Twice last week, on Thursday and Friday's television shows, Fox News' Glenn Beck referred to himself as "libertarian". On Thursday he said "a Libertarian", implying that his political affiliation lies with the Libertarian Party. On Friday he used the less associative "libertarian", absent the determinate article "a". So what's the difference? Well, a big "L" Libertarian is a member of the Libertarian Party, usually these people are fairly highly active in politics on varying levels and degrees. A little "l" libertarian is someone who is either unaffiliated or is registered to vote under any political party including the Libertarian Party and share some common beliefs with the big "L" folks. Usually the little "l" people aren't very politically motivated or activated. Usually...
So we got to thinking over here on whether Glenn Beck is a big or little "L". Libertarian, or just libertarian? Regardless of what Beck says regarding his political affiliation--heck he's called himself a lot of things over the years, conservative, libertarian, Republican, liberal, progressive, constitutional, God-fearing, an idiot, etc.--there's really no way of convincing us that he's a big "L" Libertarian. He'd have to come out and say he was (and prove it through a far more rigorous vetting process than you'll see here) for us to believe him. So we just assume, when Mr. Beck says "Libertarian" or "libertarian" he simply chooses to ignore that there is an actual political party that lobbies under that title. He's not the only one, right? From that angle, we thought we'd look at his stances on some of the issues big "L" Libertarians like us are always rambling on about, and try to gauge Beck's small "l" libertarianism just to see if he could actually be a big "L" Libertarian. The "L" factor at the end of each paragraph is where we put Glenn on the little "l" libertarian scale for each individual issue. We'll combine them at the end to measure the Bold Questioner's big "L" position.
Legalization: Beck says, and has said for some time that he is not opposed to legalizing marijuana. But whenever the issue arises, or he has a guest on his show to discuss the issue of legalization, Beck's antsy pants start gyrating all over the place. Couple that with Beck's own history with drugs and alcohol and I think we can understand his reluctance toward legalization. But hey, we're not psychoanalysts, we'll take his word for it. Kind of. L factor: 55%.
Gay Marriage/Personal Liberty Issues: Beck rarely talks about it. He gave proposition 8 (California) a scant squint, but for the most part doesn't want government involved in personal decisions. At the same time, Beck also seems to realize that Libertarianism is not libertine-ism, something even some big L's forget from time to time. L factor: 95%. (He does belong to the church that was a major contributor to prop 8...he had to have taken a huge amount of flak from his elders on his pro-liberty stance for this, we're convinced. Extra credit for that.)
War: While Beck clearly and unabashedly supports U.S. military servicemen and women, he's been back and forth on the idea of "War" over the years. And he admits it, repeatedly. For Beck, it seems, his opinion changes as data comes in. Well, that makes him no different than anyone else--except a Libertarian (Big L's don't dig on war). The strange thing about this wishy-washy dance is that anyone who ever watches Glenn's show knows full well his reliance on the U.S. Constitution. And we all know what that document says about who can declare a war (hint: G.W. Bush's name is not on the list). What's more, is that Beck's support for both wars faded exponentially after G.W. Bush left office. L factor: 30%. (A little credit to Beck since the War Powers Act has weakened Congress--that's not Beck's fault. But then, a little less credit since he rarely talks about it--that is Beck's fault.)
Big Government: If you don't know how laughable big government is in Beck's opinion, you've never heard of him. Here is one of Glenn's comical exchanges about the government's rising employment numbers and the private sector's employment losses over the last few years. It points out the obvious: If there are only government jobs and only government employees pay taxes, then everyone at the Post Office better quit now, because you're in for a drastic pay cut (think about this for a second--get your calculator out if you have to). Just take Beck's extreme example and size it down step by step to figure out why anyone with a brain knows the government shouldn't be in the job creation business. L factor: 80% (He was pro TARP before he was against TARP, and his pro-war knee-jerk reactionism in the mid-Bush era is kind of scary to either the big or little "L" libertarian).
Free Markets: Here again, Beck's been pretty consistent in his stance. And if you throw out little hiccups (such as the TARP thing, which was actually more of an emetic explosion than a hiccup, in our humble opinion), Beck's pretty much in line with the big "L" economists of renown. And hey, this might seem trite, but Glenn Beck is the free market in action. L factor: 85% (Sorry, we don't throw out hiccups)
Overall? A solid D+. Yeah, you saw those high marks and thought he was acing this test. Alas, no. It all adds up to 69%, or a D+, for Mr. Beck. But like we said, the total is a grade for big "L's", not little ones. People who "lean" libertarian, do exactly that, they lean toward piecemeal small "l" libertarianism. So, sure, Beck leans libertarian, like almost everyone. But sorry, Glenn Beck cannot be "a" Libertarian.
Sigh. Well, not yet anyway...
Over time, Beck has swayed on issues just like the rest of us. Heck, none of us are perfect R's or D's or even LBT's (No, being a registered Libertarian does not make you Bastiat or Friedmann). We could go back three or four years and debunk a lot of what Beck says now with what he said back then, to be sure. But then, we could probably do that with ourselves and actually benefit from acknowledging how much we've grown. And you have to hand it to Beck, he's one of the little "l" libertarians who are actually doing something, actually utilizing his civil rights, actually taking part in the free market system, actually acting on most of the topics us big "L" voters really care about. We give him credit but not a passing grade. But we don't feel bad, we have a feeling this isn't the worst grade Mr. Beck ever got.
P.S. If you think a D+ is a passing grade, you're not a Libertarian either, you're a liberal and probably don't even vote--but you swear that you do.
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