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‘Someone Kidnapped My Parents’: Nevada Was Sheltering ‘Elder Abuse’

October 23, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Around 10 percent of people over 65 are believed to be victims of “elder abuse,” or the exploitation of seniors. In some cases, elder abuse is state-sanctioned, allowing supposed guardians to siphon away elderly people’s life savings and keep them from their own family members. How is such a widespread problem flying under the radar?

Julie Belshe, an advocate for guardianship reform, experienced this nightmare firsthand when her parents disappeared. She eventually learned that they had been taken as wards of the state by “guardian” April Parks, who was indicted on more than 200 felony charges in March.

The New Yorker reported:

The Norths’ daughter, Julie Belshe, came to visit later that afternoon. …

She knocked on the front door several times and then tried to push the door open, but it was locked. She was surprised to see the kitchen window closed; her parents always left it slightly open. She drove to the Sun City Aliante clubhouse, where her parents sometimes drank coffee. When she couldn’t find them there, she thought that perhaps they had gone on an errand together—the farthest they usually drove was to Costco. But, when she returned to the house, it was still empty.

That weekend, she called her parents several times. She also called two hospitals to see if they had been in an accident. She called their landlord, too, and he agreed to visit the house. He reported that there were no signs of them. She told her husband, “I think someone kidnapped my parents.”

Listen to Belshe’s interview on today’s show (above) for the full story.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: We are going to tell you a story that is truly hard to believe. And it could happen to you. It could happen to your parents.

I want to introduce you to Julie Lynn Belshe. She is a woman whose parents, Rudy and Rennie North, were legally kidnapped. This happened in the state of Nevada. And this is not the only case. It is -- it all stems from these guardians, strangers can become the garden of your parents. It doesn't matter if you're there. They can go to court and become a guardian for your parent. And when that happens, they just disappear.

Julie, welcome to the program.

JULIE: Thank you, Glenn, for having me.

GLENN: I'm reading this story from the New Yorker, and it is hard to believe at first. This sounds like something that would have happened in Nazi Germany.

JULIE: Well, that's pretty much what I've compared it to, because I didn't know anything about guardianship. And when I started looking on the computer and finding the first video I came across was Dorothy Wilson. Diane Wilson was interviewing her mother in an assisted living facility. And her mom was devastated. She was like, "Get me out of here. I'm not going to eat. I'm not going to read. I want to go home." And I didn't know what I stepped into. And the more I started investigating on the computer -- social media helped me tremendously -- I knew I had to do something for my parents, because they're confident there was nothing wrong with them. They needed a little bit of help. They lived on a golf course. Had somebody come in and help them. Take care of them.

I assisted them. My mom had suffered for years and years from CLL. And -- but we had it all under control. And the minute anybody finds out that you have any assets, money, stocks, bonds -- that your worse value, you no longer are a human being. Once the guardian takes you, you are now a ward, and you have less rights than a prisoner.

GLENN: This is truly shocking, and I want to set this up right, so people can understand it. Your folks lived in Las Vegas, so people understand.

JULIE: Right.

GLENN: You would go over and see your mom and dad. They lived on this golf course. You would go and see your mom and dad. Once a day you would stop in, is that correct?

JULIE: I would stop in once a day, and then the last couple of months, before they got taken, we would call each other. And my husband and I have a business. So I was pretty busy. I have three young boys. But I would talk to them every day, if not three or four times a day, make sure they're okay, see them once a week. At first, I was helping them for six months just run errands, take them to the doctor.

GLENN: Right, but it's not that your folks were confused. Your father was reading -- I'm trying to remember here. He was reading Freud. Plato. Nietzsche.

JULIE: Oh, yeah. He's a very intelligent man. He's very articulate.

GLENN: Right.

JULIE: This is collusion, okay? This doesn't start with just the guardian, okay? The guardian is that now we have finally gotten entitled with her --

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Before you go into this, I have to explain to people, what happened.

JULIE: Okay.

GLENN: Your folks, your folks are living on the golf course.

JULIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: They've lived a good life. They've put their money away. They've saved for their requirement. Your mom is getting ill, but your dad is taking care of her. She's fine. He's fine. Both mentally there.

You're in the area. So if there's any problems -- it's not like these people were just left alone. And one day, somebody comes to the door and claims to be their guardian. Is that right?

JULIE: You pretty much have it right. What happened was, it was on Memorial Day of 2013. And I had plans to go see my parents on that Friday. And in walks hospice care, a worker. The owners actually from hospice care, my parents were drinking coffee and having breakfast.

Pretty much to condense, there was another knock on the door about 20 minutes later. And it was April Parks, the private professional guardian. I like to call them the private for-profit guardian. Because that's all they're in it for. And she walked in and presented herself. And my parents had six people in their home. And told them, they had three choices: One, they could go to -- go with them willingly and go to an assisted living facility. Two, they could call the fire department and the police. They had a chance to go to jail. Or they could be taken out of the home in a gurney. Or, three, they could go to a psych ward.

GLENN: Your parents chose option number one, because they were confused. And a neighbor came out and said, "What's going on?" And they said, "We're just going to look at this like a vacation. Nothing to worry about."

JULIE: Well, that's not correct. What really happened was, all of these -- April Parks, first of all, presented herself as an officer of the court, which she's not. And one of her coworkers told my mom and dad, just look at this as a mini vacation, as a respite. You'll be coming back home.

GLENN: Okay.

JULIE: And my mom was crying and crying, saying, this is my home. Get out of my home. Leave us alone.

GLENN: They were told to pack a suitcase.

JULIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And pretty much, whatever they put in the suitcase is all that was left in the end. They got a few items back. But this guardian, then took them across the state, up -- way up north, if I'm not mistaken.

JULIE: Well, she took them by Lake Mead, which from our house is about 45 minutes. It's right close to the border of Arizona.

GLENN: Okay. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I was thinking that this was Sun City, Arizona. This was actually in Nevada, wasn't it?

JULIE: Correct.

GLENN: And so they take them there. This is a retirement community. When you finally get in touch with your parents, how many days have gone by?

JULIE: Four days.

GLENN: And no one --

JULIE: Four days. There was no sign. Nothing on the door, until the fourth day, until after the Memorial Day weekend, until she got temporary guardianship of them. And she was now their temporary guardianship because it was deemed an emergency situation.

If something is such an emergency, she was handed the papers two weeks prior, then why didn't she go and get them there? And it's a law that if your parents or your loved one is going to be taken, by law, the court is supposed to notify you so that you can step in and say, "What's going on?" And you can file the proper paperwork.

STU: The law here is just incredible. We can probably spend an hour just on that. But what about the moment when you just go -- because you went to visit, your normal visit, and they were gone.

GLENN: This is Friday.

STU: Were you panicked? What did you go through, as that happened?

JULIE: I was mortified. I mean, the newspaper was in the front. The windows in their kitchen are usually open a little bit. The blinds are open a certain way. The house was just closed down.

I just knew right there and then, something was terribly wrong. I went to Sun City, the country club, the little house there, where they would go and have coffee. And I looked around for them. And then I pulled myself together, and I drove home and told my husband, "My parents have been kidnapped." That was just my gut reaction. Something is terribly wrong here.

GLENN: And you called police?

JULIE: You know, hindsight is always 20/20. I called hospitals first. And the emotions that run with this, are so high and low. The gamut of emotions, that my thing was, I wanted to get an attorney. I wanted to know what was going on. How people can walk in your home and take you and not notify your relative that lives 15 minutes away from you.

GLENN: So your parents, you see them -- and your dad is in the fetal position on the couch. And your mom is crying. And how long does it take you to fight to get your parents out?

JULIE: Well, let me put it this way, it took me approximately two years. And that only came after speaking out publicly to the commissioners, to speaking out publicly and getting two new legislative laws passed here. One is that, if you have a loved one, that you can't -- and you live out of state, you can now become their guardian before that was not legal.

GLENN: Yes.

JULIE: And the other one is that, if you are going to be a private guardian, you have to be licensed, insured, and bonded, and you can only have so many wards. This woman that took my parents was spiraling out of control. It's not enough for them to be greedy about it. But they are sociopaths. They hurt people. They isolate. They trespass the family away from their loved ones on purpose. Because they're getting bedsores, bruises, broken limbs. They're getting inserted feeding tubes. It's cheaper to, you know -- they save money that way. They're accelerating the death, in my opinion, of the elderly because they want their full estate.

GLENN: So when they become a guardian, it's just somebody -- this is a business, really?

JULIE: Oh --

GLENN: In Nevada.

JULIE: This is a business all over the nation. And they're making billions of dollars. And right now, the statistics say they have 1.5 million people under guardianship. No matter how perfect your family is or your estate documents were prepared, anyone can be involuntarily placed in guardianship. This happens all the time, nationwide.

GLENN: Okay. I'm going to take a break. And then when I come back, I want to explain, who are these people? How do they become a guardian?

JULIE: Okay.

GLENN: And how does this happen? When we come back.

STU: If you go to @GlennBeck or @worldofStu, we're going to tweet this story from the New Yorker. It's lengthy, but it goes through all of it. It's one of the most insane stories I've ever heard.

GLENN: You will not believe it's happening. You just won't believe it.

GLENN: Bill O'Reilly joins us in about 40 -- 40 to 45 minutes, to answer the, you know, 32 million-dollar question. You don't want to miss that.

We have to be able to have something we believe in. We have to know what the truth is. Otherwise, things that happen to our guest now -- Julie Belshe, and her parents, will happen to you or your parents. There is a guardian system that is happening all around the country. And her experience was happening in Nevada. She says that it happens all over the country. Who -- who are these guardians that can, you know, all of a sudden claim -- lay claim to your parents, or to you?

JULIE: These guardians are people that don't have to have any formal education. They can take a course that I believe is just maybe a week long. And then they become a guardian.

These people are trained by the masterminds behind this. Like I said before, this is collusion. We have somebody here that's a mastermind, his name is Jared Shaffer. He is the head of it.

So they take them under their wings, and they train them, how to go in and open all the drawers and take everything, and deem these people -- these elderly people disabled people, or whoever they want, incompetent.

STU: The concept here -- looking at it in a theoretical concept, are they basically saying the elderly people can't take care of themselves, so we're going to go in, we're going to take their stuff. We're going to use that stuff to pay for their care, because they're being neglected. Is that essentially what they're trying to say they're doing?

JULIE: That's what they are trying to say they're doing, but they're failing. They keep saying it's in the best interest of the ward. Nothing is in the best interest of the ward. We have a private guardian. We've gone from having several private guardians, since I've gotten into this four years ago, to now there's only two private guardians, I believe. And the public guardian. So we've essentially gone full circle and given the power back to the government, which they love. So it's gone full circle.

GLENN: So what happens is, these people come in, and with your parents, they had a house on the golf course. They had a car. They had their money. And in a two-year period, this woman came in, claimed to be their guardian, because she just went to court. And claimed to be the guardian. And then she liquidated all those assets. Within two years, your parents had nothing?

JULIE: Correct. The thing is, it's so easy for the private guardians -- it was so easy. But now I believe, in my opinion, that they've revered back to doing it again. The family courts. Okay? They're all working together. The guardians --

GLENN: Okay. So I want to go there, when we come back. I want to go there and I want to talk about the court. Because the court seemed to be, I think -- from the way the story reads at least -- knowingly colluding. But that's quite a charge to make. And I'd like to get your opinion on that and see where the court stood, at least in Nevada.

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

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

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.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

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”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.