Glenn Beck: We don't need no stinkin' FDA

[ck4829]

On his radio program today, Glenn Beck and his co-hosts had a discussion about genetically modified foods that turned into a rant by Beck against the Food and Drug Administration during which he asserted that the government should play no role in food safety and simply let the free market sort it all out.

Beck said that the government should not require genetically modified foods or organic foods or any other foods to be labeled as such because "this whole organic thing is bullcrap because you can slap 'organic' on anything, it doesn't mean anything."

You'd think that would be a case for the government setting labeling requirements and basic standards, but you'd be wrong.

"No," Beck said. "That's why we need to be honorable people. That's why, if you really want that, you go and you find somebody that you trust. You got to people, and even if it's Whole Foods, and you have to trust that they're being honorable and they're looking for the right food and they'll tell you what it is. Let them, let the market sort it out. Let the market say 'this is our standard for organic, this is what we mean by organic.' You do your own homework"

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/beck-we-dont-need-fda-we-just-need-do-our-homework-and-find-honorable-companies

You know what? I think we should do something like this... let's make a grocery store, call it Tea-Mart, that is too cool for all the government regulations and FDA guidelines, let Glenn Beck and the Tea Partiers just buy all their food and medicine from there, no FDA, and no regulations. Why not?

[el_bryanto]

1. That is the libertarian argument carried to it's illogical extreme

In order to believe that could work you basically have to have no ideas about what people are actually like.

Companies have shown that they are more than happy to kill customers and employers in the pursuit of the dollar.

Bryant

[flobee1]

2. "and you have to trust that they're being honorable"

and there is the problem

corporations have no honor or conscience when profits are involved

[pnwmom]

3. Some strong voices here agree with him about GMO labeling

and accuse those who want it of pushing unscientific "woo."

It's somewhat amusing to see that they're on the Beck team on this.

[Initech]

4. So he's against clean food and safe drugs? Fucking idiot.

[Erose999]

5. I support Glenn Beck and all of his fans eating unregulated meat and vegetables. I've probably

got some expired hamburger meat in my fridge I can donate to them.

[silverweb]

6. Exactly!

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Beck says, "That's why we need to be honorable people." Honorable people. Honest people. Ethical people.

Notice he says "we" (the buyers) must be honorable. He doesn't demand that "they" (the sellers) be "honorable" because he's one of those gaming the system with and for them. He says we must each be honorable and search out the honorable sellers on our own -- and then just hope.

This is the big Libertarian Lie.

We need people who actually mean it when they say they would never "ask another man to live for" them (by exploiting them with poverty wages, perhaps?) After all, they are quite sincere when they say the first half of that creed, "I will never live for the sake of another man."

We need people who really mean it when they say, "A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud," (by selling worthless financial devices and junk goods, perhaps?)

We need people who really mean what they say when they speak, rather than going straight for people's reptilian brain with fear, fake outrage, and phony tears.

In the Libertarian-envisioned "magic marketplace," it must be assumed that business people are honest and honorable, and really believe in that "value for value" ethic. It just doesn't work between predators and prey, which is what we've been seeing.

Of course, the same vocal Liberarians spouting this business philosophy are the very ones most often caught violating their self-defined ethical standards by lying, cheating, stealing, plagiarizing, bribing, polluting, and on and on and on.

The very last thing today's anti-regulation "Libertarians" demonstrate is anything remotely like "honor." And a system without honor demands strict oversight and regulation.

[font color="navy" face="Arial"]*Quotes from Atlas Shrugged.