Golden vs. "Gold &" Rule

Lonesome Rhodes: This whole country's just like my flock of sheep!

Marcia Jeffries: Sheep?

Lonesome Rhodes: Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. They don't know it yet, but they're all gonna be 'Fighters for Fuller'. They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em. Marcia, you just wait and see. I'm gonna be the power behind the president - and you'll be the power behind me!


Lonesome Rhodes: I'm not just an entertainer. I'm an influence, a wielder of opinion, a force... a force!

In the 1957 black-and-white film, A Face in the Crowd, the scariest Andy Griffith you ever did see plays Lonesome Rhodes a raucous hayseed that starts as an itinerant Ozark guitar picker who catches on as an incendiary inciter and then becomes a TV big time personality and political king-maker. Marcia Jefferies is the media shaker and mover that discovers him literally along side the road and helps to launch the career that becomes a monster. Could it be that the line between film and reality gets blurred upon occasion?

On August 28^th Glen Lee Beck was the organizer and master of ceremonies for his Restoring Honor Rally at the Lincoln Memorial. The crowd estimates vary, but certainly multiple thousands came out to hear speech and song in a staged effort to let the rest of America know that there are citizens that feel passionately about the safety of their Christian Nation.

Mr. Beck’s admirers and supporters are attracted to and moved by “this [man] who stands for truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, a recent letter to the editor writer allowed. The assertion is that Americans have lost their sense of honor as it “has been disappearing from our lives and dictionaries over the past 20 years, maybe longer.” The writer went on to say that what has to be done to save the country is to start making some changes as a nation, and as individuals, including recognizing that not only America, but the world as a whole needs God.

When there is such passion and conviction by admirers and followers one wonders why those who are not fans of Beck don’t get it? Just what accounts for such a dramatic split?

Mr. Beck presents himself as a common sense man come to lead the lost out of the wilderness and away from socialism, communism and a racist president. Supporters experience him as a man of passion and reverence who has overcome problems in his personal life to be their champion of truth, honor and the American Way.

His critics see a dog-and-pony circus clown who is now making 32 million dollars a year via crocodile tears and finger pointing as he rants Beck-basics from a self serving black board.

As the movie demonstrates this type of public figure is nothing new under the sun. There is a long line of American characters that have popped up, especially on the radios of the common man, telling all who would listen about what it takes to get on the right track. Aimee Semple McPherson in the 1920’s, Father Coughlin in the 1930’s, Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s and of course, Rush Limbaugh in more recent time have shouted down sin and stupidity as the protectors of American freedom, pride and exceptional values.

These days of course fear mongering is daily fair on 24/7 on cable news. If a viewer sits for too long in front of the tube it becomes very difficult to keep separate the paper tigers of our mind versus the real tigers of our lives as the echo chamber amplifies constantly.

When conviction and hostility flow like a raging river separating neighbors and community what can be the solution? Could it be as simple as not doing to others what we don’t want done to us? Oh, but wait, that might close the circus and take away multi-million dollar incomes and influential positions of adulation. Once again, that doggone Golden Rule, it can be just so inconvenient at times.

Guest post written by Neil Snipes.