Glenn Beck is one of TV’s most popular personalities these days, and the same goes for Radio. His radio show is the 4th most popular in the nation, and his TV show is currently ranked third behind Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. So when he recently claimed to be a “libertarian”, I naturally thought that libertarians would be jumping up and down at the thought of having a popular TV news personality claiming to be one of them in front of 2.3 million people. Not so, apparently. Tibor Machan, who is a well-known libertarian academic has penned an article entitled “You, Sir, Are No Libertarian”.
The other day I was awoken from my occasional complacency and shocked to be told that Glenn Beck, Fox TV’s most recent addition of conservative commentators, has been calling himself a libertarian. Wow. That’s all libertarianism needs, to have become the victim of this confusion or perhaps out and out distortion.
Therefore let me spend a few paragraphs again on just what libertarianism is.
The libertarian political philosophy is defined as one according to which the most fundamental principle of public affairs, admitting of no official compromise, is that the right to individual liberty of everyone in society is the most precious value to be upheld, protected and promoted by the law. If you read the Declaration of Independence carefully, its basic theme is libertarianism, plain and simple. Everyone has basic, unalienable rights, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (among other, less fundamental rights).
Read the rest here.
