Blog
LatestArticlesVideos
Radio
LivePodcastSerialsStations
TV
Podcasts
The Glenn Beck ProgramThe Glenn Beck PodcastThe Beck Story
Fine Art
Real Estate
Shop
More
AboutCharityBooksSponsorsContact
SEARCH
Live Radio

©2024 MERCURY RADIO ARTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

Live

Glenn's Show Prep

Imagine a Priceline.com or Upside.com for Everything (Even Health Insurance)

May 18, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Could an ingenious, buyer-driven consumer experience like Priceline.com or Upside.com solve our health care problem? Serial entrepreneur, historian and dreamer Jay Walker joined Glenn on radio Wednesday to discuss why health care is broken and how his patented business model could go a long way in providing solutions --- but it isn't the entire answer.

"Up to now, Americans have had a lot of choices. But unless they're super shoppers, they never see what their choices are worth. In complicated worlds like buying business travel or buying health insurance or buying medical care, there are millions of choices. You can't figure them all out. Software makes it possible for the first time to find choices that makes sense for you," Walker explained.

However, in the case of applying free market principles to health care, there's a Catch-22.

"We're not in charge of our health care," Glenn said.

Therein lies one of the big problems.

"Glenn, one of the reasons why health care is so broken --- one of the many reasons, but one of the big reasons --- is that the person paying for it isn't the person using it," Walker said.

Glenn agreed.

While most people make a co-payment, it's the government, insurance provider or employer paying the bulk of their medical expenses.

"And what happens when somebody else is paying for something else and I get to use it? I overconsume: give me the gold-plated everything. After all, I want every test, I want every treatment," Walker explained.

The unfortunate reality is that no one knows how much anything ultimately costs.

"You go in and ask the x-ray technician, how much is this x-ray? They have no idea. They don't know. So the seller doesn't know. The buyer doesn't know. Is it any doubt the system has completely run amuck on costs?" Walker said.

In keeping with his systematic worldview, Walker explained how a free market health care system can't solve every problem.

"Again, health and wellness is a system, all right? It's not a binary A or B thing. If you treat your body like a garbage can . . . you're going to get sick, no matter who pays for it. So at the end of the day, this isn't a question of just making sure you're paying the right amount of money. You bet, we've got to make sure rational free market economics, which work for everything well, work for health care. But there are plenty of people who can't afford health care. There are plenty of children whose parents make decisions for them. This isn't going to fix that problem. We have challenges in childhood obesity. It isn't going to fix that problem. We have an opioid epidemic. It isn't going to fix that. So market solutions are critically important --- but they're important as part of the whole," Walker said.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Jay Walker, the founder of Priceline.com. 900 patents to his name. Wired magazine calls his library on imagination -- he's an expert on imagination. The most amazing library in the world. He is a techno optimist. He is also the guy who started the new travel website upside.com. Full disclosure, that is a sponsor --

JAY: That's how we met.

GLENN: Yeah, that's how we met. However, the reason why he's here is not for that, it's for a conversation we had -- I said, what's the catch? How is this working? How is everybody making money here? Because you're reducing the time that the person spends from 80 minutes to about -- what are you down to?

JAY: Five.

GLENN: Five minutes to make the decision. You're booking the hotel. You're booking the flight. And you're --

JAY: Saving money.

GLENN: Saving money for the company. And then you're giving an Amazon gift card. And we've done things where it works out to where we've spent $200, with something that should have cost us 1,000 or would have cost us 1,000. It's like -- in the end, it's like a 200-dollar ticket and stay. That's insane.

And I said to you, okay. What -- when it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true.

JAY: Ask extra questions.

GLENN: Correct.

And you said, no, here's how it works. And imagine this with -- with everything.

Explain what that means.

JAY: Up to now, Americans have had a lot of choices. But unless they're super shoppers, they never see what their choices are worth. In complicated worlds like buying business travel or buying health insurance or buying medical care, there are millions of choices. You can't figure them all out.

Software makes it possible for the first time to find choices that makes sense for you.

GLENN: So, but we're not in charge of our health care. So I've been saying, everyone should be -- I want to give $5,000 a year. I'll cover the first -- I'll buy catastrophic for everything else. Give me $5,000 a year. You go spend it.

So when the doctor says, go get this x-ray. I can go get that x-ray here. But if I have a system that says, you know what, if you go tomorrow morning at this location, you're going to pay a fraction of that.

JAY: Glenn, one of the reasons why health care is so broken -- one of the many reasons, but one of the big reasons is that the person paying for it isn't the person using it.

GLENN: Yes.

JAY: And what happens when somebody else is paying for something else and I get to use it? I overconsume. Give me the gold-plated everything. After all, I want every test. I want every treatment.

GLENN: We don't care. Correct.

JAY: So we right at the start -- either the government is paying for it or my health insurer is paying for it or my boss is paying for it.

When you have a system where a single decision by me could be costing $10,000 to somebody else -- and, by the way, not only am I not paying for it, the person selling it to me, the doctor or the hospital, they can't even tell me what the price is. You go in and ask the x-ray technician, how much is this x-ray? They have no idea. They don't know.

So the seller doesn't know. The buyer doesn't know. Is it any doubt the system has completely run amuck on costs?

GLENN: So what we have going on in Washington, you sound like this is the solution that I've been looking for. How are you going to get that when we're headed towards --

JAY: Well, it's not a solution. So, again, health and wellness is a system, all right? It's not a binary A or B thing. If you treat your body like a garbage can, all right? You're going to get sick, no matter who pays for it.

GLENN: Right.

JAY: So at the end of the day, this isn't a question of just making sure you're paying the right amount of money. You bet, we've got to make sure rational free market economics, which work for everything well, work for health care. But there are plenty of people who can't afford health care. There are plenty of children whose parents make decisions for them. This isn't going to fix that problem. We have challenges in childhood obesity. It isn't going to fix that problem. We have an opioid epidemic. It isn't going to fix that. So market solutions are critically important. But they're important as part of the whole.

GLENN: So how do you -- let's stick to market here for a second.

How do you -- how do you correct a system and sell the free market system, when the free market system hasn't really been practiced in this country for a very long time, not in --

JAY: Not in health care.

GLENN: Yeah, not in health care. But in many ways, in many industries it hasn't been practiced in a very long time.

JAY: Many industries.

GLENN: And people are taught that this is the free market system. And they see that it doesn't work. That it just -- it's awful and cumbersome. And they're being taught that, hey, this Marxism idea is a better idea.

How do we tell the truth about the free market system to a -- to a group of people that really don't know and don't really care about what the free market system really is?

JAY: So the answer is telling people who don't want to hear is probably not going to be our winning strategy. Okay?

GLENN: Yes, right.

JAY: It's just not going to be our winning strategy. So we're going to have to offer alternatives that exist against the dysfunctional system. And those alternatives will have to compete to attract people based on cost, efficacy, easiness, and those kinds of things. It churns out -- this system is probably going to do that. The mobile phone, when you add sensors and your ability to actually, within a few years see what's going on inside your body, probably means we're going to have two systems, a public system that is going to be broken for a long time and we should try to improve and a new technology that's going to emerge along the side, where people -- a significant amount of people say, look, I just want better health for my children. And if this helps my kid, then I'm using this system. I don't care who's paying for it. People want their kids to be healthy. People want their parents to be healthy. A little less themselves, unfortunately.

GLENN: You're a historian. You know that we've been around fake news forever. I mean, I have documents of fake news from the Revolutionary War.

JAY: About to say, it was perfectly normal for Thomas Jefferson to create fake news.

GLENN: It happened.

JAY: Hardball those days.

GLENN: Yeah. Your heads -- if you elect John Adams, your children's heads will be on a pike.

JAY: There you go.

GLENN: Hello. So we've had it forever. However, we are now in a system -- you came up with the friend button at Facebook.

Facebook is so freeing and gives people the power to connect with people like you and me and people -- and give people the power to have a voice just as powerful as anybody else's. But it also is -- just because of the algorithms, making everyone's world smaller. And we're hearing the voices that we agree with, and not necessarily the full spectrum. Then you add on top of that, fake news. How are we going to imagine this?

JAY: Well, first of all, let me set it straight. I'm not the inventor of the friend button. Some of the inventions I created led to it. So I don't want to take credit for something I'm not the inventor.

That being said, you're asking a tough question. And here's the question: The weather today is cold and rainy, but the climate is really what matters most here in Dallas, Texas. Right? It might be cold and rainy today, but we live in -- you're in Texas here. We have to remember that when we're hacking away at the weather, we're simply just hacking at the leaves. The climate is really the bigger issue.

And let's talk about the climate. More people are getting more news from more sources than ever before. Yes, some of those sources are being constrained. But if you have confidence in people, you know what, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. We live in a world where the ability to control the news like Nazi Germany or to control what any one person hears is less than ever before.

You know, white men -- old white men in New York City do not decide what's on the evening news anymore. We live in a much more information-open society. Yes, within certain realms, it appears we're being contradicted. We're having bracelets put around the news we see on Facebook, but that's not maybe what we're going to see on Twitter, or something new will emerge tomorrow.

Remember, the phone is going away, Glenn. The phone is an intermediate system. It's just an on-ramp to the network. It's almost certainly going to go to the glasses. And probably with a little thing in your ear, assuming we don't direct connect to the brain.

This is what's really going to happen. You're going to have way more opportunity here, way more people. And these younger kids, they're way more global. Yeah, it's easy to fool some of the people some of the time, but overall, the climate is more open, more information. You know, I don't care whether you're the Chinese government or whether you're a dictator in Africa, you're having -- or Korea. You're having a hard time controlling the flow of information.

GLENN: When you look at the climate, I am a -- I am a -- some would call me jingoistic. I would not. I would call myself proud of the -- the best system that has ever been created to help people explore -- the minute you come up with a better system than our Constitution and the free market connecting Moral Sentiments to Wealth of Nations, I'm in. I'm in. But this is the best that's been created.

But we're now being taught that America -- our children are being taught, America doesn't matter. It's a global community. And it is a global community. But how do we balance a global community with, these principles are global and eternal?

JAY: Well, there you've got the core of the problem. We used to have a much more of a common heritage. We used to have much more of a common heritage. We used to talk about Western values and Western civilization as an absolute good in the larger scheme of history. And we don't do that any longer.

GLENN: Is it an absolute source of good? In the overall picture?

JAY: If you study history, there is no systems, other than ours, that have lifted more people out of poverty, that have given more opportunity to more people who never had opportunity. If you're a woman, you want to be an American. If you're an African-American, you want to be an American (sic). Half the world would like to come to America. I'm not arguing that we're perfect or even better in every way, but what I'm saying is, market-based systems with real competition and checks and balances that in a government that works, has been by far and away the best. System. There isn't anybody in second place, right?

There are just fakes. So at the end of the day, when China wanted to lift hundreds of millions of people out of desperate poverty, they turned to capitalism to do it. Yeah, they put a Chinese brand on it. But, baby, they unlocked initiative. They unlocked risk-taking. They unlocked imagination at the market value. They opened their borders to global supply. They basically adopted the western system. They just called it the Chinese communist party.

GLENN: A friend of mine went over and talked to the Chinese. This was 2008. And he was very concerned about us.

And Chinese said, you guys might be kicked down. And you might have some time where you're kicked down for a while, but you have something that the world doesn't have. And that is imagination.

JAY: Permission to fail. The big difference in America is, in the rest of the world, when you're a failure, you're dead. You're done. In America, when you're a failure, you're Bill Gates. You're Steve Jobs. You're a failure? Perfect. You've dropped out of school, perfect. We love you. Okay?

America is a country that reinvents itself and has always done so. We believe in the individual. We believe in responsibility.

Look, we're the most charitable nation by far in the world. Just look at the nature of charity in America. Only people of generosity and wealth can be charitable. Most of the world doesn't -- that makes no sense in China, to donate money to a hospital. There are no hospitals in China, paid for by wealthy Chinese. That doesn't work that way.

America does that. And it's because we have permission to try, to fail, to try again. We literally, from the very start in our patent system said, if you can invent something, you don't have to practice it, and you don't have to be rich to get a patent.

GLENN: I think one of the worst things we've done are the bailouts and everything else. And a lot of people will say, because it's not our position as government. But my core on that is I have a right to fail. As much as I have a right to succeed -- my failures are more important to me than my successes. I am who I am today because of massive failures in my life.

JAY: All great hitters strike out a lot. Okay? They swing at the ball, and they strike out. The poor hitters watch the ball go by. Right? The great hitters put it in play, and they're out. But that's no difference than all of us. The fact of the matter is America allows for that.

Now, sure we have bailouts. Why? Because we have a political democracy. And you put enough people out of work, that's a lot of votes going out of work. So there's enormous pressure to not let those enterprises fail.

But we've learned over and over again, even when the largest enterprises in our country have failed over their history or have become irrelevant in their arc of history, the country bounces back. It finds new ways to deploy resources. It motivates people to learn.

In America, everybody wants to be wealthy. They don't want to drag the wealthy down. They want to join the wealthy. That's why America lives the way it lives.

GLENN: Jay Walker is our guest. An inventor. Described as a serial entrepreneur. Founder of Priceline. Founder of upside.com. An imagination expert. Has the library of the history of human imagination. A techno optimist. And we only have about two minutes left. On the other side, I want to come back. I want to ask you, if you're an entrepreneur and you're out there swinging for the fences today, what is the one thing -- one piece of advice that you would give them, to say, "Just focus here, or have you asked yourself this?"

We'll do that when we come back. First, our sponsor this half-hour is Casper. Are you having sleepless nights? Research shows sleepless nights may be because of warmer weather. And if you have a foam mattress, holy cow do you know that. You'll wake up in the middle of December with your windows open, and the top of you will be ice cold, and the bottom of you that's next to the mattress will be boiling hot.

This is one of the first things that Casper tried to do. They wanted the perfect mattress, so they went back to the laboratory, and they came up with a new foam -- two actual high-tech foams that will guarantee that you will sleep cool and comfortable. Then they wanted to see, how can we keep the price down to where normal people can afford a great mattress?

What they did is they cut out the middle man. And they ship right directly to you. So instead of going to some place where they're paying somebody to say, hey, why don't you lay down on this mattress? What you do is you just go to Casper.com, and you buy the mattress.

In 100 nights, you can send it back. They'll refund every single penny. They'll come and pick it up from you if you don't love it. But you're going to love it.

One hundred nights in your home. Try it. See if it doesn't just change the way you sleep and doesn't make you think about, I can't wait to go home and go to bed. Casper mattress. Casper.com. Use the promo code Beck. Get $50 off the purchase of your mattress right now. Terms and conditions do apply. It's Casper.com. Promo code Beck.

(OUT AT 10:52AM)

GLENN: Jay -- Jay Walker, the founder of Priceline and upside.com. Tell me if you're an entrepreneur and you're out there struggling, give me a piece of advice.

JAY: There's only one person that matters, assuming you've got the oxygen you need. Right? The oxygen is the capital you need to do anything. But if you've got the oxygen, it's all about the customer.

People are continuously reinventing how to serve customers. If you serve the customer, you win the game. There are endless ways to serve customers that have never been possible before. And that's what this new technology revolution is doing. It's putting things up in the air that have never been up in the air, that you can actually find customers and serve them. That's the key. Serve the customer.

GLENN: Upside.com. Jay Walker. Great to have you. We'll be on Facebook later today. Don't miss it.

JAY: Thank you.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

What triggers the Bubba effect

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

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

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

A country cracking from the inside

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

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

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

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

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

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

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

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

How to respond without breaking ourselves

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

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

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

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

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

A new world of artificial experience

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

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

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

What machines can never do

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

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

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

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

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

Questions that define us

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

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

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

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.