Glen Beck, becoming libertarian.

H/T Libertarian Republican.

I generally have little time for ‘opinion makers’ and pundits, and the rightist or conservative ones are only slightly less irritating than the lefties. I would find a frontal lobotomy more stimulating than the morbid Allan Jones, and don’t fantasise over the generally histrionic Ann Coulter, (although, I’m a somewhat partial to Elisabeth Hasselbeck.) Keith Olbermann would delight the average masochist but lefties love to be talked down to by authoritarian figures, its part of what they stand for.

There is an article in the Miami Herald relating to Glen Beck, which I find interesting: -

Glenn Beck goes on the air with Fox News for the first time Monday afternoon, and he's got a surprise for you: He's not a conservative anymore.

''Every day that goes by, I'm more and more libertarian,'' says Beck, whose new show (titled, coincidentally, Glenn Beck) will air from 5 to 6 p.m. weekdays. 'I've always been a conservative. But every day I find myself believing more and more in states' rights, individual rights -- let people alone, get the government out of everybody's lives, let everybody rule themselves.''

That might seem startling news from somebody who's built a multimillion-dollar one-man media conglomerate out of jauntily acerbic conservative commentary. In nine years he's gone from a rookie talk-show host on a puny Tampa radio station to a syndicated powerhouse heard on more than 300 stations (including Miami's WIOD-AM 610). …..

''I'm not so sure that he was ever a conservative to begin with,'' says Bill Shine, senior vice president for programming at Fox News. ``He's one of those guys it's hard to put into a corner or give a label to. I think that's what makes his show interesting. I think that's what makes it unpredictable.''

What will be different is Beck's political perspective. Libertarians eschew the culture wars, think drugs and pornography should be legal, favor an isolationist foreign policy and generally believe in shrinking the government to about the size of a walnut -- all of which appalls most mainstream conservatives. Beck, in fact, regularly ridiculed libertarians on his CNN show for their beliefs about foreign policy and drugs.

Beck is what I would call a developing libertarian.

Generally he is in favor of a strong military and not afraid of using it. He seems to display enough intelligence to reject the idea of immediately pulling American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, which would place him at odds with the LP, but appears like many libertarians rather soft on preemption.

His statement, “I think we've got to say to the world, `If you come after us like they did on 9/11, we will pound you into rubble. Otherwise, we're minding our own business,'' sounds promising on the issue, but why wait till they do it? There should be a requirement for a damn good case prior to hitting the other guy first but Israel’s recent attack on Gaza proves that even retaliation for unprovoked attacks is not a good enough reason to satisfy the anti-war element.

Despite almost wrecking his career and life with grog and drugs and pulling back from the brink, he is willing to countenance legalization but his statement about selling heroin in vending machines is a fairly stupid and provocative one. I doubt that any but the far out radical drop kicks are using such an analogy, it is better to decriminalize ‘soft’ ones first, then explore the possibilities. The war on drugs is not working and will never work, but this kind of talk makes our name stink among voters.

He ends that statement fairly sensibly though with; ….. “saying heroin should be legal, that's fine, as long as you as a society are willing to step over the guys in the street,'' Beck says. ``Real, true libertarianism will only work when people will govern themselves and not make special exceptions for their feelings. You can't be libertarian and let everything go to pieces and then do all kinds of special programs for the people who screw up.

``But when everybody is willing to self-regulate and take responsibility for their own actions, count me in.''