Glenn has always emphasized the importance of personal responsibility, but in light of what has been happening lately, he has also discussed the importance of listening to and trusting one’s inner voice as a source of guidance. What happens when we stop listening to the inner voice? And have our freshly elected leaders who started off strong in standing for their principles going to lose themselves to institutionalized corruption?
“Last night I went to our temple to pray. My wife and I spent the night just praying,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “And I have been looking for some answers on some things, and I think I got some last night. But one of them is, we have to start back at nursery school, just like we had to start back when I was on Fox, and we had to go back and learn all about the founders. We have to go back and learn about honor and integrity. We have to learn how to not be angry. We have to learn about our civil rights. We have to learn about how to make sure we never violate trust, how we can take responsibility.”
We have become so accustomed to hearing mantras like “Give me liberty, give me death” that seem to define the ethos of the American spirit, but Glenn asserts that it is not possible to have liberty without responsibility.
“It's not ‘Give me liberty, give me death.’ It's ‘Give me responsibility,’” Glenn said. “There is no liberty if I can't have the responsibility. If I can't choose for myself and I can't live with either the benefits or the problems that I created, there is no liberty. Give me responsibility or give me death because death comes from not having responsibility.”
Following the discovery of the three missing women in Cleveland, Ohio, many people who lived in the neighborhood came forward to say they suspected something was amiss, but they either brushed off their intuitions as paranoia or their claims were not taken seriously by others.
“I spoke about the alarm system in each of us, and the alarm system is being shut down,” Glenn said in reference to his monologue on last night’s Glenn Beck Program. “We are dismissing it.”
Not only must we take personal responsibility, but we must demand responsibility from those who represent us in government too. Glenn has long been a fan of Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), but his actions lately have been seriously questionable.
“Let me report on this,” Glenn said. “Jeff Flake is somebody that we've been for. Jeff Flake is one of the guys who's the best on the economy. Jeff Flake is a friend. Jeff Flake is a guy I supported to be the senator. I fought for Jeff, and all of a sudden he is for comprehensive immigration reform. We have him on; he doesn't make any sense. We're like, ‘Jeff, you're misguided. You're misguided.’”
Now Sen. Flake is not just pro-immigration reform, but it seems as though he is now pro-gun control as well. “Now he has flip flopped on gun control. Now Jeff is suddenly for gun control, and he says he's doing it because maybe he can get a better deal on the Internet tax, that maybe they won't pass the Internet tax,” Glenn explained. “If he gives in on guns, then we won't get the Internet tax. I'll take the damn Internet tax over you taking my guns.”
Sen. Flake has only been in office some four months, and it looks like he has already compromised on some of his core values. Even Matt Kibbe of Freedom Works, a big of Sen. Flake, told Glenn in an email that he is afraid “we have lost Jeff Flake.”
More than anything else, this situation proves just how powerful the Washington machine has become. “Powerful, powerful, powerful people,” Glenn said of those in Washington D.C. “When you can turn a guy like Jeff Flake this quickly – four and a half months, they're powerful.”
Glenn went on to provide another example of politicians losing their way. Utah Republicans have apparently decided it is too controversial for them to continue to attend LDS “firesides,” which Glenn explained as “a time that you bring an expert into the church, and they will talk about whatever it is. They will talk about faith in their job, whatever the topic is.”
“I'm calling my LDS friends from Utah that are in Washington D.C. and telling them, you better stand up against this or you're going to lose your soul and here's why,” Glenn said. “I give talks at the firesides… and every time I go into a church and I speak, whether it's my church or another church, I always know whose time I'm on. I'm not on my time. I'm on God's time. And every time I give a talk, that's when I realize, am I off course… Because I'm saying this now in church on God's time. It keeps you centered. They know that. I swear to you they know that and so that's why they're suddenly saying, ‘We shouldn't talk in church.’ It is powerful evil that is going on. You can lose these guys in a heartbeat.”
In times like this, when the world seems to be turned upside down, a deep rooted faith is often the only way to help make sense of things. Glenn spoke of a passage from Corinthians that says God will take weak things to defeat the powerful, and He will take foolish things to defeat the wise.
“I have never understood foolish things. What does that mean exactly,” Glenn asked. “I'll tell you what that means: Glenn, you can't start your own network. You can't leave Fox. You'll never be able to afford it. You'll never be able to do this. You'll never be able to do that. What, are you crazy? You don't want to do that. You'll just cause more trouble. Don't do that. Hey, don't get involved.”
That is the mindset of so many of us who are afraid to speak up, speak out, do something new, do something different. But it is clear that we no longer have time to waste.
“Be foolish! Be foolish,” Glenn exclaimed. “Follow your heart! Follow what you know what is right on the inside! Follow your heart. Be foolish. It is the only way we win. Be foolish. Do the things everyone says, ‘Don't do that. That's foolish. That's foolishness. They'll destroy you. They'll smear you. You'll lose your reputation. You'll have nothing left in the end.’”
“I got news for ya,” he concluded. “Be willing to lose your life and you will gain it in the end.”
