Reflections on the Restoring Love Rally

 For the last few years, Glenn Beck has embarked on a journey to renew our character. The first non-partisan gathering on 8-28-2010 for Restoring Honor drew 650,000 Americans on the National Mall to celebrate America's heroes and heritage as well as to raise money for the Special Operations Warriors Foundation. 






 Last Summer, Beck organized Restoring Courage at the southern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to “stand with Israel”. The sojourn also included stops at Auschwitz, Poland to remember the lessons of the Holocaust and stops in South Africa and South America, asking them to stand in defense of Israel, the Jewish people and responsibility. 


Today, at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Texas, the trilogy culminates in the Restoring Love gathering.


   
    {"Hold Us Together" by Matt Maher, the theme song for Restoring Love}


 Left leaning critics, whose viewpoints are often informed by the George Soros funded Media Matters, are wont to engage in ad hominem attacks against Beck, charging that he is a huckster or that he is anti-Semite, as he dared to compare the fascistic tendencies of the Obama era with Nazi-ism. The latter charge is pretty laughable, considering the theme, setting and personal risk that Beck took to organize Restoring Courage at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Beck is a comedian as well as a political commentator, so his rodeo clown persona or his messy past (both of which he readily confesses) makes him the target for vitriolic ad hominem attacks. 


However, if skeptics can get beyond the mud slinging, there is much that is commendable to Beck’s efforts. Some say that Beck is only self-promoting and pining for a profit. If that were the case, then why were tickets to the 80,000 seat stadium priced at $10 with free parking? Beck may go $2 million in personal debt underwriting the event, including paying Dallas for the impuned taxes for the parking fee that Mercury One did not charge. 

Look at the action. Restoring Love did not center on a feel good rally. It involved a day of service, where 35,000 people volunteered to do a day’s charity work in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. The message there was it was only a beginning and to bring that spirit home. Although Beck’s libertarian leanings definitely wants to see change in the White House this November, he has been stressing for years that the answer can not be found in Washington or in politics but by individuals restoring love and helping their neighbors.


 Beck’s message does touch upon politics, but not in a partisan sense. Beck spoke before a packed American Airlines Arena in Dallas for FreePac on Thurday night, which gathered activists from around the world interested in spreading freedom and limited government from around the world. 





 The intelligentia loves to note that Beck only took a couple of college classes. I wonder how many elites would have the guts or the pedagogic gumption to read all of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The God of the Copy Book Headings” to make a larger point against collectivism and progressivism. Beck hopes that the Third Great Spiritual Awaking along with inspiring Tea Party types around the world that freedom can be preserved. 


 There is little doubt that the Lamestream Media with either ignore the messages shared for Restoring Love or blindly ridicule what they consider is an easy target. It would be wise for those who preach tolerance and diversity to consider the themes coming from the Restoring Love experience and juxtapose it to their progressive prejudices.