Glenn Beck: I'm anti-war now because war is 'a progressive idea'

On Monday, erstwhile Fox News personality Glenn Beck announced that he has become anti-war because war is too "progressive." RingWingWatch.org reported that Beck said he is against the possibility of a war in Syria because it would be all about oil, and that in the end, Pres. Barack Obama is the same as former Vice Pres. Dick Cheney.

Of late, Beck has been opening his daily Internet-only TV program with a "morning meeting" segment, which Right Wing Watch described as "Beck lecturing a bored-looking group of staffers who peck away on their computers while Beck hectors them with whatever pseudo-historical lesson/quasi-spiritual prophecy he is promoting on that particular day."

On Monday, the topic was the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Syria.

"Here's the president," he began. "Did this guy get any of it right? Any of it? The answer is no."

Beck explained that he used to like the idea of the U.S. toppling other country's dictators and "spreading Democracy," but all of that has changed since he realized that "was progressive thinking."

"That's why I'm against war," he said, "because it's a progressive idea."

The sentiments echoed those he expressed in a column on Monday in which he wrote, "I started researching and my eyes were opened to the fact that progressives were marching forward while regular liberals and conservatives were simply being used. That’s my pivot point and the main reason why I’m against war in Syria today."

"The time for politics and party loyalty is over. Do your own homework," he exhorted his readers. "If you just take the administration’s word for it (or John McCain or John Boehner or Lindsey Graham’s for that matter) that it’s ‘slam dunk’ case, I believe you are part of the problem. Likewise, if you are against it just because I said so but you really don’t know why – you are part of the problem too. You are stopping, dare I say it – progress."

Last week, Beck lumped Pres. George W. Bush and Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) into the doctrine of progressivism, tweeting, "(R)epublican Progressives (McCain/Bush/Graham) love nation building. Spreading of 'Democracy' remember 'freedom is on the march?'"

It is worth mentioning that the penultimate aim of progressive foreign policy as set forth in 1918 by Pres. Woodrow Wilson is the equal participation in world peace by all powers, and that the philosophy behind the policy was explicitly anti-Imperialist.

In the 14 points published in January of 1918, Wilson wrote, "The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world."

The aim of the treaty that ended World War One, said Wilson, was "that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression."

Watch the video, embedded below via RightWingWatch.org:

[image via Facebook.com/Glenn Beck]