Dr. King, as most people know, built upon the traditions of Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi, as well as his own religious and moral education, to develop and implement methods of nonviolent protest and social and political action that advanced social and political justice for many African Americans as well as poor people of all backgrounds.
Despite Mr. Beck’s insistence that he is in some sort of genealogical relationship with past civil rights leaders, there are significant ideological differences between Mr. Beck and those who follow in the tradition of Dr. King.
For Dr. King social justice was, in many respects, the focus of his life work. (See e.g., "Social Justice and the Emerging New Age" address at the Herman W. Read Fieldhouse, Western Michigan University, (18 December 1963)).
For Mr. Beck, “social justice” is a conceptual anathema; it is a feel good idea that embodies a sinister meaning. Within Beck’s political framework “social justice” is a code word by which the State, at the direction of “progressives,” can force itself into the private lives of citizens to actively manipulate and limit individual choices and freedoms – freedoms such as: what you can teach your children and what you can do with your privately accumulated wealth and other privately accumulated property. More generally, “social justice” handcuffs the individual to the greater good of the group (e.g. “entitlement programs”) when instead “our Founders believed it was the power of the state that was to be cuffed…” (See generally Glenn Beck’s Common Sense and see specifically pg 68). [In an upcoming post I will provide a more thorough analysis of Mr. Beck’s political philosophy as a partial answer to the question of what people mean when the cry out at Tea-Party rallies, “I want my country back!”].
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