Glenn: It's time for a reboot

On Thursday's Glenn Beck Program, Glenn explained why the world is in need a reset... but it's not as scary as you may think. Using the metaphor of attempting to reboot an old computer, Glenn showed why 'rebooting' the system might be exactly what America needs. How do we do that? Glenn offers some solutions in the clip below.

The below is the transcript for Glenn's monologue:

We brought this old dusty computer up here, and it’s amazing how slow our computers used to be.  This is an old one from the studio that has just been kind of sitting around.  When was the last time you use one like this?

Alright, I have this here for a reason, because this is the American system.  This is what we have.  Some would say that it’s old, it’s antiquated, it’s not working, blah, blah, blah.  But just a few changes need to be made.  I’ll get back to this here in a second.

First, earlier on this program, earlier this week, we mentioned the story of Madison Root, an 11-year-old girl from Oregon who wanted to help pay for her braces that her parents got her, so she came up with the idea to go to her uncle’s farm and to gather mistletoe which they grow there, put them into bags.  And so she did, and then she started selling them on the street in Oregon.  Great idea, right?  Except that’s not what the town said.

The town decided that they had to shut her down because she didn’t have the proper license or permit.  She’s 11, and they came and said you have to stop.  The town wouldn’t allow her to sell.  They actually told her, because she said what about the people over here that are begging?  And they said well, you can beg.  You just can’t sell.

You can’t sell in the marketplace, okay.  Well, it was the word “marketplace” that caught my ear when I heard the story because I have a marketplace, TheBlaze Marketplace.  Here’s the update to the story.  I had her on this morning, and I asked her if she would sell 1,000 of those.  Well, because of what she said – I’m going to play it for you in a minute – because of what she said and who she is, she sold those 1,000 mistletoes in 30 minutes.

So we called her back and said do you want to do another 1,000?  Do you have another 1,000?  Yeah, within an hour, those were sold out.  We called her up again, and she said I don’t know if we can get these out.  Her dad said we can get another 1,000 out – sold out again.  God bless America.  This isn’t about money.  This isn’t about anything, except someone being exceptional, someone saying I want to work for it.

Now, obviously she has exceptional parents.  We haven’t talked to the parents, but I did talk to her on the radio today.  I want you to listen to what she said.

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Glenn:  Did he volunteer that you could beg for the money?

Madison:  Well, we asked him about the beggars around us, and he said that they’re begging for money, so you could beg, but you can’t sell.

Glenn:  Does that make any sense to you?  You’re 11.  Does that make any sense to you at all?

Madison:  No, it does not make sense, because I’m working hard and trying to get something that I want, and I’m doing something.  I’m applying myself.  But now they’re saying that you don’t need to apply yourself.  You can just sit down and ask for money.  But what it really boils down to is this generation’s work ethic, and I think that how it’s going right now, it’s just disappointing.  It disappoints me that this country has come down to begging instead of working hard for something you want and need.

Glenn:  You go to public school.  Where are you learning this?  Because you’re not learning it in public school, are you?

Madison:  I don’t know.  My dad has his own company.  He’s an entrepreneur.  Everyone, my whole family, has always been entrepreneurs.  They always have some business going on.

That is an exceptional girl.  I mean, I love the fact that she’s like I can’t believe what this country is coming to.  I remember when I was eight, it wasn’t like this.  I mean, come on.  You don’t need a fancy Harvard education to solve America’s financial problems.  What you need is a little determination and common sense, and that is what we sorely lack.

When you have the people in charge in both parties that are supposed to be the adults, and they’re not, and they’re actually advising kids to beg for money instead of working for money, it’s not exactly surprising to learn that America has serious economic trouble.  We’re a group of people that quite honestly our men are addicted to pornography, our young men, and video games, and they’ve been sold a load of goods, a load of goods that everything will just fall their way.  And they know that they’ve been lied to.

So what do you do?  Jim Rogers, one of the top economic minds around the country, a guy I really appreciate, he’s been on the show several times because at least he’ll tell you the truth, no matter how ugly it is.  Now, whether you agree with him or not, that’s for you to do your own homework, but here’s his latest warning.

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Jim:  But eventually, Amanda, of course, the whole world is going to collapse.  We in the West have staggering debts.  The United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.  This is going to end badly.  We’re all floating around on a sea of artificial liquidity right now, Amanda.  This is not going to last.  You know, 2008 was worse than 2002 because the debt was so much higher.  You wait until 2015 or 2016, Amanda.  The debt has gone through the roof.  The next one’s going to be really bad.  Be very careful.  Be prepared.  Be worried, and be careful.

Be worried.  Be careful.  So he says a global collapse.  The world has never seen what is coming, and you know, if you disagree, I hope you’re right.  But this is why Progressives have been feverishly working on building a framework, and when I say that, remember that Progressives are in both parties, because a massive reset is coming.

Let me explain it.  Go back to the computer.  Computer’s finally up.  Our system is like this old computer, and we have just put too much crap on it.  We have put all kinds of bugs in the system.  We’ve just been loading it up with all kinds of applications that are slowing it down, that are bogging it down, that don’t work, and so what happens?  It’s freezing up.  It’s not working, which means because we have done all kinds of repair, at some point, this has to happen, a reboot.

Now, this is the scary part, because you and I can sit here for a while and watch it reboot.  We can sit here and go okay, installing update one of 15; however, when a global system goes down, what happens when all systems go down?  The world doesn’t sit around and go okay, hang on, we’re just rebooting; we’re just trying to put together a new monetary system.  It ends badly.

Every successful investor always says the time to buy is when everybody else is selling.  When everybody else sees calamity, they see opportunity.  The same lesson applies here.  There is opportunity, but not financial opportunity.  We have the opportunity soon to be the people that our founders knew eventually would come.

In the Constitutional Convention, New York was asking for free stuff, and they wanted more free stuff in the Constitution.  And they said we won’t be able to bring this to the people in New York.  They’re not going to want it – what a surprise.  They’re not going to want it.  They didn’t want a new constitution.  They want the Articles of Confederation.

And that’s when George Washington stood up and said with everything that we have given – I’m paraphrasing – with everything that we have given everything, everything that we’ve done, we can’t screw it up now.  We can’t screw it up now.  Let us do the right thing.  Let us raise a standard.  Let’s put a banner up that everyone can see around the whole world and say this is what we think is the best thing, and then let us raise that standard so the wise and the honest can repair it.

We’ve screwed it all up, gang.  We’ve loaded everything onto it.  We have a spending and debt crisis.  If you taxed all Americans 100%, you still wouldn’t solve it, 100%.  There’s overregulation.  When you have an 11-year-old who’s being shut down on the streets because she’s trying to pay for her own braces, what is that?

State sovereignty is on life support.  Your own personal sovereignty is, your church’s sovereignty.  If you’re an atheist, you have…your sovereignty is up for grabs.  The federal government has overwhelmed the system of checks and balances, and the founders knew all of this.  Despite all of the protections they put in, they knew a government would eventually reach overbloated, out-of-control levels because they knew it would go corrupt because people do when power and money is involved.

But that’s why they included Article V of the Constitution, George Washington, so the wise and the honest can repair it.  Well, what is Article V?  Well, Article V basically says Congress can amend the Constitution at any time if two-thirds of both houses of Congress agree.  Well, are you ever really going to get term limits?  No, you’re not.  Why?  Because they’re not going to limit their time in office.  They have to vote for it.  It’s not going to work.  You think you’re ever going to get budget limits where you say spending limit?  You’re not going to get that.  Why?  Because it hurts their power.

The founders knew it.  They had one lever to pull.  If everything else failed, the American people could pull this one lever.  It’s our escape pod.  They lay out a possibility of a convention of states.  If you can’t get Congress to do it, all you have to do is call two-thirds of the states to submit applications on the same issue.

Now, this is something that Mark Levin has come out, and I am wildly intrigued by a convention of states.  And it’s starting to happen.  Check and find out if it’s happening in your state.  If not, find out why.  The question is can we get two-thirds of the states to participate?  Well, there’s a lot of people that are dealing in fear right now and saying well no, it could go horrible.  We could have this global government.

No, you need 13 states, 13 states.  If we can’t get 13 states to say no to global government, we’re going to get a global government anyway, gang.  Yaron Brook, he is from the Ayn Rand Center.  He was on last week.  He actually said something, you know, I think we should rewrite the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.  Now, that might sound counterintuitive because most people, you know, the ones who are suggesting that we replace these documents are usually the Progressives, and they want to replace it with a charter of positive liberties instead of negative liberties, all the things the government has to do.

No, that’s not what we’re talking about.  Remember, you only have to get 13 states, 13 to disagree.  For an amendment, if you can get 38 states to say yes, do you think we could get 38 states to say term limits in Washington?  Remember, they’re local, so you’re with them.  You’re with the state.  Why wouldn’t they be for federal term limits?

How about unlimited spending?  Do you think your state wants the government to continue to straddle them with all of this debt?  How about do you think we can get 38 common-sense states to say Congress has to live by the same rules that we do for healthcare?

How about this one, I mean, I don’t know if there’s any ground support for this one, but how about matching the salaries of Congress to the median salary of those in the private sector?  They start making $65,000 a year like you are, and they don’t have all the fancy healthcare and everything else, they’ll fix this damn economy.  They’ll want your salary to go up because theirs will.

The point is we’re standing at a crossroads, and geez, we’re still on 15 of 15.  What happens when we reboot the system?  Because nobody has ever printed money and had it work out.  So what happens?  Are we going to move forward in fear or in love, in charity, in hope, in thinking about a brighter future?  I choose the latter.

All the tools have been put in place to make it happen.  It’s just going to take a major change in consciousness.  Einstein said the consciousness that created the problem can’t solve the problem, so it’s a major change in consciousness.  Get out of the system.  But it’s not just consciousness.  It really is only perspective.  A change of perspective, I believe, is a miracle really.

In Miracles and Massacres, we highlight some of the miracles, and people say no, a miracle is when, you know, God parts the Red Sea.  Really, is it?  Is it?  I can tell, I’ll bet you, you give me ten minutes, I bet you I could come up with 100 miracles I’ve seen in my lifetime, and none of them were parting the Red Sea, but they’re miracles because it’s a change in perspective.

And that’s what we need in a big way, because the current train of thought is leading us off a cliff.  We need to rid an entire generation of the lies that they have been taught and are currently being taught, that you can’t make it on your own, that you’re not good enough, that you’re not successful or you’re going to have a crappy job because somebody else became successful.  No, that’s not true.

We need to think out of the box.  We need more Madison Roots, more 11-year-olds that say I just want to sell this to pay for my own braces.  We need more voices teaching opportunity over hatred, oppression, more people teaching work ethic over welfare.

I’ve had a miracle happened in my life in the last few weeks, quite honestly.  I was on Hannity’s TV show for the first time ever this week.  That wasn’t a miracle.  The miracle was, and David Barton wrote to me last night about it.  He said Glenn, I’ve never seen you like this before.  I said I haven’t been this way.  It’s a miracle.  I had a very awkward pause.  Watch.

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Hannity:  What do you think privately is going to happen to this country?

Glenn:  I think…I think that we are…

Hannity:  In trouble.

Glenn:  Yeah.

This was the strangest thing for me on television, because I really couldn’t answer that question.  You know what I feel is coming.  I mean, reboot, it’s coming.  I couldn’t answer the question, what do you think is coming?  Now, I know I’m usually the Debbie Downer at parties because, you know, oh Glenn’s going to talk about economic collapse and make everybody cry.  Okay, I mean, I got it.  I got it.

But that’s not the way I view things really anymore.  I mean, I do think the reboot is coming, but I’m more optimistic than ever before.  My perspective is changing.  I am seeing the calamity, but in that calamity I am seeing tremendous opportunity if we choose it.

The Jim Rogers comment I played earlier, I don’t agree with that entirely.  I do think that it is coming, but you don’t need to be afraid.  Don’t be afraid, in fact.  If you are afraid, everybody else around you will be afraid.  Be confident.  Know that we survive.  Be good to your neighbors.  Be good to your family.  Raise them to be ready, to be prepared.

We have a chance.  In fact, I tell you now we are the people that our founders saw, the wise and the honest.  They knew it would fall apart.  They knew the system would have to be rebooted, and in 1822, Jefferson and Adams are going back and forth, and they said you have to trust the people, trust the people.  They’ll see what we were doing, and they’ll do it better.  We don’t have to deal with the compromises on slavery.  We need to free all people.

I’m really deeply religious.  You’re an atheist?  I’m fine with that.  We can’t regulate each other.  That is old thinking.  All of these czars and everything else, I mean, think of the miracle that has happened to a good portion of America in the last ten years.  Are you the same person that was reacting today the way you were reacting after 9/11?  I mean, are you the same person?  Would you say yes to the Patriot Act today?  I wouldn’t.  I wouldn’t.  I’ve changed.  That’s a miracle.  America is waking up.

We are the people who will raise a new standard, and it’s already happening.  You’re just not seeing it.  The amazing story from Highland Michigan, this is a town that is now known for prostitution and drug dealing and crime and violence.  Unemployment is 24%.  It is about as desperate as you can imagine, but there is a group of people that are not accepting any excuses.  They are not accepting the circumstances around them.

A 25-year-old teacher, affectionately known as Mr. V to his students, has decided he thought he could pull off a miracle.  What you’re about to see is that, a change of perspective.  It is a miracle in progress.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

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When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

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If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.