I got talked into attending a couple of local "9-12" events, until I actually read all his points including the religious stuff 
Can't we agree that the fed.gov is off the reservation without have to believe the same creed 
I tolerate the religious stuff.
In a former life I was a data analyst. It's something I pretty much can't escape as a habit. Once you tune your thinking to look for specific types of data inconsistency, it becomes a way of life.
Someone tells you a story, leaves out the date and/or time. First response?
When did that happen?Someone tells you a story, gives events a timeline that seems . . . "off." Response?
What was the actual sequence of those events?Someone tells you a story, includes "facts" which contradict each other or which contradict other already-known facts. What's the "normal" response? "
Well, there must be a reason it's like that." What's the
correct response?
Explain to me how THIS can be true if THAT is also true.
Watching the "news" will give you a serious case of the squints if you're a data analyst.
There is a type of data inconsistency that I can tolerate better than others, as long as I can filter it out, and that is the "added inapplicable datum" type. I can learn what I need to know about a situation in spite of the reportage being salted with a religious overlay, as long as the data itself is properly sourced, internally consistent, and doesn't conflict with other observable data or stuff I already know.
Beck believes that what he does has implications in the context of his faith, and to me this is "internally consistent"
for him. I'm able to decouple the faith-based aspect of his reportage from the facts themselves. It can be tiresome, but I deem it worth the effort.
Imagine, if you will, that some reporter, in the process of bringing forth a series of facts, reveals that he finds them troubling because of some personal bogeyman he has. You observe that his bogeyman is not
your bogeyman, and examine the facts anyway. In the process of this, you discover that the facts are troubling -- to you -- because of
your own personal bogeyman, and so you bring these facts to my attention.
So . . . do you just give me the facts? Do you give them to me in the context of the first guy's bogeyman, or do you use the context of your own personal bogeyman? Do you gauge how you will relay these facts to me based on what you know of
my own bogeymen? Or do you just grit your teeth and try to deliver
just the facts, ma'am, despite your own misgivings or those of the person from whom you first heard it?
And, finally, do the facts matter enough to you that you will
set side your disregard/disinterest/contempt for the bogeymen of the guy doing the research so that you can have enough information to plan for yourself?
I listen to Beck, not because I'm Mormon (I'm not) and not because I'm a big fan of "biblical interpretations," but because he looks in places others will not look, obtains and reports results that others will not report, and will bring to light data that others will actively try to obscure/obfuscate/suppress.
I "get" where he's coming from, and I'm satisfied that, whatever his belief framework, he is operating from a position of personal morality along a vector of truth, and the result of that is data I can trust for the most part. Happily, I have a wife who does massive amounts of research, and I can generally verify anything I find questionable in fairly short order.
We find that Beck is right way more often than he is wrong.
If he happens to be right because of some kind of inspiration, I can live with that.
