Let it be said that reasonable people can disagree. They can disagree on politics, food, music, and the relative hotness of Olivia Wilde compared to Megan Fox. But when the source of the disagreement is not facts but ideology, the results can appear, to an outsider, kinda sorta maybe crazy.
See, I understand Glenn Beck on a certain level. He loves the Republican Party, and the conservative movement. Fine. I love the Yankees. I'm not saying I love the Yankees more than I love my wife. I'm just saying its a good thing I've never had to choose, Sophie's Choice-style. But I love them alot. So, when presented with a player on the Red Sox, I cannot judge his abilities as a baseball player rationally. I understand this. Kevin Youkilis was batting .400 through the month of May? So fucking what, he fucking sucks because he's a piece of shit Red Sox douchebag.
The difference between a love of the Yankees and a love of a political ideology is that the stakes are much, much lower. Its okay to be unreasonable about your sports team because there is no chance the Red Sox are going to detonate a weapon of mass destruction in Yankee Stadium. But when your love of an ideology leads you to wistfully hope for the murder of thousands of Americans to prove your point, you are no longer part of the same discussion as the rest of us. You are on the lunatic fringe.
Listen to the interview again. I've excerpted the relevant part below:
MICHAEL SHEUER (aka bearded crazy person): The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama Bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States [...] Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.
GLENN BECK (aka clean shaven crazy person): Which is why I was thinking this weekend that, if I was him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.
Read that again: Glenn Beck actually thinks that Osama Bin Laden will not attack the US under the current circumstances,
and this is a problem for him. We need to be attacked so that we are protected, because if we aren't attacked, then we are unprotected. What? WHAT?!? What do we need protection from if he's not going to attack? What are you talking about, Glenn Beck?
If preventing an attack is the goal, then by Beck's own logic, we are succeeding! So that must mean that preventing terrorist attacks aren't actually the goal. In fact, terrorism is just a means to an end, a way of instilling a fear in the populace that conservatives can use to their political ends.
But we already knew that, of course. It's just surprising to hear someone finally come out and admit it.
