There's no proof that if the size of government is shrunk that people will give more to charity. Plus, the kind of giving Beck has in mind is giving to churches which would probably translate into those that receive charity from them being more likely to feel a need to join them or be beholden to them.

I personally am suspect that giving will magically increase to offset spending cuts, if there isn't a demonstration now, with where people are, that they are interested in giving more.  People would be just as inclined to spend the money on themselves, if they get tax cuts (general) if the money would go to help the poor more, or not, offsetting the loss of government spending.  One thing charities do have a concern about, is if you mess around with the inheritance tax, causing there to be none, they there will be a lost of an incentive to have people set up trusts where the charity gets money.  Flat out cutting on that end could have a very bad effect.  So, the end result would be a discouraging of people to do charitable giving with their inheritance.

Maybe some other factors can be looked at to show that, if you shrink government, the citizens would pick up the slack.  Or, if this doesn't happen, that the poor and people on welfare should really not get any help at all.  In other words, arguments made in something like this video:

umm... except the within the first 24 hours of launching this "charity campaign" his audience donated MEALS, that doesnt really have anything to do with churches.

even if it did, when people give charitable donations to churches, that mostly goes to things like church funded food pantries, shelters, clothes and stuff.

Which sounds better, having government force people at gunpoint to give money into welfare programs (most of this money doesn't actually go to the poor anyway as it is gobbled up by beurocrats), or people voluntarily giving their donations and time to the needy (charities are much more likely to actually help the needy with the exception of a few scam organizations here and there)?

I don't think you can really shrink a government though or even change it in a meaningful way outside of a revolution. There is no incentive for governments to remain small, and there are tons of incentives for governments to grow in size until they eventually collapse. Small government doesn't work, and neither does big government. You can either try to build a voluntarist society without government, or you can keep going through the cycle of having a small government get bigger and bigger and then fall apart only to be replaced by a new one. The former option is much more stable in my opinion.

Very true. I also believe that if the goverment was smaller it would cost less to run and therefor we would be taxed less. If that happens we all would have more money in our pockets and would be willing to give more to charities. It's hard for a family to give, even if they want to, when the goverments forces them to pay up. And it's easy for those families to figure what the goverment takes and parces for relief is good enough.

Like what RichardHutnik said, his insanity was making advertisors wary, so he moved before it could become a problem.

Right, but with freedom to give people can choose not to, or worse still, choose to give to counterproductive causes, like that sexist "Center for Military Preparedness" which bases its plank on trying to keep women out of the military.

I highly doubt that because conseratives for the most parts are nothing more then talk.  I don't know of one conservative billionare that is willing to give up his entire fortune like Bill Gates.

When you play to the fringe and go into the political realm, and try to score points there running programming that is paid by sponsors, those who have strong disagreement with you will target your sponsors, to get you off the air.  That is what happened with Glenn Beck.  And, as much as maybe he was sincere in his intentions, the way he went with the conspiracy theories made him a prime target to get framed as being nuts. 

I am sure Alex Jones runs into very similar, which is why he is on the Internet and not cable.  Jesse Ventura managed to get a more obscure cable channel gig by doing some show called Conspiracy Theories, but he seemed to hit at everything in not targeting anyone politically.  Penn and Teller have their show on Showtime, and they are clearly Libertarian, but hit all over the place, and don't go after politicla people.  Go after political folks, and you will get your sponsor targeted, which will drive you off cable.  Cable networks don't want to lose sponsors.

And there is also the idea of having a prosperity machine that would magically give everyone what they want, and we wouldn't have to do with poverty or shortages.  That sounds a lot better than looking at trying to figure out how to make sure that people don't get left so far behind they end up revolting and burning the place down.  Ideally, a volunteerist society would be awesome, but people have ideals and feeling of how society should be, but don't have the will or resourced to commit it so.  They do have elected officials that pander to these, and try to make do.  End result is people want a strong man to come in and make it so.  What you witnessed, for example with Occupy, is why volunteerists don't accomplish much at all.  People have their own agendas and they don't work together.  So, to get things solved, people want power somewhere sufficient to affect change, and make it happen, by force if need be.  Then they rationalize this use of force they dislike, by a dozen of excuses.