Addicted to Outrage: How Thinking Like a Recovering Addict Can Heal the Country - Softcover

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Glenn Beck, the nationally syndicated radio host and founder of TheBlaze television network, has written thirteen #1 bestselling books and is one of the few authors in history to have had #1 national bestsellers in the fiction, nonfiction, self-help, and children’s picture book genres. His recent fiction works include the thrillers Agenda 21, The Overton Window, and its sequel, The Eye of Moloch; his many nonfiction titles include The Great Reset, Conform, Miracles and Massacres, Control, and Being George Washington. For more information about Glenn Beck, his books, and TheBlaze television network, visit GlennBeck.com and TheBlaze.com.

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Addicted to Outrage

1

Hello, My Name Is Glenn, and I Am Addicted to Outrage

And unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past twenty years, chances are you’re addicted to outrage, too. If you don’t believe you are part of the problem, I recommend you start with my last book: Liars.

I know it is tough to even think about being part of the problem, but the truth is, we all are. Believe it or not, I have good friends across the entire political spectrum. We actually all like each other and respect each other. Over the years I have really tried to listen to those with whom I don’t always agree. I have learned a ton. Not just about the other “side” but also about me. My biggest mistakes always revolve around my thinking “I am right and they are wrong.” The moment I begin to feel that, I begin to believe that “the other side has nothing to teach me.” I have made this mistake many times; I have failed to listen, and it always creates problems. I did it in the 2016 election. I was so sure about Donald Trump that I failed to listen to what half of the country was actually saying. I had become so blinded by him that I failed to see the who and the why supporting him. Did you know that over 20 percent of Donald Trump supporters consider themselves Democrats and voted for Obama? Of course not, because if you know that, you begin to see deep flaws in not only the GOP but also the Democratic platform and candidates.

When I am listening, really listening, I discover something truly game changing. We many times—not always, but much of the time—are saying almost the same exact thing, just with different words. This is not true with Live-or-Die Demopublicans. Nor am I suggesting that those who believe in the republic under the Constitution and Bill of Rights will agree or perhaps even like a communist revolutionary. But if we actually listen to each other, we may find that one of us is mistaken on what we believe, what we think others believe, or what is separating us in the first place.

Many times we are not even aware of what the real divide is. For instance, let’s dip our feet into the outrage pool and see if we cannot quickly see how our vision is being blurred intentionally on both sides:

The border issue over the summer of 2018.

It began in the opening weeks of June, with the outrage of pictures of border kids being “abused” and kept in “cages” by the Trump administration. The problem was it was a story from 2014. Many on the left were quickly embarrassed that they were “outraged” by something they all ignored under Obama. The editor of the New York Times, who tweeted the photos, quickly responded that it was “the weekend and the kids had distracted him.” But the speed at which these pictures circulated and the outrage they drew was powerful. So, I believe to turn their humiliation into a righteous cause, they quickly changed “the outrage” to the fact that these kids were being “separated from their parents.” Now, with all of the press on the same page, the fact that Obama not only had the same policy but defiantly defended the same policy in 2014 didn’t seem to matter. This is a problem that began under the Clinton administration. In 1997, the Flores v. Reno Agreement set formal policy for the detention of minors in the custody of the U.S. government’s Immigration and Naturalization Services. It included the guidelines that both the Obama and Trump administrations were following, which did include the detention of illegal-alien minors until a suitable adult relative or guardian could be identified.

However, as is the case with every “Band-Aid,” this only created a bigger problem: human trafficking. Drug cartels realized that if they could smuggle children over the border, they could “conscript” fourteen- to seventeen-year-olds to bring children over the border who would then be released, and the “children” would be given to “relatives.” The children were being sold into slavery. Thus, the Wilberforce Act was passed under George W. Bush to try stop the human trafficking problem caused by the Reno decision. Back to square one and a half. When Obama had a massive influx of “refugees,” the system quickly became overloaded. I know, because I was one of the few “reporters” there. The government was paralyzed, and because it did not see the crisis, the press never showed it to the American people. The very same ICE agents whom Americans are now publicly “stoning” are the people who quietly came to me and begged me to bring attention to what was being done to these kids. Their biggest problem then, as it was mainly underage kids without parents, was the fact that the children were all being separated by age. So, if a group of brothers and sisters came over together, for example, a fifteen-year-old son, a twelve-year-old boy, and a six-year-old sister, they were all placed in different “rooms,” “areas,” or “cages.” The trauma that these children were undergoing was beyond understanding. At one point under President Obama, more than 25,000 children were held. When Trump took over there were still 10,000 in custody. At the time of the media outrage that number had grown to 12,000. Some of the additional 2,000 had been separated from their parents. The vast majority had not been. Had they been ripped apart as brothers and sisters? Most likely the majority of them. But still today, the press doesn’t care about that part of the story. Why? Because the outrage of children being taken by men with guns near barbed wire is more than enough to begin to evoke images of a Nazi concentration camp. CNN actually aired an interview with George Takei, who did a grave disservice by distorting and dishonoring the truth of what FDR did when he interned all Americans of Japanese descent. These were Americans, some of whom were held for months in horse stalls at California racetracks. These citizens, many if not most of whom were born here in America, spent most of the war in American “concentration camps,” without trial or charges. In the end we treated them shamefully, and when it was all over, sent them back “home” here in America with no money, house, or property returned and most likely to hostile neighbors.

But this idea of American concentration camps is a powerful enough outrage to blot out all reason. If you dare say anything but dismantle the SS, which now is ICE, you are for these camps and are a monster. Hitler versus Jesus.

Yet if we can strip away the outrage, let’s look at the facts. Did you know that 70 percent of Americans agree, both right and left, that breaking up families on the border is wrong? Only 4 percent agreed with the Obama or Trump policy. FOUR. That is three times smaller than the number of Americans who deny we actually landed on the moon. That is a small and insignificant group of people.

So what is it that we are fighting over? Well, the media and the left present America with a false option. No borders with no immigration enforcement, or Gitmo. This is not a serious solution for any country.

We need a balance between justice and mercy. Justice meaning if you break the law or cut in line, you are punished, corrected, or at least simply returned to “Go” without collecting $200. Justice is essential in society. Without it, civilizations break down. But it also must be balanced by mercy, or the state...