Addicted to Outrage

by Glenn Beck

  With some exceptions, I believe I could sell this idea to all of those who were interviewed in front of Independence Hall. The only possible exception might be the Russian tourist, as he may be old enough to remember how high the price really was.

  That is a charter of positive liberties, and history shows us that it never works out well, mainly because the state decides the rights of its people. Whereas in our form of government, its people decide what the government can and cannot do, because we are only loaning the government and its agencies the rights given to all men.

  This is the biggest difference between constitutionalists and progressives. This is the mountain summit. As Obama stated, “Ours is a charter of negative liberties as opposed to a Constitution that tells the government what it can and must do for the people.”

  This is NOT the American system. This reverses the structure and meaning of our founding documents entirely. If we decide to “fundamentally” transform the United States of America, then we should be open, honest, and have that clear debate.

  The idea of rights belonging to the people was and still very much is a new and unique concept. It means that we are not only created equal but we cannot even create a body or a government that is more than equal to its life force, the people. Under our system of government, we own our own rights, and no one can take them from us, but neither can we take them from another. We always retain our rights. We loan a few of them out so others—police, firemen, congressmen and other elected officials—can do what we need done. We, in effect, hire them to do the stuff we don’t want to do or simply don’t have the time to do. They represent us. They are to be our eyes, ears, and advocates.

  * * *

  The real secret here is that we cannot loan a right that we do not have. This is uniquely American and, when fully understood, acts as self-enforcement to protect us from an out-of-control government. For instance, we can give our right to the police to patrol our neighborhood, as we hold the right to self-protection. But we cannot as a neighborhood-watch group tell the police officer to kill one of our neighbors or steal his stuff and give it to us, because none of us hold those rights. It is a truly a remarkable system, if guarded by the people, because it keeps everyone in check.

  But what are those rights? How do we get them? What is government for? What if it gets out of control? Can we break away if we don’t like it? Well, let’s start at the beginning. Assuming you knew all of the answers to the questions asked of those in Philadelphia, then you know what our Founders wrote that summer in 1776. But it is so brilliant that it is truly worth rereading every so often.

  I like to look at it as the best breakup letter ever written, but if you look at it as a statement from a group of entrepreneurs who want to begin their own company, it works really well as an appeal to possible shareholders and as a mission statement.

  The Declaration of Independence, the founding document on which we base our entire system of government, is perhaps the most important document in world history. Many countries have since used it for the base or cornerstone of their government. To understand it, think of it in two ways: our breakup letter to the king and, most important, our country’s mission statement.

  What makes this so powerful is that just in the first three paragraphs it outlines what kind of country we are going to strive to be. Most breakup letters, or manifestos, especially between countries, just list all the reasons they need to be apart. It was of extraordinary genius and foresight to include and tell the world what we were going to build. Think of it this way: If you wanted to start a new car company, would anyone want to invest in an unknown upstart company that wanted to try something totally new but announced its formation by saying, “We are a bunch of former employees who left the VW ‘Thing’ plant because, well, have you ever seen a ‘Thing’? Ooof! It made the AMC Pacer look sleek . . . AND they insisted that everyone who works there had to like all thirty-one flavors at Baskin-Robbins.” No one would invest.

  Instead, some of the greatest and best-known minds on earth at the time, akin to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Hitchens, Billy Graham, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro, all signed a statement that said, “We the undersigned have an idea. We know it sounds crazy, but we have really done our homework and we believe this totally new kind of car is the future, and we have standards that are going to be higher than anyone has imagined before. We are going to get rid of the dealership thing because we know and you know it is just a game, and we are not going to play it. Our cars will be made with the highest standards, they will be more dependable, all 100 percent renewable energy, and at half the cost of the car you drive today. We are building it with you in mind, because you deserve to drive what you want, where you want, in a great car that you can afford. Please, join us.” Now I want a few more details, but if that is the announcement, I think many people would invest.

  This is what our Founders did, except not with a car but with a country. The Declaration of Independence is who we aspire to be. This was important for many reasons, but to me one of the least discussed reasons is that most of them liked the king and being British. They wanted him to know that they weren’t bad people, that they didn’t just hate him; instead they said to him, in effect, you don’t even know us. This is who we are, and it is why we can no longer be together.

  The Constitution came later, long after we declared ourselves free and independent. We had fought a war, cleaned ourselves up a bit, gathered all of the old team who knew why we wanted to start our own “car company” plus a few new members, sat down around our kitchen table, and said, “Okay, based on what we promised we were going to be, how do we build this company? How will we treat the management, and how do we make sure that they and all the employees understand that they all work for the customer? How do we make sure they don’t ever turn into the blind jerks that were making the ‘Thing’?” What they drafted was an org chart and all of the mechanicals for how we were going to build our cars. It has almost zero vision, as that was the job of our mission statement, the Declaration.

  Finally, the Bill of Rights was written a year later, because there were still a lot of people who didn’t trust that this car company would do what it said it would do, because most of the people who helped us draw up this “org chart” had been around the block a few times; some of them, in fact, had spent years studying all of the greatest and worst car companies in history. They searched and searched for the ideas that made a company great and not so great. Where did they fail, and why? Had anyone come up with a better idea? If so, did it work, and why or why not? One of the things that they found was that almost all senior management of big companies talk a good game but in the end, they overpay themselves, underpay the employees, and totally abuse the customers. They might even start out great, but over time, human nature takes over, and greed for power and money take over 99 percent of them. It wasn’t just one company; it eventually happened to all companies and people.

  But these “managers” knew, before it got too much farther down the road, we were going to write down and cast in stone the things that our company and its managers must NEVER violate. Because they had found about ten things that companies always did just before they really went off the rails. So, to act as an electric fence against bad management and an early warning system for the workers, shareholders, and customers that trouble was brewing, they posted a “we will never, ever do these things” list for all to see. Remember, this was in addition to the mission statement, which was also posted, which clearly stated that the only real job of managers was to protect the right of the customer to be who they are, to never make the “Thing” or ever tell them which ice cream—if any—they needed to like, and that their right to hate sherbet should not be infringed.

  But due to some old-timey verbiage, and the fact that recent management has taken those posters down and has been telling everyone that “times have changed,” while we still enjoy the spirit of those words, they really no longer
apply; no one reads them, and most don’t even know what they meant in the first place.

  Let me take you through the Declaration. But if I may, let me liken this to a Dear John letter. In our case, a literal Dear George letter. As I do speak “old-timey” and the language of the “kids” today, I will translate line by line.

  TO: The King

  FROM: Us

  When, in the course of human events, AS SHIT HAPPENS, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, I WANT YOU TO KNOW IT’S BEEN GREAT BUT and to assume among the powers of the earth, WE NEED TO BREAK UP the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN KIND OF “POSSESSIVE” IN A CREEPY “IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU, NO ONE WILL” SORT OF WAY, I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I CHECKED WITH EVERYONE INCLUDING BOTH GOD AND NATURE, AND EVERYONE SAYS THAT I CAN DO THIS. BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE A JERK, NOR DO I WANT ANY OF OUR FRIENDS TALKING JUNK ABOUT ME a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. SO I AM WRITING TO LET YOU KNOW THAT REALLY, IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS YOU STILL DON’T EVEN KNOW ME. WELL, LET ME REMIND YOU WHO I AM.

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, I REALLY THINK THAT I COULD WAKE ALL OF MY FRIENDS UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND ASK THEM A FEW SIMPLE THINGS, AND EVEN FROM A DEAD SLEEP—AND THEY WOULD SAY, “LIKE, YEAH,” AND GO BACK TO SLEEP LIKE A GRUMP. A FEW OF THOSE THINGS WOULD BE: that all men are created equal, NO MATTER WHAT, YOU AND I ARE EQUAL. OKAY, I’M, LIKE, SMARTER THAN YOU, AND YOU WOULD HAVE TO SWIPE RIGHT BUT I WOULD HAVE TO SWIPE LEFT ON YOU, BUT that they are endowed (REALLY, WHAT ARE YOU, TWELVE? THE WORD MEANS GIVEN OR BESTOWED UPON) by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, EACH OF US HAS RIGHTS, I MEAN REALLY BIG ONES, THEY COME FROM GOD AND NATURE, NOT YOU OR ANYBODY ELSE, AND THE WORD “UNALIENABLE” MEANS THAT NOT YOU NOR ANYONE ELSE CAN CHANGE THEM OR TAKE THEM AWAY (STALKER BOY) that among these, BUT JUST SO WE ARE CLEAR, A COUPLE OF THEM, MEANING THERE ARE MORE, are life—YOU CAN’T KILL ME—YEAH, THINGS ARE PRETTY BAD WHEN YOU HAVE TO REMIND YOUR “OTHER” THAT YOU “CAN’T KILL ME” liberty ALSO, YOU CAN’T KIDNAP ME AND JUST PUT ME IN A CELL OR IN YOUR CREEPY BASEMENT, and the pursuit of happiness. OH AND ONE LAST ONE: I WOULD SAY I HAVE A RIGHT TO HAVE MY OWN STUFF AND KEEP IT, BUT YOU ARE CURRENTLY CLAIMING THAT SOME OF MY STUFF BELONGS TO YOU . . . A FEW OF MY SKIRTS, WEIRDO, SO TO ENSURE THAT NO WORD GAMES ARE PLAYED WITH THIS, I AM GOING TO CALL IT MY PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, JUST SO YOU KNOW, BECAUSE I REMEMBER HOW YOU TREATED ME, I GOT A FEW OF MY FRIENDS TOGETHER AND PUT A POSSE IN PLACE JUST IN CASE THE NEXT GUY TURNS OUT TO BE A DIRTBAG TOO deriving their just powers THAT ARE GOING TO DO ONLY RIGHTEOUS STUFF THAT I DON’T HAVE TIME TO DO, from the consent of the governed. BECAUSE I ASKED THEM. BUT YOU SHOULD KNOW, THAT I EVEN TOLD THEM, THAT WHILE THEY ARE THERE TO PROTECT US FROM YOU KILLIN’ US OR KIDNAPPING US OR STEALING MY STUFF That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, IF THEY EVER GET OUT OF CONTROL it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, WE ARE GOING TO FIRE THEM OR KICK THEIR BUTTS and to institute new government, AND SET OUT A NEW POSSE laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, BUT I AM SURE IF WE GET TO THAT POINT, WE’RE GOING TO LEARN A BUNCH OF STUFF THAT I CAN’T THINK OF RIGHT NOW TO MAKE IT BETTER as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. TO MAKE SURE THE NEXT TIME I AM SAFE FROM YOU OR ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO TIE ME TO THE PIPES IN THE BASEMENT. NOW, Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; I DIDN’T JUST THINK THIS UP. I MEAN, WE HAVE BEEN TOGETHER FOR, LIKE, A LONG TIME, SO I HAVE SPENT A LOT OF TIME THINKING ABOUT IT, and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. AND I KNOW THAT I HAVE BEEN BITCHING ABOUT THIS STUFF FOR A LONG TIME, BUT LEAVING YOU MEANT I HAD TO FIND A NEW PLACE AND GET A BETTER JOB TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD MY STUFF, AND, FRANKLY, I AM JUST LAZY AT TIMES. I MEAN, IT STINKS RIGHT NOW, BUT, FOR A LONG TIME, I JUST KEPT THINKING, IT WILL GET BETTER OR I’LL BREAK UP TOMORROW. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, BUT WHEN YOU WERE CHEATING ON ME, WHILE I WAS HOME IN THE OTHER ROOM AND IT WAS WITH MY MOTHER, I COULDN’T TAKE IT ANOTHER DAY! pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, I THINK I JUST HAD AN ANEURYSM, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT LAST PART MEANT OTHER THAN YOU ARE BECOMING, LIKE, A LITTLE HITLER AROUND THE HOUSE, AND I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! SO, I AM BREAKING UP WITH YOU BECAUSE I CAN, it is their right, BUT MY FATHER TOLD ME THAT IF I DIDN’T, HE WAS GOING TO SHOW UP WITH A SHOTGUN—FOR ME, BECAUSE it is their duty, to throw off such government, IF I WANT ANY SELF-RESPECT, I HAVE TO BREAK UP WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE DONE A TON OF BAD STUFF TO ME and to provide new guards for their future security.—AND, IN ADDITION, TO FIND SOMEONE WHO HAS A JOB AND WILL MARRY ME—YOU BUM.

  The Declaration is the world’s greatest breakup letter. And like all good breakup letters, it follows a pattern:

  1. It’s not you . . . it’s me. Look, I’ve changed, and I have asked you to come along, but you didn’t, and in fact you made it worse. So let me show you one more time what I have figured out, as it is who I am and where I am going.

  2. Okay, I know I said it wasn’t you, but really it kinda is, because we’ve talked about all these things because I am a decent person, and it appears that every time we talk, you make it worse, which tells me that while I am trying to be cool, you kinda suck.

  This one “letter” gives the reader a ton of information on not just who we are, what we believe, and why we need to be separate but equal away from the king but also how we are going to organize our life and set up a system of guardrails that will ensure we don’t get into another bad relationship—or, if we do, how we are going to handle it. If this was all it was, it would stand alone as a remarkable document. But it is also aspirational and inspirational. We need to read these words with the eyes of someone who lived in the eighteenth century. These words are literally revolutionary. This is way beyond “We are oppressed and need to break away”; this is bold, brave, and politically and philosophically way ahead of its time. This is akin to a resignation letter to an abacus and pen-and-ink company in the 1800s from Bill Gates outlining an entirely new concept of hardware (the computer) and software (Word).

  This had to be laughable to the arrogant powers in England. But it is the blueprint for success. It begins with a hopeful statement of what they believed; it then shows the steps they took and that others later might take under this document, saying it was our right AND OUR DUTY to shake off the chains of tyranny.

  I have heard so many people say that we just need to “burn it all down.” This document shows the weight of such action, but, more important, it points to the path of success. On thoughtful examination one notices that there is no period after the words: “duty, to throw off such government (.)” It instead uses a conjunction “AND provide new guards for their future security.” This is where revolutions usually fail before they even begin. I have yet to hear a plan from anyone for what we could replace this system with that would provide better security for the rights of all mankind. What we do hear is the cry of injustice, or anger. We hear the promises of redistribution, social justice, and free universal this or that. What I have not heard is how we better secure the rights that are being trampled and lost.

  It is our DUTY to not take this lightly. Should America fail, who will protect the rights of man? Who is having this conversation? With so much at stake the world over, our flippancy toward the collapse or demise of Western civilization is grotesque. In this fast-food culture, or, worse yet, a culture that actually now gets mad if there is any download or buffering time while watching Netflix on a wireless connection at 40,000 feet
and moving at seven hundred miles per hour. Do we really have the stamina to even reset a system that has gone wrong over three or four generations? I am beginning to doubt that we have the patience to take the time to understand the real problems, let alone find the solutions and a plan to put us back on track.

  Because I know that each American generation since this document was drafted has been entrusted with the security of the rights of all mankind and that those rights belong to God alone, I fear the day of judgment for each of us who were to stand watch at this time. How will we even begin to explain to our children or grandchildren how we said nothing as we sold them bound and gagged, long before they were born, because we wanted free universities, while we all knew those same universities were turning out citizens who couldn’t read or do basic math but instead assembled themselves in mobs to silence anyone who didn’t agree with the latest number of genders?

  There is no such thing as “social justice,” justice for a “collective.” But on an eternal time scale, there will be individual justice. We should all fear the verdict, as we know the Judge has clearly stated, “To whom much is given, much is required.” We have been given more than any people ever on the face of the earth, and yet we fail to do the minimum of self-education or simply actually caring about the outcome.

  Honesty, reason, logic, and truth must return, as they did during the “modern era” of the Enlightenment. But there is one other thing that I believe we all must do as we enter into this “brave new world,” and sadly I mean that literally. We must grow thicker skin. It isn’t enough just to do our homework, think critically, and accept the responsibility of truth; we must also begin to treat others more kindly and give others the benefit of doubt, even if we don’t think they deserve it. We must at least try to not give offense. On the other side of the coin, we must also “grow a set.” We cannot continue down this road of offense. We see a story and are outraged, so we feel justified in saying something that we know, especially if we stop to think, others will find outrageous. We become victim and villain in one tweet.