Beck's Best Damn Moment Yet - I Will Not Comply

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Beck's Best Damn Moment Yet - I Will Not Comply

I was listening to Glenn Beck's radio show this morning and he mentioned that he made a very passionate monologue in yesterday's TV show around the theme of "I will not comply."

That perked my ears up. Since on GBTV you can watch whatever rerun you wish whenever you wish, I tuned off the radio program and went to the TV show.

It blew me away. I heard Glenn Beck at his very best. It was a moment that made me feel proud to be an American - simply because this kind of person could exist here and rise to such oratory heights that he makes freedom ring--literally ring from a lofty vision--in people's hearts.

He posted some of the monologue on The Blaze, but it is out of order and incomplete. Still, those are powerful parts. Here is the link. I will wait on embedding the videos in the hopes that he will post the uncut monologue in its proper order.

‘Our Values Are Being Destroyed’: Beck Blasts New Fed Farm Rule Plan

The catalyst for this monologue was the new government regulations prohibiting farmers from having their children do all kinds of work on farms and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis's defense before Congress of the government's power to do this.

Glenn went to the underlying themes of individualism, liberty, the responsibilities of free choice and the courage to stand up against government oppression without violence, then tied this situation to a picture of "I am a man" signs worn by black men protesters during the civil rights movement, where the the government was shown by soldiers pointing bayonets at them, to his own youth working on his grandfather's farm, and the part in the Declaration of Independence when it talks about the need to throw off government that has become abusive and replace it with a new one.

Glenn also saw these regulations as an attack on parents teaching the work ethic to their children, as this makes them dependent as adults on the government and not threaten the power holders.

Near the end of the monologue (which unfortunately is not on The Blaze as of this posting), he started listing a bunch of nanny-state regulations the government is now imposing on the citizens, starting with the prohibition of sitting his child on a tractor, and punctuating each with one with, "I will not comply!"

He also said they can throw him in jail and he will not like it, that frankly he would be scared, but, "I will not comply!"

He mentioned that as the government is encroaching on the individual, the elites are buying up all the farm land the world over and this leads to where it always has led when the farmers lose their farms to elites--to mass starvation (he mentioned Russia, China, Zimbabwe, and now starting in Venezuela as examples of outright confiscation).

He even got so wound up, he called out Michelle Obama and said if she doesn't like it that he eat donuts and Doritos, "I will not comply!"

I will definitely watch this one again and again and again--as a matter of fact, I just saw it a second time to check for accuracy. All I can say is, "Wow."

I have a feeling this will become a classic in USA freedom speeches.

Michael

[Reidy]

Beck's history is a little off. Eisenhower and Kennedy used federal marshalls and the National Guard to enforce school integration orders and protect protestors, as we see in the photo he holds up. He seems to be insinuating just the opposite.

The good news is that Obama makes Beck look good as a historian: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/rutherford-b-hayes-avant-garde-or-outdated/

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Beck's history is a little off. Eisenhower and Kennedy used federal marshalls and the National Guard to enforce school integration orders and protect protestors, as we see in the photo he holds up. He seems to be insinuating just the opposite.

Pete,

What are you talking about?

I just saw this thing twice and I did not see Kennedy or Eisenhower discussed. Are you insinuating that during civil rights demonstrations, the National Guard was only used to protect protestors? Never against protestors?

The photo above is from the 1960 Memphis civil rights march--and this is the one Glenn used. I don't see the guns pointed at the crowd. But they are pointed at someone. And what the hell are those tanks doing there?

Are you saying this was the National Guard's technique for protecting the protestors? It looks a hell of a lot more like a technique for intimidating them to me.

Michael

[Reidy]

Are you insinuating that during civil rights demonstrations, the National Guard was only used to protect protestors? Never against protestors?

No, I'm stating explicitly. I don't know the full context of this particular photo. Do you have more information? Local police, with dogs and firehoses, were used against demonstrators, but that isn't what's going on here. The Guard was used against rioters a few years later, but that isn't the story here, either.

Are you saying this was the National Guard's technique for protecting the protestors? It looks a hell of a lot more like a technique for intimidating them to me.

Yes. I can see why you might draw the opposite conclusion. The odd cropping photo suggests that somebody wanted to to think this.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Pete,

Odd cropping?

I don't understand.

How could a cropped out part of a larger picture make the rifles pointing at the marchers seem like they are not pointing, or are pointing at them but only in a benign or protective way? How do you point a rifle with bayonet exposed at someone in a protective manner?

In the best look through the eyes of the possibility manner I can muster, I can't even imagine it. The only thing that comes to mind is when you tell people that you are going to look like you are threatening them, but this is just for show, say, for people who would really threaten them to keep back. Maybe that happened, who knows?

I haven't done any digging on that photo other than finding it on Google. I got the information from the photo title itself and the fact it is used to illustrate an entry on the 1960 Memphis march--but I have not crosschecked it for accuracy. I did not upload this image to the OL server, but used the original source instead, so you can copy the image URL and use it to go to the site (which, frankly, is not all that great).

btw - Beck has a research staff that is usually quite thorough in making sure something he presents is not the opposite of what it is. Also, he has a close relationship with Alveda King, MLK's neice. I would be very surprised to find out that the soldiers here did not intend to intimidate the marchers to some extent.

I admit that he spins stuff at times (especially if the topic is Newt Gingrich ), but I have yet to see him do something like you claimed. In fact, if you follow The Blaze, you will normally see it report a controversial headline much later than other news sites do. This is because he insists that his staff crosscheck everything and make sure the facts in the story are accurate.

Michael

[caroljane]

"I admit that he spins stuff at times (especially if the topic is Newt Gingrich ), but I have yet to see him do something like you claimed. In fact, if you follow The Blaze, you will normally see it report a controversial headline much later than other news sites do. This is because he insists that his staff crosscheck everything and make sure the facts in the story are accurate."

-Michael

Spin is understandable, but apparently his researchers are only paid to check US stories (also understandable). In 2009 he informed his audience quite vehemently that "In Canada they have a lottery for who gets to see the doctor this month". This is beyond inaccurate, it is utterly false, and I am not aware that he ever corrected himself on it.

[Selene]

In 2009 he informed his audience quite vehemently that "In Canada they have a lottery for who gets to see the doctor this month". This is beyond inaccurate, it is utterly false, and I am not aware that he ever corrected himself on it.

Carol:

Knowing his pattern of speaking, having followed him since about 2004, when I first heard him on a local Virginia radio station, that statement sounds like one of his satirical slashes that can almost sound like he is dead serious.

Adam

[caroljane]

In 2009 he informed his audience quite vehemently that "In Canada they have a lottery for who gets to see the doctor this month". This is beyond inaccurate, it is utterly false, and I am not aware that he ever corrected himself on it.

Carol:

Knowing his pattern of speaking, having followed him since about 2004, when I first heard him on a local Virginia radio station, that statement sounds like one of his satirical slashes that can almost sound like he is dead serious.

Adam

It didn't sound that way when he was shouting down a radio caller, repeating "In Canada there's a lottery..." not "a" slash but several,in agitated but sincere tones. It was replayed up here in the news, where it was the first time I had heard of Beck (I had forgotten it was him until this post prompted my memory).

[Selene]

In 2009 he informed his audience quite vehemently that "In Canada they have a lottery for who gets to see the doctor this month". This is beyond inaccurate, it is utterly false, and I am not aware that he ever corrected himself on it.

Carol:

Knowing his pattern of speaking, having followed him since about 2004, when I first heard him on a local Virginia radio station, that statement sounds like one of his satirical slashes that can almost sound like he is dead serious.

Adam

It didn't sound that way when he was shouting down a radio caller, repeating "In Canada there's a lottery..." not "a" slash but several,in agitated but sincere tones. It was replayed up here in the news, where it was the first time I had heard of Beck (I had forgotten it was him until this post prompted my memory).

Then it was one of his hysterical flashback alcoholic rages where he sounds like his eyes are going to explode.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Carol,

I would have to look it up to see.

If it was inaccurate, if someone told him, I'm pretty sure he would have corrected it. I have seen him do this a few times since I have followed him.

But without hearing it, I can't do anything but give him the benefit of the doubt based on what I do know.

Qualified endorsement...

Michael

[Reidy]

Just what did Beck assert about the photo? You've said it was Memphis, 1960, and I have no reason to doubt that. I didn't hear him say that the soldiers were there to thwart the protestors.

What I suspect about the cropping is that it cuts out the people the soldiers were guarding the protestors from.

[Selene]

Just what did Beck assert about the photo? You've said it was Memphis, 1960, and I have no reason to doubt that. I didn't hear him say that the soldiers were there to thwart the protesters.

What I suspect about the cropping is that it cuts out the people the soldiers were guarding the protesters from.

Pete:

I took a cursory look through some pictures in the civil rights museum archives and could not find any similar ones. I am going to try a little deeper search later.

However, if your assumption is correct and the crowd is behind them, the soldiers would not have their backs to them. If the crowds were across the street, why would the soldiers draw their picket lines with the demonstrators/protesters in front of them?

Also, does anyone know whether the National Guard or Federal troops were dispatched to Memphis in 1960 because I sure do not remember them in Memphis.

Adam

[Reidy]

Actually I suspect that they are above the photo, not off to the left. If they were doing their job effectively, the crowd could be entirely out of sight. Eager to hear what you or anyone else here finds.

[caroljane]

Actually I suspect that they are above the photo, not off to the left. If they were doing their job effectively, the crowd could be entirely out of sight. Eager to hear what you or anyone else here finds.

I found the same photo, cropped the same way.YAY I can do research! (Actually I just googled I am a Man)

I think it was not 1960 but later..I think 68 (a sanitation strike?)

The photo as is is chillingly brilliant. It is hard to tell the intent of the photographer but the image is so powerful.

[Selene]

Yep.

Good work Carol.

Thursday, March 28 - March from Clayborn Temple, led by Dr. King, is interrupted by window breaking. Police move into crowds with nightsticks, mace, tear gas and gunfire. A 16-year old boy, Larry Payne, is shot to death. Police arrest 280, report about 60 injured, mostly blacks. State legislature authorizes 7 p.m. curfew and 4,000 National Guardsmen move in.

Friday, March 29 - Some 300 sanitation workers and ministers, march peacefully and silently from Clayborn Temple to City Hall — escorted by five armored personnel carriers, five jeeps, three huge military trucks and dozens of Guardsmen with bayonets fixed. President Johnson and AFL-CIO President George Meany offer assistance in resolving the dispute. Mayor Loeb turns them down.

There you have it.

Adam

[Reidy]

Thanks for the information. The Guard was there to keep order in a riot situation in which somebody had already been killed, not to intimidate protestors (unless one believes that rioting is a form of speech).

If March 28 fell on a Thursday, the year was presumably 1963, not 1960 or 1968.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Glenn's take on the photo is that in the line of people with the "I am a man" sign, you have love. You have people standing with each other because it is right, even if they are terrified. On the left with the rifles and bayonets, you have the government. He asked what do you need the bayonets for? The tanks? These guys? (As he pointed to the signs.)

Michael

[Selene]

Thanks for the information. The Guard was there to keep order in a riot situation in which somebody had already been killed, not to intimidate protestors (unless one believes that rioting is a form of speech).

If March 28 fell on a Thursday, the year was presumably 1963, not 1960 or 1968.

It was definitely 1968:

Here is the video - the picture we saw above is clearly the same as about 7:21 in the YouTube.

They were definitely there to intimidate the marchers as the narrator specifically mentions just before that point in the video.

This is the last time Martin would help anyone. He was assassinated there. This is where he gave that great last short great speech:

i still cry every time I hear and see this. One of the great speakers of my lifetime. Remarkable man.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I found something else (the article shows the same photo):

Memphis, Tennessee, 29 March 1968 | Unknown photographer

Ian K Smith

01 April 2010

New Statesman

From the article:

Hemmed in between tanks and bayonets, civil rights protesters file down Beale Street, Tennessee, birthplace of the Memphis blues and a past stomping ground of Muddy Waters and B B King.

The photograph exudes the heat of March 1968 and the intensity of the civil rights struggle, and graphically demonstrates the divide between the state and those who desired to change it. Less than a week later, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.

I don't know how accurate this is. (Note--my post crossed with Adam's, so it looks totally accurate.) The article also has a note at the bottom that says the following about the photo (NS is New Statesman and ordering information is given):

This image features in the 50 Greatest Political Photographs (part one) special double issue of the NS.

Michael

[caroljane]

I found something else (the article shows the same photo):

Memphis, Tennessee, 29 March 1968 | Unknown photographer

Ian K Smith

01 April 2010

New Statesman

From the article:

Hemmed in between tanks and bayonets, civil rights protesters file down Beale Street, Tennessee, birthplace of the Memphis blues and a past stomping ground of Muddy Waters and B B King.

The photograph exudes the heat of March 1968 and the intensity of the civil rights struggle, and graphically demonstrates the divide between the state and those who desired to change it. Less than a week later, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.

I don't know how accurate this is. The article also has a note at the bottom that says the following about the photo (NS is New Statesman and ordering information is given):

This image features in the 50 Greatest Political Photographs (part one) special double issue of the NS.

Michael

It deserves to be in the top 10. Look at the angle - the soldiers so large, the marchers so small yet so indomitable. The rows of tanks, so pointless, so small in the distance. The unknown photographer was a genius.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now that we have Glenn Beck's historical accuracy settled, back to point.

This monologue Glenn gave is the first time I have ever heard him actively call out the government and say he will not comply with the law.

He has a huge following, so I imagine there will be many doing the same. And these will be farmers, small business owners, military families and the like.

I expect to see a confrontation between Glenn and government officials before too long.

Michael

[Selene]

Good. Count me in.

I have been ready and willing for a long time.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

Be on the lookout for "I Will Not Comply" on signs, teeshirts and the like.

I bet you it will start.

Michael

[Selene]

Adam,

Be on the lookout for "I Will Not Comply" on signs, teeshirts and the like.

I bet you it will start.

Michael

Michael:

Agreed. I must have written - "Who is John Galt?" probably 50, 000 times over the years.

I have been ready for the right time. It is now. I am not relying on this election.

Adam

[George H. Smith]

Now that we have Glenn Beck's historical accuracy settled, back to point. This monologue Glenn gave is the first time I have ever heard him actively call out the government and say he will not comply with the law. He has a huge following, so I imagine there will be many doing the same. And these will be farmers, small business owners, military families and the like. I expect to see a confrontation between Glenn and government officials before too long. Michael

Maybe Beck was influenced by my lecture on the rights of resistance of revolution. Cato uploaded it to YouTube only ten days ago. Surely this cannot be mere coincidence.

More seriously, does anyone have suggestions as to how I might interest Beck in reading some of my weekly Cato essays? He would surely like most of them, and if he were to mention the Excursions site on his radio broadcast, the number of hits would skyrocket.

The problem is that he doubtless gets thousands of emails every day, many of which want something or other from him, so that method probably wouldn't work. Does anyone have an inside track, so to speak, to Beck?

The essay that would probably appeal to Beck most is the first one I posted, "Religous Tolerance Versus Religious Freedom." This has gotten far more "likes" than any other essay, and I know it has been "shared" on a number of websites run by religious libertarian types.

http://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/excursions/religious-toleration-versus-religious-freedom

Ghs