue our conversation here just a bit with you, Charles, and delve a little bit deeper into, you know, what can be done and the role of social media.

01:03:21.640 Is that also teaching us things?

01:03:24.620 Are we – nobody wants to take personal responsibility on anything.

01:03:28.480 Everybody wants to say, oh, well, maybe we should, you know, change Facebook into a utility or whatever.

01:03:33.080 Well, no, we are Facebook.

01:03:34.980 We are Twitter.

01:03:35.980 We are our own worst enemy, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on that when we come back.

01:03:41.380 Charles Murray, the book, is coming apart.

01:03:46.740 Came out a few years ago, but it's really well worth a read now because it's – you know, we're being pushed into racism and pushed into this is not the problem.

01:03:55.900 No, no, there's some actual stats here that show what the problem is.

01:04:01.800 Let's deal with the stats and the facts.

01:04:06.420 Charles Murray is the author of Coming Apart, The State of White America, and Charles, I want to ask you a question.

01:04:14.840 This is my perception, okay, of how things are.

01:04:18.500 That there is – there's always been a group of racists, and they're on both sides, all sides.

01:04:25.400 It's a human problem.

01:04:27.660 However – and we were getting better as a society on the whole.

01:04:32.540 However, we are being pushed and painted as racist and, you know, Islamophobes and everything else.

01:04:39.660 And this is allowing these crazy nutjobs to be able to come out from under, you know, under the wraps, out of the holes that they have always been in and start to make points and say, see, they are coming after you.

01:04:55.140 They are.

01:04:55.660 See, this is a problem.

01:04:57.520 And so we're not more racist.

01:05:00.480 It's just that we're kind of being pushed into corners.

01:05:03.500 Is that accurate?

01:05:05.380 We're reaping what we sowed.

01:05:07.100 Back in the 1960s, when we adopted the rule that it is okay to treat people by their race as long as you're doing it for the right reasons, we opened Pandora's box.

01:05:22.880 You know, at the 1964 Civil Rights Act, I wish they had had as the core of that, there shall be no law that gives one race advantage over another legally of any kind.

01:05:36.060 And just said, well, you know, here we are in the anniversary of Martin Luther King's death.

01:05:40.780 And that really was his point, wasn't it?

01:05:43.180 His point was, America, live up to the words you wrote in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

01:05:50.000 And what happened was that we said, we gave identity politics the green light.

01:05:55.700 It's great for black people to identify with being black and great for Latinos to identify as Latinos and so forth.

01:06:03.340 And as that went on, and as the kind of anger that was coming out toward whites increased, all at once you had the 70-odd percent of the people in this country who are white who started to say, or at least some of them did, hey, what's good for them is good for us.

01:06:23.720 I'm going to start identifying as being white, as being my primary way of thinking about myself.

01:06:30.640 It was the inevitable consequence of saying it's okay to treat people differently by race.

01:06:38.720 How much of a role is social media playing in the acceleration of our country being torn apart?

01:06:44.640 It is amplifying all of our natural tendencies to only talk to people who think the same things we do.

01:06:56.220 So now you can get your news from only sources that agree with you.

01:07:02.180 You can interact with only people who politically agree with you.

01:07:06.580 And that is happening big time on both the left and the right, which I think accounts for a lot of this tendency to say, if somebody disagrees with me politically, they are not just disagreeing with me on a political issue.

01:07:21.660 They are bad.

01:07:23.060 They are bad people.

01:07:24.920 And that's driving me nuts because it's so widespread now.

01:07:31.640 In looking at all the stats and studying this for so long and being a watchman on the tower and the gates and blowing the horn and nobody listening, are you still optimistic?

01:07:48.280 I'm optimistic for the long term, Glenn.

01:07:51.580 I cannot imagine that 200 years from now, with all of the increases in wealth and technology that will have occurred, that we still think that a big government running our lives minutely is a great idea.

01:08:04.160 I think that a lot of the trends in technology and wealth are going to make it easier for us to live three lives.

01:08:12.240 But, Glenn, you and I are part of – here's where I get pessimistic – we both, in one way or another, are Madisonians.

01:08:21.000 I mean, we are committed to the original American ideals of limited government and freedom.

01:08:27.060 And I'm afraid over the last few years, we've discovered a whole lot of people who talk to good game with regard to that didn't really believe it when push came to shove.

01:08:37.180 So, you know, I'm pessimistic in the short term.

01:08:40.680 I don't know where we resuscitate a movement that says, for heaven's sakes, let people live their lives as they see fit.

01:08:51.360 I don't see a constituency of that anymore.

01:08:53.680 Believe it or not, I think I do.

01:08:56.020 I think I do know where that movement is beginning, and it's strange.

01:09:00.840 And we'll talk about it in the next couple of weeks.

01:09:04.400 Charles, I'd love to have you back on again.

01:09:05.940 There's so much I want to talk to you about, about libertarianism and everything else.

01:09:08.820 I can't thank you enough for joining us.

01:09:10.580 Thank you, Charles.

01:09:11.840 I've enjoyed it.

01:09:13.140 Thank you.

01:09:14.760 Author of the book, Coming Apart.

01:09:16.960 Have you read that yet, Stu?

01:09:18.560 Only parts of it.

01:09:19.920 I've, you know, the bell curve from back in the day had read.

01:09:23.800 He's one of the smartest minds there is.

01:09:26.300 I started reading this because I'm reading something.

01:09:28.920 I was reading something else, and it references, and I'm like, man, it keeps coming back to him.

01:09:33.080 And this particular book, I've got to read it.

01:09:34.640 It is mind-boggling.

01:09:36.980 And all of a sudden, it's kind of like understanding the progressive movement.

01:09:40.080 All of a sudden, when you understand what he's saying about how America is coming apart,

01:09:44.860 all of a sudden, the fog begins to clear.

01:09:46.640 And you're like, oh, wow, this is the underlying problem.

01:09:53.360 Glenn Beck.

01:09:54.980 You want to know how to blow a progressive's mind and argument?

01:09:58.740 It's actually pretty easy.

01:09:59.780 It takes about 100 years, but it's a little easy.

01:10:02.020 All you do is you let them all just play out.

01:10:04.840 You just let all of their solutions play out because they always break down in the end.

01:10:12.520 And once you get there, then you're just like, oh, wow, this really doesn't work.

01:10:16.840 I mean, it'd be better if we just intellectually thought things through.

01:10:21.660 Case in point, gender. 0.96

01:10:22.980 We might do things because it makes people feel good, but along the way, we start denying truths

01:10:31.520 that just start to disrupt absolutely everything.

01:10:34.820 And in the end, you're just denying science.

01:10:37.040 Let me give you this case.

01:10:39.280 Champions of social justice want you to believe that gender is fluid because it makes people feel better.

01:10:44.960 Once the chains of gender science were lifted, the movement went, well, off the chain. 1.00

01:10:53.640 By February 2014, there were 58 genders listed.

01:10:58.700 Four months later, there were 71 genders.

01:11:02.260 Today, there are over 112 listed genders.

01:11:06.580 I'd like to make it 114, but I can't because they won't allow male and female to actually be on the list of genders.

01:11:23.600 Okay.

01:11:24.880 Let's talk science for a second.

01:11:27.400 There are only two genders. 0.99

01:11:28.940 Science teaches that.

01:11:30.340 X and Y.

01:11:31.300 Two genders. 0.91

01:11:32.200 Everything else we do, that's fine.

01:11:34.560 You can make it make you feel good.

01:11:36.540 We can call each other whatever you want to call.

01:11:38.760 But we cannot deny science.

01:11:42.620 No, no, no.

01:11:43.260 Fight for the cause.

01:11:45.080 Okay.

01:11:46.100 Let's go over across the pond.

01:11:47.960 Let's go to London here for a second.

01:11:49.580 Leave it to the Fabian Society to unwittingly make the conservative case for guns without meaning to

01:11:56.820 because things have broken down in the UK.

01:11:59.680 They've already banned guns.

01:12:01.560 So now they're starting a new initiative, comprehensive knife control.

01:12:09.640 This is fantastic.

01:12:12.620 The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, he's got a problem.

01:12:16.580 Apparently, it comes as a shock to progressives all over the world, but bad guys and criminals

01:12:22.160 occasionally try to hurt people.

01:12:24.080 And if they can't get a gun, they'll use something else.

01:12:26.040 I know it's a shocker.

01:12:27.420 Comes from years of intense research that we did.

01:12:30.600 We spent millions of dollars.

01:12:32.040 Had they even shut down one of the turtle tunnels or we thought we were going to have

01:12:35.860 to.

01:12:36.080 But the Fed just printed the money because you can do that.

01:12:39.440 Anyway, our cousins across the pond thought that they had it all figured out when they banned

01:12:44.300 guns back in the 90s.

01:12:45.760 They did it as if Neville Chamberlain was speaking from the grave.

01:12:50.360 Peace in our time.

01:12:52.660 But if I may, I'd like to pump the brakes here just a little bit.

01:12:56.020 Crime in the UK has now spiraled out of control.

01:12:59.400 No guns in the country.

01:13:00.940 Yet the murder rate in London has now overtaken that of New York City.

01:13:05.880 How can that be?

01:13:06.620 Well, they've got a problem with knife and acid crimes.

01:13:11.700 OK, you want to ban something?

01:13:13.920 You want to put some controls on things?

01:13:15.840 I think it's acid because I can't think of a good reason anyone's walking around with acid.

01:13:21.360 Now, maybe it's just me.

01:13:22.580 I haven't thought it through.

01:13:23.520 But and you know what?

01:13:25.420 There's also a correlation between acid on the face crimes.

01:13:29.900 And I can't think of it right now, but we probably shouldn't talk about it anyway.

01:13:37.760 So they're now moving to take away knives.

01:13:41.880 Apparently, the tools criminals use don't really matter to them as long as it gets the job done.

01:13:47.900 You can practically hear the phone call from the Fabian Society library to the London mayor's office.

01:13:54.680 Brrring, brrring, brrring.

01:13:57.300 It's me from Fabian Society.

01:13:59.900 Start banning things.

01:14:01.580 Ah, I can ban lawlessness.

01:14:03.720 No, that won't work.

01:14:05.680 Ban evil.

01:14:06.820 No, no, I don't recommend that.

01:14:08.440 Oh, yeah.

01:14:09.960 Let's ban cutlery.

01:14:12.840 Exactly.

01:14:14.440 So that's what they did.

01:14:16.600 Operation Spectre.

01:14:20.400 That's that's the real name of the operation.

01:14:23.540 Stopping random citizens and searching them for any kind of tools of death.

01:14:29.060 Now, the primary boogeyman here was knives.

01:14:32.880 And the mere fact that the UK has gone from banning guns to kitchen cutlery is actually enough for us to laugh and prove our point.

01:14:40.580 But the crackdown on inanimate objects didn't stop there.

01:14:44.560 They're also confiscating.

01:14:45.880 And this is not a joke.

01:14:47.440 Scissors, pliers, screwdrivers and hammers.

01:14:52.560 Pretty much anything that could be used as a weapon.

01:14:56.680 What's next?

01:14:57.740 You know what?

01:14:59.580 They strangled that person to death.

01:15:01.820 I want to band hands.

01:15:05.120 Congratulations, UK.

01:15:06.580 You won't stop a single crime with this.

01:15:09.740 The only thing you're going to do is impede, you know, citizens from actually getting their work done.

01:15:16.620 Make everybody a criminal.

01:15:18.300 You're not going to stop the bloodthirsty civilians that are, you know, actually doing crime.

01:15:25.020 You're going to get those killers that are just looking to assemble their IKEA furniture.

01:15:30.140 Now, eating a steak might be a little difficult as well over in the UK, banning the tools of criminals and evil men don't really stop crime.

01:15:40.380 But now in the UK, they may stop steak.

01:15:43.280 So a big shout out and a thank you to the London mayor for opening Pandora's box and making a case for the Second Amendment.

01:15:51.440 Because now instead of watching clowns on CNN, I can watch the town halls on the BBC,

01:15:57.100 where they are going to be arguing the evils of their NRA.

01:16:02.560 You know, the National Ratchet Association.

01:16:18.560 David Bonson is a is a guy who wrote a book called Crisis of Responsibility.

01:16:24.340 Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It.

01:16:28.880 And it is really, really good.

01:16:32.100 David is a guy who was more of an economist, was going to write a book on the meltdown of 2008.

01:16:39.980 What was really to blame, if you will, on that.

01:16:43.280 What we haven't done because we haven't really done anything to fix it.

01:16:46.800 We've only made it worse.

01:16:47.620 But as he started to get into it, he realized that we have a crisis of responsibility and we welcome David to the program.

01:16:56.480 Hi, David.

01:16:56.840 How are you?

01:16:58.200 I'm doing great, Glenn.

01:16:59.160 Good to be with you.

01:17:00.300 This is a great book.

01:17:02.260 Really, really fascinating and really well written.

01:17:06.500 I want to kind of get into the to the meat of a lot of it and just kind of go over some of the the points in your book.

01:17:15.780 First, explain the the crisis of responsibility.

01:17:19.780 Explain the theory of just that.

01:17:21.860 Yeah, I mean, essentially, in line with how you sort of set it up, there was a underlying theme out of the financial crisis, and it really has sort of been baked into the American understanding of what took place, that there was some great big infraction that took place.

01:17:43.940 And if you're left of center, you believe that infraction came out of Wall Street.

01:17:49.840 And if you're right of center, you believe that infraction came from government, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, maybe even Federal Reserve monetary policy.

01:17:59.880 And there's a certain kind of prima facie truth to both sides.

01:18:04.540 Wall Street had its fair share of negligence and most certainly government housing policy contributed greatly.

01:18:13.940 But the problem was that both narratives, whether on the right or left, were perfectly willing to treat Main Street as a victim of the crisis and to totally ignore Main Street's culpability in the crisis.

01:18:30.260 And so as I studied it further and further, it became just too easy and too simplistic to say that big greedy bankers were giving money to people, and then those people really wanted to pay it back and just couldn't.

01:18:48.220 And the government was asleep at the wheel and forcing the banks to do this and so forth and so on.

01:18:54.980 And there was all kinds of policy failure.

01:18:57.740 So this is this.

01:18:58.860 There was a responsibility crisis.

01:19:01.000 So, David, this is not medicine that most people want to hear.

01:19:04.980 And we've talked about it for years when they were saying these were predatory loans.

01:19:10.440 Well, some of them were.

01:19:11.940 But a lot of times, look, I went in.

01:19:14.480 You don't need to ask.

01:19:15.740 I don't need to show you my proof of even of even a wage.

01:19:19.980 I don't I don't have to prove anything that that was us thinking, well, this is this is great.

01:19:27.100 And we were we were in it.

01:19:29.320 It wasn't they weren't necessarily predatory.

01:19:31.880 They were they were working almost in some ways with us to create this because we wanted it.

01:19:40.160 Well, and I actually use the term.

01:19:42.780 There was something very predatory going on.

01:19:44.660 Glenn, it was predatory borrowing.

01:19:46.120 And it's a term I use in the book because the fact of the matter is, best case, you had people that were willing to take loans irresponsibly, that believed they could pay it back, hoped they could pay it back, but were being somewhat reckless.

01:20:02.780 Worst case, they were committing full blown fraud, absolutely lying.

01:20:06.700 And just assuming that even though their cash flow would not enable them to service the mortgage, the property would continue escalating and they would just participate in this little pyramid scheme that became the U.S. housing market from 2004 to 2006.

01:20:21.980 But then as I as I really delve into in chapter four of the book, this is the part that breaks my heart morally and culturally is the fact of the matter is we had no financial crisis if it weren't for the people that were perfectly able to meet their loan obligations that actually could make their payment.

01:20:40.660 Yeah, maybe their house price had gone down in value and it was unfortunate and so forth, but they had the assets, they had the income, but they were allowed to just walk away from the loans.

01:20:51.760 And this is the area that I think warrants a further cultural and moral conversation is to why in 1991 in the savings and loan crisis, when 20% of Americans were upside down in their home, did we have less than 1% of a default rate?

01:21:11.060 And yet in 2008, just 17 years later, not only did you see upwards of 20% of people walking away from their homes, but this is the worst part.

01:21:22.000 They could go to the bar and brag about it on Friday night.

01:21:26.100 That was the part that to me indicated this crisis of responsibility.

01:21:30.160 So there is a there's a great deal of difference now.

01:21:32.680 One of my favorite presidential stories, I think that very few people know is about Harry Truman, who I may disagree with his policies here and there, I think was a really decent, decent man in World War Two.

01:21:47.760 He comes back from World War Two and he gets a loan to start a business and he runs a men's clothing store.

01:21:53.960 He and his partner, he and his partner, they go into business, things don't go well, and he goes bankrupt, I think, in the mid-20s.

01:22:03.760 It takes him until he's president to pay all those loans back.

01:22:08.860 He doesn't just take the bankruptcy.

01:22:11.600 He says, look, it was my fault that we didn't make it.

01:22:15.600 I borrowed this money, and when I borrowed it, I said I would pay it back.

01:22:20.060 And so I I'm going to pay it back.

01:22:23.340 And he paid every person, every lender he paid back, even though he had the ability to go bankrupt.

01:22:30.760 That's right.

01:22:31.380 I think that speaks to a certain character and ethos that existed.

01:22:35.600 And in fact, the whole Great Depression, by the way, if you read some of what Amity Schlaes has written on it, it's fascinating.

01:22:41.600 It was a culture in which then you could really argue people had tremendous justification in needing to sort of walk away from some obligation.

01:22:50.880 But there was a stigma that said, I'm not going to do that.

01:22:54.160 I'm not going to be a deadbeat.

01:22:55.360 There was struggle.

01:22:56.820 But 2008 was not a situation defined by that legitimate struggle.

01:23:02.720 It was a self-induced problem from excessive greed.

01:23:07.860 And what I argue in the book is that that greed at Wall Street that we're all very quick to condemn was exactly the same covetousness on Main Street.

01:23:16.020 Wall Street, they just wore, you know, fancier suits and had more zeros and so forth involved.

01:23:21.440 But it was the same.

01:23:22.760 It was cut from the same moral cost.

01:23:24.840 Right. And you're not dismissing the the the hideousness of Wall Street and the greed there that they went through.

01:23:33.400 You're just saying.

01:23:34.180 No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

01:23:35.440 But I will say this, Glenn.

01:23:36.340 This is very important.

01:23:37.060 If we were actually being honest, we would be more critical of Wall Street's incompetence than we would their greed.

01:23:44.060 Wall Street did something horrifically wrong.

01:23:46.420 They bet in big numbers that Main Street would pay their bills.

01:23:51.240 That was the tremendous folly of Wall Street.

01:23:54.840 OK. All right.

01:23:56.680 You have to continue to listen to this.

01:23:59.080 If if if you are looking for some answers and some things of how we got here and how we can fix it.

01:24:05.380 Crisis of Responsibility is a must read.

01:24:08.280 We'll continue with its author in a second.

01:24:11.100 Glenn Beck.

01:24:13.180 This is the Glenn Beck program.

01:24:15.400 Did you miss any of the show today?

01:24:16.720 No problem.

01:24:17.500 Go to Glenn Beck dot com slash podcast to listen on demand whenever and wherever you are for free.

01:24:22.960 That's Glenn Beck dot com slash podcast.

01:24:26.640 But David Bonson, the author of Crisis of Responsibility.

01:24:30.300 David French did the foreword for it.

01:24:32.100 It's an it's an exceptional book.

01:24:35.180 And and David is here to continue the conversation.

01:24:38.960 And David, before we before we move off of the the personal responsibility, one of the reasons why we're having that we may have real trouble in the future is because all of us or many of us have have decided that we are going to take the easier route for one reason or another.

01:25:03.300 And you point out that one of the big signs is the disability insurance that we are now on and the record numbers and how that's just not possible to be real.

01:25:17.420 Well, I mean, it would require a certain leap of faith that is somewhat staggering medically because one hundred percent of the seven hundred percent increase in disability claims over the last eight years is limited to the area of back pain and anxiety.

01:25:39.280 So so so somehow you have to believe that there has been absolutely no increase in anything organic or organ related, neurological, cardio, respiratory, all these things.

01:25:53.280 And yet it just simply comes down to the two areas where any old doctor can write a note and get somebody out.

01:26:00.420 So it's really quite distressing because it's a seven hundred percent increase.

01:26:08.360 Yeah, well, seven hundred percent in just eight years.

01:26:10.680 I mean, the numbers going back for a generation are far worse than even that.

01:26:17.760 And and and we and that's tracking those using Social Security.

01:26:21.840 So what is this what is this telling you, David?

01:26:24.080 It's telling me that we have right now a segment of the society that is comfortable to live off the public dole and not work, receive compensation for it and to do so with highly questionable claims about their own physical and mental health.

01:26:46.140 And that the reason for that is the underlying breakdown or morality and breakdown of of dignity that is embedded in a work ethic, the very work ethic that made America the greatest nation on Earth.

01:27:03.500 So you you point out early in the book that we are addicted to blame.

01:27:11.120 And until we start taking responsibility for ourselves, we're we're just going to get worse and worse.

01:27:18.700 Where do we begin?

01:27:21.480 Well, one of the things, you know, I believe very much, as is the case of most really stellar recovery programs for those who have wrestled with personal demons, that, of course, the very first step is to admit you have a problem.

01:27:35.980 And that's one of the reasons I suggest in the book that the admitting we're in this position and stopping the blame casting the next time.

01:27:45.840 See, I'm a conservative, limited government advocate.

01:27:49.300 But the next time the government does something that really bothers me, I want to be able to stop and say, OK, the government could be wrong here.

01:27:56.680 But what else could be going on?

01:27:58.780 Not just simply rely on the fact that big government is always and forever the permanent recipient of my frustration, ire and wait.

01:28:09.000 Right. And likewise, that person who has been fired from a couple of corporate jobs and is personally very vindictive at corporate America to always assume their sort of default psychology is that the man is out to get him, so to speak.

01:28:25.640 Breaking down that mentality in our personal lives, but recognizing that we, in fact, have it.

01:28:31.800 And I wish very much as a right wing guy that this was something that the left had a monopoly on.

01:28:37.720 Right.

01:28:38.000 I actually think that they had for many years.

01:28:40.220 OK, hang on. We're going to we're going to pick it up there.

01:28:42.240 The author of Crisis of Responsibility.

01:28:47.740 If you're looking for answers of what the hell happened to my country, how did we get here?

01:28:53.440 What do I do about it?

01:28:54.800 And how do I change my life and my circumstances?

01:28:58.820 A must read book, Crisis of Responsibility, came out a few weeks ago, Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It.

01:29:06.600 David Bonson is the author of the book.

01:29:08.860 He describes himself as a as a national review kind of conservative.

01:29:14.980 David, you start out with a quote from from Foucault, which.

01:29:19.660 This is the postmodernism, BS, radical leftist that really caused, I think, a lot of the arrogance and elitism that we have in academia now.

01:29:34.600 But you follow it with a quote from Gustav Le Bon, who was a critic of socialism.

01:29:42.820 And throughout the book, you kind of it's almost Jeffersonian in the way you do this, as he wrote a letter between an argument between his head and his heart.

01:29:51.840 You say there's an even handedness that we're missing and and we we need to really have a balance and hold each side to task.

01:30:03.220 That's right.

01:30:05.820 I think at the heart of this really intense polarization that we're experiencing in the political culture and and this kind of tribalization that has taken place,

01:30:17.580 the the ability to somehow magically interpret literally every single event that happens through some sort of partisan lens is a byproduct of the crisis of responsibility.

01:30:30.260 That we have so removed ourselves from family, church, community, that that the the mediating institutions of society that are so important for good civic life have been discarded.

01:30:46.400 And it's forced us into this kind of obsessive and polarized manner of living.

01:30:53.480 I feel like I feel like we've made our our religion, our political party.

01:31:00.260 And that's always the end run of statism.

01:31:03.400 And this is the thing I want to point out, Glenn, because I really believe a target of the audience I had with the book are those who are right now very susceptible to the present populist uprising,

01:31:15.460 which I acknowledge is responding to things that deserve to be responded to the elites, the the big institutionalists have failed.

01:31:25.840 And yet my fear is that by us going forward and saying things like if we just renegotiate a trade deal with China, all these jobs are coming back to Ohio instead of acknowledging that there's actually been a total

01:31:40.980 a total paradigm shift in the culture, not just economically and technologically, but culturally and morally that what we're doing is setting the table for more statism later, because when this populist uprising inevitably fails, we're not going to turn to greater individual responsibility, but rather to some sort of messiah to come bail us out.

01:32:03.980 And that messiah has always been the nanny state. 0.91

01:32:07.180 And that's what I'm trying to avoid.

01:32:08.760 So we have and it rings all the way through this book, and it is really, I think, an important book and study that you have done.

01:32:22.160 But I look at things like, for instance, you take on higher education and you say, you know, it's not the either or what's wrong with universities.

01:32:34.140 It's not the rising student debt.

01:32:36.320 It's not the spread of relativism.

01:32:38.520 It's both debt and indoctrination, economic and ideological.

01:32:43.880 And so here is the here is the problem that I would like you to help me noodle through.

01:32:52.020 People will say and we see it in politics all the time.

01:32:55.340 Well, I can't not send my kid to college because that's the system.

01:32:59.460 And so it just continues to cycle through this.

01:33:03.440 I well, I've got I've only got two choices.

01:33:06.120 It's a binary choice.

01:33:07.640 I vote for the donkey or the elephant.

01:33:09.620 And so the system is built to keep you in in that.

01:33:15.540 How do you convince enough people to break that model?

01:33:19.800 Like most things, the bottom up one family at a time.

01:33:23.720 And I'm not suggesting and actually go to great lengths to say this, that people no longer go to college.

01:33:29.520 What I'm saying is have a thoughtful, intentional conversation.

01:33:35.440 The student, the parents, the maybe teachers are involved.

01:33:40.300 What are the goals?

01:33:41.120 What are you trying to accomplish?

01:33:42.600 What is it you're looking to do with your life?

01:33:45.080 For one thing, the lack of that conversation is one of the great reasons.

01:33:48.940 I think we have this systemic extended adolescence where our whole society has decided it's OK for people to be kids all the way through their 20s.

01:33:59.320 I have no problem with people starting these conversations, again, with a lot of open endedness and vulnerability around them, but looking at what their goals may be.

01:34:09.420 Now, maybe they want to go to college to meet a spouse. 0.75

01:34:12.060 Maybe they need specialized vocational training.

01:34:14.540 There's all kinds of reasons to go, but don't go because, A, if you're a parent, you want to be able to brag to your friends where your kid went to school.

01:34:24.880 I think that is one of the biggest drivers of this whole mess, frankly.

01:34:29.120 But also, having the student involved in what it is they want out of their life and how is college going to advance it.

01:34:36.800 And so I think that it will not take place overnight, but right now what we're seeing is it's always economic, right?

01:34:44.540 The economics are forcing a cultural moment.

01:34:48.680 David, there's a lot of people who are who I think fought for 10, 15, 20 years and have been fighting and fighting and fighting to change this and to and to do the right thing.

01:35:02.960 And they feel, I think, at this point, nobody's listening.

01:35:07.340 Nobody's changing anything.

01:35:09.240 Nothing happens.

01:35:10.320 I just keep getting on the short end of the stick and I can't afford to live this way anymore.

01:35:16.800 I have to have somebody who is listening to me that is going to plow the way because I've tried.

01:35:23.160 I think there's a lot of people who have really tried for a long time and they feel like they're just being mowed over.

01:35:30.040 In terms of the higher education conversation, the whole thing, all of it, higher education, the jobs, income, they see the direction of the country, they know, but they feel like, what am I going to do?

01:35:43.000 I've tried.

01:35:44.020 I've tried to do everything right.

01:35:46.000 And I just keep getting screwed.

01:35:47.500 And that frustration is perfectly understandable and rational and probably in most cases accurate. 0.96

01:35:56.080 And yet, like any other frustration we face, as soon as we're able to sort of calm the emotions, settle down and think through it, the only thing we can do is keep fighting.

01:36:07.180 We cannot give up the free and virtuous society that I am advocating that I want as my telos out of this book and out of my life efforts can only come about by an army of people from the bottom up who believe in living morally responsible lives.

01:36:25.180 The frustrations that we feel can never become an abdication of our own responsibility.

01:36:32.400 You know, David, in the Wharton School of Business, I don't believe they teach moral sentiments.

01:36:37.680 They only teach wealth of nations, if they still even teach that.

01:36:43.680 And I think your book is a is really a new kind of moral sentiments that, you know, if if the people don't change, you know, let me phrase it.

01:36:56.980 What we're going through right now is really a reflection of what we have allowed ourselves to accept or become over a very long period of time.

01:37:06.780 And so we have to we have to fundamentally change and the system will change.

01:37:12.980 That's right. It starts with us and then there is no limit to what we can do.

01:37:17.640 It becomes infectious in our families, infectious in our communities.

01:37:21.920 And a lot of the things I describe or prescribe in Chapter 11, the individual things that I am suggesting people do, they that contagious piece takes over.

01:37:33.380 And not only does it bring greater satisfaction and joy in our own lives, but I think serves as an example for how communities need to function.

01:37:43.440 I have an incredible optimism, even in the face of everything we're dealing with right now, even in this polarized political age and in this dysfunctional and sometimes morally reprobate culture.

01:37:55.080 I have a tremendous amount of optimism that what made us great can make us great again if we stop the blame casting and look forward.

01:38:03.540 So let me ask you this, David, because I feel the same thing.

01:38:06.400 The more I look at the opportunities that are on the horizon and not and stop looking at the past, recognize the past, recognize the mistakes, try to correct those mistakes and then see the opportunities that are on the horizon.

01:38:20.200 I am really, really optimistic, more optimistic than I've been in probably 10 or 15 years.

01:38:27.920 With that being said, we are, I mean, good heavens, we are facing a bucket load of stuff that only the worst times in the world's history.

01:38:40.240 Was it this bad around the world or had the seeds of being this bad around the world?

01:38:46.560 Where do you see us in 20 years?

01:38:48.680 You know, it's very difficult because most project, whatever I predict right now about 20 years has a 0% chance of playing out.

01:38:58.940 It's one thing I've learned as an economist, Glenn, is humility.

01:39:02.980 And these types of predictions are amazing.

01:39:05.500 And also as one who believes in the providence of God, that he has a way of surprising us.

01:39:11.340 Would I say things will be significantly better in 20 years?

01:39:15.080 I can't say that, but I can say this.

01:39:18.360 There are unsustainable things taking place.

01:39:21.240 We talked about the higher education business model.

01:39:24.140 We talked about the lack of school choice opportunity for underprivileged and often minority families.

01:39:30.440 Those things are unsustainable.

01:39:32.080 There will be change there.

01:39:34.560 There will be improvement.

01:39:36.000 For one, the one thing I'll say for all the good and the bad that can be said around the Donald Trump phenomena, nobody could have predicted it.

01:39:44.160 Nobody saw it coming.

01:39:45.200 And I believe that what will take place in 20 years, just as the fall of communism in the early 90s came out of nowhere, whatever takes place in the next 20 years is likely to shock us all, for good and for bad.

01:39:58.960 But I want us, those who are sort of the remnant, who believe in the values of our country, believe in faith and family, but believe in taking initiative over our own lives.

01:40:10.440 I think that one of the things, Glenn, that is most discouraging is that the backbone of America, that kind of nostalgic image we get of these blue-collar families that just want to be there with each other, work hard and come home and worship and live together.

01:40:29.360 I fear that that is what's falling apart, that that ethos is disintegrating.

01:40:35.580 What I desperately hope we will see over the next 20 years is individuals not only taking responsibility for their own economic well-beings, but taking responsibility for their individual decisions, building strong families.

01:40:50.300 And then the one piece that I think is so important I wrote about near the end of the book, getting their joy out of their production, not their consumption.

01:40:59.220 Seeing themselves as image bearers of God, that are here to produce on planet Earth and not merely be a consumer.

01:41:08.060 I believe that that alone can change the world.

01:41:11.500 David, thank you so much.

01:41:13.540 God bless.

01:41:14.020 The book is Crisis of Responsibility, Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It by David Bonson.

01:41:26.300 You can get that at bookstores everywhere, as well as following him on Twitter at David, B-A-H-N-S-E-N.

01:41:34.740 There's still bookstores?

01:41:37.760 Well, I mean, they're online, but yeah.

01:41:40.580 The best of Glenn Beck.

01:41:43.020 Stu, time for one story.

01:41:45.520 Choose your news.

01:41:46.800 New Yorkers repeatedly ticketed even though they don't have a car.

01:41:51.760 Headline number two.

01:41:53.740 Mother turns placenta into smoothie and serves it to kids who say it's yummy.

01:42:02.840 That's just like, it's not even a...

01:42:04.500 What is wrong with people?

01:42:06.320 What is wrong with people?

01:42:07.800 Placenta is like one of those words that's disgusting even if you don't know what it means.

01:42:11.840 There's just something about the sound of it that's gross.

01:42:14.840 Headline number three.

01:42:16.060 New York has finally arrested the serial underwear stealer.

01:42:21.040 Wow.

01:42:21.360 Okay.

01:42:21.620 So let's go through these.

01:42:22.440 First of all, absolutely no chance placenta wins it.

01:42:27.020 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:42:27.600 Placenta is out.

01:42:28.700 No, no, no, no.

01:42:29.200 I do not want to hear about a placenta smoothie.

01:42:30.400 No, she said her kids...

01:42:32.100 Listen to this.

01:42:32.820 She said her kids said that it was really good.

01:42:36.580 She said drinking the smoothie gives them energy, better and deeper sleep.

01:42:43.480 And she said her kids liked it because it had berries in it.

01:42:46.960 That's because they like berries, not because they like placenta.

01:42:49.980 Well, if you don't want to go to the placenta smoothie, that's fine.

01:42:52.740 Have I learned a lesson here to not rule a story out or you'll tell me about it?

01:42:56.040 Because that's something I need to tell you in the future.

01:42:57.740 No, there was much more to that story.

01:42:59.100 Okay, good.

01:42:59.560 I'm glad I skipped it.

01:43:00.320 But there's a part of me that kind of wants to know how you're getting a ticket when you're not a driver.

01:43:05.140 But, I mean, how do you go against the serial underwear stealer?

01:43:08.900 I want to know what this is about.

01:43:10.580 In his confession, he said he stole underwear because he felt urges.

01:43:16.380 On several occasions, he entered a home and opened the hampers and picked through it to find soiled women's underwear.

01:43:27.780 He was taken into custody.

01:43:30.240 It happened around 9 a.m. last Thursday.

01:43:33.320 Young woman in her house was alone.

01:43:35.700 Prosecutor, she was sleeping, but woke up when she heard the door open.

01:43:39.040 She called out, hello.

01:43:40.980 And that's when she saw the underwear thief in her home.

01:43:45.100 The underwear thief had been in her home several times.

01:43:49.760 She then locked the door and called 911. 0.93

01:43:52.400 The responding officers say that the underwear thief was at the door of another house in the neighborhood, pretending to knock on the door.

01:44:02.320 They found several pairs of soiled women's panties on him.

01:44:07.120 And here's the kicker of this.

01:44:09.940 He's a New York State judge and very well respected.

01:44:15.880 And his colleague said, we never expected this, but he's very good and everybody likes him.

01:44:21.100 So we're just going to have to watch and see how this plays out.

01:44:24.640 Wow.

01:44:25.400 Glenn Beck.

01:44:27.220 Mercury.

01:44:27.660 Mercury.

01:44:27.780 Mercury.

01:44:27.820 Mercury.

01:44:27.860 Mercury.

01:44:27.880 Mercury.

01:44:27.900 Mercury.

01:44:27.920 Mercury.

01:44:29.780 Mercury.

01:44:29.880 Mercury.

01:44:31.820 Mercury.

01:44:31.880 Mercury.

01:44:33.880 Mercury.

01:44:35.880 Mercury.

01:44:37.880 Mercury.

01:44:37.920 Mercury.

The Glenn Beck Program - July 04, 2018

The Best of Glenn Beck! - 7⧸4⧸18

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