Glenn Beck announces his intention to build a Libertarian utopia, promising to bring the terrifyingly beautiful vision of Ayn Rand to life

After teasing his audience for days with cryptic Disney Land imagery and the promise of incredible news, Glenn Beck, the vile charlatan who’s made a career of fleecing America’s most fearful and ignorant, announced that he intends to build a $2 billion Libertarian utopia in rural Texas loosely modeled on Galt’s Gulch, the fictional community imagined by the unashamedly-sociopathic Ayn Rand in her novel Atlas Shrugged. If you scroll down, you’ll find video of Beck announcing the project, but, first, here’s a brief overview on the project from Right Wing Watch.

…Beck revealed that his intention to “go Galt” is quite literal, unveiling grandiose plans to create an entirely self-sustaining community called Independence Park that will provide its own food and energy, produce television and film content, host research and development, serve as a marketplace for products and ideas, while also housing a theme park and serving as a residential community. At the center — in the middle of the lake that is itself larger than all of Disney Land – Beck (with the help of David Barton) will create a massive “national archive”/learning center where people can send their children to be “deprogrammed” and elected officials can come to learn “the truth”…

David “Hate is a Virtue” Barton, by the way, is the evangelical minister who founded the organization WallBuilders, a Texas-based group that promotes the view that it’s a “myth” that the United States Constitution insists upon a wall of separation between church and state. (You would think they’d call their organization WallRemovers, but maybe they haven’t thought it all the way through.) Barton is probably best known as the bestselling author of the book The Jefferson Lies, which had to be pulled from store shelves by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson recently, when it became clear that much of it was fabricated. (Fortunately, the book, which was voted “the least credible history book in print” by the users of the History News Network website, will soon have a second life, as Glenn Beck has announced that he intends to republish it in spite of the fact that it’s not historically accurate.)

Now, here’s Beck presenting the vision… Prepare to be completely engorged!

So, if you’re an angry, middle-aged white guy, who’s never amounted to much, and know, deep down in your heart, that it’s because big government has stacked the deck against you, now you have something to live for – a Libertarian paradise where rugged individuals can really prosper, unfettered by laws and the societal norms imposed by the liberal elite. Imagine yourself, a big gun on your hip, running a thriving business empire, surrounded by young, adoring, voluptuous women. This could all be yours. You know you deserve it…

Now imagine several thousand of these men, all of whom bought into this fantasy, all moving to the same parcel of fallow farmland in the middle of Texas. It would make Lord of the Flies look like Meatballs.

And here’s my idea: I want to raise enough money through Kickstarter to buy a home in Independence Park with the intention of establishing a small island of sanity… a listening post. And I want to conduct a national search for an undocumented super-gay scientist who can live there, proudly representing our interests, and documenting the experience… Wouldn’t that be the most incredible reality series ever? Who among us wouldn’t wake up each morning and tune in to see which of our favorite characters had decided to “go Galt” by speeding the wrong way down a street in a homemade, coal-burning car?

But, as well all know, this isn’t likely to happen. (Beck just comes up with these insane ideas to drive more traffic to his website and radio program.) Sure, it’s been reported that Beck has bought some land in Texas, and, I’m sure, if he could make a few million at it, he’d be all for it, but I can’t imagine that he’d really want to put himself in a situation where he’d have to be in character 24-7, performing his ‘Obama wants to eat the elderly‘ schtick for every nut who’s inherited enough money to buy a house in what I heard someone refer to as a “survivalist EPCOT.” But I’m keeping my fingers crossed, in hopes that, one day, I can read transcripts of their city council meetings. If you thought the city that Tom Monaghan built in the swamps of Florida was a disaster, you haven’t seen anythign yet. This, my friends, if it actually comes to pass, is going to make Jonestown look like Mayberry R.F.D.. Can you just imagine the kinds of people who would be attracted to move to a town ruled over by Glenn Beck acolytes? Now imagine them all in one city, operating outside of any kind of accepted societal construct. Do you know any Glenn Beck fans? If so, can you imagine them growing their own food, operating their own university, performing their own heart transplants? Would there be traffic lights? I can’t see John Galt, the purely ego-driven protagonist in Atlas Shrugged, stopping for a red light? How about zoning laws? Surely there wouldn’t be any of those. Who, after all, wants “big government” telling them where they can and can’t build their chicken processing plants, and dispose of their chemical waste? And, as I’m sure there wouldn’t be taxes, how would they maintain a fire department? Would it be a for-profit entity that only fought the fires of their wealthy subscribers? And, when it snowed, would volunteers plow the streets? I’ve got so many questions… (And, yes, I realize that state and federal law would come into play at some point, as this would be happening in Texas, and not Ghana, but I like the idea of these folks being left completely to their own devices, putting all of their theories into practice. I suspect they’d succumb to cannibalism alarmingly fast… like within days.)

And, now that I’ve had my say, here’s Beck’s perspective, from GlennBeck.com.

While Independence is very much a dream at this point, the proposed city-theme park hybrid would bring several of Glenn’s seemingly disconnected projects into one place. Media, live events, small business stores, educational projects, charity, entertainment, news, information, and technology R&D – all of these things would have a home in Independence. With the rest of the country and the world going away from the values of freedom, responsibility and truth, Independence would be a place built on the very foundation of those principles. A retreat from the world where entrepreneurs, artists, and creators could come to put their ideas to work. A place for families to bring their children to be inspired… Glenn believes that he can bring the heart and the spirit of Walt’s early Disneyland ideas into reality. Independence, USA wouldn’t be about rides and merchandise, but would be about community and freedom…

[snarky aside: If you really want to see a community “(move) away from the values of freedom,” settle down in Independence and try to open a mosque.]

And, lastly, here’s a clip from Glen Beck’s media arm The Blaze:

While the extremely ambitious project, heavily inspired by Walt Disney, is still a dream that this point, that doesn’t mean that Beck’s American Dream Labs aren’t starting to build the pieces.

The streets of America were not paved in gold, they were paved in “people’s dreams and hard work,” Beck said before walking the audience through a sketch of the proposed development. There won’t be a “Gap” or an “Ann Taylor,” Beck noted, although the park would contain a marketplace. It will be a place where people cultivate their visions and ideas. In essence, Independence Park would be a business incubator on a grand-scale revolving around “education, independence, entrepreneurship and apprenticeship.”

And “apprenticeship,” if you’re curious, translates to child labor. (Beck notes in the video above that Benjamin Franklin, for instance, was an apprentice at eight years of age.)

OK, that’s going to have to be in for now… It’s time to close my eyes and dream of Independence. My hope is to have a marketing campaign worked out for Glenn by the time I awake.

update: OK, it still needs a bit of refining, but here’s the tagline that I awoke with. “Independence, USA… come for the child brothels, stay for the gun fights.” Do you like it? If you have better ideas, let me know.

This entry was posted in Media, Politics, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

33 Comments

  1. Posted January 15, 2013 at 3:09 am | Permalink

    Another theme park? –more franchise slum ‘solutions’?

    Beck continues to co-opt genuine American concern and
    feed them into capstone ‘authoirzed’ and neutralizing ‘solutions’.

    Further, he continues to LIE about his massive rip off of the
    info and more of Alex Jones —evn in this 11th hour of
    POST American takedown and Globalist roll out.

    He remains the most ‘on the go’ and one of the most capstone
    promoted of POST American —Arminian Heretic— SAP ops.

    STEER —-WAY —-CLEAR!

  2. Anonymatt
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 4:28 am | Permalink

    At least there will be a place for Victoria Jackson to perform again.

    The fact that there won’t be chain stores like the Gap or Ann Taylor makes me wonder whether they’ll be making their own clothes. The Soviet Union tried to make “superior” versions of American brand products like Levi’s, autos, etc. which were unwanted because everyone recognized them as inferior. The whole thing would have collapsed sooner if the Soviet citizens were able to get in a car and drive to a store that sold the real American products.

  3. Posted January 15, 2013 at 5:01 am | Permalink

    If you’re interested in joining a real libertarian community with a proven track record, check out the Free State Project.

    freestateproject.org/fsn42

  4. Topher
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 5:26 am | Permalink

    The description of his “vision” seems similar to how someone starts a new cult, or a religion.

  5. Edward
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 9:09 am | Permalink

    Even if he doesn’t do it, someone should make a movie with this as a premise. It would be incredible. A bunch of America’s stupidest people deciding to create their own city, without the restrictions of “big government” laws. I’m picturing shoot-outs in the middle of crooked streets felled with feces and urine.

  6. Eel
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 9:33 am | Permalink

    I imagine overhearing people yelling things like this:

    “No one tells ME where to SHIT!”

  7. Posted January 15, 2013 at 9:36 am | Permalink

    His description of Independence could easily apply to the dreams for the Water Street development often expressed on this site.

    Hate to say “I’m just sayin” but…

    I’m just sayin.

  8. John Galt
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 9:41 am | Permalink

    Finally, a place without date rape laws, and human resources departments, where a man can really be a man. I look forward to moving there, and reaching my full potential, unencumbered by the femanazis and the people “of color”. I look forward to awaking each morning in a full free community, and filling my lungs with coal soot. I look forward to dueling, and lynch mobs, and eating a restaurants that don’t have to comply with health codes.

  9. Posted January 15, 2013 at 10:20 am | Permalink

    Who doesn’t love a centrally-planned libertarian utopia?

  10. Posted January 15, 2013 at 10:23 am | Permalink

    Oh and I’ve been watching those free-state people fight traffic tickets in district court on You Tube. It’s amazing when they make the sovereign citizen argument. The judges are saints.

  11. Milovachan
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 10:34 am | Permalink

    Oooh look! it’s rapture! anyone wanna play Bioshock in real life? I’m amazed that he so accurately included a centralized building to send your kids in to become little sisters. He’s gonna give 2k a run for their money!

  12. Tommy
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 10:42 am | Permalink

    I envision something like T.C Boyle’s ‘Drop City’ meets Gangs of New York. Will make for great theatre – especially with all the guns sure to be in great supply!

  13. Elf
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 12:45 pm | Permalink

    Dont they know that this will just make it easier for us to wipe them – the last remaining white Christian patriots in America – out with drones?

  14. Posted January 15, 2013 at 12:52 pm | Permalink

    A libertarian utopia which doesn’t let the Gap freely participate in the market.

  15. Alice Krum
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 12:54 pm | Permalink

    The image of 100 men, having been told for years by Beck that ther’s and eldess sea of oil right below the surface of the United States, trying to dig their own oil wells, is hilarious to me. I can picture them filling their gas tanks with dirty water, convinced that it’s gasoline.

  16. Carnie Fan
    Posted January 15, 2013 at 1:01 pm | Permalink

    Can someone go over and close the door at Black Jake’s house? I imagine when he heard the news he just grabbed his guns and started running toward Texas.

  17. Posted January 15, 2013 at 2:49 pm | Permalink

    I wonder if Beck is going to let Family Dollar open a store there?

  18. Posted January 15, 2013 at 4:58 pm | Permalink

    This is truly awesome and I already know a few guys for whom I will buy plane tickets! Is it irony that the plane tickets will be purchased by a female with a union job? (I’m not great at identifying true irony; I am not as bad as Alanis Morisette but I still have trouble with it sometimes)

  19. Posted January 15, 2013 at 5:30 pm | Permalink

    I’m delighted that you missed this recent gem in the much more local news, so that I can offer it up:

    A developer has proposed to purchase Belle Isle from Detroit for $1B, secede to become a semi-independent commonwealth, and sell citizenships for $300,000 each. (Limited to English-speaking people with no criminal record and good credit ratings.)

  20. Posted January 15, 2013 at 5:32 pm | Permalink

    Now, that would be completely hilarious.

  21. Thom Elliott
    Posted January 16, 2013 at 7:28 am | Permalink

    Great, a self built concentration camp for the people I would most like to see tied to an iceburg and floated out to sea. I say let them do it, their downfall will be ghastly, and evolutionarily; a mathmatically foregone conclusion. Even though altruism confers a lower fitness value on individuals, it is a crucial trait for a population to survive. When altrusim is absent and selfishness reaches fixation in a population, it is catastrophic for the individuals, and the population is destroyed. This would be the case with any large scale realization of Ayn Rand’s “ethical” egoism, selfishness would reach fixation, and the population would collapse under the weight of its own craven greed and callous lack of empathy. Please, go Galt, see how well these sociopathic desires play out in reality, by you strangleing to death in a gutter while stone faced plutocraten step over your convulsing body.

  22. Edward
    Posted January 16, 2013 at 9:18 am | Permalink

    Thank you Murph and Thom. As always, your contributions are significant and very much welcomed.

    Has anyone thought to give Belle Isle to Glenn Beck?

  23. Meta
    Posted January 16, 2013 at 1:38 pm | Permalink

    Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though the White House is going to let Texas secede.

    http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-texas-must-remain-part-us-212720777.html

  24. Posted January 16, 2013 at 10:37 pm | Permalink

    Barton is in the news today. It would seem that he’s advocating for the arming of school children.

  25. Eel
    Posted January 17, 2013 at 9:09 am | Permalink

    All kids should be wired with suicide vests.

  26. madmatthew
    Posted January 18, 2013 at 3:06 pm | Permalink

    Sez on Wikipedia that Tom Monaghan’s uber-Catholic planned community is all of three feet above sea level. So it’s gonna be gone by 2050 anyway. Sure is ironic that so many of the dolts who don’t “believe” in global warming (as if if affects scientists whether you “believe” in it or not) live in southern climes that will be the first swept away by the sea level rise it’s going to cause…

  27. Mike Shecket
    Posted January 20, 2013 at 6:08 am | Permalink

    I like that you would Kickstart a reverse-Galt Gulch in the middle of their Galt Gulch. Then there could be a double-reverse-Gulch in the Gulch in the Gulch and a Gulch in the Gulch in the Gulch in the Gulch…Synecdoche, NY anyone?

  28. Meta
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 10:57 am | Permalink

    Jon Stewart on Beck’s utopian community.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/30/jon-stewart-mocks-glenn-becks-centrally-planned-nostalgic-marxist-utopia/

  29. bung tokes
    Posted March 11, 2013 at 11:55 pm | Permalink

    This is one plus to living without pesky government oversight. Perhaps one can dine on a surf and turf entree consisting of horsemeat and pig rectum calamari in this land of freedom?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/imitation-calamari-sliced-pig-rectum_n_2482063.html

  30. chavez moran
    Posted April 28, 2013 at 3:38 pm | Permalink

    I like your idea and would gladly contribute toward buying a home for Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore right downtown.

  31. mcm
    Posted August 6, 2013 at 2:41 am | Permalink

    Just think of all the cost savings. No police force to pay for as everyone carries their own gun and dispenses their own justice. No garbage removal fees as everyone is encouraged to dump their trash behind their homes. No schools to pay for as everyone is homeschooled. No roads to keep up as public roads are socialist. The list goes on and on.

  32. Bill
    Posted March 9, 2014 at 2:38 pm | Permalink

    Nice biased story you put together here. I’m guessing that you don’t care for Mr Beck too much. It’s ok though you see people have taken him out of context for years. They make up stories about him and miss quote him on a weekly basis. The one thing they can’t do is to debate him because shortly thereafter they find themselves without the facts and the truth. This is when people like the author of this article (Mark no last name) must resort to name calling, lies and insults. I’m thinking MSNBC has a home for you!

  33. Eel
    Posted February 2, 2016 at 9:34 am | Permalink

    In case you have any money you’d like to invest.

    http://i.imgur.com/eIbPoZM.jpg

One Trackback

  1. […] gun-related things to share tonight. First, Glenn Beck’s favorite historian, David Barton, whom I wrote about just yesterday, has come out advocating for the arming of school children. And, second, the Sandy Hook […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Connect

BUY LOCAL... or shop at Amazon through this link Banner Initiative Hischak2