Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:28 pm
On his radio show today, Glenn Beck defended the extremism of Holocaust Museum shooter James von Brunn. Beck compared Brunn’s opposition to the Fed to Thomas Jefferson. He claimed that Brunn was labeled right wing extremist because he was against the Fed. He ignored Brunn’s white supremacist beliefs and his conviction for his armed kidnapping plot at the Fed.
Here is the audio from Media Matters:
Beck said, “Freedom lovers are hard to find, and it’s because they have been marginalized as extremists whack jobs. You notice this guy yesterday was a right wing extremist, the guy who went into the Holocaust Museum was a right wing extremist. Hmmm, so being for Hitler, literally for Hitler is right wing, only if you play the game. Right is Hitler. Left is Stalin, but did you notice the other thing they brought up about him. He was against the Fed. The truthers, they’re against the Fed. The tea party people, they’re against the Fed. I’m against the Fed. We must all be alike.”
Beck then goes on a rant about how he doesn’t want private corporations making decisions for us, and yet he claimed to be called an extremist. He asked, “How is that an extremist view? I guess that is extremist in the way Thomas Jefferson was an extremist.” Beck was trying to say that people who are against the Fed aren’t extremists, but it didn’t come out that way. Although it did certainly sound like he was defending Hitler. Supporting Hitler does make a person a right wing extremist.
Brunn wasn’t labeled a right wing extremist because he opposes the Fed. He was labeled a right wing extremist because he was convicted storming into the Fed and trying to kidnap members of the board in 1981. Opposing the Fed, doesn’t make a person a right wing extremist, but armed kidnapping plots do. Notice how Beck conveniently left out kidnapping part of Brunn’s story.
Being a white supremacist will lead to being considered a right wing extremist, simply opposing the Fed does not. By the way, nobody labeled Glenn Beck a right wing extremist, and I don’t understand why he is so eager to be lumped in with Brunn. The fact is that Brunn wasn’t like most of the people who oppose the Fed. He was a violent extremist, and the only person who is putting the two in the same category is Glenn Beck.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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