Glenn Beck: It is extraordinarily rare these days to have actual reporting going on and people who are trying to get it right. I appreciate it.
Townhall Staff: Thank you very much. We were wondering if maybe we could slip you on the cover every month and you could talk about us.
Glenn Beck: (laughs)
TH: I would like to start off with your purpose for holding this march. You said that you would rather focus on American values and military families instead of some political message. How does this make your rally different and how does it make it similar to tea party events?
Glenn Beck: It won’t feel like a Tea Party event. I told people “leave your signs at home.” You will feel the difference, I think, when you first walk out on the mall. I’ve put this at the Lincoln Memorial for a reason. That’s a sacred spot. This isn’t a "rah rah USA!" kind of thing. This is a sacred reflective spot in our nation, you know, the Reflecting Pool. That was done for a reason. I think if you stand between Lincoln and Washington, spiritually, mentally, morally, we will heal our country. I am putting people between Washington and Lincoln physically to try and give them the understanding that these two giants were men just like them. They were American citizens who just did the hard thing, and sometimes doing the hard thing is just doing the right thing. Or more importantly, when nobody notices. And so this is really just to go back to the founding principles.
It is also part awards program. We will be issuing three of the original Badge of Merits that George Washington awarded. I had them remade, the badge as it appeared with George Washington. We had them made into a medal and will be awarding it to three different recipients. One for faith, one for hope and one for charity.
The recipients are pretty amazing on what they have accomplished but this really comes from the idea that my son didn’t think that David, as in David and Goliath wasn’t a hero because he couldn’t fly and didn’t have a cape. I realized then that my five year old didn’t understand that a hero is just a regular person who does the uncomfortable thing that everybody knows they have to but they don’t want to do because they don’t want to walk out there in front of the giant with a sling shot.
TH: Can you give us some kind of idea as to who these individuals might be or how you found them?
Glenn Beck: We looked for quite some time. The hardest one was hope. Hope to me is defined as honesty. Someone who tries to live their life with integrity, and really had a hard time trying to find a person that wasn’t going to be held up as 'Oh Glenn Beck says he’s perfect', and I think we found the exact perfect person that I don’t think anyone will see coming. I think when we announce this and this guy walks on the stage people are going to say 'Oh my gosh you’ve got to be kidding me'. It is someone in a million years we never thought we would be able to get.
TH: What do you think will happen after the march? What kind of impact will it have?
Glenn Beck: It depends on how well we present the message. Something is happening at the end of the event that has not been done in about 240 years and its something I worked behind the scenes for about eight months on. I’ve had meeting, I’ve flown all around the country, I had people fly in to meet with me. We have worked very very hard and worked on something that is extraordinarily delicate and fragile. It will be announced at the end, as the beginning of something that I believe will have restorative change as a result.
I don’t mean restore it back 2000 or George Bush, I mean restore us back to where we belong and where we should be as a nation and where we have been very few times in our nation’s history. That is going to play in a big role the day after but also I am going to be asking people to fundamentally transform ourselves from who we have allowed ourselves to become to who we really are supposed to be.
I firmly believe that we are all born at this time in this country for a reason. People have to find that reason. The problem is sometimes, at least it is with me, I find doing what I think I’m supposed to do extraordinarily uncomfortable sometimes and it puts me in places, standing in places where quite honestly I don’t want to stand. I don’t want to say some of the things that I do. I don’t want to do some of the things that I do but I do them because I think that it is right and what I'm supposed to do. When each of us do that and stop blaming it on others or stop expecting it from others we’ll be fine.
TH: How do organizations like Townhall, other than continuing to do what we’ve already been doing, telling the truth and being loyal to our values and that sort of things, what are things that we can do as a follow up to this event?
Glenn Beck: The reason why the left has been so effective is because they have organized themselves and united under the principle of hate America, or America is bad, or capitalism is bad, or socialism is good. Whatever it is, they’ve really come together with a historically anti-American theme. It is an anti-Constitution theme and they united on that negative of 'we want America to be fundamentally transformed into something that does not reflect our Constitution'.
We need to start gathering together on the principles of the Constitution, small government, God and our founding principles. We need to unite on principles. We need to look and find those principles in ourselves and then find them in other organizations and start linking with people with like minded principles and start demanding those principles from ourselves and each other. Our principles will get us through this. Whether Americans want to admit it or not or want it to happen, I know I certainly don’t, I would really like to go back to my life where I was watching American Idol with my kids but that ain’t happening.
There is a revolution coming, whether you like it or not, whether that be a hot revolution or a cold revolution. I mean a revolution is already underway in America. Now who’s going to win? Is it going to be those who understand the Constitution and our founding principles and know that we have gone off those principles decades ago? Or are we going to throw this baby out with the bath water and say “we have got to try something entirely new”? That’s the question of our age and we better decide which side you are on.
TH: So Glenn, after September 11 we talked about having a post 9/11 or pre-9/11 mindset. How would you define a post 8/28 mindset?
Glenn Beck: That we recognize what time it is and we recognize of what value it is. On September 12 we realized that our family was most important, our God was most important and our freedom was the most important, not the flag, not our political party, but our freedom, our family and our God. That is the mind set we need to be in, otherwise we go away like every other nation and empire in the history of the world.
There comes a point, when you read history, you say, “How did these people not see their destruction coming?” That’s the point in history that if we are reading a 100 years from now, that’s the point we’re in right now. So, the mind set is, we see it, we know how this story ends because it ends this way every time, that’s why we’re going to behave differently and reconnect with our value and principles.
TH: You phrased it almost like it’s a war. Obviously you’re not talking about a physical war but certainly emotional, psychological, and political. Do you really see this as a battle of ideas in a really grand sense and really active aggressive sense?
Glenn Beck: I see this a couple of ways. I see this as George Washington said, 'Meet me on the battlefield of ideas'. Absolutely this is a battle of ideas right now. Does man have a right to decide his own destiny without the coddling of the collective? Because that never works, ever. Show me a time in history when that’s worked.
Does man pay for the sins of the mistakes of his father or for the grandeur of his father does he get reward? Or does a man have to stand on his own two feet and live and die in his own merit with the understanding that there are some in our society that just can’t stand on their own two feet? We have a responsibility to take care of those. Is that where we are headed? Or are we headed towards an oligarchy, or some sort of controlling government that will only allow man to expand, succeed, and fail just so much. That’s the first battle and that’s the battlefield of ideas.
The second thing is, and many in America will disagree with me, that this is the oldest battle known to man. I believe this is the battle between good and evil. If you look at those who live under Shariah law in Iran, the ideas are just more extreme there. It is a clash of people that are rulers, who say they know better and they will force people to do whatever it is and they will destroy those who disagree with them. On a much lesser degree, that’s where we are headed and where it finally ends I don’t know, but is the same root of the same tree of evil. We are battling the oldest battle known to man and it is a spiritual battle that must be won inside of ourselves first.
I learned this from studying the years of 1740-1776, there was an awakening, then an enlightenment, then freedom. If we don’t wake up to the truth of God and the spirit, we are toast.
TH: What would you tell the numerous counter protesters that are expected to attend?
Glenn Beck: I hope they leave their signs at home and that they listen because it will be fantastic to have them unite on principles that Martin Luther King stood for, the content of character. That’s the only thing I’m talking about-character. I’ve read his speeches, I’ve read his sermons, I have listened and respect the words he said. I take his message at face value and that is follow God, listen to God, be peaceful but stand for the right of man to be equal and have an equal shot. That it is not about the color of skin, it is about the content of character. I don’t know if there is going to be a word on stage that Martin Luther King would disagree with and in fact they might be surprised, besides Alveda King, who is standing on stage.
TH: I am personally curious as to whether you believe in divine intent when it comes to the interpretation of the Constitution? You talk about the conflicts of God and politics a lot.
Glenn Beck: I don’t know if as a nation we know the difference between divine intent and divine providence and manifest destiny. There is a huge difference.
Divine providence comes from a group of people or an individual that is trying to live their life in accordance with nature’s laws and nature’s God, as the Founders called them. They try to do the right thing, they are trying to do their best, they are trying to move forward and they once in awhile stop and say, 'oh my God, that’s not divine providence look how that happened'. That’s God assisting man because he’s working in the right direction so things start to flow with him.
There’s a huge difference between that which is I believe what the Founders had, divine providence. There’s a difference between that and what happened with Andrew Jackson which I think is a total perversion. It is where we began to really go awry with Andrew Jackson all the way through and it is really what we are experiencing now and that is, whether you want to call it religious or not, manifest destiny which is, 'I’m on a mission from God, get out of my way'. Those are the polar opposites. So I believe in divine providence which is humility and meekness and not walking with a big stick, trying to do the right thing and God will help. I reject entirely and I think it is from a place of great evil manifest destiny.
TH: And now for some quick response questions:
What do you think of...
Gingrich:
Glenn Beck: Smart
Palin:
Glenn Beck: Sly
Romney:
Glenn Beck: Economically Brilliant
Tim Pawlenty:
Glenn Beck: Nice, but from the land of progressivism so I am waiting to see more.
Bailouts:
Glenn Beck: The end of the free market.
Olbermann:
Glenn Beck: Is he still on?
Woodrow Wilson:
Glenn Beck: The biggest American hating SOB I hate that guy with everything in me president.
Mainstream media:
Glenn Beck: Possibly criminally negligent. No I correct that, criminally negligent.
The Founders:
Glenn Beck: Divinely inspired, flawed, but I wish we could be half the men they were.