Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Glenn Beck (Author, Narrator), Pat Gray (Narrator), Steve "Stu" Burguiere (Narrator),

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Listening Length

9 hours and 1 minute
Author

Glenn Beck
Narrator

Glenn Beck, see all
Audible release date

September 22, 2009
Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster Audio
ASIN

B002Q1IUPI
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	9 hours and 1 minute
Author	Glenn Beck
Narrator	Glenn Beck, Pat Gray, Steve "Stu" Burguiere
Audible.com Release Date	September 22, 2009
Publisher	Simon & Schuster Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B002Q1IUPI
Best Sellers Rank	#124,985 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #295 in Conservatism & Liberalism #332 in Political Humor (Books) #1,139 in Political Commentary & Opinion

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4.6 out of 5

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Geoff Puterbaugh

Too bad about the cover..

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2009

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I have to go with the opinion of another reviewer (not on Amazon) who said that the worst thing about this book was its silly cover. I totally agree. In fact, I've thrown the cover in the trash and am proceeding to enjoy the stimulating contents of the book.

Of course, in my case, Beck is preaching to the choir...I am one of those "wingnuts" who is absolutely flabbergasted to find UNIONS controlling national politics again, as if unions were, like, totally innocent in the massive failure of American public education and the automobile manufacturers. Beck's two-page flowchart describing EXACTLY what it takes to fire a New York teacher is just about worth the price of admission by itself. Basically, the subtext of the entire chart is "you can't fire me." Not even if I am found with porn, marijuana, and cocaine on school grounds. Nope! You've got this whole labyrinthine system to go through ("Did you suggest counseling? Did you work on peer collaboration and input?") And, even when you get to the end of the procedure and wind up with one (1) fired teacher, in whose firing at least 200 people have been involved, the teacher can always just turn around and sue you, so you wind up with a lawsuit on your hands.

Here's a thought to take home with you: roughly speaking, public education is now costing us $10,000 per pupil per year. Do the math! If a classroom holds 30 students, that is THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars. If you have six such classrooms, you have almost $2 MILLION DOLLARS to educate 180 students for nine months. Gosh almighty: nice work if you can find it. Do you think parochial schools (Catholic schools come to mind) spend anything like this? Do you imagine that they do an inferior job?

Beck is especially hard on the "No Child Left Behind" program --- and he should be. The financial incentives are so strong that we have a new behavior on our hands: teachers cheating to help their students make a passing grade! The whole idea of learning is getting tossed aside in favor of the Giant Issue of "passing the test." How do teachers cheat? Well, some fools write the answers on the blackboard during the test. Others pass among the students, offering "free advice," while others actually go through the finished exams and massively change wrong answers. Gee, then "everyone passes!" Nobody learned any more, but the paperwork sure looks good! Beck persuasively compares this to Stalinist Russia, where it was much more important to REPORT cutting down an acre of forest than it was to actually cut down the trees.

There are other fine chapters in this book, but I have concentrated on education because that is one of my passions, and it seems to me that almost nobody is willing to admit a fact that we have known forever: excellent schools are created --- not with money, but with lots of hard work, study time, and elbow grease. There is no "silver bullet." If you want to know Shakespeare, you have to read him --- and actually read quite a lot of him. This involves a huge journey in learning to understand his English, but there is no shortcut: Cliff's Notes won't do the trick. If you want to do calculus and physics, you're going to need an excellent teacher, a lot of hard work, AND talent!! If you want to learn a foreign language, then set aside 3-4 years for that project --- by then you will be "conversant" in that language and will be in a position to realize that learning (say) French is really a lifelong task, just as learning English is. (Your reviewer here is over 60, and still looks up words in the English dictionary when he wonders: "Do I really know what that word means?")

Of course, the best outcome (or one of the best outcomes) of one's school years is to realize that one has embarked on a lifetime of learning. There's precious little of that going around in American public schools, I suspect.

Anyway, an interesting and entertaining book. Don't be put off by the silly cover.

9 people found this helpful

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Glenn Beck Continues to Morph From Paul Revere to Thomas Paine

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2009

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Glenn Beck has been impersonating Paul Revere and William Dawes in order to warn the public of the approaching enemy. Now he is morphing from those Revolutionary War nightriders spreading the alarm to Thomas Paine the Revolution's Pamphleteer. His last book "Common Sense" was the embodiment of that change in character.
Glenn's greatest strength, unlike most of the media, is that he is able to see the whole picture. He doesn't just focus on a single tree he sees the whole forest. He isn't rushing to put out small brush fires flashing up all over the line of sight, he is seeing an overview of the "Big Burn," a giant, unstoppable firestorm that is roaring through the forest just over the nearby mountains and destroying everything in its path. His gift is seeing the whole picture by studying many individual pieces of the puzzle and mentally putting them together like a secret code breaker using logic combined with intuition rather than just looking for two single pieces of the whole picture that might fit together. It's a rare gift. He is guy who envisions the whole picture, plot, or conspiracy. The title of this book is similar to other books by both liberals and conservatives. Like some of those books, Beck's weapon of choice is facts, facts, indisputable facts to shatter good intentions and deliberate misinformation.
Another of Glenn's gifts is the ability to take the complicated puzzles he puts together and explain them to others. Any reader who has watched his television show know that Beck will use a blackboard and chalk, drawings, flow charts with pictures and any other kind of props he thinks will help him explain the point he is trying to make. His writing uses the same approach. He is smart enough to use some of "Rules for Radicals" founder Saul Alinsky's own rules against him. His weapon in this struggle is humor. Alinsky taught that making your enemies and opponents a laughing stock was more effective that his usual smear, extortion and confrontation tactics. While this reviewer doesn't consider himself to be a "useful idiot" he would still hate to argue with this laid-back genuinely comic satirist.
This book contains 12 chapters on subjects including "In Defense of Capitalism,
The Second Amendment, Education, America's Energy Future, Unions, Illegal Immigration, The Nanny State, Owning A Home, and others with the final chapter entitled "The U.S. Constitution." In his directions on how to use this book he says the reader will immediately notice that each chapter is formatted as an ongoing conversation between the idiot and me. In the book "'idiots' aren't defined by the way they vote, they're defined by the way they think. Sometimes that means a political activist with an agenda bigger than a brain, sometimes it means a well-intentioned person who's just a little misinformed, and sometimes it means the idiot is, well, me." He then goes on to explain how idiots can be anybody and has nothing to do with what political party they belong to.
Other gems of knowledge shared by Beck are: "The truth is that a minimum-wage worker in America is still one of the wealthiest people in the world:" Amtrak was created in 1970 and has lost money every single year since: "You Know You're Turning Socialist When the French president is less interested in redistributing wealth than the American one:" and throughout the book are illustrations and sections entitled "Who Said It?" Followed by some multiple-choice names. Those tests will make you think you are back test taking in school.
As fans of Glenn's radio, television and books are expecting, this tome is more of Beck at his best. It's impossible to convey much of his wisdom in a short testimonial/reader review, but the reader won't be disappointed, and even some of the idiots may start to doubt that they know the answers to any and all things. Beck tends to say things in such a seemingly outrageous manner that it both surprises and forces people to step back and try to see things from his overview of the whole picture. It's like his use of the term "Idiot." That's mostly to catch the reader's attention and fits right into his attention grabbing style. Keep on truckin Glenn! Make us all think, even if we disagree with some of what you say. Nobody wants to be an idiot!

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Paul Marks

Entertainment and education.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2009

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Well written and a good mixture of humour, argument and accurate information.

I would advise people to read the book carefully (or to return to it after they have read it) - because one can read the work quickly (getting both pleasure and use from it), but miss important things that are tucked away.

Glenn Beck has evolved over the years - he now understands the libertarian case that many Republican politicians (especially in the leadership of the Republican party) are useless (or worse) in combatting the drift to ever bigger government in the United States. What matters is limiting government (not talking about limited government whilst expanding government - as with George Walker Bush), if socialists (indeed Marxists) such as Barack Obama are to be defeated then it will have to be done by people actually having principles (not just pretending to have them). If a Republican really does have limited government principles then good - if not they are useless (indeed worse than useless) and "if you do not vote for the monster the monster will get in" is a dead end (the "lesser evil" just paves the way for the greater evil - as Bush paved the way for Obama). Over the last few years Glenn Beck has come to understand this ("about time" would say some of us libertarians), and now he is sharing what he has found out with anyone prepared to read and think.

24 people found this helpful

Nik Allonby

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on November 13, 2016

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Awesome to listen to on audio book, however clumsy book to read.

One person found this helpful

Moufette1973

Funny but so true

Reviewed in Canada on October 7, 2014

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Funny but so true on how the US is biting their nose to spite their face.

One person found this helpful

Harry Hirsch

20 gute Seiten, danach nur noch Mist

Reviewed in Germany on October 23, 2011

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Eigentlich geht's gut los: Beck beschreibt, warum er nichts von starken Eingriffen der Regierung in den "freien" Markt hält. Insbesondere unter den Aspekten der Finanzkrise ist's interessant, welche Punkte er bringt um zu zeigen, dass ein starker Markt immer noch richtig wäre.

Aber dann wird's langweilig: Verteidigung des US-Waffengesetzes, Lobhudelei auf das amerik. Bildungssystem und warum Amerikaner auch in Bezug auf ihre Automobilindustrie, ihre Einwanderungspolitik und sogar - ernsthaft - beim Thema Energie alles richtig machen. Die Argumente werden dabei immer abstruser. Nur gut, dass die US-Amerikaner nicht alle so denken wie Beck.

Das Buch ist schlecht zu lesen. Die Seiten sind zugepflastert mit Comics und Info-Boxen. Außerdem sind alle Seiten hochglanz und auf alt gemacht (beiger Hintergrund), es werden viele verschiedene Schriftarten und -größen gemixt und die komplette Farbpalette abgegrast. Einfach schrecklich. Den 2. Stern gibt's für's erste Kapitel.

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Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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