STEPHEN VAN ECK
From time to time over the years, there has been the occasional odd conservative who has identified with Thomas Paine. They’ve done so for two reasons: First, to presumptuously enshrine themselves among the Founding Fathers, and second, because of two words, Common Sense, an uncommon degree of which they dare to claim in themselves. Other than that, they typically know nothing about Paine and his thinking. Such a man is Glenn Beck.
Glenn Beck has a successful commentary show on the right-wing FOX News channel. He is the author of several best selling books. One of them is the recent manifesto, “Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine”. But other than reprinting the original “Common Sense” as an appendix, it’s difficult to see any influence of Paine in this book, or in anything Beck has ever written or said. Certainly a man who’d write a chapter called, “The Cancer of Progressivism” cannot have any sympathy with Paine’s views in “Rights of Man” or his essay “Agrarian Justice”. Indeed, it’s highly unlikely Beck has ever read these. If he had, he would likely have been appalled by Paine’s clearly progressive views as to forswear him as an icon.
The same must hold true for Beck and his ignorance of “The Age of Reason”. In his manifesto, Beck expressed an attitude of unqualified favor toward religion, claiming it is a “unifying force” in society. This shows not only ignorance of Paine, but of history as well. History shows that the only way religion is a unifying force is through its lust to unify BY force.
Beck’s “Common Sense” cites our real economic and political problems, and uses them in an effort to undermine faith in government as the vehicle of the people to find solutions. By doing this he is feeding into the substantial paranoid and lunatic fringe in America, so in a way it’s incorrect to refer to him as a conservative. On his show, he demonstrates political thinking which is remarkably muddled—to Beck, a Liberal is a Socialist is a Communist, and everything boils down to only two real choices: between unspeakable progressive tyranny and the right way, the way of our “divinely inspired”, inerrant Founders, whom Beck knows shockingly little about. Especially his chosen icon of Paine. Beck has enjoyed success totally out of proportion to his merits, and is someone whose opinions are ultimately too poorly-founded for us to take seriously. He does show us, however, that knowledge of Paine needs to be disseminated more, to save him from being co-opted by ignorami.