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Glenn interviews Ted Nugent on radio

April 26, 2012
Wilson

Writer

Ted Nugent joined Glenn on radio to discuss some of the ridiculous regulations that have overtaken then country. Nugent explained an incident from a hunting trip in Alaska that gave him some legal trouble - nearly resulting in him being charged with a felony. Watch the clip above, and tune into GBTV tonight at 5pm for more on this story!

Full Transcript Below:

GLENN: Turn that hippie rock‑and‑roll music down. It's too loud. Ted Nugent is with us. He's on tour in Los Angeles. Are you still in Los Angeles? Didn't you have something happen in Los Angeles yesterday, Ted?

NUGENT: Oh, something happens every minute of every day but, yes, it happens in Los Angeles, too. I'm shooting .50‑caliber sniper rifles in Los Angeles legally, 100% legal.

GLENN: Really?

NUGENT: We went up to the hills, up to the Oak Tree Shooting Range to test out some new ammo that I'm creating and just hanging with the SWAT guys and with a bunch of commandos of law enforcement and military, and Mrs. Nugent and I were shooting large caliber weapons getting ready for real rock‑and‑roll excitement.

GLENN: Okay. So Ted, tonight you're going to be on the program and we're going to go into detail about what this government tried to do to you over the last, the last few and what you ‑‑ what you've just signed. You want to get into what you've just signed and then we can talk tonight about what the government did to you?

NUGENT: You bet. Bottom line is I've been hunting all my life, Glenn. My mom and dad raised me to be 100% legal, law‑abiding, respect law enforcement and to be in the asset column of life, to use my heart and soul to think and be conscientious about how I conduct myself. And now as a perfect human being, I've stumbled perfectly over the years on occasion, but at the tender age of 63, I don't stumble anymore. I really put my heart and soul, especially as a representative of the honorable hunting outdoor lifestyle and the gun owners of this country and people who celebrate the U.S. Constitution that is enforced and supported at such great sacrifice by the heroes of the military. That being said, I stumbled in Alaska. There was a new law that it's very important to note that I wasn't the only one that had never heard of it. We can't find anybody that ever heard of this new unprecedented law that if your arrow or bullet shows sign of nicking or touching an animal that your big game tag is null and void, including the resident judge in the courtroom who's lived in the only zone where this law exists. He said on record during the court proceedings that he had never heard of the law, and he deals with law enforcement and wild game enforcement all the time.

My attorney has been a lifetime licensed guide and outfitter in Alaska, a lifetime hunter in Alaska. He never heard of the law. That notwithstanding, I have by all information been the first and only person ever charged with this. The State of Alaska was not interested in charging me, but the federal government was.

GLENN: Now, it's very interesting because this has been going on for how long? I'm trying to remember. A year, year and a half?

NUGENT: Well, I ‑‑ the bear hunt in question took place with my sons in the Prince of Wales Island in 2009. Remember, Glenn, I've been hunting in Alaska since 1977 and the law has always been the same, that when you take possession of your animal, you apply your tag. That's the universal law.

GLENN: Sure.

NUGENT: Since the early 1900s.

GLENN: It's like ‑‑ it would be like if you're going fishing and you caught a fish and it got away, you wouldn't count that as one of the fish you caught.

NUGENT: That's it in a nutshell, yes, sir.

GLENN: I mean, it's ridiculous.

NUGENT: It really is. And I've got to tell you, they gave me the ultimatum the day after I endorsed Mitt Romney and this has been ongoing now in the California, I've got to tell you the California no‑contest plea I gave, I'm going to write a piece that's going to tell you about the horror story, the unprecedented horror story. Once again the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service.

Now, if some U.S. Fish and Wildlife service are getting angry at me, that would be guilt, you're guilty of corruption and abuse of power. I'm not talking about good agents. I'm not talking about agents who abide by their oath to the U.S. Constitution and follow the letter of the law, including the Fourth Amendment. I'm talking about jackbooted thugs who are kicking down doors predawn, guns drawn over a charge that there might have been, quote, feed within 450 yards of my tree stand bow hunting for deer in California, Glenn.

GLENN: This is crazy. Now listen ‑‑

NUGENT: Which carries the weight of a jaywalking ticket, by the way.

GLENN: I want you to know they threatened to charge, may I say?

NUGENT: Yes. My friend Mitch Moore.

GLENN: I was going to say that what they threatened to charge you in Alaska.

NUGENT: Oh, in Alaska. Felonies.

GLENN: Felony.

NUGENT: Felony.

GLENN: Felony.

NUGENT: Felony. The Lasiak was first designed many years ago to stop the illegal importation of endangered species. I supported it 100%. But now the Lasiak is being used to charge innocent young men and women who abided by every game law ‑‑ get this ‑‑ for shooting a deer with all the right licenses during the right season with the right equipment but because they used the wrong broad head, a broad head, by the way, which is the number one selling broad head on planet Earth that is legal everywhere except two states and they shoot their deer, proper licenses, proper tags, bring it home and they're charged with felonies equal to armed robbery and rape and murder.

GLENN: Yeah. And going to jail. Now ‑‑

NUGENT: Yes.

GLENN: Now, you lose your right to have a gun forever.

NUGENT: Yes.

GLENN: You go to prison.

NUGENT: To vote.

GLENN: Right. You lose everything.

NUGENT: You become ‑‑ it's just like, let me ‑‑ can I have just 60 seconds ‑‑

GLENN: Yeah.

NUGENT: ‑‑ to make an analogy that no one will fail to grasp? In Michigan they are slaughtering law‑abiding innocent farmers' livestock based on fraudulent terms, claiming they're feral and invasive when everyone on planet Earth knows that livestock within a confined pen or corral or fenced area, it can't be feral or invasive by any stretch of those terms. But they call them feral and invasive and they're destroying private property.

Now Glenn, if you had a lever action 30.30 and all of a sudden the federal government went, "We're now calling lever action 30.30 rifles machine guns. We're going to call them machine guns and we're coming to get them." They can call anything what they want. They're destroying animals that are not feral and not invasive. They're calling them things they're not. It's a lie.

GLENN: So in other words, in case you don't know feral means basically they're wild.

NUGENT: Yeah, feral means the animals have escaped.

GLENN: If they're in a pen ‑‑

NUGENT: They're not escaped.

GLENN: ‑‑ they can't be feral.

NUGENT: But they're enforcing this with guns, Glenn.

GLENN: Now Ted, there's so much more to talk about tonight, but I want to tell you something that I found. I've been reading a lot of stuff from the Communist Manifesto and early communism because you're dealing with a lot of Marxists in this government now, and one of the things they have to do is seize or destroy the property of rebels. And I thought, you know, who, who are the strongest people against this president and they would be the ones in the red states. And the red states, those are farmers and hunters.

NUGENT: Yes.

GLENN: I really truly believe ‑‑ I know why you were targeted. I mean, you were targeted and run through the wringer, and you're not my only friend that this has happened to. And I don't mean just for hunting. I mean for other things. I have had friends who are some of the most honorable men I know. I mean, I about blew my stack on Monday when I came back from the NRA and I heard what they were doing to you and you had to meet with the Secret Service. I blew my stack on the air and ‑‑

NUGENT: A stack blower.

GLENN: And I said, because I know who Ted Nugent is. I know. And I was so angry about it because not only is it Ted Nugent, it's other friends of mine who are being put through the wringer the same way. And they are ‑‑ they are being bullied, they are being threatened with prison time, they are being threatened, "Confess, confess, confess." And they're like, I didn't do anything wrong.

NUGENT: Yep.

GLENN: And in your case you did but it ‑‑ when was that law put in?

NUGENT: That law was enacted in 2004‑2005, and it's only in the Prince of Wales Southeast Alaska area has this law ever existed. Remember the judge that lives there never heard of it.

GLENN: So nobody's ever been charged with it.

NUGENT: No one's ever been.

GLENN: And how is it that the federal government, that the judge didn't know about it but the federal government knew about it and nailed you on it.

NUGENT: Because the federal government for a long, long time has been trying, increasing the net of felonies, what qualifies as a felony. Do you know that the humane society of the United States somehow convinced some soulless people in Pennsylvania that killing a deer illegally is now a felon, a felony. A felony.

GLENN: Can you talk about ‑‑

NUGENT: Now, I'm all for management of wildlife, I think you should stop poaching, I think you have to abide by the law. Even the goofy laws. Until you change a goofy law, you have to abide by it. But some of these laws are indescribably bizarre and illogical.

GLENN: You describe one more law, I've got to go in about a minute, but describe one more thing that is happening on your ranch here in Texas that is not, it's not illogical. It is ‑‑ it's inhumane.

NUGENT: Yes. I ‑‑ the scimitar‑horned oryx was brought to Texas landowners, private land, many years ago because it's a magnificent animal and it was endangered in Africa. It is no longer endangered. We put a value on it where we harvest the surplus bulls and we went from like 1200 to 20,000‑something oryx, more than stabilizing the herd because they're valuable to landowners. The federal government sided with an animal rights maniac to ban the hunting. I have to get federal permits to touch my thriving, growing, healthy heard of oryx. There was a ‑‑

GLENN: And if you leave them alone, if you leave them alone, it's like bunny rabbits. They will overrun everything.

NUGENT: They will eat everything and all life will cease. It will be a moonscape.

GLENN: Okay.

NUGENT: That's why the annual season of harvest is a stewardship duty. So I have a crippled calf oryx that has three legs that is all gaunt and my wife and I are watching it slowly die. But if I were to do the right thing and dispatch this animal, put it out of its misery, I would be a felon, Glenn.

GLENN: Okay. So we have people, we have people in this administration that are actually making the case that you should put a human down, a baby down if they're deformed, if they have any kind of handicap, if they don't have any quality of life, they should be killed; but you can't do it to an oryx.

NUGENT: It's unbelievable. My brain won't accept this vile abuse of power. We've got to take this country back. And I've got to tell you, Glenn, I'm walking the streets of Los Angeles. You wouldn't think it's Ted Nugent country but, my goodness, the support you have out here for blowing the whistle. You're doing We the people, freedom of the press, First Amendment duties, and the supportive out here is unbelievable. Everywhere, Glenn, every cop, every family, every person walking the street, the spiked‑hair, pierced‑ear guy, everybody says, "Go, Ted, we support you. Thank you for standing up for common sense." I've never seen anything like it, Glenn.

GLENN: Well, you won't find that at CNN. Or the administration.

NUGENT: Oh, but when I bring it to Piers Morgan or CNN, my buddy, I can't even think of his name, Anderson Cooper, believe me, when I bring it, their ratings are representative of common sense, I promise you that.

STU: (Laughing).

GLENN: Ted Nugent, we'll talk to you tonight at 5:00 and there's so much more to tell of this story. Thank you very much

NUGENT: God speed, Glenn. You guys are doing God's work. I'm with you.

GLENN: All right. Talk to you later.

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

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Sharia arrives

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

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

The warning from those who have lived under it

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

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

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

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

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

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

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

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

Wake up before it is too late

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crisis beneath the headlines

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

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

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

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

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

The quiet return of meaning

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

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

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

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

What triggers the Bubba effect

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

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

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

A country cracking from the inside

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

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

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

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

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

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

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

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

How to respond without breaking ourselves

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

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

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth-seeking is real work

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

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

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

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

Bad-faith questions

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

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

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

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

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.