Email of the day, from a regular correspondent:
Glenn Beck was in rare form last night….For all practical purposes, he claimed that the fall of the Roman Republic — and the roots of the Roman Empire and its version of National Socialism — was precipitated by redistribution of wealth, by land-grab from the rich that was then given to the poor. This is so preposterously stupid, I believe the only reason that we don’t hear of mass suicides of historians during Beck’s broadcasts is because historians simply don’t watch the show.
….If you have a chance to get hold of the recording, this one is really worth watching. Needless to say, you will learn something you never knew — and probably should never know, if it were not so much fun… I’ve had a two month break from the daily barrage as I had no TV while away from home, but, judging from what I’ve seen earlier in the year, I would nominate this one the Episode of the Year. If you recall the BBC show Connections, it was exactly like that — except that the script and the plans were prepared by those proverbial monkeys typing Shakespeare.
Well, two months away from Glenn Beck is like two decades away from any normal person. To me, this sounds like a pretty standard episode. Still, it’s good to see that Beck is working his way backward through history. The Victorian stuff was getting tedious. Soon we should be able to get his take on whether the invention of agriculture was a great leap forward for capitalism or the beginning of the end of human history. It could go either way depending on which pamphlet catches his eye next.