Belief can set us free but just as easily belief can tie us down. About a block from my house sits the church my family has attended for over ten years. I have confided many-a-thing in my youth pastor, Brian, and in turn he has revealed his own grievances to me. As a religious figure, Brian wears more than a collared shirt, but with it the weight of society’s limiting stereotypes toward men of the cloth.
Those who come into contact with my youth pastor conclude that his title alone gives them right to fictionalize and ridicule his personal philosophies that in reality dig far deeper than his all-encompassing religious views. With a sense of ease, they dehumanize this man and dismiss his right to personal and secular belief. “Tell me what I think,” Brian tempted, as if he had surrendered his God-given rights to me too. This way of life he has chosen, this set of walls society constructed around him, has without justifiable means taken a toll on his social liberty. It is witnessed on a bigger scale as well; man suffers from the confinement set not only by his self-prescribed beliefs, but also by the debilitating views of those around him.
In November of 1912, Helen Keller published a piece entitled “How I Became a Socialist” that illustrated Keller’s similar frustration with the capitalist media’s preoccupation with her own physical disabilities. Whether Keller’s argument in favor of the red flag was eloquent or not, her particular insight into the United State’s government and international policy had already been dismissed as the disappointing result of a very limited and Marxist upbringing (due to her handicap). Had she not been deaf and visually impaired, would the publication have grounds to discredit her? Well, then one must ask if Keller’s critics had cause to use her handicap as means to reject her ideologies in the first place.
More recently the liberal media has concluded that conservative radio and television host, Glenn Beck, is a lunatic. Politically, he relies heavily on constitutionalism and the importance of defending traditional American values. Personally, Beck is a self-proclaimed alcoholic and a practicing Mormon.
With the liberal monopoly over the majority of media sources, news stations have made it their not-so-secret vendetta to dispel anything this man contributes to. His widely successful “Restoring Honor” rally has been slammed for ‘hijacking’ the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. (seeing as the rally purposefully fell on the anniversary of King’s famous speech).
After announcing what was originally set to be a political rally and one Beck would use to promote his next book, The Plan, Beck later decided to turn the event’s focus to raising awareness and funds for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
Whether you believe his intentions were honest or not, Beck legally was forced to restrict political activity during the event and therefore center his rally on issues outside the political realm.
The infamous conservative commentator removed what he could of the negative stigmas associated with his personal and very off-putting beliefs. Still, he arrived at the Lincoln Memorial pegged as the overly emotional, arguably insane, Glenn Beck.
Side note: Sarah Palin’s cameo probably did not help his efforts to remove political suggestiveness from the event.
Glenn Beck is not blind, nor is he deaf nor mute (though some might argue his intellectual handicap parallels said disabilities). He is simply the victim of belonging to the political minority. Critics on the opposing side argue (with unsurpassable volume and influence) that Beck, though he may not be the disappointing product of exploitation like Keller, is still just another conservative led astray by his own unpopular political and ideological beliefs.
Had he not already pegged himself as the “fear monger-in-chief” would his Rally to Restore Honor have been more widely believable? If his ties to the event remained under-wraps, would criticism read the same?
Once again, you must also ask if critics were therefore right to use his political beliefs as means to mock his call to service, simply as a human.
Haley Pearson is a freshmen industrial designer major and a columnist for the Daily 49er.
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