A Meteorologist Responds to the Claim That Winter Storms Mean Climate Change

A winter storm has been hammering the Northeast, while even states like Florida are experiencing much colder weather than normal. What’s going on? Is this extreme winter evidence for climate change – or just part of the normal weather cycle?

Meteorologist and weather forecaster Joe Bastardi of WeatherBell.com talked about weather patterns and this year’s unusually cold winter with Pat and Jeffy on today’s show. His analysis is a stark contrast to climate change activists’ scare tactics. Listen to the clip (above) to hear him combat various arguments tying cold winter weather to global warming.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

PAT: Pat Gray and Jeffy for Glenn. Be back Monday morning. 888-727-BECK.

Looks like another cold weekend for much of the country. They just got a huge storm. And now cold front coming in behind that. So it's going to be very pleasant. And this is all, of course, due to global warming.

JEFFY: Thank you.

PAT: Once again, it's gotten so hot, that it's spun clear around to cold, or something.

JEFFY: I think that's exactly -- that's exactly it.

PAT: Michael Mann -- Gore just linked to one of his organization's articles on the brutal winter weather. And it was written by Michael Mann. The climate reality project. A perfect storm, extreme winter weather, bitter cold, and climate change.

It's just -- it's phenomenal to me that because just a few years ago, they were saying we weren't going to have snow and cold anymore. The winters were going to be completely different. You were going to have to remind your children what snow was. So that meant global warming. And now the opposite means global warming.

So we decided to get meteorologist Joe Bastardi on to talk about this. Joe, welcome to the Glenn Beck Program with Pat and Jeffy.

JOE: It is always an extreme pleasure to talk to you gentlemen.

PAT: The pleasure is ours. You know, you're quoted pretty prominently tweeted in this article, and you're talking about the insanity it is. It's virtually witchcraft at this point.

JOE: Let me just say something, okay? We set this up -- it's amazing that sometimes when the atmosphere gets into a flow, very similar to previous years, all right? So we set up the cold -- David and my clients first, and then our subscribers on premium at weatherBELL.com, if you want to go there, and then I showed it to the public, I said, here is what you are to expect, based on similar patterns in the past. That we would get off to a big fast start to the winter.

In fact, on November 30th, I wrote an article in the Patriot Post saying that the cold that was coming could put the skids on the economic recovery that we were in.

And I'm not saying that this is directly attracted to it. But I noticed that job creation was a lot less in December. And maybe the amount of cold -- I'm not saying it's directly linked. These guys will have to figure it out.

But remember how cold it got in Texas. It snowed December 7th through the 15th and then all of this is coming now.

But the point is, we were forecasting this before.

Now, here's what you have to believe. I want everybody to just calm down. And this is what you got to believe.

PAT: Uh-huh.

JEFFY: That the cold that is coming now, that was seen and predicted due to the physical forcing of the atmosphere, similar to other years, that cold that is here now is climate change.

But because it's not quite as cold as some of the outbreaks like 1983 and '84, that's also climate change.

JEFFY: Right.

PAT: So here's what happened: It got very cold because of climate change, but not quite as cold as it would have gotten, if we didn't have climate --

PAT: It's preposterous.

JOE: I can't even believe it. And, you know what gets me, guys? The certain large-scale physical forcing that's going on right now, it's going to lead to a mammoth thaw. All right. We see it starting in the Indian oceans, all right. What's going on? Big thunderstorms go up there, decide that the pattern is going to change. It's going to get very mild across the United States.

You mark my words. If we see some record-breaking highs like we did in 1967, after the brutally cold start in January '67. We had record-breaking highs at two weeks off. They will say, see, this is climate change. And yet none of them are even looking at what I'm looking at now.

It's the same thing with Harvey. When everybody was -- you know, about the Eclipse on August 21st, I'm sitting there warning my clients and putting it out on Twitter, that this is a disaster coming for Texas.

Harvey wasn't even upgraded to a depression at that time. And the very feature that captured Harvey was an anomalous cold trough that dug into Texas in response to patterns that had been setting up.

So here's what I do: I do what my dad taught me. My dad is a meteorologist, graduated out of A&M in '65. And he's -- you go back and look at what happened before and understand what happened before.

It's no different than American history or history of the world or anything like that. You do it in the weather. You will have an advantage on looking going forward.

And what I think is going on now, and I call it climate ambulance chasing, is a perfect storm. It's a perfect storm, all right, of Alinski tactics and Orwellian-type ideas about erase the past. And those that want to remind you of the past, you isolate, demonize, and destroy them. It's political. It's agenda-driven.

PAT: Absolutely.

JOE: If it was science-driven -- look, I have a lot of good friends on the other side of the argument. We sit down. We have a couple of glasses of wine, or whatever. And that's that. It's a 10-minute talk. You disagree, I disagree. Let's go watch it. That's that.

Most of those guys, meteorologists, a lot of them don't agree with me.

But on the other side, they say, okay. Well, we'll see how it turns out.

The other side -- when you got zealots that are involved -- and think about this.

Every day, folks, I have to fight the weather.

So every day I'm confronted, I get beat. Okay. There are times I get beat, and I remember my losses. But I learned that when you're dealing with nature, an infinite and relentless opponent, the majesty of nature, the best you can get is a tie. You forecast what's going to happen. It happens. Many times, it doesn't.

So you get up and fight every day. No one is ever going to take the weather away from me. What happens if 30 years of your life and everything that you are associated with, that is your lifeline, what happens if that's proven wrong? It has to be very, very difficult for someone on that side of the issue that has just staked his claim to that.

PAT: Yes.

JOE: To actually look at it objectively. And in addition, it is a due considerate, an attack on them personally.

JEFFY: It sure is.

JOE: Because after all, they've personalized the entire issue. So it's a very difficult playing field. And it's the kind of thing that I really think that -- you know, I have the so what attitude. If it is warming, okay? Whatever the cause, I have to deal with it and make the forecast from it.

I personally believe it's because of the cyclical nature of the oceans, more water vapor in the air. Excess water vapor in the Arctic regions affects the air temperature much, much more than it does in other places.

That's why we have these ratios, what we call mixing ratio charts, where you look at temperature and water vapor and the amount of water vapor contained in that certain temperatures in the air.

Now, we don't have mixing ratio charts for -- for CL2 temperature. Because it's no relationship.

PAT: Uh-huh.

JOE: So how is it that you're creating CO2 as a climate control knob, when there's no visible relationship that a meteorologist or anybody can use, as far as, well, what if we inject this much CO2 into the system, what will the temperature do? It won't do anything.

It's not detectable. That's why -- do you realize when you're sitting in an enclosed arena for two hours, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air goes up to 10,000 parts per million?

If you understand that, that what's going on while you're in there, people aren't falling over. You know why? Because you exhale 100 times more carbon dioxide than you inhale.

And that's the other interesting thing. I believe strongly in our Heavenly Father, okay? I have to ask myself this question, for some people on the other side of the issue that have the same feelings as me as that, why would animals be created to exhale 100 times more CO2 than they inhale?

Okay? Isn't that just a suicide pact, okay? Whoever started all this?

The reason is because plants love this stuff. And that's why the Earth is greener than it's ever been in the satellite era. And we are growing foods.

You see the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is actually helping out with food production. So there's a lot of moving parts here. But it simply comes down to, you've got to ask yourself, why would you believe someone that three weeks before didn't tell us this was coming, waits till it comes, and then tell yous you after, as opposed to people that are out in front of it.

PAT: Yeah. And everything that happened, they predicted, even though years ago they predicted the opposite. They don't -- they don't mention that at all.

JOE: No. Of course not. Again, it gets to Orwellian ideas.

Have you guys ever seen the movie Bananas?

JEFFY: A long time ago.

JOE: Okay. There's a fantastic scene in there, where they're flying troops into this banana republic that this movie is based on. And there's a bunch of troops on one side. A bunch of troops on the other side. And they're all American troops. They say, whose side are you fighting for?

One guy goes, well, we're on the rebel side.

He goes, well, we're on the other side.

And someone says, the State Department is taking no chances. We're covering both sides.

It's the same thing that these guys do. It's no matter what happens, they have the right answer.

If it snows cheese in Dallas in a week, if it's a cheese storm, there it is, it's climate change.

PAT: It's what we said was going to happen.

Yep. There's just no doubt about it. And in An Inconvenient Truth, the original version, Al Gore said there were more frequent and intense hurricanes on the way, followed by 12 years of less frequent and less intense storms. We didn't have a major hurricane during that time for something like ten or 12 years.

JOE: Yeah. You know what, though, here's -- we really -- and I -- look, I know this sounds pompous. If you follow me on WeatherBELL or if you follow me on Twitter, you saw these explanations before the fact. It's why I predicted this year that we were going to end the major drought because we were in a pattern that happened before.

And part of -- listen. Part of -- I had this theory that the distortion of where it's getting warm, it's getting warmer in the arctic areas, it's getting warmer basically where people don't live.

PAT: Yeah.

JOE: When we say warm in the Arctic, it's during their winter. The summers aren't increasing. It's the winters that are increasing because more water vapor in the air means that you have more cloud cover.

So it warms 4 or 5 degrees Celsius. That gets -- so instead of being unbelievably cold, it's unbelievably cold.

I mean, it's crazy cold up there no matter what.

So what happens to this though? That decreases something. Everybody sit down. Called Zonal Potential Energy. What is Zonal Potential Energy?

It's what drives the extremeties of the atmosphere. The difference between the cold in the North and the warm in the South, if you lessen that gradient, if you lessen that gradient, inherently, there will be less extremes.

I think that this also has an effect on the global wind oscillation and mean sea level pressures in the atmosphere, especially over land and during the summertime, which is distorting the -- the tropics and actually leading to a downturn in the ACE Index. And that's what you've been seeing. Accumulate cyclonic energy globally.

While we had this big season here, guys, guess what? It was the bottom five in the western Pacific. And, in fact, what I did was, I went back and linked 1933, 1950, 1995, 2005, 2010, all those years with similar tropical seasons. And, bang, it gave you the December forecast.

Because there was a hemisphere pattern set up similar in the summertime that would naturally evolve, that way into the winter.

PAT: Wow.

JOE: But here's the thing to take away: Look at what I'm looking at. Understand that I'm looking at the past, not erasing the past. And it's aiding me in doing what I'm doing.

So in a way -- what I think every climatologist should be made to forecast the weather, in the longer range, three to six weeks. I want you to do that for a year. Just practice on your own. And you will understand the inherent chaos in the system that will make you at least stop and think, well, maybe there is something different than what I'm pushing.

PAT: I love it.

WeatherBELL.com. Is that where people go to hear more? Learn more?

JOE: Yeah. That's our site.

PAT: Okay.

JOE: Now, not everybody at weatherBELL.com is like that. You know, we have a free and open company. We get into discussions that last five minutes. Then we go to the weather. That's what we do.

But I'm also @bigJoeBastardi on Twitter. I'm supposed to every time I'm on the air mention that or something. I don't know. Get some followers. So -- hey, listen, I appreciate you guys having me on. I love coming on.

PAT: Yeah. We love to have you. Appreciate it.

JOE: Anytime, you want. I'm back. Remember something: No matter what the weather, enjoy the weather, it's the only weather you've got.

PAT: Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it.

JEFFY: Thank you. Just ends nicely. Beautiful.

PAT: See, just ends nicely. Just ends nicely. Joe Bastardi. 888-727-BECK.

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.

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”

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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.

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.