No Obamacare: Whole Foods CEO John Mackey plans to open private office for employees to get free healthcare

February 07, 2013

Writer

Glenn has had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Whole Foods over the years (let us not forget the story about the torture of lobsters during transport), but he has always had a tremendous amount of respect for Whole Foods co-CEO, John Mackey.

Mackey is a libertarian at heart, who has managed to gain favor with the left and the right because of his tremendous business sense and the company he has created. Glenn has been talking a lot about the “Golden Circle” lately – the idea that it is the ‘why’ not the ‘what’ that matters most in business. Mackey’s latest book, Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, tackles these themes and explains the importance of capitalism and the entrepreneurial spirit.

On radio this morning, Glenn interviewed Mackey about his latest book and the business model that has made Whole Foods so successful. View the full transcript of the interview below:

GLENN: Hi, John. How are you?

MACKEY: Very well. How are you doing?

GLENN: I'm really good. I'm thrilled to see someone stand up for capitalism, but a different kind of capitalism that I think is what we all want capitalism to be. Too many people are not doing it.

MACKEY: Yes. Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Toady, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it's the greatest value creator in the world.

GLENN: I've been reading a lot of 19th century history, especially around Edison, and Tesla, and GE. There is – there was back then, and there is now, the greedy capitalist that doesn't care, and then there's the capitalist that does care, the Westinghouse of the day that is trying to do the right thing and sees his product as something with value, sells it at a proper price but is trying to create something of real value and holds to his principles. When that happens you have happy employees; you have happy customers; and you create value all around. However, even in today's world, look at what the symbol of the person that represents capitalism, at least if you're a conservative, I guess would be Donald Trump. That doesn't seem like happiness at all. The ‘why’ is: my name is in gold and I've got a whole bunch of money in the end.

MACKEY: Business is judged, unfortunately, by its worst actors. There are greedy doctors too, and there are plenty of greedy lawyers. There are bad actors in every profession. Business tends to be judged by its very worst practitioners: the Enrons, the World Coms, and the Bernie Madoff's. And they are the ones that capture the media's attention, and it's extended to all of business. Most business people though are ethical, and they create value for their customers, for their employees, for their suppliers, their investors, and the communities they are a part of. Business is fundamentally about voluntary exchange for mutual benefit. And it shouldn't be judged by its worst actors any more than all doctors should be slandered because a doctor misdiagnosed a disease or took out the wrong kidney. That doesn’t mean all are bad. That means there are a few that are. I think that is the same way in business.

GLENN: The name of the book by John Mackey is Conscious Capitalism. Tell me the difference – you talk about it here – but can you sum it up – the difference between what you're talking about and corporate social responsibility.

MACKEY: The biggest difference between corporate social responsibility and conscious capitalism is corporate social responsibility takes the standard sort of profit centric model of the purpose of business is to maximize profits, and then it grafts on to what it calls corporate social responsibility, which is usually a department that reports through public relations and marketing in an attempt to help the brand image of the company. It may just be skin deep. It may not have any authenticity to it, whereas conscious capitalism starts with the principle of creating a business having a higher purpose than just making money and creating value for all of its interdependent state holders, which includes the community. So creating value for stake holders including the community is at the essence of the conscious business or the conscious capitalistic company. It’s not an add on. It's not grafted on. It's why the business exists in the first place. That's the biggest difference.

GLENN: I have – the Ayn Rand people have a problem with me, and I don’t have a problem with the Ayn Rand people, they have a problem with me because I believe in charity, and I believe in doing good. But I don't believe in forcing anybody. That’s why I have a problem with a lot of our tax structure. You're forcing me to do it, and it doesn't change my heart in a good way. It changes my heart in a bad way. I lived in New York for a while. You eventually end up saying, ‘Why isn’t the city taking care of this?’ instead of you doing it. You know the Ayn Rand philosophy is much of just the greed is good and go make it because you want to do it, and you want to build something, and it only belongs to you. Where I think if you are doing part of that – if you are following that, you are following your passion. Your passion is because you want to it but also because it is doing something good. That's where the real magic happens.

MACKEY: I tend to – on this particular discussion I happen to side with you on it.

GLENN: Hang on just a second.

MACKEY: A lot of the Ayn Rand people don’t like me either for a similar reason. But I admire Ayn Rand’s novels a great deal.

GLENN: So do I.

MACKEY: They are wonderful novels and had an impact on me particularly when I was younger. But I think she is fundamentally wrong when she makes a distinction between the kind of a straw man that people are completely self-interested or they're altruistic. It seems obvious to me that humans are both self-interested but we also care about others. We also have ideals. We also want to do good. And so I don't see it. She's fundamentally, I think, wrong. Glenn when you consider the fact that Gallup shows that the overall approval rating of big business in America is down to 19%. That means 81% do not approve of it. So I think when you say it’s all about selfishness and greed then you have basically fallen into the – you’re reinforcing the critics perspective and it’s harming the overall brand image and reputation of business in the world. Business is about creating value for other people and voluntary exchange. It is the greatest value creator in the world. It's what's making all the different. But if we are going to let it be portrayed as fundamentally selfish and greedy, we’ve already lost the argument before we even begin it.

GLENN: There's no problem with making money. If you are in the banking or Wall Street industry, at the end of your days you can say, ‘I helped create business. I helped lift people out of poverty.’ But the creation of money in and of itself – money is a tool. It’s not a destination. It's a vehicle.

MACKEY: I agree.

GLENN: And too many people don't understand that.

MACKEY: The money is produced through exchange, through voluntary exchange. You create value. You create goods and services that other people voluntarily buy because it is in your best interest to do so. You usually have competition for their money and their time, and their energy. If you're producing a profit, it’s because – and I'm not saying there's not crooked businesses out there, but they are rare and not the most common ones. If you produce money it’s because you've created value for others and they've exchanged with you. Your profit is justly earned through the creation of value for other people.

GLENN: I will tell you John, when I first saw Whole Foods, I didn't go into your store. I think I rolled my eyes when I first saw your store because I thought, ‘oh is this the new marketing thing now? Oh look at us.’ I think that’s the problem with business now. We've been marketed to our whole life. If you were born past 1950, you've been marketed to your entire life. And so you can spot a fraud now really pretty fast. And everybody seems to be a fraud, and I think that the media, and way we spin stories and everything else tends to make everybody a fraud. Over time all I had to do was walk into one of your stores you can feel the difference. You can tell when a company means it and when it's just a show. And that is extraordinarily difficult to do.

MACKEY: Well, thank you. I do think that the world and people today, you are absolutely right, we have been marketed to. We’ve been spun to. It's one of the reasons we have trouble liking most of our politicians. We don't feel like they're telling us the truth. We always feel like they are telling us, they are spinning to us, they are deceiving us. Politicians do that. Advertisers do it. There's a strong desire for basic authenticity, for basic integrity, and truth telling. And we want that in our products. We want that in with the businesses we trade with. We like to have it with our politicians. I do think Whole Foods is very authentic. I appreciate you for recognizing that.

GLENN: I've got two issues, if you don’t mind me having a private session with you here for a second. I have two issues. One, I refuse to dump my employees into government healthcare because it stinks, and I don't even want to dump my employees into cheaper healthcare. I currently pay 100% of the deductible. They don't put anything in it. We have the best healthcare money can buy. But it is increasingly becoming more and more difficult for me to do that. I want to think out of the box. I've told my employees if it comes down to it, if I can I'll build my own damn hospital and hire our own doctors. But we have to think out of the box. A, do you know anything on the horizon that is good for healthcare that is reasonable. Two, how do you move a company and make sure that it stays on that course as it grows? Six years ago we had six employees, and I think we're approaching 300 employees now and it's extraordinarily difficult especially in a fast growth business to hold that culture down. How do you do it?

MACKEY: It's very challenging. And it's good you're asking these questions. First on that – we’ll get back to the culture in a second – I applaud you for your idea. It’s interesting you say that about the hospital. Whole Foods is going to do a similar experiment. We’re going to open a doctor's office in L.A. that will be free for all of our team members and their dependants.

GLENN: That is exactly what we are thinking.

MACKEY: And if that works, we're going to spread it to other cities around the country, where we have our stores.

GLENN: May we watch and learn from you?

MACKEY: Sure, we believe that 80% of what we spend on healthcare in America are for diseases like heart disease and stroke and obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune diseases, and they really correlate very closely with what people eat, and the type of lifestyle we live. So the best way we can cut healthcare costs and help our people to be healthier is to help educate them and teach them. We can't force them, and we don’t want to force them. But we want to help educate them to eat healthier, and have a healthier lifestyle. We think that will be beneficial to people's health, and cut down on healthcare expenses so it's a win win. We think we need to do that best with doctors. With doctors that people trust and they know, and will tend to all of their medical needs while we're trying to educate them. We're going to do that experiment. I’m pretty excited about it. We’ve got our office located. We've hired our doctor. We'll be getting going on that in a month or two.

GLENN: Good for you. Good for you.

MACKEY: So good luck with your hospital.

GLENN: Thank you very much. Well, we’ll probably start with one doctor in an office.

MACKEY: Your second question was about culture, and how do you maintain that culture as you rapidly grow. I think it's important that you create what your own higher purpose is for your organization, and make sure everybody knows that. You’re the entrepreneur, so you may have a vision but you've got to be able to communicate what that vision is and get other people to understand it and share it. And then you need to consciously begin to create the culture that will reinforce that purpose. Decide the cultural traits that your organization needs to have. We write about that in the book. Things like empowerment and love and care trying to manage without fear are very important culture traits, and so you have to pay attention to that because if you don't your culture will get created anyway, and it may not be the way you want it to be in terms of the goals you want to see your organization achieve. It's good that you're becoming more conscious about culture, and if you're conscious about it you can act in ways to help your organization flourish.

GLENN: John, it's a real pleasure to talk to you. And I applaud you for what your company has done. I applaud your stance on capitalism, and applaud you for your book on trying to awaken more entrepreneurs and more capitalists. Capitalism has to be saved and the only way to do it is to actually start to highlight those people who are doing it right and proving that it is the greatest system for compassion in the history of the world.

MACKEY: Thank you Glenn. Interesting statistic that I don't know if your listeners know about it, but Of course the United States for the longest time had the highest degree of economic freedom in the world. In as short a period of time ago as 2000, we ranked number 3 behind Hong Kong and Singapore. Now in 2012 we fell down to number 18.

GLENN: Geez.

MACKEY: And as our economic freedom declines so does our prosperity – 7.9 percent unemployment. In the last decade we've actually seen for the first time in American history, the disposable income per capita actually declined. It’s the first time over a ten year period. We're losing our economic freedom and with it our prosperity. I think the first step is for business to begin to defend itself in a more cogent way, and that starts with purpose, and stake holder philosophy, and those are the principles we outline in the book.

GLENN: John. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

MACKEY: Thank you so much, Glenn.

GLENN: God bless. Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the heroic spirit of business. A must, must read by John Mackey. Available everywhere. Finally somebody with some clout is doing it.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

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What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

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The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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