The Story of Passover

April 03, 2015

Writer

A couple of week’s ago, Glenn invited Rabbi Bentzi Epstein to the studios to give a Torah lesson for anyone in the building interested in attending. Glenn found the session so compelling that he asked Rabbi Epstein to come back, this time with a full studio audience. Many only know the story of Passover from the Charlton Heston movies, so Glenn asked the rabbi to explain the true story behind this holiday and why it means so much to Jews and Christians around the world.

Glenn: Hello, America, and welcome to The Glenn Beck Program and to TheBlaze. This is the network that you are building. We have a studio audience today, and I’m glad you guys are all here. Is everybody ready to have a good time? All right, okay, so anyway, so, this weekend is Easter and Passover, and everything I knew about Passover I learned from Charlton Heston. So, I know squat about it, but I will tell you that in the last few years, I have gotten to know many Jewish people and many, many rabbis, and I love this religion. I love the people of this religion.

As I was in Israel at two o’clock in the morning, and I know nothing really, I mean, I’m the whitest white guy you’ve ever met. I lived in Seattle, Washington. I mean, nobody even has a tan there, and that’s where I grew up. I remember the first time that I ever saw an African-American, my father said, “Don’t stare.” I was just like, “Look how dark he is.”

The first time, I think, I don’t know, I didn’t card people as a kid, but I think the first time I ever met a Jewish person was when I moved to New York and I had a Jewish agent. I mean, I just didn’t know anybody. So, the culture is completely foreign to me, and so I’ve had a chance to discover it myself. I have several Jewish friends. Some practice, some don’t.

The ones who practice it have enriched my faith so deeply, because as Christians, we are scratching the surface. When you read the Torah, you start to see we don’t know jack as Christians. We just don’t have any concept of how rich all of this is. I honestly don’t think that we should close that book. I think we should embrace the Jewish people and learn from them because they have so much to teach. I absolutely love this, and so a Rabbi here in Dallas, Bentzie Epstein, is a man who has come in here, what were you, two weeks ago?

Rabbi: Two weeks ago.

Glenn: I asked him to start Torah studies for anybody in the building who wanted to learn the Torah, and so we had non-practicing Jews, we had Christians, we had everybody. We do this with Christians pastors as well, and we study the Bible. We had such a great time in that 90 minutes I thought we should do a show on Passover and let him just teach Passover.

Here’s the first thing I want to start with, if this is the Passover table, I don’t want to eat any of that. None of this looks yummy. So, maybe we’ll save that. Why don’t we start with everything I learned, I learned from Charlton Heston. So, that’s not much. I know the blood on the door, and I know you eat bitter herbs and everything else, but tell me the whole story of Passover.

Rabbi: Okay, so the first thing, my mother-in-law happens to be in your group as well. You know, she saw The Ten Commandments as a kid, and that was her education. As I’ve been teaching and going through history, I tell people whatever you learn from Hollywood is wrong. So, the only way you can go ahead and you can watch any of these shows, I said, is if you pay your kids, you know, $0.50, inflation, maybe a buck, for every mistake they find, because it gets so ingrained. Like at our Seder, my in-laws are here, and we talk about the Ten Commandments. All she can think of is Charlton Heston. That’s all she can think of.

Glenn: So, I think a lot of people are like that though. How much would it cost you if you did every dollar per mistake?

Rabbi: You know, it would take forever. I actually told a few of my students, I said, “Why don’t you tape the show?” I said, “And then we’ll have a little showing,” and we’ll stop the movie every scene, you know, and kind of see if they got anything right.

Glenn: Next year we have to do that. That would be fantastic.

Rabbi: But we need more than an hour. So, that’s kind of how these things go. So, Passover, we’re about to celebrate our 3328th Passover tomorrow night, okay? So, Passover, the actual Exodus in Egypt took place 3328 years ago. The Gregorian calendar, it would be 1313 B.C.E, and Jewish calendar would be year 2448, 2448 years from the creation of man, not the world. The world one is actually…well, before the world. Judaism has a fiscal calendar and a calendar year. Our fiscal calendar or our calendar year starts on Rosh Hashanah, right? That’s the anniversary of the world, anniversary of man.

Glenn: But this is the month of like New Year’s, right?

Rabbi: Right, so this month, this is the month of Nisan, and the month of Nisan which is really the first month—

Glenn: Everybody gets a car?

Rabbi: A Nissan. So, I was wondering how they got the—

Glenn: Yeah, I know.

Rabbi: This is the first month of the year. So, in the Jewish calendar, for example, today would be the 13th day to the month of Nisan, year 5775. [So] 5775 connotates from the creation of man, and the 13th of Nisan is from the Exodus of Egypt, okay? The Exodus of Egypt is probably the most important event. It’s a piece of the most seminal event in Jewish history because that’s really…tonight or tomorrow night we’re all going to be sitting down at our Seders, you have the birth of the Jewish people. Okay, this is where the Jewish people were birthed into. Okay, it means 430 years before tomorrow night what happened was you had Abraham ink a deal with God to be the Jewish people. So, Jewish people then were 1743 B.C.E. was when the Jewish people, when Abraham inked a deal with God for the Jewish people to be the Jewish people.

Glenn: I’ve never heard anybody ink a deal with God. It’s funny. It’s like, “I’ve got some changes here on page three.”

Rabbi: The Bible talks about that God told Abraham, take some animals, cut them in half, put them on either side, and then God sent down a pillar of smoke in a fiery furnace and walked through the pieces of the animal, right? Genesis 15, right, that’s where that takes place, so actually it’s a real deal. That’s when we became the Jewish people, so Abraham is considered the patriarch of the Jewish people. Got it? You have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, those are the three patriarchs. You had four matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, and they are the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people. They created the spiritual DNA of the Jewish people. As a people, we became birthed on Passover, okay?

Glenn: Because that was the coming together and saying we’re all entering Exodus together. We are one as a people, and we are moving as one for the first time.

Rabbi: And we’re all accepting the deal that Abraham made with God. That’s actually what takes place, because one thing that we really don’t talk about a lot but you should know, only 20% of the Jewish people left Egypt. During the ninth plague, the plague of darkness, 80% of the Jewish people died because they said we would rather be slaves to Egypt than serve God. They said, “We’re outta here.” They said, “We’re not going.” God says you’ve got two choices, you could come with me or you can stay here dead.

Glenn: This is the thing that amazes me. When I first heard that, because I’ve heard 10%, but I’ll take your 20. Don’t argue with me, Rabbi. This is the thing that amazes me, because we think that is unusual, but there was only 20 to 30% of the American people that went to fight against the king. They weren’t all with George Washington. It was 30% was the number. The rest were either neutral or against it. If you look at what’s happening right now and you said, “Hey, we all have got to stand up,” you’d be lucky to get 20%. There would be a lot of people that believe, “No, this really isn’t right,” but standing up and doing something about it, that’s a small number. So, God always kind of unfortunately whittles it down and purifies those people right before there’s another great expansion.

Rabbi: Yeah. Actually Egypt is called a cauldron, right, a crucible. This is where the Jewish people were purified, and the 20% that left, all Jews today, descended from that.

Glenn: Now, how did they go from being purified…this is the thing I’ve never understood with The Ten Commandments, the Charlton Heston, is they’ve seen all these plagues. They’ve seen all these miracles. They walked across the Red Sea. They see Pharaoh’s armies destroyed. Moses leaves, and the minute he’s gone, it’s…it took a little longer than that?

Rabbi: Yeah, 40 days.

Glenn: Okay still, but 40 days and they are building an altar to—

Rabbi: A golden calf.

Glenn: I mean, what happens? How does that happen?

Rabbi: Actually it’s interesting. Really what happens on that piece is that the Jewish people are in the desert.

Glenn Because these are the good guys. These are the dedicated.

Rabbi: You should know, just in their defense, first of all, the 20% that left were not God-fearing people. When the Jewish people, seven days after we left, we came to the Reed Sea. It’s actually not the Red Sea. The Hebrew word is Yam Suph. Yam means sea. Suph means reeds, Sea of Reeds. It probably was the Red Sea. You know why the Red Sea is called the Red Sea?

Glenn: No.

Rabbi: Because the reeds that grow on the bottom of the Red Sea are red, so they make the water look red.

Glenn: Okay.

Rabbi: Okay, so it’s really the technical term is the Reed Sea.

Glenn: Is there a Reed Sea other than the Red Sea?

Rabbi: I don’t believe so.

Glenn: Okay, so we think it’s the Red Sea.

Rabbi: It’s probably the Red Sea, and actually the Red Sea—

Glenn: So, if it’s reeds, it’s not really deep. It’s like the new one I think or maybe I saw…I also learned a lot from Prince of Egypt, that great cartoon, because in that cartoon there’s like a whale or something there by the water. Like wow, that’s cool, there’s a whale in the sea.

Rabbi: So, I mean, the reeds could be pretty tall. So, Sea of Reeds, it’s actually interesting because there’s a question about the Gulf of Suez or the Gulf of Aqaba, and it seems that really took place, that the splitting of the Reed Sea actually was the Gulf of Aqaba, not the Gulf of Suez. So, if you could imagine, here’s Egypt, okay, and here’s the two fingers. Here’s the Suez which eventually they turned into Suez Canal, and you have here the Gulf of Aqaba where you have all the oil stuff coming out of. They traveled across the desert to the Gulf of Aqaba, probably a place called Nuweiba Beach, okay? Nuweiba Beach is sort of almost a peninsula or a delta into the Sea of Reeds, and that’s why when the Egyptian army came chasing after us we couldn’t go no place.

Glenn: No place.

Rabbi: I never understood if here’s the Sea of Reeds and you’re camped right here, go north, go south. The answer is we’re on a delta. The mountains came up to the Sea of Reeds, and so we’re stuck on this delta. There’s only one way in, and that was through the Wadi, and down the pike was coming the Egyptians. So, we were trapped on the beachhead.

Glenn: Tell me about…because we talked privately about miracles, so tell me about the parting of the Red Sea and the choice you have to believe.

Rabbi: Okay, so this is quite fascinating. Most people, when it comes to miracles, they have a hard time figuring it out. You know, like if I levitate you off this couch—

Glenn: That would be cool.

Rabbi: That would be cool.

Glenn: If I levitated you off this couch, that would be very cool.

Rabbi: I love your couches. Once you sit in them, you don’t get up.

Glenn: I know.

Rabbi: Right, so people define miracles, if I picked up this building, wow, what a miracle.

Glenn: Right.

Rabbi: Judaism, that’s not how we define miracles. Judaism, we define miracles, God will always try to do a miracle…He will always try to do it within the bounds of nature, okay? So, it will always be as natural as it could be, and in fact, if you actually read the Torah, right, it says that Moses stuck his hand out over the sea, and it says an east wind blew all that night. The next morning, the Sea of Reeds split. At dawn, the Sea of Reeds split, and in we went. So, you see the sea splitting was a natural event. The wind blew.

Glenn: It was the stacking up of the water.

Rabbi: The stacking up of the water.

Glenn: Have you ever read Velikovsky, a guy named Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision? Has anybody ever read Worlds in Collision?

Rabbi: Is he in the Bible?

Glenn: No. He was a guy who actually was really besmirched. He was a scientist and besmirched. When Einstein died, he had just written Velikovsky a letter and said I am sorry that I was part of the besmirching of you. He said some of the stuff that you’ve said has turned out to be accurate, and he said I will make it my life’s mission to correct any of the stuff that I have done. He died a week later.

So, Velikovsky is still discredited, and it’s not that his conclusions are necessarily accurate, it’s his idea. He talked about worlds in collision. He talked about let’s go through the Bible, and let’s look now if the sun did stop, we should find that in many religions, and they might explain it differently.

If the Red Sea…and how he explained the Red Sea, he said could it have been that the fire coming down and stuff was maybe a very large meteor coming by that actually changed the gravitational pull and actually made the riverbed or the sea stand up? What he was saying was if God created the universe, He would use his own natural laws to do these things, so we should look for scientific ways and natural ways for miracles to happen. It’s how we translate them. I thought that was great.

Rabbi: Actually the Jewish tradition teaches that when God came, like Noah and the flood, said God took two stars out of orbit and that flooded the world. It’s kind of quite fascinating. When you go through the Bible, it’s amazing. So, the Sea of Reeds, going back to the Sea of Reeds, it was a natural event, and yet in Judaism we consider that to be…the miracles that took place at the Sea of Reeds was five times, four times more than the miracles that took place in Egypt. Everyone knows the ten plagues, right? I didn’t watch the movie, so I can’t tell you.

Glenn: You didn’t watch the movie? Oh, you’ve got to come over to my house for Passover.

Rabbi: And so you go, you get the ten plagues, right? You have ten plagues there, right? And yet the plagues that took place at the Sea of Reeds were multiples of that. Fifty, two hundred, two hundred fifty plagues took place at the Sea of Reeds, right? It’s humongous, and yet like, “Well, what’s the miracle?” Like, big deal, you know, like whoopie-doo. The answer is as follows, and the answer to this is something so significant. The definition of a miracle is timing. The Jewish people stood at the Sea of Reeds, and the Egyptians are pounding now. They’re going to chop their heads off, right? They finally have them in their gun sights. You know, they’ve been taking it for a year, and you can’t fight God. Like, it’s hard to shoot God, right? They go ahead, and they’re about ready to take the Jewish people. They’re going to teach them a lesson, right? How many of them are they going to bring back? They’re going to wipe the floor with them, and they have them in their gun sights, right? The Jewish people are stuck, and we say, “God, help us.” God goes in, and God splits the sea, and we walk through. You have to pardon me. I don’t understand the Egyptians, okay?

Glenn: Yeah.

Rabbi: Ten plagues you’ve lived through, right? You’ve lost everything. You show up at the Sea of Reeds, and all of a sudden, the sea parts, and then you’re stupid enough to follow the Jews in?

Glenn: Yeah, I know, yeah, like way behind them too. If I’m like with them, that’s one thing.

Rabbi: What are you doing? Like, I just don’t get that. The Jewish people get in there, right? The Jewish people walk across. We go ahead, and we go through the Sea of Reeds, and it’s an amazing thing, right? In the last 3328 years, how many times has the Sea of Reeds split?

Glenn: Zero.

Rabbi: Zero, and before this time, how many times has the Sea of Reeds split?

Glenn: Zero.

Rabbi: So that, in Judaism, we put up a big sign, and we say “God.” We say that’s God because it’s timing. That’s God. That’s the miracle. The miracle is it never happens before. It happened just when we were there and we cried out to God. Stick out your hand and poof, poof, poof, and there we go. It’s like amazing.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

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What our response to Israel reveals about us

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I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

America’s moral erosion: How we were conditioned to accept the unthinkable

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Every time we look away from lawlessness, we tell the next mob it can go a little further.

Chicago, Portland, and other American cities are showing us what happens when the rule of law breaks down. These cities have become openly lawless — and that’s not hyperbole.

When a governor declares she doesn’t believe federal agents about a credible threat to their lives, when Chicago orders its police not to assist federal officers, and when cartels print wanted posters offering bounties for the deaths of U.S. immigration agents, you’re looking at a country flirting with anarchy.

Two dangers face us now: the intimidation of federal officers and the normalization of soldiers as street police. Accept either, and we lose the republic.

This isn’t a matter of partisan politics. The struggle we’re watching now is not between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between good and evil, right and wrong, self‑government and chaos.

Moral erosion

For generations, Americans have inherited a republic based on law, liberty, and moral responsibility. That legacy is now under assault by extremists who openly seek to collapse the system and replace it with something darker.

Antifa, well‑financed by the left, isn’t an isolated fringe any more than Occupy Wall Street was. As with Occupy, big money and global interests are quietly aligned with “anti‑establishment” radicals. The goal is disruption, not reform.

And they’ve learned how to condition us. Twenty‑five years ago, few Americans would have supported drag shows in elementary schools, biological males in women’s sports, forced vaccinations, or government partnerships with mega‑corporations to decide which businesses live or die. Few would have tolerated cartels threatening federal agents or tolerated mobs doxxing political opponents. Yet today, many shrug — or cheer.

How did we get here? What evidence convinced so many people to reverse themselves on fundamental questions of morality, liberty, and law? Those long laboring to disrupt our republic have sought to condition people to believe that the ends justify the means.

Promoting “tolerance” justifies women losing to biological men in sports. “Compassion” justifies harboring illegal immigrants, even violent criminals. Whatever deluded ideals Antifa espouses is supposed to somehow justify targeting federal agents and overturning the rule of law. Our culture has been conditioned for this moment.

The buck stops with us

That’s why the debate over using troops to restore order in American cities matters so much. I’ve never supported soldiers executing civilian law, and I still don’t. But we need to speak honestly about what the Constitution allows and why. The Posse Comitatus Act sharply limits the use of the military for domestic policing. The Insurrection Act, however, exists for rare emergencies — when federal law truly can’t be enforced by ordinary means and when mobs, cartels, or coordinated violence block the courts.

Even then, the Constitution demands limits: a public proclamation ordering offenders to disperse, transparency about the mission, a narrow scope, temporary duration, and judicial oversight.

Soldiers fight wars. Cops enforce laws. We blur that line at our peril.

But we also cannot allow intimidation of federal officers or tolerate local officials who openly obstruct federal enforcement. Both extremes — lawlessness on one side and militarization on the other — endanger the republic.

The only way out is the Constitution itself. Protect civil liberty. Enforce the rule of law. Demand transparency. Reject the temptation to justify any tactic because “our side” is winning. We’ve already seen how fear after 9/11 led to the Patriot Act and years of surveillance.

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

Two dangers face us now: the intimidation of federal officers and the normalization of soldiers as street police. Accept either, and we lose the republic. The left cannot be allowed to shut down enforcement, and the right cannot be allowed to abandon constitutional restraint.

The real threat to the republic isn’t just the mobs or the cartels. It’s us — citizens who stop caring about truth and constitutional limits. Anything can be justified when fear takes over. Everything collapses when enough people decide “the ends justify the means.”

We must choose differently. Uphold the rule of law. Guard civil liberties. And remember that the only way to preserve a government of, by, and for the people is to act like the people still want it.