1. Glenn Beck is a Secret Socialist!
According to Dr. Phil Maymin, Glenn Beck is a socialist because he criticized Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s book Nudge. Maymin said of Beck:
Watching Beck, I discovered the truth about him: neither those who claim him as a libertarian nor those that denounce him as a phony are right. Beck is not a libertarian; he is a deep-seated socialist. But he is also not a phony; it is so deep-seated in him that he doesn’t even realize it.
That is libertarian lingo for “if you disagree with our world views, you’re not a patriot, you hate America you a big, fat socialist!” I thought libertarians were of the belief all Americans must be free-thinkers, speaking freely a la Thomas Jefferson. But not if one disagrees with libertarians.
Nudge, a book free-thinkers should disagree with, suggests removing individual personal health decisions through government nudges and claims government knows best when it comes to health care for the people. Sunstein (seen in this YouTube video explaining exactly what Beck criticized—we can’t think for ourselves, so government should) and Thaler do not believe Americans can do for themselves.
Beck believes we can make our own decisions and exposed the book for stipulating the opposite. Maymin said of Beck’s Nudge criticism:
[H]is exaggerations and misstatements of major issues…[is]… that nudges remove or restrict options. Thaler would quite clearly argue that this is not so, and he would win that argument hands down. Most nudge policies are simply about changing defaults, such as the default 401k plan you invest in, or the default health plan you choose. You can always choose whatever you would have otherwise chosen, if you so wish. But those who don’t care or don’t know would be opted into a better plan, not as viewed by Thaler or even Beck, but as viewed by people just like them, or in some cases, even by themselves.
Writing for NewsReal Blog, Claude Cartaginese notes Thaler and Sunstein’s organ donation nudge views are “the government would have the last say in what should happen to your organs after you die, as you are deemed too stupid to be trusted to make the right decision.”
Despite Maymin’s criticism of Beck, he disagrees with government interference:
Government nudges are wrong. I have had this debate with Thaler and we disagree. He thinks libertarians are irrelevant because we don’t address practical questions. I think governments that implement nudges in areas they are not supposed to intervene are continuing their unconstitutional activities… the bigger question of non-interventionism ought to be addressed. But Beck does not make a single case against immoral government behavior. In fact, he agrees with the principle. And this is the third, and biggest, problem that I have with him. He started…saying that America is facing a choice, a choice between socialism and freedom. And that while there are some that support socialism, there are more of us who support freedom, and books like Nudge are implicitly supporting socialism without actually saying so, and therefore depriving the American people of the debate. Let’s just have it out in the open, he says, and let the people decide.
Beck shouts for freedom daily while denouncing socialism, government expansion, and anything depriving individual choice. The real problem is that “immoral behavior” Maymin says Beck supports—the U.S. military.
