UPDATED: Glenn gives rousing Civil Rights speech outside the Capitol

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Glenn returned to D.C. on Wednesday to give his first speech at a Tea Party event at the Capitol since Restoring Honor. Thousands showed up for the Tea Party Patriots 'Audit the IRS' event that coincided with the press conference, featuring Reps Bachmann, Gohmert, and King, to block any immigration legislation from passing through the House.

The 'Audit the IRS' event kicked off at 12pm ET, following the press conference on immigration. Glenn joined conservatives leaders like Dana Loesch, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Rand Paul, and many others to speak at the event. While most focused on the issue of the IRS audits targeting conservative and religious groups — Glenn took on the fundamental basis of the issue: Civil Rights.

With the Black Robed Regiment at his side, Glenn tackled issues of equal rights, faith, and leadership in front of the large Tea Party crowd. He noted that a statue of Fredrick Douglas has just been dedicated just a few steps from where they were standing, inside the Capitol.

"A man born into slavery, but who knew instinctively that he was not born a slave," Glenn said to start his speech. "No man is."

Glenn highlighted that all Civil Rights movements boil down to one thing: Man's quest and desire for power.

"Someone has always been on the losing end of the stick of power," he said. " Blacks are the most obvious, the Chinese, the Native Americans — but let's not forget the Irish, the Catholics, the Mormons, the Jews, and now it seems all those of faith that will not conform."

But for those that believe the solution lies in putting the "collective" ahead of the individual, Glenn issued a stern warning…

"For those that think men make progress collectively, I warn you, history teachers: You couldn't be more wrong."

"We are redeemed one man at a time," he continued. "There is no family pass ticket or park hopping pass to life. One ticket — one at a time. man doesn’t vanquish hatred or bigotry. the target keeps moving. From the blacks to the Irish; atheists to Christians. But as always there are a few leaders: Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, Booker T Washington, Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

They know that the march toward freedom never ends, man must be ever vigilant and pray less with his lips and more with his legs."

Glenn closed his speech by reminding the crowd that if they've been looking for a leader, and they haven't been able to find one, it might be because they're the leader they're looking for. And it's time to take a stand.

“Let us, today, raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.”

On tonight's Glenn Beck Program, Glenn talked with Stu about his experience in D.C.:

Dana Loesch also joined Stu to talk about the wonderful crowd that descended on Washington D.C. today, and why she found herself so fired up.

See Glenn's complete remarks below:

Today, inside, they dedicated a new statue of another American giant, Fredrick Douglas – a man born into slavery, but who knew instinctively that he was not born a slave. No man is.

To keep a man a slave you do much the same as the cruel circus masters did to the elephant around the turn of last century. Clamp heavy chains around their legs and stake them to the ground. Then beat and terrorize them. After a while you no longer even have to stake the chain; the elephant gives up and just the mere rattle of the chain convinces the elephant there is no hope, so they give up and do what ever it is the circus requires.

Fredrick Douglas was lucky enough to live in a house where he was taught to read, write and think. He knew God did not make men masters over others. Nor did he ever intend any man to impose unrighteous dominion over another man or beast.

It is time we remind ourselves of this truth again, and begin to rise up against the intimidation before the handful of peanuts from our new political circus masters is considered a kindness and not the symbol of evil cruelty.

In the building behind me, they are now excusing storing all data, phone calls, financial transactions, geotracking on every American for our “safety,” while allowing anyone to cross our borders either on foot or in underground tunnels without any worry or consequence.

They have not suspended or fired butpromoted those at the IRS who rattled the chains of control to any group that disagreed with their policies. And now, after pushing misery and death through the so-called “Arab Spring” in country after country, they are plotting a new war with Syria. This will bring death and destruction the world over. We are told that we need to pick sides and arm those who are so far down the scale of decency that even Vladimir Putin asked Americans if they knew that those we are arming have literallyeaten their enemies on the battlefield.

The fact that he even needed to ask that question, and that most have never even seen the video of the commander of the rebel troops on TV engaging in this ungodly horror, is an indictment of our government officials and our media.

I am surrounded today by some modern-day spiritual giants. All from different faiths, different backgrounds and many different views. But we all have one thing in common. We don’t recognize our country anymore and because we know that God is just, we tremble for our children’s future.

We wonder, are we even worth defending anymore? If so, why? Who are we? And will we even notice or care when the chain is finally snapped around our legs?

What will be written about us? The greatest generation has passed. We who are historians will watch.

Will it be said that none called for justice not one pleaded for truth? They trusted in vanity and spoke lies. They conceived mischief and brought forth iniquity.

What is it we even believe as a people anymore? Where did we get these ideas that now seem so popular?

Our forbears came to these shores not for free stuff, but for freedom. The chance to make their own way, create a different life. They came here because they knew that God made them free to make their own way in life, take the risk, do their best and take responsibility for their own lives.

They came here because they wanted to serve Him in the way they believed, not as they were told.

But how many care about our history? And, of those who do care, how many really still believe?

Some things are worth believing in. That the little guy can make it. Every single life has value and is worth living. That honor and integrity do matter. That justice will prevail – if not in this life – then the next, and that God does exist. And what we do in our lives matters.

It is the meek and the humble that inherit the earth. Have we forgotten?

We have declared ourselves masters of the earth — spread our troops all over the world, taught the world how to do banking like we do it here in America.  Even though we can’t even master ourown homes, protect our neighborhoods, or simply balance a check book. How grotesque and garish we must appear to those looking in.

I, for one, still believe in the silly notion of truth, justice and the American way.

Since our founding, a good percentage of our fellow citizens closed their eyes to the civil rights of all Americans. “I’m okay. I don’t want to think of the bad things going on. I am busy. It doesn’t affect me. It can’t be that bad and even if it is, I am just one person and what can I do about it anyway?”

Nothing has changed, except the chairs at the table.

Someone has always been on the losing end of the stick of power. Blacks are the most obvious, the Chinese, the Native Americans, but lets not forget the Irish, the Catholics, the Mormons, the Jews, and now it seems all those of faith that will not conform.

For those that think men make progress collectively: I warn you, history teaches that you couldn’t be more wrong. We are redeemed one man at a time. There is no “family pass” ticket or park hopping pass to life. One ticket, one life at a time.

Man doesn’t vanquish hatred or bigotry. The target keeps moving. From the blacks to the Irish. Atheists to Christians.

But as always, there are a few leaders: Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They know that the march toward freedom never ends; man must be ever-vigilant and pray less with his lips and more with his legs.

They never forget that truth, justice, and freedom are the wellspring from which the waters of man’s civil rights come. And so they must be upheld for all men – those you know, those you do not, and maybe more importantly — they must be upheld for those who you do know but do not like or agree with at all.

If they are lost for one, in the end they are lost for all.

In the past, these historic stands which we now call civil rights movements were done by a small but dedicated portion of our citizens which led to great shifts in our culture.  But those movements always came from the same institutions … the church.  And usually not the church with the popular preacher, but the one who put it on the line to tell the people the truth.

Preachers like these men, who know that we are all born free, but that freedom comes at a great price — a profound responsibility to stand against injustice, hatred and bigotry. Our pulpits have gone quiet out of arrogance, fear and apathy. Their faith is found in the wisdom of man and not in the power of God. For some, losing tithing checks or the gold Rolex watch has become more important than losing man’s freedom.

Whatever the reason, too many are no longer willing to call evil by its name. There is no vision. And when there is no vision, the people perish.

I humbly suggest to you that Martin Luther King knew the answer, and he lost more than congregants during his long march. Students are taught that his vision came from the ideas of Gandhi. Maybe a new radical 20th century progressive philospher was the one that taught MLK that “although we be free of all men, when we choose to make ourselves servants to all, we gain the more.”

Let’s get a couple of things straight. What MLK and Gandhi did was not progressive or new. It was an ancient idea. Hollywood, Woodstock, nor the hippie culture was the source of power of the 1960s freedom movement.

God was.

He was leading those who risked their lives over that bridge in Selma, not Janice Joplin, Columbia University, or a labor union. It wasn’t John Lennon that taught people about love and peaceful resistance — that job fell on the shoulders of a Jewish carpenter. And it is there that we will find the answers that will break the chains that are being forged for a new generation of slaves.

The rights that so many Americans ignorantly preach about so often are not really their rights. They belong to God and they are given to us for stewardship. They are pretty important and obvious. So obvious that we used to say they were “self-evident,” meaning that humans don’t need to be taught; you instinctively know that you have a right not to be executed without a trial, held without charge, searched without warrant or spied upon without cause.

The government is no longer the protector of those civil rights, and so we must be. When we are told that it is okay for the IRS, EPA, ATF, FBI or anyone to hassle, threaten or intimidate others because of their skin color, religion or political belief, we stop being the country that we all want to build, and start being the country the world should fear.

The long train of abuses regarding these rights are the same MLK marched against, and the very same our dusty founders warned us about losing.

Men may make progress, but man never changes. Man loves power and money. No matter the skin color, religion or income level. These symbols of our nation make men drunk with power, who then justify their lust for more by claiming they are public servants. The only difference between Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. is that at least Vegas has the decency to admit the town is full of hookers and crooks.

We must sober up and admit that too many of the Republicans and the Democrats have played us, lied to us and stolen from us, while the getaway car was driven by the media. A media that can no longer claim with a straight face the role of journalist. Journalists print the things the powerful don’t want printed. What they do is public relations. Those PR firms will not print the truth about the average American who finds himself concerned with the direction of our country today. So we must.

We are not violent. We are not racist. We are not anti immigrant. We are not anti-government. And we will not be silent anymore.

Those who wish to use unrighteous dominion over mankind are not enemies of ours; they are enemies of God, and He will not be silent much longer either.

We will no longer accept the lies, the corruption, or the information and data gathering. It is evil. And we come here today to send a message that we will surround all of those who wish to stand and break the cycle of corruption. We will use ourselves as shields to protect those in the system, the elected officials or whistle blowers with the courage to stand.

We come here today to respectfully, but with the power of the spirit, demand to be treated as an equal member of society. I am a man, and I will be treated as such. I answer to only one king and His kingdom will come, His will be done. We have chosen sides and we choose God. America as a nation must do the same, as well.

We come today to declare our independence, to reaffirm our founding principles. We, as a nation, acknowledge a creator. We acknowledge that he gives certain natural, guaranteed rights to man. We declare that government exists primarily to protect these natural, God-given rights. He has established right and wrong. He is just and therefore, man must pay for his mistakes either now on Earth, or through God’s justice later.

There is no such thing as social justice. Only God can balance things out, and we are not God. But honest and decent men can fight for and establish equal justice.

There is no such thing as collective salvation. We, however, are going to be judged on how we treat our fellow brothers and sisters. Thus we must serve them, help them with charity toward all. “Malice toward none,” Lincoln said. God said it slightly differently – vengeance is mine.

Anyone who speaks of punishing their political enemies in on the wrong side. It is clearly evil and we have a responsibility to say so.

America: it is now your time to rise up and boldly declare those same self-evident truths that changed the world, and demand that those truths remain the basis of our laws.

My civil rights will not be trampled, and I say this not for me but for my children, and all those who yearn to breathe free. Those who make your Apple products at Foxxcon, those who languish in prisons in Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela. Those homosexuals who are stoned to death in the streets of Egypt or Iran, while our so-called civil rights leaders hold coffee klatches with third graders in the White House.

We will stand not for our job, house or income, but we will stand for those immigrants who came here the right way, and not have their dreams destroyed by increasing competition at the lowest rung of the ladder while keeping the brightest and best minds out of the visa pool allowing for little competition at the top.

We will not pervert women’s rights and twist it into a gross silent defense of abortion doctors in Philly and Houston while turning our eyes from the forgotten women who have never had the civil right to walk alone on a street without a man, or to drive a car in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, and even those who now cower in fear with their faces covered in states like Florida, Virginia, New York and Minnesota.

We will not waste another second shadow boxing the demons of the past when the fight to end actual slavery is still happening today. Call it what you will, but those who make your iPad in China – those who make your cute little Mao purses – are the very people you claim to care so much about. They are the ones yearning to breathe free. And worse, there is the oldest form of human degradation man has ever known, the sex slave trade that currently has in its coils over 2 million children. The biggest source of this evil is a wide open hole in our Arizona border.

We beg the American people to wake up and help the 8-year-old children being sold into sex slavery. The press may say, ‘How dare these men declare themselves the next Martin Luther King or civil rights leaders?’

How blind to believe the civil rights movement ever ended. The civil rights movement never ends, and it never will. It has been marching since the beginning of time. Where Martin Luther King started is where Gandhi left off, and where he started, Abe Lincoln left off, and before that Whitfield all the way back to Moses. God has not moved. We have. But it is never too late. We are not at the mercy of these events. We can alter the course of history. We can stand against the dangerous arc of this story.

But we need people who are willing to speak truth.

The last century was a century of genocide. A century where collectivist, national socialist, and communist evil rose up again and again… swallowing up the lives of millions. It happens every time man says the collective is more important than the right of the individual. That one phrase becomes in the end – every time – a license to kill anyone deemed to be standing in the way of progress.

But evil met its match. Goodness eventually prevailed. People like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Lech Walesa and Mother Theresa awoke the world. They gave their lives to the pursuit of human rights. They took the side of justice against injustice; they held aloft the torch of freedom to push out the darkness of hate. These men and women lived difficult lives. They often lived shortened lives. They were often born to relative privilege, but willing to take on suffering. They did want not to martyr themselves. They would have happily lived to the end of their natural lives in comfort… but to the righteous, there is no comfort when evil has taken root.

But the cause of human rights has been taken over by organizations who share little with the individuals who led the movement. Human rights was once a cry for justice. Now it used as a threat. These organizations have become bullies and grotesque parodies of the principles they pretend to represent. They criticize free nations and spare the unfree. They denounce nations like Israel and America, who have high standards for freedom, and leave alone nations that have no freedom at all. They are nearly comical in their double-standards.

They are no more than the enforcers or the attack dogs of those who wish to keep men confined in spaces they design. Whatever moral force they once had is spent. Their time is up. And so, we dismiss them. Today we take back the phrase “human rights” and place it where it belongs, as the first half of God’s plan for humanity. The second half is responsibility.

If we want to be endowed with rights – real human rights, we have to act with responsibility. We must not be comfortable with rights. We must be comfortable with responsibility.

Who will protect your rights better? A king, president or you?

Who will protect the truth? A reporter, a labor union or you?

Who will protect and teach your children to seek truth? A textbook committee, an education bureaucrat, or you?

Did a commission of wise men stop the Holocaust? Did a committee of Congress end Jim Crow?

No. In each case, the work was done by individuals who would not abide convenient lies.

They saw injustice and they called it out. They saw their nation wage war against a single group and they said “not in my name.” They didn’t wait for the conventions of society to catch up to God’s laws. They pushed. They pressed. And they were victorious.

Each of us have been waiting for a leader to rise from among us. And none have. How many have been called and refused to serve? How many must have failed to heed the call for the Lord to make it all the way down to us?

I pray now that those who have heard the call to rise up in the tradition of peaceful resistance do so now before, as it was with Bonhoeffer, it is too late. I beg those with eyes and ears to heed the call and begin to train under the exact system used by MLK. Search his words out. You will find that your history professors and civil rights activists left out the real author of the words of Gandhi, King and Bonhoeffer.

Read them, ponder them, and risk living them. Even though they will make you a target of the NSA, having your name on their list as an enemy may in the end be the way your name is forever etched in his book of life.

Pastors, priests and rabbis: I challenge you. What have you done with your knowledge and priesthood power that those without have not done this week? If you cannot answer that with power every day, what does that say about you?

Average citizens and college students: I challenge you. Martin Luther King didn’t take a class, get a certificate and a bunch of permits. He saw injustice, studied eternal truths, exercised discipline and marched.

If you don’t find a leader, perhaps it is because you were meant to lead.

Christians: I believe in the free market. If your preacher is too afraid to preach it from the pulpit, maybe you should preach it from the street corner. Many are called. Will you answer?

Our spiritual body is out of shape and we need intensive training right now.

Get back to God, and know that some things are true and worth believing in. The good guysdo win in the end. Evil does not stand unless good men never rise up. The time is now and we are the people the world is waiting for. We must never stop being the shore that others can come to for shelter and hope.

But to do so we must realign ourselves with truth and rise up and stand. This is the vision. We must preach good tidings to the meek, bind up the brokenhearted, and proclaim liberty to those held captive. To declare vengeance belongs to God and God alone. We must give unto those who mourn — beauty for ashes and water the trees of righteousness. We shall not perish.

I can’t help that most of us don’t like to hear the truth, but hear it we must: George Washington told us religion and morality are the only stable and lasting basis of individual life and public policy. If we are to survive, they must be part of our public policy rather than driven from it.

It is no longer enough to just be a good person. We must work to be the next Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King. It is noble to strive to be the size of the bronze giant they dedicated this morning in the building behind me. Fredrick Douglas’ time was in the 1800; King’s time has passed. This is our time. This is the next long march toward civil rights and we shall overcome.

Stand without fear, lock arms and stare down the bullies that wish to enslave mankind yet again.

Honor, courage and love are what is required, and they are contagious. Spread the word and proclaim liberty throughout the land.

“Let us, today, raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.”

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

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Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

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A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

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The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

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A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

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The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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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.

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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.