What does our future hold?

Glenn may be on vacation, but he is still keeping up with the news of the day. He authored the article below late last night, giving his opinion on the latest news in the Middle East, Ferguson, and the U.S. economy and what it means for you.

What does our future hold? Chaos, a reign of blood and horror across the whole of the earth? Or a peace, prosperity and freedom our founders could not even have imagined.

I choose the latter. I choose to live in a world where we are all in it together. Where we choose by our own free will to belong to something bigger than ourselves, where we are heard and we listen to others. I will, with all the creative power contained with in my simple human form, be a part of a generation that strive to have control over my own life, while I help build up others so they may do the same.

Make no mistake, life is a choice. Just as ones silence is indeed a powerful form of speech, when we refuse to make a choice - we are indeed making one. We are choosing to accept what ever comes our way. The problem is, "what comes our way" is almost always something we regret.

This time, I believe, what is coming our way has a price tag that no human will be willing to pay.

Please let me explain, and while I do, I ask that you put aside your opinion of me, whether it be good or bad. I only ask you to hear me out, ponder the questions I raise, use critical thinking and trust yourself.  If you disagree and you can make a cogent case, I will be the first to celebrate, as I do not wish for what I am showing you to be our future.

I have seen this movie before.

In 1998, I spoke to the listeners of WABC in New York City.  I warned them of Osama bin Laden and said that by playing politics there would be blood, bodies and buildings in the streets of New York within ten years and it would be done by Osama bin Laden.At the time, conservatives told me that I was just "helping Clinton distract the nation from his lies". I did not want that to be true. I prayed that it wouldn't be, but because we the people didn't want to think about it, our politicians were too busy working special favors with the Saudis, and our media no longer functioned as a compass, we lost an opportunity that we will never have again.

After 9/11, we changed forever in ways we now don't even want to think about.  Just remember what America was like before Homeland Security, secret courts, and full body scanners at the airports.  I wish more would have considered the warning I gave, and I certainly never hoped it would lead to collective apathy.

Recently, those in DC, who for years have been blinded by their own political interests, are now beginning to warn us of new disasters that, they, for years mocked and said were "warped fantasies and delusions."

For years I spoke of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam and those who had a religious worldview that encouraged chaos that would wash the world in blood to 'hasten the return of the promised one’. How they first wanted and needed a caliphate centered in Iraq.I was called "crazy", "delusional" and a "fear monger". Now the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says, the group that has indeed now established a caliphate: "is an organization that has an apocalyptic, end-of- days strategic vision.”

Is he a fear monger and crazy?  Or is he right?

He is right!

However, the time to deal with this dangerous ideology in the way currently being discussed, has passed.  The caliphate poses a new and much more dangerous global threat. One that could change the entire world forever.

One very real and possible outcome is World War 3.  It doesn't take much wargaming to see this as a very real scenario and one that does not end well for anyone other than those hoping to "hasten the return of the promised one".

Please understand, I am not offering a global solution. Instead, I am merely asking you to stop and examine the storm clouds we are now seeing gather and to take a moment and think out loud with me.

If we put all of the turmoil together and really examine the possible and probable outcomes, what happens?  If just a few things begin to fall, even into the natural state of entropy, what does the world look like in one year? Five years? Ten?

If only half of what I will spell out comes to pass, it will result in chaos and trouble beyond the understanding of our politicians and our visionless media. It will fall on the shoulders of each of us as neighbors, friends and parents to guide our nation and world in a peaceful, free and loving direction. If we have not mentally, physically and spiritually healed and prepared ourselves, we just may fail the calling of our time.

Let's just look at the rough outlines of what the world is facing.

Sides are being drawn. New alliances and old hatreds.Syria, Iran, and Russia are now beginning to play on the same team.  The US, Saudi Arabia,and Qatar (and by extension, the Muslim Brotherhood) on the other.

China and Russia finishing a dollarless relationship. Israel on the ropes, the free market system becoming corrupted, debt, taxes and spying on our own citizens on the rise.

Rising food and gas prices, unemployment, and a cold winter coming with the shuttering of coal fired plants due to new EPA regulations.

Our youth strapped with debt beyond comprehension and no way to pay it off and no promise of jobs when they leave school.

The Fed just now beginning to worry about the devaluation of the dollar, the streets of the US beginning to go unstable, the militarization of our own police force,  radical Islam, anarchists and communists all separately working to destabilize the Western world. Meanwhile, the average citizen has growing apathy and declining faith in a unifying culture.

Why worry?

Why would we even need a president that spends a little less time on the golf course or a congress that worried less about election and more about the principles behind our country?

If the issues that I raise here are not just flatly ignored by the media they will be mocked ... again. At this point it is laughably expected.

Look at the record and the history of the globe. Do not fall for distractions or politics.  Assume that I have only the worst intentions to make money in some sort of solid gold World War 3 bomb shelter and cable network. I want you to accept the worst, as it will force you to not trust me, but trust the facts and your own ability to reason.

Begin here: ask yourself ‘Why is this crazy?’ What makes us, at this time, able to suspend the laws of finance, common sense, or the arc of history. The arc of history has been bent back in the past but always through great movements like that of Gandhi or the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. Where is that great movement today?

What are the actual economic principles that change the outcome? Know that you are capable of finding the answers. The wealth of a nation works on the exact same principles as your household wealth. Do not rely on others, rely on yourself. Do your own homework and find out what is true.

Look at history for answers. When we look at the Middle East, first read about the 12th Imam and what those who follow him really believe. Compare and contrast with what you know about "end of days" and "religious zealots" in the west. Would we dismiss any Christian here in America if he believed these things? Do the stories at the end of the Christian Bible match up with the end times belief found with the Twelvers? If so, how? Are their "good guys" the same as ours?  If not, why?  What do they do when the 12th Imam is in charge? Do they more closely align with our version of "the bad guys"?  Why?

Remember, I am not asking you to believe what these people believe, for I find it irrational and deeply disturbing. I only ask you to investigate and then ask yourself, do they believe it? For an answer to that look to who the Ayatollah Khomeini banned as "too dangerous" for revolutionary Iran in 1980.

Editor's Note: For more on The Twelfth Imam, TheBlaze TV subscribers can watch Rumors of War. The documentary covers many of the issues Glenn raises in this post

Next, domestically, can you name ONE nation in the entire history of the world that was $17 trillion in debt and survived. How about $10 trillion? 5?

Next, ask why we think it will end differently this time? Can you make sense and explain to a friend the logic of "quantitative easing"? Is it more than just fancy talk for money printing? Can you find ONE surviving nation that has done this, let alone that has done this to the tune of 4 trillion dollars? How did it work out for them? Now explain using real concrete terms, logic and reason how The Federal Reserve will ensure that this time it ends positively. Explain it to another in real and concrete ways.  Do they find it logical?  Possible?  Plausible?

I don't think I need to guide you further than these questions. If you just answer those questions and maybe read ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ by Gibbons, you will see the historic pathway we are currently on.

Now ask:  Is this the way you want it to end? I do not. I, personally, do not  know of a Democrat, Republican or Independent that does want it to end that way. In fact, even those Americans that are routing for an entirely new system of government, do not "hope" for this dark outcome. They believe we can navigate these waters and arrive at a new America just as the Egyptian people believed their utopia was just over the horizon during the Arab Spring. They now are seeing the cold of the Arab Winter.

Do you want to be remembered in all of the history books as the generation that allowed the greatest experiment in self rule to apathetically slip away in to the darkness?  More importantly, what will our children and grandchildren say about all of us when they are our age? Will they look and ask how were we so blind or with pride in their eyes will they ask how did we muster the courage to face the truth and change the course of history?

We must stop listening to those playing catch up on what is already here and begin to see what is coming.

I am indeed asking you to choose the blue or red pill. But seeing things for how they really are does not mean the outcome is set. It just means we must all figure out how specifically we are going to alter the course.  But mocking the theory, ignoring the history or simply turning a blind eye makes us all part of the problem, and our outcome sets itself a little firmer each passing day.

Here is the good news: Americans are problem solvers. "We do these things not because they are easy, we but because they are hard" and we are always the better for it.

There are solutions. They will not be easy, but they are simple and we must find them together. We must work toward them, so we do not just survive, but so we leave a better world for our children. A world without the shackles of our debt and our shame.

We must stop marching in the streets and instead fix reason firmly in her seat and question even the very existence of God. In today's world, we are told there are things we are not allowed to say, think or question. But Jefferson said the opposite. He urged citizens to take up the most sacred of belief and "question with boldness", for he believed, “if there be [a God], He must surely rather honest questioning over blindfolded fear.”

Please hear me, we must put our differences aside, humble ourselves, and begin to hear each other, find our common values, accept the responsibility of our own lives and families. We must come together as one people, united on those things men have always found self evident.

We are all indeed created equal and given by that creator certain rights that no man or government can ever alter or destroy.  Among them, meaning there are many more, are:

I have a right to live.

You cannot kill me without a warrant, a jury trial and all that goes with it.  No drones or secret courts.

I have a right to liberty.

You cannot detain me, search me or spy on me without a warrant, probable cause, a constitutional court and limits on the governments right.

I have a right to property.

This is why I pursue what makes me happy.  I get to keep the fruit of my labors.   I earned it.  If I earned it illegally than see the first and second right and follow the steps.   If not, I may use it legally as I see fit without shame.

But these rights also imply responsibility.

If we merely focus on our rights we must recognize that we indeed will lose them to some future tyrant cloaked as a father, uncle, caretaker and servant.   Someone will always be there to compassionately take away all of your pain that comes from personal responsibility. But just like opiates are a godsend for the relief of pain, they come with a heavy price. In the end, if you use them unwisely, do not get off them quickly, or begin to ride the high, you will become a slave to them. If you are still unwilling to pay that now heavy price of deeper pain and suffering you will, in the end, die.

Some opioids are clearly marked "for end of life use only". They are so powerful that there is no way for the patient to recover from the effects of the drugs but they keep the patient calm, at peace and blissfully unaware of their pending death? Are the painkillers being prescribed for our marked "end of life use only"? If not how do we safely begin to wean ourselves off?

We must face our addiction to fiction. Let us begin to speak and listen to the hard truths. Let us look for those who will tell us the hard truth and run from those who tell us they can make all of our problems go away pain free. Especially if they tell you that it is mainly the fault of one group or another.  We must reject the seeds of collective nationalism, book burning, and loyalty oaths.

Instead, let us come together, really listen to one another, then listen to common sense.  Let the meanest among us soften our hearts and believe again that it is true that man indeed can rule himself.

Let us be remembered as giants who conquered the specter of fear.  Let us work together to build a better America, one that is more tolerant and free.  One that once again, and maybe for the first time truly understands responsibility, justice and mercy.

We are on the verge of mighty man made miracles the likes of which humankind has never dared to dream, let alone experienced or witnessed.  Great and wondrous achievements are just beyond the horizon, but we must stick together, individually choose to carry one another if we must, but do so with a common love for self evident truth.

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

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Sharia arrives

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

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

The warning from those who have lived under it

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

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

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

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

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

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

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

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

Wake up before it is too late

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crisis beneath the headlines

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

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

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

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

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

The quiet return of meaning

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

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

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

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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

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

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

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

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

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

What triggers the Bubba effect

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

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

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

A country cracking from the inside

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

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

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

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

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

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

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

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

How to respond without breaking ourselves

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

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

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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.