By ,
Published January 14, 2015
This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," April 30, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GLENN BECK, HOST: Yaron, how are you sir?
YARON BROOK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AYN RAND CENTER: I'm good. Thank you.
BECK: Good.
OK. Help me out here, because I'm hearing the president yesterday saying, "I don't want to do these things." This is like me saying, like, "I don't want my 25-year-old to be living in my house but I'm the dad so I have to."
The president doesn't have to save these companies. He shouldn't be saving these companies. That's not what our country, how our country was founded and built.
• Video: Watch Beck's interview
BROOK: Absolutely not.
I mean, this is an example of his complete hypocrisy. He is about more power, more control, bigger government. You know, and this is not what, as you said, this is not what American government is for. We, here — America was founded in order to defend individual rights, not to take money from some people and redistribute it to whoever the president believes is serving the public good at that particular moment in time.
You know, we can't lose auto company jobs so we're going to take Glenn and Yaron's money and we're going to give it to the UAW. That is a perversion of the purpose of government. It is a perversion of what this country is really about.
BECK: OK. You know what, you know what I think it started? A listener called me on the radio show this week and I think this is a very good — it was a very good point. It was with Nixon, when he, you know, when he was having the kitchen debates, and he said, Look, we've got freedom because we got capitalism — capitalism and freedom. You know, we got refrigerators, we have houses, we have cars, we have everything else.
That's not freedom. That's stuff.
Freedom is the ability to be able to just do what you want to do without violating the freedoms of others. Do what you want to do. Live your dream.
You may not make it, Jack, but you have the ability to try.
BROOK: Absolutely. Freedom is about you're actually pursuing your own happiness. It's even in our Declaration of Independence, "free of coercion." And the primary source of coercion in the world we live in today is not from crooks, it's not from frauds, it's from the government.
Freedom means no government coercion in the political sense. And what we're getting today is less and less freedom, more and more government intervention.
And, you know, you talked about this bankruptcy as if it was a positive thing. It's not a positive thing because this particular bankruptcy is not a free market bankruptcy. This is a bankruptcy orchestrated through government force. This is the government deciding who gets what and indeed landing up with the significant and majority stake in Chrysler and G.M.
This is a complete corruption of capitalism.
BECK: Wait, wait. America, he just made that even better. Remember when I said, "Hey, Fiat is here." OK. For Chrysler, it is. We're saved! Chrysler now has — it's going to be run by Fiat, the unions and Barney Frank!
BROOK: Absolutely. It's going to be run by the post office. Think of Chrysler being run by the people at the post office. That's what we're getting.
BECK: The Italian post office.
BROOK: And at the same time, we're all subsidizing that deal. That is — every taxpayer in America, everybody in America is giving up some freedom, giving up some of his hard-earned money in order to subsidize the post office taking over Chrysler and G.M.
BECK: OK.
BROOK: This is, you know, so corrupt it would be hard to imagine a couple of years ago that we would be at this point in American history.
BECK: Here's — here is where — here's where I want to take this. I want to play from last night's speech. Can you play spot two, please? This is the — this is the president talking basically about the greater good. This is where this country went off track over a hundred years ago.
Listen to this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Let there be no doubt, it will take an unprecedented effort on all our parts — from the halls of Congress to the boardroom, from the union hall to the factory floor — to see the auto industry through these difficult times.
We are committed to the goal of a retooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it. Scores of communities depend on it. And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: You know what? That's like, you know the country that invented the horse and buggy shouldn't walk away.
You know what? If you can't compete, you can't compete. Sorry, you lose.
It makes all of us weaker, and this is a — help me out on this.
BROOK: Well, then ...
BECK: I believe this is — this is the problem that started with the progressive movement with the Republicans and the Democrats. It's the common good nonsense that really is a common infection. It doesn't do anybody any good when we're propping up the weakest.
BROOK: Absolutely. I mean, you've identified it. The whole notion of the public good, the public's interest, these are perversions of both morality and what this country really is about.
This is country is about individualism. This country is about individuals owning their own life, pursuing their own happiness, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's what's essential. Not your life is owned by the state and we're going to tell you how to behave depending on whether your behavior is good for the public or not good for the public.
That's how we got to this mess. We got into this mess with this ideology of altruism and collectivism where you, the individual, belonged to the group rather than you as an autonomous, making decisions for yourself.
That's the corruption and, you know, it really started in the late 19th century, early 20th century and was brought head on into the Republican Party with Teddy Roosevelt...
BECK: Yes.
BROOK: ...who is still admired by most conservatives, unfortunately.
BECK: That's because they haven't read enough. I mean, I was one of those dopes. You know, I just didn't do my homework enough. We all have to do our homework. There is too much going on right, too fast.
Thank you so much. By the way, thank you for the article in "Fusion" magazine, which is my magazine.
He wrote a great article on progressivism and you just have to read it. You can look it for it at GlennBeck.com.
Content and Programming Copyright 2009 FOX News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC, which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon FOX News Network, LLC'S and CQ Transcriptions, LLC's copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/economist-yaron-brook-blasts-president-obamas-handling-of-auto-crisis