I don't think he specified how it should be cut out of the nation's political life. For the record, I don't think Beck actually wants to round up and exterminate "progressives", or re-educate them. He's just an actor. I have no idea how much of what he says he believes. I used to see his show now and again when he was on CNN, he was much less wacky. But now he's on Fox.
He's a talented performer, and he saw what would sell. One of the things that sells is that "progressives" are destroying America, and in turn they must be....well, you know. To be fair to conservatives, I'm guessing a good many liberals would agree in private with the statement that "Conservatism is a cancer on the American body politic, and it must be ___________. The world would be a better place if conservatives were ____________"
They're pretty polarized down there. What I find amusing about it is that it's not even clear what a "progressive" is. It's someone who wants progress, but towards what? What firm principles does a progressive hold? They used to be called liberals. Then the Republicans made that a dirty word. So, to show they weren't dirty commie liberals, they started referring to themselves as "progressive".
But they still have principles! You can keep your principles, even if you're so spineless that you change your name for yourself if someone starts making fun of it. Right?
If you want to know what principles a progressive has, just look the president whom they support. Barack Obama has plenty of principles!
The principles of progress include:
- Creating a really bad health care reform bill, then failing to pass it
- Keeping Guantanamo open, and maintaining all the other old secret prison sites worldwide
- Continuing the use of rendition.
- Being against (one of the) war(s). Thanks to them, America pulled out of Iraq!
- (right?). We don't hear about Iraq any more....
- Being for the other war. You know, the good one, in Afghanistan
- Bombing Pakistan
- Bombing Yemen
- Bombing Somalia
- Threatening to bomb Iran
- Staffing a progressive administration with bankers, and giving Goldman Sachs and other banks huge profits shortly after they brought the world economy to the brink of collapse.
- Not reforming the banking system. The last crisis was so fun, let's do it again sometime!
- Re-appointing Ben Bernanke, because he's such a cool republican and did such a cool job in not allowing a massive housing bubble or a financial collapse.
- Not doing anything about climate change
- Adopting a new rhetorical attitude towards the Arab world, totally different from that of Bush. The link provides evidence of just how different it is.
- Taking nude pictures of everyone who takes an airplane, to "keep us safe"
- Maintaining Kennedy's embargo against Cuba
- Criticizing Israel a bit, but only if it doesn't make them mad. If it does, time to back off.
- Being wussies, and claiming they need 60 votes to pass things, when Bush passed bills with 50. Progressives recognize that the rules are different for them.
- Feeling like they're much better and smarter than conservatives, because they've accomplished all of the good things listed above.
I'm pretty sure progressivism has some other cool principles, but that's all I could think of. As you can see, they are nothing at all like the policies that George W. Bush pursued.
So with all of those communist accomplishments I just listed, no wonder conservatives think progressivism is a cancer, and must be destroyed.
I look forward to more progress in the months and years to come. Glenn Beck'll be awful mad about it.
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