Do the ends ever justify the means?

During Tuesday's morning meeting, Glenn expressed a lot of concern over the comments he was seeing on social media calling for an armed response in the conflict between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government. The concern wasn't over the comments necessarily, but the overwhelming sense that good people who believe in freedom and small government will be caught between violent, anti-government fringe groups who offer chaos and progressive, big government people who will offer control under the guise of safety. And that's why in the meeting Glenn decided "it is more important then you can understand that we are messengers of peace at all times, that we are very clear at all times, that I think the show today needs to focus on that message of peace that we have declared over and over and over and over."

And that message of peace and it's history as part of every project and event that Glenn has worked for more than five years was the focus of Tuesday's monologue.

It’s an interesting time to be alive, but there is a question that I want you to answer right now if you haven’t answered it already before.  And it is this, and I want you to really think about this because we have always thought of the ends justify the means.  We always say no.

But it’s always been because we’re looking at the Progressives.  We’re looking at the Bill Ayers.  We’re looking at the Barack Obamas.  I want you to look at your circumstance.  Is there any circumstance where you are willing to violate your principles in order to achieve a desired result?  Would you ever steal, cheat, lie, murder?  This is the question that Dietrich Bonhoeffer dealt with his whole life, frustrated and just so torn apart in the end.

If you thought, really thought it would lead to an overall better ending, remember, Moses did this, he killed the Egyptian because it will lead to a better ending.  But it didn’t.  If you think that it will lead to a better ending, would you do any of these things?  We’re called to be honest, faithful, kind, peaceful, still have a spine, still stand up, and it is hard to follow those guidelines during times of prosperity.

I mean, people are having a hard time doing it now.  But what happens when your options are stripped from you, and your back is pushed up against the wall?  I have told you in the past that there would come a time when you will have to choose.  I’ve been saying it for a while.

Glenn (2011):  It’s up to you.  Will you link arms?  Will you reach across the aisles?  Will you defend the defenseless?  Will you stand up against the lies?  Will you do it with peace and love?  Read Gandhi.  Read Jesus.  Read Martin Luther King.  Will you stand up? 

That was two days after the event in Washington, D.C.  We chose peace.  I’ve chosen peace, and we’ve been in this really easy…I know it hasn’t seemed easy, but we’ve been in the easy part.  We have had the patriot movement, if you will, kind of be this one big block where we all kind of agree with things.  But I knew there would come a time when that would start to break apart because we’re not all alike.  There are those that do want revolution.

That’s been my message from the start of be peaceful, and it began with the 40-day and 40-night challenge while we were at FOX.  We committed, and I asked you to commit yourself to the pledge of nonviolence of Martin Luther King, and people didn’t understand why I was doing this.  I was laying a foundation, and I was lucky enough to be able to do it with Alveda King.

I remember seeing a picture of Martin Luther King with his son, and he was taking out a burnt cross from his front yard the next morning.  And his son was sitting right behind him, this big, and I thought to myself wow, that takes a great man.  And I don’t know if I’m a good enough man to be able to make it, but I will if I plant the roots deep in honor and courage and love.  And this is what we’ve done for the last four summers.

Think of this, I want to show you these, and listen to the words I said in the last four summers, first at the mall in Washington, then in Jerusalem, then at Dallas Cowboys Stadium, then in Salt Lake City with the Man in the Moon.  Listen to the words.

Glenn (Restoring Love, 2012):  We must be better than what we’ve allowed ourselves to become.  We must get the poison of hatred out of us.  No matter what anyone may say or do, no matter what anyone smears or lies or throws our way or to any Americans way, we must look to God and look to love.

We win because while their conviction is rooted in hate, our conviction is rooted in love.  And love always wins in the end. 

With malice toward none and charity toward all, let us tonight restore love, for love will hold us together.  Love will make us a shelter from the storm.  I will be my brother’s keeper, and the world will once again know that they are not alone because again, the Americans have stood up and arrived again with honor, courage, and love.

That was the Restoring series.  The theme of that was always love and peace.  And then we went into a new phase, and we started trying to make that message more accessible to people.  And that’s why I did Man in the Moon.  But I want to show you just this last clip.  This was the point, the message of the moon.  Listen.

Man in the Moon (2013): Tonight, you will go home and kiss your little beasts, and they shall kiss you.  If I have done my job, your light shall burn just a little brighter, and when you awake, you will again choose and begin to write the next pages of this amazing story yourself.  And so will all those around you.  Help each other.  Be good to each other.  Love one another.

I will tell you that I didn’t realize when I was writing that that it was as autobiographical as it turned out to be.  It wasn’t until I had the moon makeup on, and I read those lines, “if I have done my job, your light will burn a little brighter.”  I wrote to my wife this morning, and I asked her to pray for me because I fear I haven’t done my job.

Somehow there are those in this audience and millions in America that did not hear the message of MLK, not from me but even MLK himself.  Quote something from Gandhi, can you?  Tell me something Bonhoeffer said.  We know them, but they’re like cartoon characters to us.  We don’t know really what they said.  Their message today is as clear and as new as anything I could tell you myself, and it is the message of our day and the message of our coming days, months, and years.

And it is a message that I ask you to share with everything that you have, everything that you are.  Live it, learn it, live it, and share it because the time to make a choice is now here.  The hatred is spreading.  In Nevada, one of the guys, he was a former sheriff, he was on television, and he was actually talking about how they were going to put women in front of the protests so in case somebody shot anybody, it would be the image of a dying woman on television, and that would help their cause.  Watch.

Ex-Sheriff supporting Cliven Bundy: We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front.  If they’re going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.

I don’t think appalling even begins to describe that.  Do the ends justify the means?  If there is violence, well, as long as it’s violence with them shooting women and kids, then it will be good for the cause.  They’re not saying they want to get them to shoot them, but if they’re going to shoot, let them shoot women and children.  It is evil.  It is the same kind of thinking that the Progressives have.  This is not George Washington.  That is George Bernard Shaw.

Three were shot dead in Kansas right before, Passover is tonight, last night.  I mean, just as the suspect yelled Heil Hitler, shots rang out.  You know that we’ve had yet another killing, another tragic shooting at Fort Hood.  And it’s also today the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing today.  All of those people, the Heil Hitler guy, the Boston bomber, they all were terrorists.  They thought they would win.

Timothy McVeigh said this, that he hoped that he would prove some point, and it would be a tipping point.  And all of a sudden the people would rise up.  It doesn’t work that way.  It never will, and if it does, remember what happened to Hungary.  Remember what happens every single time.  Remember what happened with Egypt.  It is the fallen and the injured in those attacks who are the true victors, not the people who started it.

Their memories and stories of overcoming whatever it is are our rallying point.  They inspire people, not the people who set it up.  I mean gosh, you talk about a false flag, my gosh, who in their right mind says put women and children up front?  Who says that?  Bill Ayers says things like that, Bill Ayers.  Bill Ayers bombed buildings, attacked police, spit on soldiers.  Is that who we are?

It is those who put themselves in harm’s way peacefully.  Remember, “Don’t break the ranks,” said Martin Luther King.  Let them beat you on camera.  Do not swing back, don’t, don’t.  Don’t taunt them.  Don’t be Occupy Wall Street.  Those will be the true victors, not the terrorists like Bill Ayers or the Boston bombers.

My gosh, I think of that picture of Martin Luther King with his son, do you really think that you have it worse than Martin Luther King and blacks in the 1950s did?  Do you really think so?  Have you done everything in your church?  I’m sorry, I don’t mean to lecture you because you’re here, and you know this.  We are not the violent revolutionaries in the Middle East, Ukraine, Greece, Occupy Wall Street, those people fueled by hate, anger, and vengeance – give it to me!

It is so easy to be consumed by hate.  I have seen it happen with my friends.  I have.  Please, get the poison out of you, please, please, please.  You will regret this.  Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.  Let me tell you something, there is somebody who I had a real problem with, and it’s not worth telling, but I had a real problem with this individual.  And my wife and I got down on our knees every day.  It took us four years, four years, to forgive this person.  And there’s constant injury going on on top of it.

We got to the point to where we weep for them because we see what pain they must be in to cause this pain.  It is tough, but we’re required to do it because vengeance is a losing battle.  Vengeance is His and His alone.  I was in that meeting this morning, and I brought this up.  And Pat, my partner on air, said Glenn, why are you bringing this up?  Because, you know, the Nevada thing is passing.  I said, you know, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, I don’t know, but what I do find so alarming is that there are so many people on the left and the right, people who claim now to be fans of mine, posting on my Facebook page.

Please, defriend me.  Please defriend me.  I want you to unfriend me, defriend me, whatever the hell it’s called, click that button.  I don’t want you to be my friend.  If you believe vengeance is yours, I don’t want you.  It doesn’t belong to you.  One guy wrote, “Well I guess I am no longer a fan of yours because it’s time we the people make a stand and fight.”  No, it’s not.  No, it’s not.  Who are you, we the people?  How dare you speak for we the people.  I’m one of the people.  I don’t agree with you.

You were never a fan of mine.  If you were a fan of mine, you wouldn’t have missed the message of Restoring Honor, Restoring Love, and Restoring Courage or the Man in the Moon or how many shows have I done?  The message of love and peace is at the core of everything that I am, everything that I am as a human being, so no, you have not been misled.  I have not defrauded you.  You deceived yourself.

You’ve been itching for this fight.  I don’t know if I’m in the minority or if they’re in the minority.  I think that this is a really, really, really, really, really tiny minority on Facebook, but I will tell you this, even one person calling for violence is too many, and you must separate yourself.  You must be very clear, if that’s who you are, I am not with you, and you must work to defuse that as much as I do.  You must be vigilant on calling it out, the ends do not justify the means.

Angry people, violent people claiming to be fans of mine, calling for armed insurrection, are not fans of mine.  Unfriend me.  I’m almost up to 3 million friends on Facebook.  I don’t care if I have ten friends on Facebook.  I’m a recovering alcoholic, do you know how many friends I lost when I sobered up?  All of them, all of them.  I’m fine.

We can agree that the government is corrupt.  We can agree that they are usurping the Constitution.  We can agree they’re bloated, out of control, they are spending our children, children’s, children’s, children’s money.  We can agree that they’ve pushed us to the brink.  They’ve poked, they’ve prodded, they’ve taxed, they’ve regulated, they’ve lectured, they’ve mocked us.  They have done everything, everything, except set us on fire.

I get that.  I get it.  But if you are for provoking violence against the Bureau of Land Management, the post office, the dogcatcher, I don’t care, we don’t have anything in common.  I know you’re frustrated, I know, but your frustrations cannot be allowed to boil over into anger, hate, and rage.  That’s what makes us human.  The ends never justify the means, especially when they’re violent means.  Love and peace are the lasting answer.  They always have been the answer.  They always will be the answer.

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

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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.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crisis beneath the headlines

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

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

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

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

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

The quiet return of meaning

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

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

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

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What triggers the Bubba effect

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

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

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

A country cracking from the inside

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

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

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

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

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

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

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

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

How to respond without breaking ourselves

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

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

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth-seeking is real work

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

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

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

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

Bad-faith questions

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

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

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

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.