Glenn Beck: To Fight Progressivism, 'Know What You Believe In — And Then Hold Fast to It' (UPDATED WITH VIDEO)

Radio and TV personality Glenn Beck said Saturday that Americans — in order to turn back the tide of progressive politics and a government that props it up — must "know what you believe in — and then hold fast to it."

"Socialists and progressives are nothing more than communists with patience, that's it," Beck told the cheering crowd of thousands during his keynote address at the FreePAC Kentucky event in Louisville.

"The progressive disease is in both parties, period. It's antithetical to the American system, period."

Image source: FreePAC Kentucky via YouTube

Beck also reaffirmed his support of Republican U.S. Senate candidate ­ Matt Bevin ("I believe that man was called of God") and vehement opposition to the man running against Bevin in the upcoming primary: "Mitch McConnell is as big a danger to this country as Barack Obama," Beck said.

Beck also brought along a table full of historically significant artifacts that add tactile and visual exclamation points to his impassioned pleas for Americans to never forget history — and if they have, to get reacquainted with it.

Among the artifacts he shared with the audience was a microphone used by Tokyo Rose in World War II (to underscore the truth that she in fact used her time she was kept in Japan to help the allied cause) and the last script signed by Josef Mengele — a physician in the  Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, which was for sleeping pills to give to children who were "undesirables."

"We have seen these times before," Beck said. "History must be preserved" and not erased.

Beck reiterated a phrase he noted at the start of his speech, that "these are the beginnings of miracles" but added a crucial qualifier: "It requires us to stand...and it requires us to get hit."

To that end, Beck told the crowd to dig in and get ready.

"I challenge you to know what you believe in — and then hold fast to it," Beck said.

Near the end of his talk, Beck held up George Washington's compass.

"He's my hero because he didn't do what he wanted to do," Beck said, his voice choking up. "He did what God wanted him to do."

Beck shared that one day toward the end of his time at Fox News, he kept the compass in his pocket — and his hand on the compass, feeling the indentation left by the fingers of Washington — to remind himself to "stay true."

To conclude Beck noted a phrase from the original prospectus of the Disneyland theme park — that it would be about "the ideals, dreams, and hard facts that have made America" to "send them forth as a source of courage and inspiration to the world."

Beck told the crowd that was his challenge as well — that all of us would "stay true" and hold fast to the ideas of American and "internalize them, live them, preach them...and send them forth."

Here's Beck's full speech:

Other who spoke at FreePAC Kentucky included TheBlaze Radio's Andrew Wilkow, constitutionalist attorney Rick Brueggemann, author Deneen Borelli, U.S. Congressional candidate Dan Bongino, FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe, and U.S. Senate candidate ­ Matt Bevin.