Book Review - Glenn Beck's Common Sense

With my favorite holiday, Halloween, less than a week away. I'm devoting this week to all things scary and horrifying. Originally, I was going to review Glenn Beck's Common Sense with Hail To the Chief, however neither book turned out to be what I expected them to be. Hail To the Chief wasn't an Obama lovefest and Common Sense isn't an Obama hatefest.  I had a preconceived notion that Common Sense was going to spend most of it's time bashing the Obama Administration, as Glenn Beck is very vocal in his dislike of Obama. I was actually very surprised when I read this book, to find out, it's not really about Obama. It's about what our government has become in general. What makes this book qualify as a scary post, is not that it's a bad book. It's because Beck hits the nail on the head in this book. What is truly horrific is the state of our government. Scarier is the fact that we do not do anything about it. And the most frightening thing of all, is that "common sense" is no longer common in our society!

This book is an excellent eye-opener. Beck uses the example Thomas Paine set in 1776 with  his penning of Common Sense. Like Thomas Paine, Beck is encouraging us, the citizens of America, to take back control of our future and freedoms. He makes excellent points and gives examples throughout the book of how corrupt and power hungry our government is. He doesn't choose sides. He's not in favor of the Republicans or the Democrats. He unabashedly show the flaws and misuses of power by both. He also shows how we are just sitting back and letting these politicians steal more power for themselves and break laws without having to have consequences for breaking them. Our Congress and House of Representatives have placed themselves above and outside the law. But can we really blame them? Or are we just as responsible by not standing up for our rights and the priniciples our founding fathers established. America used to be a super power, we were a land of hope, freedom. And now we are quickly becoming the laughing stock country that other countries look down their noses at. Is this the politicians fault? Well partly, yes. But the real blame lies with us, every individual American, for not stepping up to the plate and demanding to be heard. Do our votes really count? Right now, no, they don't! Why is that? It's because we don't do our homework, we take the easy way out. We vote for who they tell us to vote for, who we think our friends and family are going to vote for. We vote for a party instead of the values and ideas the individual is representing. We vote for the person who has been in office for many years, because they have the experience, right? Wrong!!! They know how to use their power to stay in power. We believe their lies, because we want the easy answers, the easy life. An easy life we aren't getting, they are! Beck is right, we need new blood in our politics and we need to limit how long they can hold their position. Until we are willing to do that, to take that risk, to shake things up, we will continue to see our wonderful country spiral into Orwell's 1984 society.  I personally think Beck is loud, obnoxious and I don't always agree with the things he says. But this book, is Common Sense, whether we want to face it or not., whether we like Beck or not, whether we agree with is views or not. I give this book 5 out of 5 votes. Not because I will read it again, not because I think it's an easy or great read, but because I think it has an important message. We can all complain about government, and this politician or that one, but unless we start doing something about it, we aren't using our common sense and we have no right to complain if we have buried our heads in the sand instead of fighting for our Democracy.

I want to share a passage from the book, that for me sums up the message behind it. This is from page 21...

" There was a time when our political leaders inspired America to greatness and motivated us to face daunting challenges with courage and resolve. Our political leaders led us to successfully revolt against the British. they convinced us to defeat Nazism, fasism ans imperialism by fighting it in the homelands that gave birth to those ideologies. they encouraged us in our fifty-year-long struggle against the spread of communism-- and they captivated the world as we watched it collapse under its own weight.

There was a time when our political leaders cited their leadership, temperament, experience, judgement, character, and merit in order to gain the trust and support of a skeptical electorate. Today they purchase votes and campaign cash by boasting about the pork they've secured for their pet projects or the billions they've passed along to their powerful political allies.

With a few notable exceptions, our political leaders have become nothing more than parasites who feed off our sweat and blood. They fail to appreciate America's potential or recognize hersuperiority and instead they view her as just another country to be sucked dry for their own benefit, without regard for the health of the host."