I may have been a little unbalanced myself but it seemed appropriate because I see Beck as unbalanced to the right.

I do not think that all the private sector are corrupt and people need an economy. Jobs are so important to peoples well being. I love the small business sector. But I am concerned about companies of today that are approaching near monopoly size that unduly exercise unrighteous dominion.

This will be my last post here (I hope) I would sure like to hear other peoples points of view though.

I hope it isn’t me that you feel you are annoying. The last post was mostly intended to be satirical I apologize if I offended you. I am actually interested in your opinion regarding the basis of your argument. I have always wondered why it is more “politically correct” to sensor the thoughts of the perceived majority while allowing the opinions of the minority to go unchecked. Which is why I asked where you felt that Glen Beck was restricting others freedom to religion. I guess I may never understand it but I thought maybe you or others might have some insight into what I consider an anomaly.

1 Cor. 13: 1-4,
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Mosiah 4:16-19
16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.
17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—
18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.
19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?
Isa. 5: 8
8 ¶ Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!

Isa. 10: 2
2 To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
I also find it ironic. Someone early in this post alluded to the fact that Elder Christopherson was alluding to Beck when he spoke of social justice. I am beginning to think I was incorrect and that he was referring to Beck. I thought if Elder Christopherson would get any support it would be on this blog. I guess not.

Enough of my pompous opinions.

First of all I am Canadian and I take offense to being lumped in with so called “Americans”. There I got that off my chest, I apologize in advance for my tounge in cheek response to all those belonging to the United States of America.

Second at what point did you feel I labelled you as a “Liberal”? I did say that you were spouting a leftist agenda which I will still allow that opinion stand. You assumed and then took offense to the fact that I was comparing what you were saying to what I qualified as a complete generalization of Right wing and Left wing thinkers. I still feel that I have a point and the facts show the validity of it as well.

Third my original question still has yet to be answered.

“How is Glenn Beck restricting anyone’s freedom to exercise religion?”

Your criticism

“Deal with my ideas and quit the labeling me”

seems sort of hypocritical at this point does it not?

Just curious if you read my last entry? Anonymous responded to it and, while I’m sure he doesn’t agree with everything, admitted that there were reasons behind some of my convictions which he was unaware of. I was able to support those convictions with hard data. Do you have anything to back up your claim that the people most responsible for America’s out of control spending are GW Bush, Reagan, Obama, and GHW Bush, in that order?

Anonymous,

Thanks for your time and the healthy debate. Enjoy your time off.

I don’t have much time right now. I must rush off to a meeting and I can’t watch your clips right now. I am going away for the weekend but I appreciate the tone of your last post, it is open minded and presents some facts I am unaware of. Your post is respectful and a pleasure to read. You are not what I dislike so much about Beck. A very fair and balanced post in my opinion.

Have a great day.

I did try to post three times, all the same post. I also tried to post the word Test. Not sure if I’m being censored or if I had too many links. So, I am re-posting with references to the links and then I will post the links in their separate postings below. I even sent an email to Our Thoughts, but haven’t heard back. At any rate, I won’t try to address your response to my failed responses at this time, but I did go through your previous response and commented point-by-point. You’ll see that in a few areas I even agreed with you.

First and foremost, I want you to know that from your writings I get the impression you are a good person with good intentions and I’ve enjoyed our back-and-forth. Within the Church I’ve found that when people challenge my beliefs that is when I experience my greatest growth in education. This further strengthens my convictions.

As for Glenn Beck, I want to reiterate that I do not agree with everything he says, nor do I look to him as an authoritative Church leader. I think it’s also important to understand that he has said repeatedly that he is in opinion show host. In fact, the intro to his radio show subtitles “The Glenn Beck Program” as “The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment.” His is an entertainer. That said I feel like we’re running in place on this social justice argument. You’re still taking his initial comments out of context. If you truly believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true Church then you are admitting that the other churches, while definitely contributing good to the world, are manmade institutions and as a result could in theory adopt a corrupt policy resembling Glenn Beck’s personal definition of social justice. Do you agree that the ideal Glenn Beck uses to define social justice is a bad policy? If you are truly open-minded you will take 2 minutes to watch this clip, which will add context to Beck’s comments: (Link #1).

There are people here in the US that are advocating policy like the Fairness Doctrine, which would “force” stations to provide opposing viewpoints. If it’s a public station that taxpayers fund I agree, but when you tell private enterprises that they have to give equal airtime to both sides it sounds like a limit on free speech. When you say Beck needs to present a balanced approach what does that mean? Why can’t he exercise his right to free speech on a privately owned station?

There are countries throughout the world that have socialized medicine and yet, when people can afford it they come to the United States to get treatment, including your Prime Minister. Why is that?

In the US Medicare and Medicaid represent some of the socialized healthcare we already have. When I was an intern at a healthcare facility they would not accept Medicare and Medicaid patients, and it goes that way for many doctors and facilities. The reason is that these programs are so far in debt they can’t afford to pay the doctors reasonably for their services. It is so bad that if a doctor were to take only Medicare and Medicaid patients he would not be able to pay his or her bills and would go out of business. The healthcare bill cuts Medicaid funding even further, and then takes that program, which can’t even take care of our elderly population and expands it to the entire US population. How will that work?
Lastly on healthcare, the healthcare reform bill was well over 2,000 pages long. The lawmakers weren’t allowed to read it until 72 hours before they had to vote on it. Here is what our Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said about the bill before its passage: (Link #2). Did you know a piece of education reform was thrown into it? Did you know there is a loophole that will not keep premium hikes from taking place as Obama had promised: (Link #3)? Maybe Diane Feinstein (see quote at top of article) should have read the bill before she voted for it. Maybe you should understand it before you call it noble.
You can’t be serious. You want me to show you something worse than Bush? How about Mao Tse-tung from communist China? Historians say he is responsible for upwards of 70 million deaths. That’s twice as many people as there are in all of Canada. Ever heard of the Holodomor? Joseph Stalin starved 7 million Ukrainians in one year! That’s 25,000 people a day. Read this quote: “”We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens.” Sounds like forced redistribution of wealth. Did I mention the author of that quote is Adolf Hitler? I’ve said it before, capitalism has its warts, but without the ingenuity and resources it produced you would probably be speaking German today. Capitalism has produced an America that gives away $300 billion a year for charity. No, that’s not the government, that’s from the pockets of the American worker. There are 154 countries in the world that don’t even have a GDP above $400 billion annually. The US gives away around $25 billion a year in foreign aid, about twice what any other country does. Not to mention the billions upon billions we spend helping out people who have fallen on hard times here in the US. If these socialist and communist systems are so great why when Haitians leave their country do they not cross the border into the Dominican Republic? Why don’t they take their raft to Puerto Rico or Turks & Caicos or Jamaica or Cuba? Why do they go all the way to Florida?

I agree, Obama did not create the financial crisis, but he is only perpetuating it by encouraging more reckless spending. Did you know that Obama’s 2011 budget proposal shows a $1.6 trillion deficit? That means he has a budget showing what’s coming in and he has $1.6 trillion more going out than what’s coming in. The crazy thing? The Iraq war makes up about 4% of the total proposed budget. There is plenty of other spending that would be much better served by staying in the pockets of reasonable citizens than it would going to corrupt politicians. By the way, Glenn Beck spoke out very strongly against Bush and I disagreed with a lot of his policies so nice try. You might have known that about Beck if you’d done your homework.

You should be grateful that the country with the biggest stick isn’t North Korea or Iran or Cuba or China. Be grateful that the country with the biggest stick, while imperfect and definitely having abused its power at times, has not tried to take over the world. Read your history books. Most if not all former nations of great power tried to take over the world. Even our peaceful socialist friends across the Pond. Ever hear of the British Empire?

You know what, you’re right. America right now is not the example of freedom it once was. America has lost its way and our morals are despicable. And this administration’s policies are only accelerating the demise.
As for the Indian Reservation my dad is on their Tribal Council. I do know the history of what we did to these peoples and it is terrible. I also know that our tribe is one of the most successful in the United States and they are moving further and further away from the enabling, handout, socialist policies that promote apathy and stifle motivation.

I too hope the future is brighter, but a lot must change. In closing, circling back to General Conference I have two comments. If we live what was taught the first weekend of April by those called of the Lord we will have a bright future. I also think it’s interesting that Conference after Conference has taught us that it is the Lord’s will that we be self-sufficient. Socialism does the exact opposite of promoting self-sufficiency. It promotes dependence, like an addiction.