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Glenn's Show Prep

Should Those Who Are #NeverTrump Finally Yield?

September 21, 2016
Lori Hanes

Writer

Glenn read an opinion piece on air Wednesday that he likened to The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, a masterpiece of satire described as wildly comic, deadly serious and strikingly original.

"I want to take you to a modern-day Screwtape Letter written by Erick Erickson today," Glenn said. "If you're opposed to Donald Trump, I want you to listen to this. And if you're opposed to, you know, not voting for Donald Trump --- I know you're not going to vote for Hillary Clinton, nor am I --- but I want you to listen to this."

Erickson's op-ed showed his thoughtful analysis of the two candidates. His conclusion? We definitely have a savior, but which one will it be?

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these thought-provoking questions:

• Why does Erick Erickson think he's in a no-win position?

• How would a Hillary Clinton presidency be completely anti-American?

• What caused Erickson to actively reconsider his opposition to Trump?

• If God chose Abraham, Samson and David to lead, should we choose Trump?

• What did Erickson decide after reconsidering?

Enjoy this complimentary clip from The Glenn Beck Program:

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: So it's very interesting. I read an op-ed piece today by Erick Erickson that I want to talk about. Reconsidering my opposition to Donald Trump. And if you're opposed to Donald Trump, I want you to listen to this. And if you're opposed to, you know, not voting for Donald Trump -- I know you're not going to vote for Hillary Clinton, nor am I. But I want you to listen to this.

Reconsidering my opposition to Donald Trump. Now, the point on this that I want to make has nothing to do with Donald Trump, but the conversation that came from this article had something to do with something much, much bigger than Donald Trump.

Listen to this: Reconsidering my opposition to Donald Trump by Erick Erickson.

The polling has drawn even closer. More and more people wonder if those of us who are Never Trump should finally yield, knowing that we can now beat Hillary Clinton.

I'm in an odd position. I'm mindful that should Trump win, the Republican establishment will blame people like me for giving rise to people like Donald Trump.

Likewise, I know if Trump loses, the Republican establishment will blame people like me for giving rise to people like Donald Trump. And Trump supporters will blame people like me for his lost. So I suppose I should say that I'm not in an odd position: I'm in a no-win position.

With Donald Trump's rise in the polls and increasingly competitive nature of the race, it is time to reconsider my opposition to Trump. After all, I view Hillary Clinton's candidacy as anti-American.

I realize that saying Hillary Clinton's candidacy in my view is anti-American offends some or comes off as hyperbole, but I think her candidacy is fundamentally an anathema to and is fundamentally in opposition to the basic historic American values. I believe the Founders of this country recognized individual liberty as negative liberty. It wasn't what individuals could do if the government could help them make this country great. Rather, it was what individuals could do if the government left them alone.

Hillary Clinton's vision of a Leviathan nanny state runs counter to all of those ideals. She would expand the government, engage the government in social experimentation, and she would advance the agenda of the sexual revolution against the church.

I am under no delusions: With Clinton as president, the church in this country will be in for difficult times. The siege from the outside, the forces of Mordor, will be fully on the march.

That's -- anybody disagree with that? Because I agree with that 100 percent.

JEFFY: So far.

GLENN: With Hillary Clinton, the Supreme Court will fall into the hands of the left for a generation at least. The devastation -- listen to this -- the devastation to our social fabric will know no end. Trading in the idea of negative liberty, Clinton and a left-wing Supreme Court will pursue expansionist federal policies and concepts of positive liberty, which will advance the individual prurient interests of deviance against the church in the way Founders could not have anticipated and no rational person would think wise. But Clinton as president will mean the insane have taken over the asylum.

Anybody disagree with any of that?

Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote, quote, what was once stigmatized --

JEFFY: That's what I mean.

GLENN: Anybody take a guess who she is.

JEFFY: You cannot disagree with Himmelfarb.

PAT: No, you can't.

GLENN: You can guess who she is.

PAT: We don't have to guess. Glenn, we've talked about that --

JEFFY: Glenn.

GLENN: She wrote a very important book that you all should read.

Anyway, what was once stigmatized as deviant behavior is now tolerated and even sanctioned. What was once regarded as abnormal has been normalized.

As deviancy is normalized, so what was normal now becomes deviant. The kind of family that has been regarded for centuries as natural and moral, the bourgeoisie family, as it is now called, is now seen as pathological.

PAT: We've been saying that so long, we call it Himmelfarbian.

JEFFY: Right. Yeah, we are part of the Himmelfarbians.

GLENN: The Clinton presidency will lock that in.

Is there any disagreement with that?

PAT: True. No, that's --

GLENN: What they've done -- by the way, she wrote a book about the Hitler era. And I can't remember the name of it. But look it up. Very famous book.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And she is -- she was taking it apart and saying, "Here's how it happened, and here's how it can happen again." And that is describing that society and our society.

PAT: Uh-huh.

STU: Yeah. Go ahead tell the Himmelfarb society about the fact that she wrote a book about Nazi Germany. Good idea. We know --

PAT: Don't talk --

GLENN: Okay. In addition to that, the increasingly illiberal left will further capitulate in the forces of evil, choosing to surrender to radical Islamists blowing themselves up as a new normal.

By the way, this is Erick Erickson writing, I think we all need to take a step back and reconsider. Especially if you are a Never Trumper, we have to look at the facts. Fix reason firmly in her seat.

In short, I see the election of Hillary Clinton as the antithesis of all of my values and ideas on what fosters sound civil society in this country. Furthermore, I think she should be in jail.

Anybody disagree?

PAT: No.

GLENN: At least with Trump, he writes --

PAT: I mean, she might get a trial first.

GLENN: She should get a trial.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: At least with Trump, we might -- might get a better Supreme Court. We might get better cabinet picks. In fact, in terms of my view of the country, the odds are pretty great that my side has a greater chance of prevailing with Trump than with Clinton.

I don't agree with that. But that's interesting.

What --

PAT: And that's the argument we hear all the time.

GLENN: Yes.

PAT: Supreme Court.

GLENN: He believes that.

What most would identify as my side would have control of the executive branch and the powers of appointment and regulation that come with it. Oh, I see what he's saying.

What he deems his side would because they would control all three branches.

PAT: Yes. Right.

GLENN: So I should at least here and now as the race draws close, reconsider my opposition to Trump.

The truth is, with the headlines about the Clinton's emails, terrorist attacks, Obama administration's advancement of transgenderism in the military, I have been actively reconsidering my opposition to Trump. I've done it in conversations with friends, in prayer, in quiet time, dedicated to considering the future.

So did he reconsider, and did he change his point of view? In a second.

Real quick, Himmelfarb is not the woman I was thinking of. I was thinking of another woman with a funny name, and I can't remember her name. Himmelfarb, we looked it up in the middle of the break, is Bill Kristol's mom, which no idea.

But, anyway, so Erick Erickson says, "We really need to -- as this race comes this close -- to reconsider the opposition to Trump if you are a Never Trumper."

I'm a Never Clinton guy, and I'm a Never Trumper. And so far, everything that he has written about Hillary Clinton I believe is absolutely true. She is -- she is poison -- poison to the republic.

Here's what he writes: In doing so, I have to admit that while I view Hillary Clinton's campaign as anti-American, I view Donald Trump's campaign as un-American.

Now, listen to this.

The American spirit eschews the idea of a strongman in Washington fixing all of our problems. We're supposed to be against the imposition of values set by Washington. Instead, we should embrace our heterogeneity as people. Not only does Donald Trump not do that, but his views pervert the liberal order of things, as much as Clintonian illiberalism. Clinton offers a tyranny of the minority. Trump offers a tyranny of the majority.

Clinton offers neither safety nor freedom, and Trump offers safety at the expense of freedom. While I see Clinton as having no virtue, I see Donald Trump corrupting the virtuous and fostering hatred, racism, and dangerous strains of nationalism. More importantly, while I think Hillary Clinton will do long-term damage to the country, I believe that Donald Trump -- writes Erick Erickson -- will do far more damage to the church, and that is my priority.

A Clinton administration may see the church besieged from the outside, but a Trump administration will see the church poisoned from within. I see it happening even now.

This past Friday, I debated the merits of Trump and sat next to a Christian who argued that because God chose sinners -- I can't -- this argument, I hear all the time -- we should choose Trump. She argued that a bunch of other presidents were terrible, immoral people, and we should be okay with Trump. She argued that God chose Abraham, Samson, and David, so we should choose Trump.

I don't recall John F. Kennedy writing books, bragging about his affairs. I don't recall Bill Clinton telling a television audience that he wanted to have sex with his daughter. How far a Christian must fall to justify the low morals of a man by tearing down the reputation of others, is sometimes exaggerated manners?

I do recall God choosing Abraham, Samson, and David, and all of them repenting for their sins. That repentance stands in studied contrast to Donald Trump, who has three times said that he has never had to ask for forgiveness. And he only recently said his advance of the church, if elected, would be the only thing that gets him into heaven.

When I see Christians defining deviancy down to justify political decisions, I see a real problem for the church. When I see Christians saying that we have the license to choose bad men because God chooses bad men, I see the sparks of apostasy.

Many of my friends have turned themselves over to the anger of Trump displays. I see my friends on Twitter in meltdown tweeting profanity to others, spending their time on radio attacking friends by name for refusing to yield. That's not healthy.

Not only is it not healthy, it reeks of desperation. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God our Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress and keep one's self unstained by the world, James said.

Trump has openly championed funding an organization that would murder the would-be orphan and sell his organs, while he cheated widows and single moms of their money. And more and more Christians are championing these stains while staining themselves. The level of fear many of my friends have towards what a Clinton administration may bring has turned to desperation and desire for a protector.

But we already have one. Neither in life nor death, angels or rulers, nor present things nor to come, nor powers, nor height, depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus.

So many pastors who email me and beg me to reconsider and so many others who write do so because they think this is the last chance to get the nation right. They think we'll turn a corner after which we cannot turn back. While I can see they might be right, what I see is a level of desperation, causing them to place their trust in one strong man instead of God and in truth. I do not concede that they're right, but I have concluded, we are already past the point of redemption when the best either party can do is offer up Clinton or Trump.

We are beyond the point of looking to five black-robed masters to save us from ourselves. When we put up Clinton or Trump, the seriousness and virtue of the voter is in the grave already, and my Christian brethren for Trump yearn for an idolized path that neither never existed and in the future that is not theirs but rather God's to shape.

Christians looking for a strong man to protect the church instead of the strongest man to conquer death is a terrible thing to see. Many Christian leaders are engaging in trying to blame patriotism to Christianity. They seemingly argue that if the nation falls, the church falls. And for the church to rise, the country must rise.

But Christ has already risen. The true church is in no danger of falling. The gates of hell shall not prevail.

He goes -- he goes on. And I believe this is so well reasoned and so well thought out. Now, you may not agree with it. But it is at least a cogent argument and a statement of principles.

Featured Image: Erick Erickson

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth-seeking is real work

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

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

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

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

Bad-faith questions

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

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

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

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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

The real target

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

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

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.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

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.