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Glenn's Show Prep

It's Morally Wrong to Trap People in Poverty With Welfare Programs

September 30, 2016
Lori Hanes

Writer

The transition from using food stamps to cards that look like debit or credit cards has lessened the stigma of using government assistance. However, it's completely contrary to what Benjamin Franklin said about ending poverty:

I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

RELATED: War on Poverty--Abusing the System

"I don't and won't look down on somebody who is using a Lone Star card or welfare stamps . . . I won't do that. My father made that very clear to me when I was a kid: You don't look down at those people. You don't know their situation. But I do want them, when they pull it out, to go, I wish I didn't have to do this."

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these uncomfortable questions:

• What advice did Glenn's father give after his bakery went bankrupt?

• Why is feeling uncomfortable a good thing?

• Does the YMCA offer free cable?

• Did Vanderbilt do a disservice to his children by giving them money?

• Why hasn't $22 trillion ended the War on Poverty?

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

GLENN: I have to tell you, this bothers me so deeply, the -- what's the Texas card called?

PAT: Lone Star card.

GLENN: It really bothers me that we have made the Lone Star card just like a credit card. And there's no looking down at that. There's no shame when you pull that out. And I know this is hard and hash, but I'm quoting Benjamin Franklin: The best way to help people in or out of their poverty is to make them uncomfortable in their poverty. We make things so comfortable, that there's no reason to get out.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Opt out, why? It's more of a hassle.

PAT: Just by design, of course.

JEFFY: Well, yeah. I mean, they can control what you purchase, though. There are times when --

GLENN: Yes.

JEFFY: I've seen this happen where they have things on their conveyer belt that the card won't pay for.

GLENN: Correct. Correct. But I remember there was -- you know, with food stamps, there was some bit of shame in that.

JEFFY: Having to get it out and --

GLENN: Yes, and it was a little bit of shame. And, look, I know because I've lived it. I have lived having no money. I worked in my father's bakery. My father went bankrupt with his bakery. You know, we couldn't make ends meet. We had, you know, powdered milk. We never got to the food stamp place because my father and my grandfather were -- were both raised, "You don't do that. You don't do that. You do that if you cannot eat and cannot work."

STU: Always a last resort because you didn't want to deal with it.

GLENN: Right. But you go out and you work and you take any job at any level --

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: -- and you pay for what you can. And if it's only food, then you go -- this is my father, "You go live at the YMCA, and you work and you buy food and you dig yourself back out."

JEFFY: I mean, the YMCA has cable, right? Because I can't --

PAT: Right.

STU: And obviously saying -- advocating for shame is not --

GLENN: No, it's not -- I'm not. Because I know there's a lot of people -- for instance, there's a lot of people that, you know, their husband dumped them and they got kids at home --

STU: There's a real reason for that.

GLENN: There's a real reason for that. So I don't want to inflict pain on people. I really don't. I don't want people -- for instance, I don't and won't look down on somebody who is using a Lone Star card or welfare stamps when we had food stamps. I won't do that. My father made that very clear to me when I was a kid. "You don't look down at those people. You don't know their situation." But I do want them, when they pull it out, to go, "I wish I didn't have to do this."

STU: How do I end it?

GLENN: How do I end this?

STU: Because we, as a society chose -- because both of these things are true. We don't people to feel shame, so we've tried to make the policy as easy as possible.

PAT: We don't want them to feel any discomfort about anything. Safe spaces. Trigger warnings. Pathetic.

GLENN: Yeah, what we're saying now -- what I'm saying now has got to be viewed by some -- and I don't even know by how many now as outrageously horrendous.

STU: Right. And so the point here is we know there's a problem here. We don't want people to feel bad. But as a society, we've chosen to eliminate the feelings rather try to eliminate the poverty.

GLENN: Yes, yes.

STU: And as Ben Franklin -- again, this is Ben freaking Franklin --

GLENN: Who started the first public hospital. Who started the volunteer fire departments. I mean, this guy -- who gave away his patent of the potbelly stove because it would help -- the number one cause of death in America for females was burning to death.

So he understood -- I don't need to make money on this. I have plenty of money. I'm going to give this away so everyone can make it and everyone can have the potbelly stove. So here's one of the most charitable men around, but he understood, the more you make people comfortable in their poverty, the more you strip them of the reasons of standing up on their own again. And that is morally wrong.

I believe we will have -- we will have to answer for the people we have crippled.

I had -- you know, my kids, my kids work for me. And when I had a new guy come in, John, who is president of my company, he said, "I don't want to manage your kids." And I said, "Why not?" And he said, "Are you kidding me?"

No. And I said, no, no, no, there's no different rules for them. There's no different rules. If they deserve to be fired, fire them.

"Right."

STU: Right.

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: No, fire them.

JEFFY: You believe that, I know.

GLENN: What?

JEFFY: You believe that, I know.

GLENN: No, no, but I said to him, "And he'll be doing me a great disservice if he wouldn't be truthful with me." Moreover, he will be doing them a great disservice because you can't -- I talked to my kids just recently. I am so afraid that I am crippling them because they are working for me, and they like working with me. And they like, you know, being around and working as a family and blah, blah, blah. But I don't want to ever strip them of that -- like I won't -- I won't overpay my kids. You make market value.

STU: I mean, Glenn, you have been saying this since before some of them were born.

JEFFY: That's true.

STU: Literally, you believe this as a central part of your life. I still -- I would still be believing John.

JEFFY: Thank you.

STU: I would still be terrified by -- because you come into a new company. And the owner's kids -- I don't care what the owner says to you. I would be terrified about it.

GLENN: Yeah, but you know I mean it.

STU: But I know you mean it. Because you said it -- I mean, before Raphe and Cheyenne were even born, you were doing this on the air, talking about the Carnegies and going back to the --

GLENN: Vanderbilt.

STU: And the Vanderbilts. You know, talking about how they believed that they ruined their kids by --

GLENN: I tell my kids all the time, "You're not getting a dime." Because, A, dad is spending it all. But you're not getting a dime. I'm not leaving you stuff. I'm not leaving you stuff. You have to earn what you have. You have to.

And we cripple people by doing that. And there's no difference between -- I learned this, as Stu said, from Vanderbilt. I was standing in The Breakers, the Vanderbilt mansion. And there's this letter from Vanderbilt from his diary up on the wall of his bedroom where he used to write his diary. And I don't remember exactly what it said. But basically, the gist was: I fear I am doing my family a great disservice. The more I give them, the more I provide, the less incentive they have to be the person they were supposed to be.

And he did. He did a great disservice. And that stuck with me. And it's not just family. It's the country. If we cripple people, if you -- I'm an alcoholic. Anybody who -- and you guys know this. And I know -- Tania said, "You take a drink, I'm leaving you. I'm leaving you." And she means it. Any doubt in that one?

STU: Oh, no.

GLENN: She means that. I know you guys would be the same thing. You would not cover up for my drinking. You would not cover up for any kind of problem.

STU: We would exploit it for everything it's worth.

GLENN: Yeah, hello. Right? Because you'd know you were doing me a disservice. That's where we have to get. Compassion sometimes is really hard.

PAT: Yeah. We've spent -- we talked about this a bunch of times. We've spent $22 trillion on the War On Poverty. $22 trillion!

JEFFY: Where has that gone?

PAT: To make things better for poverty.

STU: That's a lot of compassion. That's a lot of compassion right there.

PAT: And all it's done is keep them in poverty. That's all it's done.

GLENN: And I think destroy the family.

PAT: It has. It has. Especially the black family.

Featured Image: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) painting by Joseph Duplessis, Wiki Commons

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.

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

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.