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Glenn's Show Prep

Looking past the politics for something more

January 07, 2014
Wilson

Writer

There’s something happening right now that is perplexing to us and disturbing to me personally, and I want to go back to the GLAAD story.  I could not believe how the media is just flabbergasted that I would be against burning people in ovens.  This happened before I went on vacation.  I was on the Piers Morgan show without Piers, I’m happy to say, and here’s what I said that has everybody shocked.

VIDEO

Glenn:  I said on the air this week I will stand with GLAAD.  I will stand with any, anybody who will stand up and say that’s crazy, that’s dangerous, that’s hetero fascism.  That’s what that is.  And we’re talking about Duck Dynasty?  Really?  Really?

That apparently is horrible.  They can’t believe that Glenn Beck would actually…what?  It’s sad that we have to talk about basic human rights like this in this day and age, but obviously there are crazy people like the Russian bigot that, you know, we have to say.  But here’s what’s more tragic, that the media would react like this:

VIDEO

I still don’t like the fact that he’s given Duck Dynasty a pass, but he’s standing up to a much bigger issue, you know?

Noah Michelson:  Huge, I mean, I think it’s more shocking to see Glenn Beck say that than to see the YMCA guys say that it’s not about gay people.  You know what I mean?  Any time like Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly or Pat Robertson says something that’s even remotely pro-gay, I have to like watch it again and make sure that I’m really seeing it correctly. 

But it’s awesome, you know?  I think we’re seeing this country change more and more and more, and the more that people like that, like Glenn Beck, if he can say something like that, amazing.

And maybe we underestimate Republicans in a certain way because many of them, particularly the libertarian bunch, are saying look, it’s not the government’s business what you’re doing.  Whether I have a moral issue with it or not isn’t even the point, because I suspect Glenn Beck as a Mormon would have a certain moral opposition to it.  But he’s saying that’s not my business.  And even if it were, we damn sure have to do something about this violence.

Noah Michelson:  No, it’s true, and I think we’ll take our supporters where we can get ’em.  You know what I mean?  If he wants to speak out, and he wants to join GLAAD, and he wants to, you know, make this a big issue, that’s awesome.

How does this warrant airtime?  Who thinks that this is a good thing?  Is there anybody within the sound of my voice that isn’t a psycho that thinks that the ovens is a good idea?  They’re shocked.  They’re surprised.  They have to watch it a couple times because Glenn Beck saying that, what?  What does that say about what they think about you and me?  Maybe, maybe we misunderstand or underestimate the Conservatives?  Maybe?  It’s insulting.  It’s ignorant.

 

But if they want to come out and recognize that hey, maybe…I support them.  I support them.  Now, there is another way to explain the surprise.  Maybe if people don’t believe the Russian guy that he’s really serious.  He’s just using extreme rhetoric.  That’s what they say about Ahmadinejad.  Well, he says okay, they’re going to burn in the fires of the Islamic fires, whatever.  You know, he’s just saying that for political reasons.

I have a general policy towards people who invoke the Holocaust or mass killing.  I take them at their word.  It doesn’t even have to be mass.  You say you’re going to kill me, I take you at your word.  When Iran says they want to wipe Israel off the map and exterminate all the Jews, I think they mean it.  If they don’t, isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?

I made this case when Osama bin Laden said that there would be, you know, blood on the streets of Manhattan, devastation in Manhattan, in New York City.  I believed him.  Unfortunately, the Conservatives, because Bill Clinton was in office, didn’t.  I did.  I wasn’t surprised when 9/11 happened.  I was just as much in shock and in horror, but I wasn’t surprised when I heard who did it.

Then there’s the Muslim Brotherhood.  They say their goal is to dismantle American institutions and turn all of the U.S. and all other nations into Muslim nations, the global caliphate.  They mean it.  They’re not using hyperbole.  They’re not joking.  They mean it.  And so every time that somebody makes a disturbing statement like the Russian guy did, I don’t shrug it off.  I take a stand.

 

I guess when I was younger I didn’t take a stand because I really didn’t think horrible things could happen in the world.  I was naïve.  I didn’t think evil existed.  It does.  It does.  There are two sides of every man.  There’s good nature and bad nature.  Which one do you choose?

So it has me standing up alongside people that, I never stood up before for Israel, but I’ll stand up for Israel, stand up for the Jewish people.  I’ll stand up for Egypt and the Egyptians.  I’ll stand with GLAAD.  I will stand with the Tea Party.  Yeah, I will stand with an atheist like Penn Jillette.  I’ll stand on the side of basic human rights and individual liberty over party politics every single time, and if I don’t, I expect you to call me out on it.

Good heavens, I walked arm in arm with Al Sharpton.  Do you remember that?  Yeah, that’s me.  He looked at me so dumbfounded and shocked.  I didn’t want to be there.  I gave him my word I would be, and he looked up at me and he said what the – and I said Al, I told you I would.  I’m a man of my word.  He was shocked.

Saturday night, it was about 1:00 in the morning, I wrote a note to Melissa Harris-Perry.  I don’t know if she ever got my e-mail, but I wrote her after I saw her apology this weekend.  Melissa Harris-Perry, we disagree on just about every political issue known to man, but we’re not really talking about politics here in what she did.  We’re talking about human beings.

We might disagree, but I’ve never sensed, like I do with Alec Baldwin.  Alec Baldwin I think is a bad guy.  I don’t think that Melissa Harris-Perry is a bad person, and she certainly doesn’t deserve to be wrecked over one bad segment that quite honestly I’ve seen much, much worse on NBC.

We can continue to have our debates and disagreements, but we have to be able to put all of that aside when true evil rises up like it does in Europe.  Right now in Russia, right now fascism is on the rise.  It’s appalling to me that people can’t look past the politics of Glenn Beck or of GLAAD to understand yeah, we should stand together.

By the way, this isn’t a gay issue.  It’s a human issue.  Aren’t we humans first before we have sex with people?  But for a second, let’s say it is a gay issue.  What part of my personal belief that you have a right to be who you are, and I have a right to be who I am, and that the government should get out of the marriage business entirely, and you should stay out of my church’s business, and I should stay out of your business, what part of that sounds bigoted?

I don’t get my marriage rules from the government.  I get them from my church.  Don’t tell my church who they have to marry.  I won’t tell you who you can and cannot marry – none of my business.  Don’t tell me I have to make a wedding cake for somebody, and I won’t tell you, you have to make a wedding cake, you know, for me.  Can’t we just let people be who they are?  Is that stance bigoted?

But like I said, this isn’t a gay issue.  It’s a human issue.  You ask me, are you a Conservative?  Are you a Libertarian?  No, I’m pretty sure I’m a human being first, and I was given inalienable rights, and so were you.  Why are we putting each other in boxes?  Why do we have to have categories for everything?  I know, I know, I know, it makes it easier, but it also makes it easier to become bigoted.  Putting us in categories only serves politicians and then limits us from the true freedom of thought.

I am a human who lives and breathes just like the next guy, whoever he’s sleeping with.  I have a family.  I like to laugh.  I like to play with my kids.  I like to watch a good movie.  Sometimes I see too many bad movies.  I’m not angry.  I’m not the evil conservative monster they say I am.  And get this one, I don’t think they’re the monster either.  What?

If we cannot lift ourselves out of the political muck that we are finding ourselves in, mired in deeper and deeper every day, we’re in trouble, because that’s where we’re stuck.  We’re stuck in this slimy mess where if you’re opposed to amnesty, it must be because you hate Mexicans.  If you oppose ObamaCare, you just want old people to die.  If you’re for lower taxes across the board, you hate the needy and the poor.  None of those are true.  None of those are true.

With Melissa Harris-Perry this weekend, with what she said about Romney and what she was going through, I wrote to her, and I said I’ve never thought that you were a bad person.  And I think you’re being made to pay for the collective, the collective mistakes of MSNBC, because I’ve seen bigger mistakes there, and it didn’t seem to make that much of a difference.

Are people not seeing?  Forget about them seeing us.  Are we seeing them?  Are we seeing their faces over fear?  Are we seeing freedom over control?  We can disagree about everything in politics.  That’s fine.  But let’s go out on a limb and get really crazy and say maybe we should unite on some big things like, I don’t know, people shouldn’t be put into ovens alive or even farther out on a limb, people just shouldn’t be put into ovens, even when they’re dead.

Eight-year-olds shouldn’t be forced to put suicide vests on and blow themselves up.  In fact, no person should be forced to put on a suicide vest and kill others.  You want to put on a suicide vest yourself?  You’re like I don’t know, that seems like a snappy number for me to wear today, and I want to blow myself up, go out and do it in the middle of a field.  I don’t really care.

People shouldn’t be forced to live a certain way.  I shouldn’t force my Christianity on you, and don’t you force your atheism on me.  If we’re going to survive, we have to be a nation where we can all live next to each other and get along, but that starts here.  When someone is bullied, we need to stand up with them, no matter who it is, because once the bully is done with them, he’s going to find someone else to pick on.

It was wrong when it happened on the playground when we were kids.  It’s wrong now.  When I was a kid, I didn’t think I could do anything about the bully then, because most of the time the bully was pushing me down, and the crowd strangely was cheering.  But I’m not afraid of bullies anymore.  They don’t hold any power over me.  Whether those bullies are Russian, Chinese, Arab, American, Marxist, Islamic, Christian, atheist, Republican, Democrat, I’m not afraid.  The only thing I’m afraid of losing is who I truly am, and I can’t lose that, and that can be taken from me.

Unfortunately, I have to give that one away myself.  So I stand with the little guy, every little guy, who has the right that we all do, all the rights that we find self-evident, a right to live, a right to pursue his or her happiness in the way he or she believes is right for him.  Freedom is the uniting principle of our time, and unfortunately, time is running out.  For the seventh consecutive year now, freedom in the world, it’s a report that comes out, says now that more countries are losing freedom then gaining it.

Why is that happening?  Because we’re talking about Duck Dynasty.  We’re talking about Glenn Beck instead of the Russian guy.  Russia, by the way, saw the most dramatic swing after Putin regained power, and surprise, surprise, the Arab Spring has led to strong authoritarian response.  You mean it’s not a Jeffersonian revolution?  So yes, Virginia, I will happily stand with GLAAD and anyone else who wants to stop real actual hate and real actual human rights abuses.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.