On Thursday's Glenn Beck Program, Glenn explained why the world is in need a reset... but it's not as scary as you may think. Using the metaphor of attempting to reboot an old computer, Glenn showed why 'rebooting' the system might be exactly what America needs. How do we do that? Glenn offers some solutions in the clip below.
The below is the transcript for Glenn's monologue:
We brought this old dusty computer up here, and it’s amazing how slow our computers used to be. This is an old one from the studio that has just been kind of sitting around. When was the last time you use one like this?
Alright, I have this here for a reason, because this is the American system. This is what we have. Some would say that it’s old, it’s antiquated, it’s not working, blah, blah, blah. But just a few changes need to be made. I’ll get back to this here in a second.
First, earlier on this program, earlier this week, we mentioned the story of Madison Root, an 11-year-old girl from Oregon who wanted to help pay for her braces that her parents got her, so she came up with the idea to go to her uncle’s farm and to gather mistletoe which they grow there, put them into bags. And so she did, and then she started selling them on the street in Oregon. Great idea, right? Except that’s not what the town said.
The town decided that they had to shut her down because she didn’t have the proper license or permit. She’s 11, and they came and said you have to stop. The town wouldn’t allow her to sell. They actually told her, because she said what about the people over here that are begging? And they said well, you can beg. You just can’t sell.
You can’t sell in the marketplace, okay. Well, it was the word “marketplace” that caught my ear when I heard the story because I have a marketplace, TheBlaze Marketplace. Here’s the update to the story. I had her on this morning, and I asked her if she would sell 1,000 of those. Well, because of what she said – I’m going to play it for you in a minute – because of what she said and who she is, she sold those 1,000 mistletoes in 30 minutes.
So we called her back and said do you want to do another 1,000? Do you have another 1,000? Yeah, within an hour, those were sold out. We called her up again, and she said I don’t know if we can get these out. Her dad said we can get another 1,000 out – sold out again. God bless America. This isn’t about money. This isn’t about anything, except someone being exceptional, someone saying I want to work for it.
Now, obviously she has exceptional parents. We haven’t talked to the parents, but I did talk to her on the radio today. I want you to listen to what she said.
VIDEOGlenn: Did he volunteer that you could beg for the money?
Madison: Well, we asked him about the beggars around us, and he said that they’re begging for money, so you could beg, but you can’t sell.
Glenn: Does that make any sense to you? You’re 11. Does that make any sense to you at all?
Madison: No, it does not make sense, because I’m working hard and trying to get something that I want, and I’m doing something. I’m applying myself. But now they’re saying that you don’t need to apply yourself. You can just sit down and ask for money. But what it really boils down to is this generation’s work ethic, and I think that how it’s going right now, it’s just disappointing. It disappoints me that this country has come down to begging instead of working hard for something you want and need.
Glenn: You go to public school. Where are you learning this? Because you’re not learning it in public school, are you?
Madison: I don’t know. My dad has his own company. He’s an entrepreneur. Everyone, my whole family, has always been entrepreneurs. They always have some business going on.
That is an exceptional girl. I mean, I love the fact that she’s like I can’t believe what this country is coming to. I remember when I was eight, it wasn’t like this. I mean, come on. You don’t need a fancy Harvard education to solve America’s financial problems. What you need is a little determination and common sense, and that is what we sorely lack.
When you have the people in charge in both parties that are supposed to be the adults, and they’re not, and they’re actually advising kids to beg for money instead of working for money, it’s not exactly surprising to learn that America has serious economic trouble. We’re a group of people that quite honestly our men are addicted to pornography, our young men, and video games, and they’ve been sold a load of goods, a load of goods that everything will just fall their way. And they know that they’ve been lied to.
So what do you do? Jim Rogers, one of the top economic minds around the country, a guy I really appreciate, he’s been on the show several times because at least he’ll tell you the truth, no matter how ugly it is. Now, whether you agree with him or not, that’s for you to do your own homework, but here’s his latest warning.
VIDEOJim: But eventually, Amanda, of course, the whole world is going to collapse. We in the West have staggering debts. The United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. This is going to end badly. We’re all floating around on a sea of artificial liquidity right now, Amanda. This is not going to last. You know, 2008 was worse than 2002 because the debt was so much higher. You wait until 2015 or 2016, Amanda. The debt has gone through the roof. The next one’s going to be really bad. Be very careful. Be prepared. Be worried, and be careful.
Be worried. Be careful. So he says a global collapse. The world has never seen what is coming, and you know, if you disagree, I hope you’re right. But this is why Progressives have been feverishly working on building a framework, and when I say that, remember that Progressives are in both parties, because a massive reset is coming.
Let me explain it. Go back to the computer. Computer’s finally up. Our system is like this old computer, and we have just put too much crap on it. We have put all kinds of bugs in the system. We’ve just been loading it up with all kinds of applications that are slowing it down, that are bogging it down, that don’t work, and so what happens? It’s freezing up. It’s not working, which means because we have done all kinds of repair, at some point, this has to happen, a reboot.
Now, this is the scary part, because you and I can sit here for a while and watch it reboot. We can sit here and go okay, installing update one of 15; however, when a global system goes down, what happens when all systems go down? The world doesn’t sit around and go okay, hang on, we’re just rebooting; we’re just trying to put together a new monetary system. It ends badly.
Every successful investor always says the time to buy is when everybody else is selling. When everybody else sees calamity, they see opportunity. The same lesson applies here. There is opportunity, but not financial opportunity. We have the opportunity soon to be the people that our founders knew eventually would come.
In the Constitutional Convention, New York was asking for free stuff, and they wanted more free stuff in the Constitution. And they said we won’t be able to bring this to the people in New York. They’re not going to want it – what a surprise. They’re not going to want it. They didn’t want a new constitution. They want the Articles of Confederation.
And that’s when George Washington stood up and said with everything that we have given – I’m paraphrasing – with everything that we have given everything, everything that we’ve done, we can’t screw it up now. We can’t screw it up now. Let us do the right thing. Let us raise a standard. Let’s put a banner up that everyone can see around the whole world and say this is what we think is the best thing, and then let us raise that standard so the wise and the honest can repair it.
We’ve screwed it all up, gang. We’ve loaded everything onto it. We have a spending and debt crisis. If you taxed all Americans 100%, you still wouldn’t solve it, 100%. There’s overregulation. When you have an 11-year-old who’s being shut down on the streets because she’s trying to pay for her own braces, what is that?
State sovereignty is on life support. Your own personal sovereignty is, your church’s sovereignty. If you’re an atheist, you have…your sovereignty is up for grabs. The federal government has overwhelmed the system of checks and balances, and the founders knew all of this. Despite all of the protections they put in, they knew a government would eventually reach overbloated, out-of-control levels because they knew it would go corrupt because people do when power and money is involved.
But that’s why they included Article V of the Constitution, George Washington, so the wise and the honest can repair it. Well, what is Article V? Well, Article V basically says Congress can amend the Constitution at any time if two-thirds of both houses of Congress agree. Well, are you ever really going to get term limits? No, you’re not. Why? Because they’re not going to limit their time in office. They have to vote for it. It’s not going to work. You think you’re ever going to get budget limits where you say spending limit? You’re not going to get that. Why? Because it hurts their power.
The founders knew it. They had one lever to pull. If everything else failed, the American people could pull this one lever. It’s our escape pod. They lay out a possibility of a convention of states. If you can’t get Congress to do it, all you have to do is call two-thirds of the states to submit applications on the same issue.
Now, this is something that Mark Levin has come out, and I am wildly intrigued by a convention of states. And it’s starting to happen. Check and find out if it’s happening in your state. If not, find out why. The question is can we get two-thirds of the states to participate? Well, there’s a lot of people that are dealing in fear right now and saying well no, it could go horrible. We could have this global government.
No, you need 13 states, 13 states. If we can’t get 13 states to say no to global government, we’re going to get a global government anyway, gang. Yaron Brook, he is from the Ayn Rand Center. He was on last week. He actually said something, you know, I think we should rewrite the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. Now, that might sound counterintuitive because most people, you know, the ones who are suggesting that we replace these documents are usually the Progressives, and they want to replace it with a charter of positive liberties instead of negative liberties, all the things the government has to do.
No, that’s not what we’re talking about. Remember, you only have to get 13 states, 13 to disagree. For an amendment, if you can get 38 states to say yes, do you think we could get 38 states to say term limits in Washington? Remember, they’re local, so you’re with them. You’re with the state. Why wouldn’t they be for federal term limits?
How about unlimited spending? Do you think your state wants the government to continue to straddle them with all of this debt? How about do you think we can get 38 common-sense states to say Congress has to live by the same rules that we do for healthcare?
How about this one, I mean, I don’t know if there’s any ground support for this one, but how about matching the salaries of Congress to the median salary of those in the private sector? They start making $65,000 a year like you are, and they don’t have all the fancy healthcare and everything else, they’ll fix this damn economy. They’ll want your salary to go up because theirs will.
The point is we’re standing at a crossroads, and geez, we’re still on 15 of 15. What happens when we reboot the system? Because nobody has ever printed money and had it work out. So what happens? Are we going to move forward in fear or in love, in charity, in hope, in thinking about a brighter future? I choose the latter.
All the tools have been put in place to make it happen. It’s just going to take a major change in consciousness. Einstein said the consciousness that created the problem can’t solve the problem, so it’s a major change in consciousness. Get out of the system. But it’s not just consciousness. It really is only perspective. A change of perspective, I believe, is a miracle really.
In Miracles and Massacres, we highlight some of the miracles, and people say no, a miracle is when, you know, God parts the Red Sea. Really, is it? Is it? I can tell, I’ll bet you, you give me ten minutes, I bet you I could come up with 100 miracles I’ve seen in my lifetime, and none of them were parting the Red Sea, but they’re miracles because it’s a change in perspective.
And that’s what we need in a big way, because the current train of thought is leading us off a cliff. We need to rid an entire generation of the lies that they have been taught and are currently being taught, that you can’t make it on your own, that you’re not good enough, that you’re not successful or you’re going to have a crappy job because somebody else became successful. No, that’s not true.
We need to think out of the box. We need more Madison Roots, more 11-year-olds that say I just want to sell this to pay for my own braces. We need more voices teaching opportunity over hatred, oppression, more people teaching work ethic over welfare.
I’ve had a miracle happened in my life in the last few weeks, quite honestly. I was on Hannity’s TV show for the first time ever this week. That wasn’t a miracle. The miracle was, and David Barton wrote to me last night about it. He said Glenn, I’ve never seen you like this before. I said I haven’t been this way. It’s a miracle. I had a very awkward pause. Watch.
VIDEOHannity: What do you think privately is going to happen to this country?
Glenn: I think…I think that we are…
Hannity: In trouble.
Glenn: Yeah.
This was the strangest thing for me on television, because I really couldn’t answer that question. You know what I feel is coming. I mean, reboot, it’s coming. I couldn’t answer the question, what do you think is coming? Now, I know I’m usually the Debbie Downer at parties because, you know, oh Glenn’s going to talk about economic collapse and make everybody cry. Okay, I mean, I got it. I got it.
But that’s not the way I view things really anymore. I mean, I do think the reboot is coming, but I’m more optimistic than ever before. My perspective is changing. I am seeing the calamity, but in that calamity I am seeing tremendous opportunity if we choose it.
The Jim Rogers comment I played earlier, I don’t agree with that entirely. I do think that it is coming, but you don’t need to be afraid. Don’t be afraid, in fact. If you are afraid, everybody else around you will be afraid. Be confident. Know that we survive. Be good to your neighbors. Be good to your family. Raise them to be ready, to be prepared.
We have a chance. In fact, I tell you now we are the people that our founders saw, the wise and the honest. They knew it would fall apart. They knew the system would have to be rebooted, and in 1822, Jefferson and Adams are going back and forth, and they said you have to trust the people, trust the people. They’ll see what we were doing, and they’ll do it better. We don’t have to deal with the compromises on slavery. We need to free all people.
I’m really deeply religious. You’re an atheist? I’m fine with that. We can’t regulate each other. That is old thinking. All of these czars and everything else, I mean, think of the miracle that has happened to a good portion of America in the last ten years. Are you the same person that was reacting today the way you were reacting after 9/11? I mean, are you the same person? Would you say yes to the Patriot Act today? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. I’ve changed. That’s a miracle. America is waking up.
We are the people who will raise a new standard, and it’s already happening. You’re just not seeing it. The amazing story from Highland Michigan, this is a town that is now known for prostitution and drug dealing and crime and violence. Unemployment is 24%. It is about as desperate as you can imagine, but there is a group of people that are not accepting any excuses. They are not accepting the circumstances around them.
A 25-year-old teacher, affectionately known as Mr. V to his students, has decided he thought he could pull off a miracle. What you’re about to see is that, a change of perspective. It is a miracle in progress.