Product Description

"If you believe it's time to put principles above parties, character above campaign promises, and Common Sense above all -- then I ask you to read this book...."

In any era, great Americans inspire us to reach our full potential. They know with conviction what they believe within themselves. They understand that all actions have consequences. And they find commonsense solutions to the nation's problems.

One such American, Thomas Paine, was an ordinary man who changed the course of history by penning Common Sense, the concise 1776 masterpiece in which, through extraordinarily straightforward and indisputable arguments, he encouraged his fellow citizens to take control of America's future -- and, ultimately, her freedom.

Nearly two and a half centuries later, those very freedoms once again hang in the balance. And now, Glenn Beck revisits Paine's powerful treatise with one purpose: to galvanize Americans to see past government's easy solutions, two-part monopoly, and illogical methods and take back our great country.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781439168578
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Glenn Beck, the nationally syndicated radio and Fox News television show host, is the author of five previous #1 New York Times bestsellers: Arguing With Idiots, An Inconvenient Book, Glenn Beck's Common Sense, The Christmas Sweater, and his children's version of The Christmas Sweater. America's March to Socialism is available now from Simon & Schuster Audio or downloadable from Simon & Schuster Online. He is also the author of The Real America and publisher of Fusion magazine. Visit www.glennbeck.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

I think I know who you are.

After September 11, 2001, you thought our country had changed for the better. But the months that followed proved otherwise. We began to divide ourselves and the partisan bickering that had been absent from blood donor lines and church services started all over again.

You sometimes argue with friends about politics, not because you are a political activist, but because you think the issues are actually important. You have strong beliefs, but you also have an open mind and a warm heart.

You try to do the right thing every day. You work hard, you always try to do your best, and you play by the rules.

You have credit cards, but you can make the payments. You have a home, but with a loan you can afford. Maybe you bought a flat-screen television that wasn't exactly a necessity, but you've never been reckless.

You don't have much in savings and your retirement plans have lost a significant amount of money.

You may go to church, but most weekends, you don't really want to -- you'd rather sleep in or play with your kids. Besides, it bothers you that people cut each other off in the parking lot right after the service.

You have children and, like all families, you also have your share of problems -- but you're making it. You constantly hope that your kids don't notice you're bluffing as a parent most of the time.

You feel like there's not enough time in the day anymore to just be a family. Everyone is always going in six different directions. You know material things don't matter, but you wonder why it makes you feel like a bad parent if your kids don't have certain shoes, the newest video games, or aren't signed up for five different sports teams.

You didn't have anywhere near the kind of stuff that today's kids have and yet you look back on your childhood with a sense of nostalgia and pride. If your family was poor, you didn't know it.

You turn on the television at the end of a long, tiring day and watch as endless analysts in left/right boxes argue about things done by bankers that, in retrospect, now seem implausible. You're worried about what's happening to our economy, but you're more worried about what it means for your family -- and you're not sure what to do.

You try to tune out the bickering by watching an entertainment show -- but there are times when you're uncomfortable watching them with your kids. You're not a prude, but you happen to think that a three-year-old shouldn't be watching shows that treat sex lightly and mock mothers and fathers. But what can you do? The other shows are worse.

You've taught your children the difference between right and wrong, yet they come home with language and habits that they didn't learn from you. You're shocked to hear what they're learning in school -- but you don't make a fuss because they're the "professionals" and you don't want to be one of "those people" anyway. You don't cherish conflict; you just want everyone to get along.

You don't hate people who are different than you, but you stopped expressing opinions on sensitive issues a long time ago because you don't want to be called a racist, bigot, or homophobe if you stand by your values and principles.

You believe in treating people justly and honestly but there is a difference between right and wrong.

You go to bed exhausted almost every night, knowing you have to get up the next day and do it all over again.

You thought that the politicians you supported and defended cared about the issues you do. Then you began to realize that you were wrong -- they only care about themselves and their careers. You feel used and betrayed.

You don't think it's right that while you worked hard, lived prudently, and spent wisely, those who did the opposite are now being bailed out at your expense. You realize now that self-serving politicians and bankers built our financial system on a house of cards that, despite the cheery promises and rosy forecasts, is now collapsing.

Now our government, the instigator of our problems, is telling everyone that they have to start sacrificing. Don't they understand that I already have been, you think. You weren't the one spending too much or living on money you didn't have. You made decisions rooted in logic while others made decisions rooted in greed -- yet now everyone must pay equally?

Yet, despite all of that, you're still willing to sacrifice more because you want America to succeed. But you demand a plan that's based on common sense and that actually has a chance to work.

You've called your congressman a few times in the past, but they don't listen. Now you just scream at the television. It's about as effective as the phone calls.

The light from the television flickers on the darkened room walls -- people at tea parties across the nation fill the screen. You don't know how to feel. You want to do something, but that isn't you. You're not an activist. You don't make signs or chant: "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" So, you turn off your light and go to sleep.

Every night it seems you are faced with a choice: Do you unplug or do you speak out? Both of those options make you uncomfortable so you do neither...and your frustration continues to grow.

The First Step out of Our Comfort Zone

The fastest way to be branded a danger, a militia member, or just plain crazy is to quote the words of our Founding Fathers. I imagine that this is because words have consequences and the words and ideas that those men shared were revolutionary:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

It is not time to dissolve the bands that connect us to one another, but it is time to dissolve the "political" bands that separate us from one another. Even if we disagree on politics, the phrase "I am an American" is not just a collection of words, it is the embodiment of an idea, one that has power only because "We the People" give it power. But somewhere along the way we've forgotten that, so we feel small and helpless as our country drifts away.

Perhaps what we need is a reminder. A reminder of who we are, who is really in control, and, most important, a reminder of how we got to a place that bears less and less resemblance to the America we remember from our childhoods. Let us start by doing what we've been trained for so long not to: let us declare the causes that unite us.Supplementary materials copyright © 2009 by Mercury Radio Arts, Inc.

A Note from the Author

Two hundred and thirty-five years ago, a British citizen with only a basic education set off to make a new life for himself in the British colonies. For two years he worked hard and watched as his fellow colonists grew tired of British oppression. Then he decided to act. Using his contacts in the publishing industry, Thomas Paine anonymously released a pamphlet that made the case for revolution using extraordinarily logical, straightforward, indisputable arguments.

He called it Common Sense.

Once Paine put his feelings into words, he realized that he wasn't alone. Only seven months passed between the release of Common Sense in January 1776 and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Seven months -- a pinpoint in the history of time, but a moment that put the colonies on an irreversible track toward revolution and, ultimately, freedom.

Seven months that changed the world, forever.

Today we find ourselves back in 1776 -- but this time our path forward isn't so clear-cut. The abuses being perpetrated by our government are just as obvious now as they were then, but instead of rising up with a collective voice, we sit idly by and watch as our hard-won freedoms slowly dissolve into a puddle of apathy, political correctness, and outright corruption.

We feel helpless and alone as we hear confusing debates over obscure issues play out on the airwaves daily. But that's the lie. The infighting and the purposeful division promoted by our political parties is a simple ploy to keep us from uniting. After all, a citizenry that fights among itself over petty differences is too busy to notice the real cause of its problems.

As you read the details of the immense harm that both parties have done to our country, you might find yourself wondering what can be done to change our course. I lay out several options, but I want to be clear that none of them includes violence. Thomas Paine and his fellow revolutionaries shed their blood so that future generations would have access to weapons immeasurably stronger than muskets or bayonets: the weapons of democracy. Those are the tools that we will use to usher in a second American revolution, a revolution that won't be fought on battlefields, but in the hearts and minds of the three hundred million people lucky enough to call America home.

Over the years, many revolutionaries have used sharp tongues instead of sharp knives -- and the results have been extraordinary. Martin Luther King, Jr., for instance, once said to his supporters: "The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

It was inflammatory language, but he meant that it is much easier to simply die for a cause than it is to find inventive, effective means to fight for it. Violence is the easy way out -- but it's also a sure path to discrediting everything you stand for, something that those opposed to him found out the hard way.

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time," King said while accepting the Nobel Prize. He continued, "...[man must] overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human con...

Customer Reviews

Shall Not Perish from the Earth
In his new book, "Glenn Beck's Common Sense, The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine, by Glenn Beck with Joseph Kerry, Mr. Beck chooses as a rallying cry the thoughts of some or our greatest founding fathers and the best political thinkers of all time -- at least with regard to the appropriate governance of a republic. If you are alive in the US today the rallying cry that our Government has failed us is an easy criticism to make. Taking to the streets as interested citizens and banding together for the common good as political advocates for change should resonate with everyone.

Yet Beck doesn't write for everyone though he could have. Take for example his opening line, "I think I know who you are". He goes on to list about 32 characteristics of a person in the general population who is upset and would like to see political change. I counted about 32 characteristics of this person and found I have only eight. That's about 25% percent. So Mr. Beck doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does. That's a problem, but not a big problem, because one my characteristics, one he does not mention, is the ability to hold, as F. Scott Fitzgerald has said, "...two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." So I continued to read. Whereas he did not win me at hello, and he lost me occasionally at places where, for instance, he says in the context that our Social Security and Medicare obligations are upside down that, "...you many want to rethink your current family situation and have more kids." A stultifying statement if he seriously believes it. Yet I read on.

His agenda, tired and well trod, includes bashing any claim that climate change is actually occurring , standing up for our right to own handguns, and railing against the cancer, as he call it, of progressivism. Yet somehow, deep within the bowels of the book, not too deep it's only about a hundred pages long, and I can tell you specifically, "Chapter IV, the Perks and Privileges of the Political Class", he hits pay dirt. He's got about 15 pages of money here, no pun intended.

So in a book where he's got me pegged about 25% he's got a chapter with 100% of what I think. In addition he's got it right with regard to our two political parties not giving us sufficient options to truly be governed by ourselves. His call for change here is highly appropriate. But since all of these book reviews are more about politics and less about the particular book, I will close with a counter quote to his call to revolution, even a revolution of ideas, "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" as a chilling reminder of what happens when we cannot reach a solution. The source of this quote is left to the reader.

Interesting, but hardly definitive, offering from Glenn Beck.
Glenn Beck is another of those people the left-wing fears to the point of wanting to silence them. Of course, the left seems to want to silence anyone who disagrees with them on any point.

Glenn Beck makes no secret of the fact that he is an entertainer. Many American entertainers have based their careers on politics. Will Rogers, Mort Sahl, Walter Winchell and others spring immediately to mind. Nothing says that an entertainer can't resort to what otherwise might be deemed "silly" behavior to make their point.

Beck is a libertarian. He also engages in behavior that oftentimes can be accurately described as sophomoric or even buffoonish. However that does not detract from the validity of the points he is trying to make.

In "Glenn Beck's Common Sense", people who actually read it understand that Beck makes it clear that his reference to Thomas Paine is purely metaphoric: he does no believe he is the resurrected Paine or that his message is the same, similar to or as important as history has made Paine's. Rather he compares himself to Paine merely in trying to rouse the nation. It is amusing to see the dozens of reviews that take Beck to task for claiming his book is the contemporary equal of Paine's tract. All these "critics" are doing is providing evidence that they either didn't read Beck's work or understand it.

Beck's laments are commonplace for conservatives and many libertarians. If Beck did not have a massive radio and television audience, it is unlikely "Common Sense" would have made it to the New York Times bestseller list.

Beck indeed is speaking of common sense when he discusses a government and a people that have become wedded to outsized deficits which our children's children will be burdened with. He rages at the fraud of Social Security and Medicare. He screams about the nation's insane tax code, the manipulation of which keeps politicians rolling in campaign contributions and lets very wealthy people and corporations pay virtually nothing in taxes. He rants about the hypocrisy of politicians. He explodes about gerrymandering and its utilization to create a permanent class of elected representatives.

In short, Beck is angry about the same things that polls say a plurality of the population is angry about. He is preaching to the choir and the choir likes the song he is singing.

The book is short, only 111 pages plus an addenda of Thomas Paine's original "Common Sense".

In sum, this is Glenn Beck's call to action, a plea to the American people to use their rights to throw the bums out of office. In a way, it does harken back to the original Thomas Paine (who was also considered by many to be an extremist in his day). But this book is pure Beck: a self-proclaimed libertarian and populist who is trying to alert the nation to what he perceives as the dangers confronting it from its own elected and appointed officials.

Anyone who follows the news closely, doesn't need Beck. But many people don't follow the news closely and for them, Beck is a flashlight shining on the myriad problems and dangers that face us today.

Jerry

Very Good, Easy Read
Definetely worth having even if you don't like Glenn Beck. Thomas Paine's Common Sense is in the back and it's worth it by itself. I happen to love Glenn but was pleasently surprised by this book, it kept me interested the whole way through. It's a great value and worthy of 5 stars!