In what may be one of the most surreal television episodes ever to stumble across the airwaves, Glenn Beck of Fox News concluded yesterday’s program with an appeal to his congregation that raises some serious questions. And while it may have been an unprecedented moment in news programming, it was fairly common for the sort of Apocalyptic cult leaders on whom Beck models himself. He began by saying…

BECK: Now let me give the warning to you. If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would destroy the republic.

This sermon was, on the surface, a call to stand down. Some of his minions may have been acting out a little too aggressively. Just a few days ago, a Long Island, NY, woman with ties to Beck and FEMA camp conspiracies, was arrested outside an Air National Guard base with a cache of weapons. And a few weeks ago, a man in Washington, D.C. shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum on a rampage that was fueled by the fear of a black president who was marching the nation to Socialism.

So now we have the spectacle of a national cable news network’s host admonishing his viewers to refrain from violence. In this video, Beck beseeches his audience to be “forceful, but peaceful” in their fight against a government that he aligns with Marxism; a government that he asserts is destroying our American way of life and consigning us all to slavery. After whipping his followers up into a frenzy with talk of tyrannical doom, he now seeks to spread a layer of calm across their fevered brows. But why now? Does he know something? Has he been receiving more disquieting ravings from his lunatic corps than usual? Or is it because of stuff like this:

“Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President’s Secret Service.”

On one hand, I am glad that Beck may have finally recognized the imminent risk that his rhetorical incitations present. And even if he doesn’t, at least he is yielding to more prudent advice from his bosses and/or lawyers. On the other hand, it is deeply disturbing that there should ever be a need for such an admonition. I can’t think of any other mainstream broadcaster who has had to qualify his lectures by adding “Oh yeah, don’t be killin’ anybody.”

Beck, of course, is a special case. He is more than just a cable TV host. He leads an army of ignorant, disinformed (by him, mostly), soldiers of faith who are unstable and unpredictable. That is why he finds it necessary to assuage their more frightening tendencies from time to time. But even in the act of dialing down the crazy that he and his disciples have come to embody, he still manages to disgust. In his plea to abstain from mass murder, Beck serves up this reasoning:

BECK: Just one lunatic like Timothy McVeigh could ruin everything that everyone has worked so hard for, because these people in Washington won’t pass up the use of an emergency.

Allow me to break this down. Beck is cautioning against committing acts of terror, not because of the tragic loss of life and personal suffering, but because it will harm the movement he is leading – it will “ruin everything.” He is opposed to orgies of homicide, not because it is morally repugnant, but because some unnamed denizens of Washington will exploit the catastrophe for their own nefarious purposes.

What really ought to alarm anyone who is truly concerned about the increasingly hostile and violent language that emanates from Beck and his ilk is that, if he can order his troops to draw down, can he also command them to advance? In fact, is he already doing so? Just last week he told his audience that he is afraid that he might be silenced and that he would have to disguise the true meaning of his commentaries.

BECK: And if you hear me stop saying these things, it’s because I can no longer say them to you. But hear them between the sentences. Hear them, please. I will be screaming them to you.

With that, Beck has given his most depraved disciples permission to interpret anything he says any way they want. Now, take another look at yesterday’s appeal to be peaceful, this time interpreting it from the demented perspective of a Beckian who believes that the government has already commenced suppressing Beck and his message.

BECK: Now let me give the warning to you.
TRANSLATION: Read between the lines at what I am “screaming” to you.
BECK: If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would destroy the republic.
TRANSLATION: Since the republic is irreversibly on the road to Marxism, it ought to be destroyed. Don’t you think?
BECK: Just one lunatic like Timothy McVeigh could ruin everything that everyone has worked so hard for, because these people in Washington won’t pass up the use of an emergency.
TRANSLATION: Just one hero could ruin everything the tyrannical usurpers in Washington have worked so hard for. Is there a hero amongst you?

Beck and his Fox News masters are probably convinced that they have sufficiently shielded themselves from any legal liability in the event of a catastrophic, Beck-driven calamity. But they cannot wash their hands of this so easily. Especially when Beck continues to preach the sort of hateful diatribes that feed the doomsday fantasies of his flock. He can’t keep shouting…

HEY! There is a mob of rabid, pillaging, Satanists on their way to rape your daughters and kill the rest of you. It’s time to stand up and fight back against these hordes who threaten everything we hold dear. They have spit on your flag and blasphemed your God and now they are here for your honor and your lives.

And, oh yeah, when they get here you should be “forceful, but peaceful” with them. After all, I don’t believe in violence.

It is not enough to periodically deny an agenda that you promote on a daily basis. It is not enough to pretend that you oppose what you so vocally advocate. As long as Beck persists in blowing on the embers, he is responsible for the fire that ensues.