WATCH: Glenn's full interview with Senator Rand Paul

Sen. Rand Paul gave his first interview since ending his nearly 13 hour filibuster to Glenn Beck and TheBlaze. You can read the full transcript from the interview below:

GLENN: A man who is I believe going to be the logical choice for president of the United States because he is reasonable, polite, and a ‑‑ I believe in a teaching mode right now, teaching the American people, not throwing around firebombs, not calling anybody names but speaking about principles, and the principles are those basic human rights that we all know naturally we're born with. One that he spoke about last night, the right to live and to have a trial and to have a warrant, not just be killed, gunned down in the streets, or in this case killed by a drone because this president or any president says, "Yeah, take him out." Here in the United States he held his filibuster last night and his first interview, Rand Paul, welcome, sir.

RAND PAUL: Good morning, Glenn. I was thinking about you. About four or five hours into it I was thinking, gosh, Glenn Beck can sit and talk for four or five hours every day, but it's really not that easy to talk for that long.

GLENN: I can go to the bathroom.

RAND PAUL: And you get commercial breaks.

GLENN: I know. I was a little disappointed, quite honestly, Senator. I mean, you're a doctor. Did you ‑‑ did you think about giving yourself a catheter at any point? I know you're an eye doctor, but ‑‑

RAND PAUL: Yeah. Well, see, the thing is I did think about it. I put them in before and I really decided against it.

GLENN: (Laughing.)

RAND PAUL: But ‑‑

GLENN: Tell me what your ‑‑ tell me what your thoughts were last night on who joined you, who didn't join you, the success that you had or where you felt it fell short.

RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I was pretty amazed by the outpouring of support just up here. I mean, we probably had 15 congressmen come over to the Senate floor, and congressmen are allowed to come to the Senate floor but not allowed to speak or to come forward. I've never seen that happen before. And they came spontaneously. Nobody called them. They just showed up. And so one by one 15 people came in through the door which is ‑‑ you know, that to me is pretty amazing because we've all got, you know, busy careers and speaking engagements, and for 15 people to show up in support from the other House was amazing. And then really most of the senators came spontaneously too. We called one or two that do a lot with us to help us early on and then ‑‑ but gradually I'm not sure how many we had, but I'll bet you we had 15 finally show up to be supportive.

And the interesting thing is we may not be all be on the same page on drone strikes here, there and hither and yon, but on American soil we came together and said, you know what? We're not going to do targeted strikes of people not engaged in combat in America.

GLENN: Explain this to people because I know I have friends who I will talk to about this story this weekend and they will say to me, "The president is not going to do that." I mean, that's pretty much what Eric Holder was hoping people would buy into when he didn't ‑‑ wouldn't deny that it's unconstitutional or, you know, he was sitting there and I think he was just hoping that people would say, "Well, they're reasonable and so they will never do that."

RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I just recite back to them the Federalist Paper by Madison when he says, you know, if government were comprised of angels, we wouldn't need rules. And so I try to make it less about President Obama and more about what if someday we elect someone who wouldn't ‑‑ who would abuse this power. And I think when you make it in those generic terms, people can be concerned with it. And it's dangerous anytime you use an example of Hitler because everybody thinks you're overexaggerating. But Hitler was elected democratically. So democracies can make mistakes and that's why you want the rule of law to restrain them and not let them do that. And it's really an important principle, and it's difficult sometimes for people because I want to kill terrorists too, and I think if you're in a battlefield fighting us, you don't get due process. You don't get lawyers. You can be killed. If you attack us in a plane, all of those things can be rejected with any kind of lethal force. But I'm concerned about people who are sitting and eating in a diner and you might think they're associated with terrorism because they've sent an e‑mail to somebody. But really that needs to be adjudicated in the courts. And even many other people made the point that if you're sitting eating in a diner in America and you really are a terrorist, we probably get a lot more information out of you by capturing you and going ahead and interrogating you than we would by killing you.

GLENN: I can't think of any reason, any reason with perhaps the idea that you know, you have a live shot of somebody wiring up the Empire State building and there happens to be no police officers, no FBI, strangely the only thing you have ‑‑ because he's going for the red button and pushing it ‑‑ possibly at that time but not, not for any other reason can I think of.

RAND PAUL: Right. And if those instances there's really not any disagreement. Like Eric Holder brings up, you know, planes attacking the Twin Towers like they did on 9/11.

GLENN: Right.

RAND PAUL: Or attacking on Pearl Harbor. Those are attacks that obviously are repulsed but see, those aren't even targeted drone attacks. We might use drones but that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about targeted drone attacks to individuals. And none of us really are arguing against repulsing any attack or anybody anywhere near a bomb. I mean, if you're just carrying a bomb into a building, I think you can be, you know, you're bringing lethal force. You don't even have to have your finger on the button. You can eliminate someone who's carrying a bomb, carrying a weapon. You know, there's all kinds of things that can be done.

GLENN: Hang on a second. We found out yesterday through a Freedom of Information Act that the drones from the Department of Homeland Security can see if you are carrying a gun in day or night with their new drones.

RAND PAUL: Yeah, I'm not going after people necessarily caring a rifle around. That would be half of the South, and myself included. So ‑‑ and half of my staff. So now I am not talking about that but I am talking about if you've been investigating a group and obviously you see them going into the World Trade Center basement with a bomb, you know, lethal force can be used at many stages and always has been. Same with police. Police use lethal force all the time. If someone's robbing a liquor store, you don't get a warrant and you call out "stop" and if they don't stop, you get shot if you've got a weapon and you're a threat to people.

So but what's interesting is the president wants to answer the question we are not asking: Can you use lethal force when someone is imminently using lethal force. And the reason we worry about this is his drone strike program overseas, he says that you have to be an imminent threat but you don't have to be immediate. So if that standard's going to be used in the United States, we're concerned that that could be somebody sitting in a diner.

GLENN: The ‑‑ Van Jones came out and supported you.

RAND PAUL: Hey, we got Code Pink too.

GLENN: I know. I'm not sure I believe either of them but I'll ‑‑ you know, that's fine if ‑‑ I mean, I don't know why all of a sudden the Bill of Rights means something.

RAND PAUL: Here's the thing, Glenn: This is an issue that does get people who believe in liberty on the left and right, and there are people who do have consistent, sincere beliefs. Like Ron Wyden I think's a good man. I don't agree with him on most economic liberty issues, but on civil liberties he and I have a lot of agreement.

The other thing about this is if we're ever to grow as a party, the Republican Party to grow, we need to interest young people who are interested in civil liberties who may not be quite with us on the economic issues yet.

GLENN: No, no, no, no. Hang on just a second.

RAND PAUL: As they get holder, they come towards us.

GLENN: Yeah, I'm not talking about economic issues. When somebody is an avowed Communist, you know, then I don't understand your civil liberties thing. However, we can disagree on a lot of things and that's why I've been saying I really, truly believe ‑‑ and this is why I think you are the guy that could make the impact that will take us away from these two parties, you are the guy who could hold up the Bill of Rights and say, "Look, we can disagree on economic issues. We can disagree on a lot of stuff. But these, these ten ideas we should have no disagreement on. These ten ideas are what keeps the individual to be able to disagree with each other. And that's important.

RAND PAUL: Well, and that's sort of the point we were trying to make yesterday is that, you know, Eric Holder has said that the Fifth Amendment they are trying to apply in the Oval Office when they talk about drone strikes. That's debatable overseas because I think a lot of areas overseas in war you don't necessarily get the Fifth Amendment anyway. But the problem is they now say that these drone strikes are not ruling them out in America, but the Fifth Amendment being discussed privately as part of some kind of PowerPoint presentation in the Oval Office isn't really what most people conceive of when they think of due process and a jury and an accusation. So really what's applicable overseas in a drone program and some of us might debate and we might actually accept a lot of what goes on overseas, we can't accept that at home because it's different when we're talking about people who we think might be associated with terrorism. There really needs to be an accusation. There needs to be an adjudication of whether you really are or aren't. You need to be able to stand up and say, "No, no, I didn't really mean what I sent in that e‑mail" and there needs to be some discussion.

GLENN: There needs to be a trial.

RAND PAUL: Exactly.

GLENN: There's no reason why the FBI cannot go and arrest that person and have a trial. No man, no man should ever be in the position of judge, jury and executioner, ever.

RAND PAUL: Well, and see, this went on with the indefinite detention, too. See, about a year ago they passed legislation that allows them to detain citizens without a trial, and you can actually, an American can be sent to Guantanamo Bay from here without a trial. And the president at that time said, "Well, I have no intention of doing that," but he signed the legislation. Which is sort of what he's saying now: Trust me, I'm a good man, you can trust me, I will not kill Americans who are sitting in a restaurant. And, you know, I want to take him at his word, but intent isn't really what I'm looking for. And so I mentioned several times yesterday the oath of office says "I will protect, preserve and defend the Constitution." It doesn't say "I intend to when it's convenient."

STU: Senator, there has been some criticism over your filibuster last night including apparently from Lindsey Graham saying the idea that we're going to ‑‑

GLENN: Wear it as a badge of honor.

STU: The idea that we're going to use a drone to kill a citizen in a cafe in America is ridiculous.

RAND PAUL: Well, I agree it's a ridiculous idea but then why wouldn't the president say he won't.

PAT: That's exactly right.

GLENN: That's really it.

PAT: That's exactly why you do it.

STU: Here's another from the Wall Street Journal editorial: Calm down, Senator, meaning you.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: Mr. Holder is right. This is supposedly a conservative paper. Even if he doesn't explain the law very well, the U.S. Government cannot randomly target American citizens on U.S. soil or anywhere else. What it can do under the laws of war is target an enemy combatant anywhere at any time including on U.S. soil.

RAND PAUL: Yeah, here's the problem, this idea of laws of war. And I agree with some of this aspect of laws of war. If you're in Afghanistan or if you're in a battle zone, you get no due process. You don't get a lawyer, you don't get Miranda rights. You get killed. If you are shooting American soldiers, we can use drones, bombs, we have no limit to what kind of force we will use against you.

The difference is, is that if you bring ‑‑ if you say America's part of the battlefield and you want the laws of war to apply over here, just describing someone as an enemy combatant ‑‑ see, a year or two ago, they described people who are pro life, people who are for strong immigration and strong secure borders, people who believe in third parties. I think Glenn Beck was on the list, Ron Paul was on the list. They described these people as potential terrorists and they sent out a statement to all the police in Missouri.

GLENN: Yeah.

RAND PAUL: So we have to be concerned about just saying someone's a dangerous person or enemy combatant, you have to prove that. You can't just accuse someone and then they get killed.

GLENN: Yeah. The Southern Poverty Law Center just came out with a new study. Shows that these, quote, patriot groups are a danger and pose a terrorist threat, an increasing terrorist threat. That's their language. So you've got to be really careful.

One last question, Senator, and we'll let you go: Are you going to vote for Brennan?

RAND PAUL: We're hoping to get an announcement from the White House this morning, and I don't intend to. We're trying to get a statement this morning that confirms that they are not going to target com ‑‑ not going to target Americans who are not engaged in combat in America for targeted killing. And my argument really still is mainly with that ‑‑ with the idea, not the person. I'm concerned, though, that Brennan really, it's been like pulling teeth to get him to say he'll support the Constitution and so my inclination is still to vote, you know, not letting end debate if I don't get the information. If I get the information, you know, you and I have had this discussion before. My opinion a lot of times has been to give deference even to people I disagree with, but I won't vote for him on any of the votes if I don't get information from the White House saying they are going to adhere to the Constitution. I hate doing that. ‑‑

GLENN: Senator ‑‑

RAND PAUL: I know I lost a little bit there, but ‑‑

GLENN: You're not ‑‑ at least you're clear, you're not waffling, you're not saying the popular thing, and I appreciate that. We just disagree on this. I think the man is a real danger to the United States, and putting him into that position is really quite dangerous. But I respect you.

RAND PAUL: I think you're right and, you know, the question always is, is what rises to that level. I think the constitutional question and the idea of killing citizens obviously rises to that level. The question is I'm still leaving somewhat of an opening in the sense that I want to get an honest answer from the White House. We're using the leverage of holding up the vote, and I can make them stay here through Saturday, and they hate to work on weekends. So we'll see what happens and hopefully they'll agree to give us a statement saying they're going to support the Constitution.

GLENN: Senator, thank you very much. And very proud of the stand you made yesterday. Very proud the way you handled it, and I'm just, I'm glad you're in Washington, sir. Thank you.

RAND PAUL: Thanks, Glenn.

GLENN: God bless.

More in a second. Our sponsor this half hour is Carbonite. I'm not sure how he ‑‑ we have to discuss next hour, I'm not sure what he just said.

STU: This is a positive day for Rand Paul though.

GLENN: It is, very.

STU: I don't agree with that stance. I agree with Mike Lee's stance, but still.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crisis beneath the headlines

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

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

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

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

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

The quiet return of meaning

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

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

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

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What triggers the Bubba effect

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

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

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

A country cracking from the inside

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

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

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

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

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

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

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

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

How to respond without breaking ourselves

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

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

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.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth-seeking is real work

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

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

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

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

Bad-faith questions

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

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

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

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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

The real target

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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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.