Glenn Beck and his 912 Project

[pyat]

Speaking of Glenn Beck (who I'd not heard of before today), he sounds more and more like a dork. I refer you to his 912 Project, 9 Principles and 12 Values he says all Americans should live by.

Edit: Many of these are perfectly laudable principles, though some of them contradict each other, and coming from Glenn Beck many of the rest are horribly hypocritical.

Nine Principles
1. America Is Good.
2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

Don't #5 and #4 sort of conflict with each other? And I'm not sure the agnostic/Deist founding fathers would agree with #2 at all.

Comments

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

My dad has become one of those people who I can't understand. "Obama scares the hell out of me." he says. Direct quote. Basically, he's one of those who is convinced that Obama's plan is to take the money of anyone who is making any via taxes and throw it who knows where.

Me, I'm all about "I'm happy to pay slightly higher taxes, even though I'm actually not at the income level where that's likely. Because my freedoms are far less likely to be restricted."

I'm free to have the county bear the burden of gathering evidence to put someone who rapes me in prison, rather than having to pay for my own rape kit, as has happened under the candidate he supports.

I'm free to decide what's best for my own body, be that taking birth control or even getting an abortion, should I choose, even though the idea is personally abhorrent to me.

Most importantly, I'm slowly being freed from the idea that obvious wealth is a sign of favour from God or a sign that I've "worked hard" or done something good. It's simply a result of the combination of having good choices presented to me and taking advantage of those good options. There are far too many people who don't have those good options presented to them, and so can't take advantage of them. True Christian (in the sense of being like the Jesus written about in the Gospels accepted as canonical by mainstream denominations) charity is helping not only the ones who haven't had good opportunities, but also the ones who've chosen to not take those opportunities, or chosen badly. This is how #6 pisses me off. Glenn Beck and people who agree with him will say that "I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results." but their-idea-of-God forbid that if equal results aren't there for all to see it isn't evidence that you've been lazy or somehow deficient in your pursuit of those rights.