Lies cause great pain

We say the truth lives here, but what does that even mean?  Where does the truth really live?  That’s all that matters is truth.  When all is said and done, everything, everything that is outside of truth will be swept away, and everything that is truth will stand.  That’s it.

So when you see all the news and all the lies, I know it’s hard, but we really shouldn’t get even angry, because the lies are great teachers, and it won’t last.  Today, this morning, I got up, and I read the story on TheBlaze about the jobs numbers.  Just before the 2012 election, they now say oh, it looks like those were fabricated.  Really?

Unemployment dipped below 8%.  All indicators for the economy pointed to bad news, and I remember we talked about it – that’s not true.  That’s not possible.  How did that happen?  There are some other things you know to know about when it comes to truth.  Last night in a phone conference, the president said 100 million Americans had signed up at Healthcare.gov in the first month.  Listen.

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President Obama:  In the first month alone, we’ve seen more than 100 million Americans already successfully enroll in the new insurance plans.

Okay, not true, and it wouldn’t have been like 100,000 people.  The actual number is 26,000.  Where did that number come from?  The press isn’t too upset.  The just say he flubbed.  Did he?  So far, there’s no effort by the White House to correct the so-called mistake, so he can just say it, and everybody just says oh well, he just flubbed.

Last month there was another flub.  The president read a letter from a 48-year-old single mom, and he held her up as an ObamaCare success story but apparently not so much.  She’s saying that she received a letter of her own.  It was from the state exchange, notifying her that her tax credit was reduced.  A few days later, another letter came, said her tax credit was completely taken away, so now she can’t afford health care and health insurance at all.

Predictably over the coming weeks, the spin masters are going to try to find ways to explain things away or get you to lose, you know, attention, whatever.  I want you to remember one thing.  It’s really straightforward, and it’s not just to you and me but a lot of people.  They’re beginning to realize they’re not being told the truth.  But I’d like to change that.

It’s not that you haven’t been told the truth.  You are being lied to.  And I want you to ask your friends and neighbors if we use the same ethics in parenting as we do in politics, would everybody be okay?  I mean, you catch your kid lying.  Would it be okay for somebody to say, “Oh, did you just make a little flub?  Oh, you don’t need to correct that.  Did you just misspeak?”

I have never, ever asked my kids if they have misspoken.  “Did you misspeak?  Was that a misspeak?  Was that a flub?”  I always say, “Did you lie to me?  Did you lie to your mother?”  Why?  Because we know that lying is wrong.  Why is it wrong?  We teach our kids you have to own up to whatever it is you did.  Don’t ever lie.  Why?  Because it makes a difference.  Why?  Because lying makes everything 100 times worse, and you have no trust in the family.  You have no trust of everybody if you start to lie.

That’s why we put such an emphasis on truth, because we know lying leads to another lie and another lie, and it all causes pain, pain to the person on the receiving end and ultimately sooner or later even greater pain to the one dishing out the lies and everyone along the line.  But what defeats lie?  Truth, the truth sets you free.  It’s the most powerful weapon you have.  Empower the truth.

Play your cards face up on the table, and you’ll be able to stand with courage.  Keep things hidden, and you will cower in constant fear of being exposed.  How many of us don’t actually believe, you know, we can do anything great because we believe the lie that maybe this is as good as it gets, maybe that’s the best I can do?  It’s a lie.  It’s a lie.  Lies hold us hostage.  Lies keep us enslaved.  Lies tear us apart.

We have been lied to about almost everything by both sides.  America, you don’t even know who you are.  I didn’t.  I didn’t.  I wrote this book, Miracles and Massacres, and when I say I, it’s the collective I.  I picked all the stories.  I found the stories with my team, and then we wrote it together, because it’s 12 stories.

We spent a lot of time researching these 12 stories to make sure that it’s all right, and you will see that it has the, you know, it has all that you need here, all of the footnotes and everything else so you can see where we got it because miracles and massacres, that’s what this country is, miracles and massacres.

You have to know the worst of our country and the best.  What can you possibly learn from the worst of America?  How is it possibly relevant to today?  Well, if I said what day did Pearl Harbor happen, you’d say December 7, 1941, a date which would live in infamy.  Great, that’s a speech, but tell me about the ramifications of Pearl Harbor and how does the war with Japan relate to any news happening today?  I’ll show you.

I want to tell you about a 25-year-old daughter of a Japanese American immigrant.  She had set sail for her homeland of Japan.  She was born here, but she was going to go see a sick relative.  Well, then December 7, 1941 happened, and now she was trapped there, because the war happened, and we’re not going to bring in people from Japan, especially while we’re putting people up in internment camps.  We’re not going to bring this, you know, 20-something back into the United States.

She was steadfast in her patriotism.  She loved the country.  She declared at one point, “A tiger doesn’t change its stripes.”  Now, who did she declare that to?  The Japanese government, because the Japanese government told her she had to renounce her American citizenship, and she said a tiger does not change its stripes.

Well, she took a typing job.  She was actually friendly with the American POWs, and she had access to them.  And it came out later that she had smuggled food and medicine to the POWs.  She eventually found work as a typist to make ends meet while she was on the outs, and she ended up at a place called Radio Tokyo.

She was first recruited by Australian POW Major Charles Cousins, and he said you should be a host.  It wasn’t a huge role.  There were 20 minutes here and there.  The Japanese had wanted her to broadcast American propaganda and use the POWs to do it to demoralize American troops, but she said no, she wouldn’t do it.

She actually devised a plan of sending messages to our troops to help our troops.  The Japanese didn’t catch her.  Her stage name was Ann, and it was just short for announcer, but everybody knows her by the nickname Tokyo Rose, Tokyo Rose.  That’s what she use on the air, and after the war ended, she was anxious to come back home.  She was really excited to not only come back home but to tell the story.

A reporter reached out to her, promising her $2,000 for an interview to tell her story.  Well, she wanted to go home.  Two thousand dollars, she didn’t have the money to go home, and that was it.  It was her ticket home.  So she agreed to the interview because after all, she’s an American citizen.  She told her story.  She said the POWs and me, we didn’t go along with the Japanese propaganda plan.  She was proud of it.  She left the interview thinking this is going to be great, but when the story publication was released, she realized she had been lied to.

It was titled “Traitor’s Pay:  Tokyo Rose got 100 Yen a Month…$6.60.”  As soon as that happened, there was a knock on her door from three officers and a master sergeant from the Army Counterintelligence Corps.  She was under arrest.  She was deemed a traitor to her country.  A traitor?  There was evidence.  The POWs knew, right?

It didn’t stop anybody.  The prosecution plowed forward.  It was the most expensive trial in the United States history up until that time, and why was it so expensive?  Because they had to bribe people and get them to shut up.  She was sentenced to ten years in prison.  She served six years of a ten-year sentence before the witnesses, the POWs, began to admit they were lying during the trial, and this was wrong.

But the damage was already done.  You know Tokyo Rose.  Tokyo Rose was a traitor, right?  You know that.  We all know that.  While she was in prison and torn away from her family, her mother died in a Japanese internment camp.  She had her country stolen from her, both her homeland and her home of America, both of them.  She wasn’t wanted in any place, and it all started with a lie and furthered by lies on top of lies.

How did she possibly go to prison?  Why?  Why did they do that to her?  Well, because the press thought it was a good story.  It was a great story.  Everybody knows Tokyo Rose.  We’re going to get that story, and they already had it written before they ever met her.  And the administration needed good headlines.  There was an election, so putting her behind bars, getting the real bad Tokyo Rose, that worked.

The two groups separately or together, I’m not really sure, they just decided it’s okay to destroy somebody’s life because they knew the truth anyway, and the truth, you know, doesn’t really matter.  The ends justify the means.  So why did I put that story in this book, and how is that relevant to today?  Well, let me show you.  If you know history, you know that it repeats itself.

Do you remember the unemployment story right before the election, just talked about it with Jack Welch?  This is what happened.  Jack Welch, when he saw those numbers, he tweeted this.  He said, “Unbelievable jobs numbers…these Chicago guys will do anything…can’t debate so change numbers.”  He explained his position in an interview.  Listen.

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Jack Welch:  Chris, these numbers are all a series of assumptions, tons of assumptions, and it just seems somewhat coincidental that the month before the election, the numbers go 1/10 of a point below where they were when the president started, although I don’t see anything in the economy that says these surges are true.

As it turns out, they weren’t.  People dog piled.  People in the press, they called him a crazy old man, an unemployment rate truther, an insane crabby lesbian, and then they labeled him finally Conspiracy Jack.  So you know, Jack Welch is one of the most respected men, one of the most respected businessman in American history.  But not anymore.

Just like Tokyo Rose, where does Tokyo Rose go?  Where did Jack Welch go to get his reputation back?  Where does he go?  You see, the media, those people in power, the administration and the media, feel it’s okay.  You can destroy a man’s reputation because it serves a purpose just like Tokyo Rose.

Maybe years from now Jack Welch will be long dead, and nobody will really remember who he was.  And maybe a president of the day will recognize him and say hey, you know, he was right about that, but don’t hold your breath.  It wasn’t until 1976 that Gerald Ford recognized Tokyo Rose and pardoned her, but everybody still thinks of Tokyo Rose as a traitor.

This, this is her microphone that was used to help the Americans and to warn them.  This was taken by somebody who tried to burn Radio Tokyo down.  See, there were five Tokyo Roses, but the one that went to prison was on our side.  History tells a truth.

Today is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.  President couldn’t show up, and when he did, Ken Burns is now saying that he specifically asked him to drop the “under God” out from the address.  Maybe he did.  Maybe he didn’t.  I don’t know.  I would’ve never accused him of lying, but I don’t know what the truth is anymore.

Lincoln spoke these words.  This is the Gettysburg Address, spoke these words on these two pieces of paper.  This is a very old copy, by the way, obviously not the real Gettysburg Address.  But he spoke these words.  That’s it.  At a time when America was at its breaking point, America literally hung in the balance, they didn’t know what was true.

He united the country by reaffirming America’s virtues and her commitment to the idea that all men are created equal, that we now here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that governments of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.  Lincoln spoke the truth.

Today, we’re lied to.  He died because of that truth.  This is a piece of his bed sheet, and you can see the faded bloodstains here as they took the bed sheet and actually pushed it into his skull trying to stop the bleeding.  People die for the truth, so why don’t we value the truth anymore?  Why don’t people just give you the truth?  Why don’t you say the truth no matter how ugly or scary it is?

Because people are afraid or they don’t have the spine to deal with the problem.  They don’t have the spine to tell their kids you can’t sing.  They don’t know what to do, and so they kick the can down the road.  And some people do it because they can get what they want.  I’ll get free healthcare, doesn’t matter.  We’ll have a nice jobs report.  It doesn’t matter and crush Jack Welch.

Progressives lie because they are taught the ends justify the means.  Hey, ObamaCare is going to be great.  We’ve been trying to get it the right way.  We’ve been trying to convince people.  We can’t convince people.  It’s okay to lie.  You’re going to have to pass it to see what’s in it.  And people are stupid enough to buy it.

Prosecuting Tokyo Rose, it will make America feel good.  It doesn’t matter.  Okay, it’s one person, but it will make the collective feel good.  If we just lie on this one jobs report, we’ll get reelected, and we’ll be able to help people.  The ends justify the means.  This is the book that teaches this.  This is the book that the president taught when he was in college.  They say he was a constitutional scholar, my hat.  He taught this.

This is Saul Alinsky.  This is a copy that was signed by Saul Alinsky.  This is a copy I want to show you right here, the dedication page.  By the way, there’s a reason people don’t use fountain pens anymore, as you can see right here, although it has been freaking people out as I’ve been saying that that’s the sheet from Lincoln all day.

But here he says, “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical, from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.”

I’m sorry, Lucifer is the father of all lies, so if you know that, and you’re still doing this, I know who your father is.  The truth shall set you free, and you know, that’s not actually what was said.  I mean, that’s part of it, but that’s not the entire phrase, the truth shall set you free.  That’s only part of it.

The first part of that line is you will know the truth.  You will know the truth, and everybody does.  Everybody does.  You just have to stop and think about it.  You will know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.  When that was first uttered, the guys standing around the guy who said that said we’re are not slaves.  We came from Abraham, and we were freed by Moses.  What are you even talking about?

Anybody who lies, cheats, steals, tell this to your children.  I know you already do.  Anyone who hurts someone else is a slave.  We already fought to set men free, died to set men free.  One died to make men holy.  Only the truth works.  Only goodness prevails.  In the end, it does.  Jesus said I just do what I’ve seen my father do, and that’s how you will know me.  And I know you because I know who your father is.  I know you’re only doing what you’ve seen your father do.

It is the choice between good and evil, and it all starts with the simple truth.  It all starts with just doing the right thing.  So the job numbers came out, and they sucked, oh well, that’s the way it is.  There was the lie, the job numbers is down, and then they had to pile another one on, and they destroyed a man.

Don’t be a part of that at all, ever, ever, ever, ever.  Let the chips fall where they may.  The right path is here.  Choose the right path.  The time to choose it is now.  And only the truth leads to freedom.

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

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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.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

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A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

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The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

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What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

  • for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
  • for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
  • for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
  • for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
  • and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?