Operation Underground Railroad Has Rescued 600+ Children From Sex Slavery

It's nearly impossible to comprehend the depravity required to turn another human being, especially a child, into a sex slave. But the stark reality is that it happens --- every day, all over the world.

In a riveting interview, Glenn talked with Tim Ballard and Jessica Mass of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), an organization created to free children trapped in sex slavery. Ballard founded O.U.R. after serving as an undercover special agent for the Department of Homeland Security in the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. His expert extraction teams consist of former CIA, Navy SEALs and Special Ops operatives that lead coordinated efforts with law enforcement throughout the world. To date, O.U.R. has rescued more than 600 children.

"What happens when you take these 600 children who have been abused as many as . . . how many times a day have they been sold over and over again?" Glenn asked.

"Thirty times, even 40 times a day. That's the reality," Ballard explained.

Joining Ballard was colleague Jessica Mass, Director of Aftercare at O.U.R., whose primary focus has been helping children and youth heal from trauma and empowering them in their hopes and dreams for the future.

"I love my job. I get to tell the aftercare stories because I get to see the kids after they've been rescued and that healing process," Mass said.

For more information about O.U.R., including details about how you can help and upcoming events, visit OURRescue.org.

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these questions:

• How did Glenn's audience help Tim launch O.U.R.?

• Do Tim's extraction operatives pose as sex predators?

• Does Jessica know of American parents who sold their six-month-old child for sex?

• Are there more slaves today than during the during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade?

• What hopeful story did Jessica tell about a teenager from India who was raped and sold into sex slavery by her uncle?

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Glad you're here, today. Especially since I have a friend coming in, Tim Ballard who was in the studios yesterday, to do something for TheBlaze. And in case you don't know, if you're a long-time listener, you know who Tim is. He is a friend of mine. An accomplished writer and author. And just a brilliant guy who at one point, I thought, I was going to jail because he brought me into a room and said -- along with a bunch of other people and said, "I have to tell you the truth. You don't know who I am." And he reached in under his shirt and pulled out a badge. And I believe my first words was, "Am I going to jail?"

And he was an undercover agent for the federal government on sex crimes and those children that had been abducted and taken into the sex slave trade. And it was horrifying.

He got to a point where the government was -- had handcuffed itself too much and couldn't live with himself because he knew he could do more. And so he started the Operation Underground Railroad. Rescue our children. And you have today now saved 400?

TIM: No. More than 600.

GLENN: 600?

TIM: Yeah.

GLENN: And you go out -- and we've seen the videos before. And it's absolutely amazing what you're doing. And you go in. And some of the guys going with you are former Navy SEALs. Everybody volunteer?

TIM: A lot are volunteers. Some are contractors, but at a reduced rate, yeah.

GLENN: And you go in, and you pose as, frankly, dirtbag Americans who are going in to negotiate to have sex with children.

TIM: That's right.

GLENN: And you tell them, I want -- I want some 9-year-olds. And they negotiate. And it's horrifying to see the video of it.

And you have lined it up with the country for their police departments to come in at the right time and bust it, once the children are delivered to you. It's pretty horrifying.

Yeah, it is -- it's something that I think most people would just -- couldn't believe that it's happening. I didn't believe it. I mean, I would see it and think, "Is this real?" I did it for 12 years before I told you what I did.

And the deeper I got, the more devastating it became. I mean, this is the fastest growing criminal enterprise on the planet.

Millions -- millions of children who are forced into the commercial sex trade and slave labor, and adults also stuck in this. There's more slaves -- I mean, people who are owned by other people today than ever before in the history of the world. I mean, you could add up all the slaves we read about during the 300/400 years of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Add them all up. There's more living slaves alive today than all of them. And a lot of them are children.

GLENN: How frustrating is that, that that message is not being heard in the mainstream? That for all the talk of, you know, troubles in our own country because of slaves, that no one is taking a breath and saying, "Hey, wait a minute. Why don't we all come together doing good on this?"

TIM: Yeah. And so frustrating. That's why I left. I couldn't talk about it. And I recognize, you know, I love history and I learn from history. The greatest problems that we were able to conquer as a people was because we had all the people that got involved. Slavery in America, the legalized form of it didn't end because the government said, "We're going to end it today." It was because people like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass, these heroes, they rose up and created this movement. And people stood up. And that was the beginning of the end of slavery. And then government started acting and moving. And so that's part of our mission, is to tell the story. And, frankly, you, Glenn, in your community, and your audience, you're the one who got us started. You started this movement for us and got support.

GLENN: I think you said to me in that meeting, "I need a million dollars, or I can't start." And I said, "Oh, well, we can do at least that. Yes. We'll get you started."

TIM: And you did. You did. A couple of weeks for us.

GLENN: The audience was more than into this, and they still are.

Yesterday, we were talking about the part that I'm interested in. Because I come from a family of abuse. Now, this is way beyond abuse. But I come from a family of abuse. And I know what that abuse has done to every single member of the family. It's destroyed their lives and changed them into people that they aren't. They're really not those people. But the scars affect their life forever.

And so I'm really into, what happens when you take these 600 children, who have been abused as many as how many times a day have they been sold over and over again?

TIM: Thirty times even. Forty times a day. That's the reality.

GLENN: How do you take somebody who was kidnapped at nine and you release them at 16? How do you take them and rebuild?

JEFFY: Rebuild.

GLENN: Rebuild into something good.

TIM: There is no rescue without the healing. It doesn't exist, as you say.

GLENN: Right.

TIM: And we've put so much effort into that side of things. And I have with me one of our superstar operators, Jessica Mass, who is the director of aftercare.

She lives on an airplane. And what she does -- I'll let her describe it. But she goes around and makes sure that the kids we've rescued are still in the proper place, that they're in a healthy environment to heal. And we're just so grateful for Jessica.

GLENN: I want to hear two stories from you. One that you shared with me last night in India. And the -- the -- let's start here.

Out of the kids that are taken out, A, how many are -- how many go home to their parents? Do any of them go home to their parents? How many of them are -- are starting to lead a normal somewhat childhood at this point?

JESSICA: Yeah, so one of the things that we do is we do in-home services. So if a child is going to go back to their family, there is an in-home social worker that actually goes to the home and makes sure it's a safe space before that happens. So we don't just send children back to their home if it's not safe.

GLENN: Because sometimes -- in some countries -- India, I would imagine is one of them, you can be sold by your parents. I know in --

JESSICA: Yeah.

GLENN: I know in -- where was it? Port-au-Prince, that was happening. Where the parents just have a child and they're like, "Eh, I'll sell you my baby." I mean, it's scary.

JESSICA: It happens all the time, unfortunately. I actually worked in the US for several years before working international. And there are so many parents in the US that were selling their children that I worked with. One, as young as six months old.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

JESSICA: And her parents were selling her online and then having men come to their home and actually rape their baby and molest their baby. So that happened for four years before she was rescued.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

JESSICA: So these are -- this is why it's so important, is that --

GLENN: Do you know that child today?

JESSICA: I do actually.

GLENN: How is she?

JESSICA: She went through three failed adoptions, where she was adopted and then actually unadopted. Or they called it a failed adoption.

GLENN: Why?

JESSICA: Her behaviors were ones that the family said, "We can't handle."

GLENN: Right.

PAT: Uh-huh.

JESSICA: However, today, she's I think about 13 or 14. I can't remember which one. But she is actually adopted. She's doing so well. And she was adopted by a family that said, "We will stick with you, no matter what. No matter what behavior. No matter what trauma that you've been through, we'll stick with you, and we're going to do whatever it takes to help you have a successful life."

GLENN: Is that a religious family?

JESSICA: They are. Uh-huh.

GLENN: I figured it was.

JESSICA: Yeah. But those are the type of people that we look for in aftercare homes, both in the US and around the world, are the people that say, "We're with you forever. We are family for life." And that type of mentality, where you go from being an orphan or having your family sell you or whatever situation it was -- and saying, "No matter what it takes, we are with you for life." And this is what family really looks like, is we'll stand by you no matter what happens.

GLENN: Tell me about the girl -- she's 17 -- that is in India.

JESSICA: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Tell me about -- tell me her story.

JESSICA: So she was rescued. She was 15, almost 16.

GLENN: How long had she been a sex slave?

JESSICA: So her uncle had started raping her when she was about 12 or 13 years old. And after he had been raping her for a while, he decided, "I'm going to start selling her and making money off of her." So he started selling her to different people, friends that he knew.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

JESSICA: And then he said, "Well, I can make even more money because I can just sell her out nightly." And so he was trafficking her. And then he ended up selling her to someone else so that that person could be selling her out.

And she was rescued. And I love my job. I get to tell the aftercare stories because I get to see the kids after they've been rescued and that healing process. So she was placed in one of our aftercare centers.

And her passion was to help the elderly. And not just the elderly, but those that were in hospice. So you have a 16-year-old who is rescued. And you find out that that's what she cares about, is helping other people.

So I was at her birthday party. She was turning 17 at her birthday party, and she wanted to actually introduce me to these people that she was helping. And she would go around to each of these different elderly people in the hospice and sit with them and tell them how incredible they were.

So that's part of the healing journey, where she went from a lack of hope, of feeling like no one cared about her, to going to an aftercare center. Having people pour into her and love her. And then her passion was to love others.

GLENN: Giving hope to those who have maybe lost hope.

JESSICA: Yeah.

And she said to me -- and I've had several kids say this to me. But she said, "I was out there, and I didn't think anyone was coming for me. I didn't think anyone cared. And then O.U.R. showed up and does this rescue mission."

And she said, "No one was coming for me until you guys came. Why would you care about me? Why would you come for the one?"

And looking into her eyes and just saying, "Because you matter. If it's just you -- if O.U.R. existed for one child to be free, it's all worth it."

Living on an airplane is worth it if there's one child that goes from slavery, true slavery to freedom and restoration and healing. It's all worth it.

GLENN: So, Tim, I told you this last night, to some degree. And I talked to my wife about it last night because we had to go to a funeral of a friend. Thirty years old. He died.

And a guy who was an alcoholic in his teens. And his mother is a good friend. And when we first met, I thought she was a huge fan. And she said, you know, oh, my gosh, Glenn Beck it's such an honor to meet you.

And I thought I was going to go into a fan conversation. And she said, "You're an alcoholic."

And I said, "Yes." And she said, "I've wanted to meet you for so long because my son is an alcoholic. And how can I help him?"

He turned his life around two years ago, and he died on Thanksgiving with water on his heart. And he had just -- he had just turned his life around and was taken at 30. And so on the way home, I was talking to Tania. And I said, "You know, this is -- this is the year for me, this coming year." I just want to do what is important.

And I think there are millions of people in the audience that feel the same way. We just rescued over 4,000 people in the Middle East, Christians, and got them out, Yazidis, and got them out.

I want to make the same kind of impact with slave trade. Because this is awful. How do people get involved?

TIM: They can go to ourrescue.org and learn about all about what we do and the countries we're in and the rehab efforts.

GLENN: How much does it cost to save a child?

TIM: It's about $2,000 for an international rescue per child. That's what it averages to be.

We're doing more work now where we're really trying to train the locals and get operators who are local in that country, and that cuts our cost way down. So we're in the process of setting that up. Vetting out people --

GLENN: So $2,000 to free a slave is pretty good. I mean, that's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing.

TIM: Yeah.

GLENN: So if you want to be involved. You want to find out more. You want to donate. I know they can use a donation. This is a great Christmas present to give to your whole family. Free a slave. Free a slave. Go to --

TIM: Ourrescue.org.

GLENN: Thank you very much, Tim. It's nice to meet you.

TIM: Thank you.

GLENN: It's good to see you, Tim.

Featured Image: Tim Ballard of Operation Underground Rescue (Photo Credit: O.U.R.)

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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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.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

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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.