“Never shut up”: Mike Rowe takes on his critics in viral Facebook post

Mike Rowe of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs received a good deal of criticism over the weekend following his appearance on last Wednesday’s Glenn Beck Program. Never one to stand by quietly, Mike responded to one of his most ardent critics, Shannon K. Walsh, with a candid and thoughtful Facebook post defending his decision to appear on the show.

Image: Facebook.com/TheRealMikeRowe

Mike responded to Shannon with the following:

Well, hi there, Shannon – and a pleasant good morning to you too!

If you want a detailed answer to your question, please take a moment to read my earlier reply to Bob Reidel, another crestfallen soul who couldn’t reconcile my association with a TV host that he personally despised. As you read it (out loud, if possible, and in a public place), kindly replace the words “Bob Reidel” with “Shannon K. Walsh,” and “Bill Maher” with “Glenn Beck.” But prepare yourself – you might be forced to conclude that my true objective here has little to do with winning or losing your approval.As for your personal characterization of Glenn Beck, I can only assume you have information not available to me. In my time with him, I saw nothing “horrible, psychotic, hateful, or nasty.” I smelled no burning sulphur, no smoldering brimstone, and saw no sign of cloven hooves.To the contrary, I found a very passionate guy who employs about 300 people, works his butt off, and puts his money where his mouth is. Do we agree on everything? Of course not. Am I “disappointed” by that fact? Not at all. The real question, Shannon, is … why are you?

To be clear, I’m not here to tell you what to think or whom to hate. Like everyone else, you’re free to pick your devils, choose your angels, and attach the horns and halos accordingly.

But the guts of your question – even without all the name-calling and acrimony – reveal the essence of what’s broken in our country. You want to know “how I can associate” with someone you don’t like? The short answer is, how can I not? How are we ever going to accomplish anything in this incredibly divisive time if we associate only with people that we don’t disagree with?

Mike

On radio this morning, Mike called in to speak further on the topic. He explained that even though he made his appearance on Glenn’s show last Wednesday, he was unaware of the fervent social media response to the interview because he has been on the road for the last several weeks promoting the mikeroweWORKS Foundation.

“Well, so I've been on the road for a couple of weeks promoting this scholarship program, as you know, stopped by your studio in Texas,” Mike said. “So I wrote a little post about my adventure in Dallas, and I thank you for your generosity and I basically go to bed for a couple of days because I've just been up forever, and Sunday morning I wake up and there's just, I mean, thousands of comments, many very kind, but I don't know if you knew this, Glenn, but there are people out there who, they just don't like you a lot.”

“You apparently are some kind of a lightning rod,” Mike said laughing. “I can't put my finger on it but you apparently have annoyed literally dozens of people.”

There were dozens of comments on Mike’s Facebook page that both praised and chastised his decision to sit down for an interview with Glenn, but, as Mike described, one remark in particular “just chapped my butt.”

After firing off his candid response, Mike awoke the next morning to find he had 35,000 new ‘likes’ on Facebook and thousands of comments supporting what he had written.

“Your fans were just very, very cool. Many of them went to my website and purchased that poster we talked about for ‘Work smart and hard,’” Mike said. “And long story short, you know, it was a little ugly and a little mean, but in the end we wound up having the conversation all over again that I wanted to have with you and did have in Dallas. So if there's a moral to the story, I suppose it's just never shut up.”

“Amen,” Glenn said.

Just as they did during his appearance last week, Glenn and Mike discussed the importance of work ethic and education alternatives that Mike’s foundation and scholarship program seeks to promote.

“You were on the set and we had you on because I wanted to make sure that people knew that you're not against universities,” Glenn said. “You are for work. You are for training people to do work… they can find themselves passionate about.”

“If you step back and you look at the scholarship money that's typically available today, it's almost always attached to four different things,” Mike explained. “There's the academic scholarship, which everybody understands… There's the athletic scholarship, which everybody understands – if you can hit a three-point jump shot, we've got all money in the world for you. There are the talent-based scholarships… If you can sing or paint or do something interesting, you know, schools will pay for you to come there. And, of course, there are need-based scholarships, which are important for many. And that's all fine, but in all of that, who's rewarding work ethic?”

“So the idea was for work ethic scholarships, the idea was to look for those jobs not that are waiting to be created but that currently exist right now – the 3 million or so jobs that are in the skills gap – and say, look, what if we specifically launch a program that tries to encourage the behavior we want to have,” he continued. “What if we offer to train kids for these specific types of jobs and specifically look for those kids who are willing to demonstrate a work ethic that we want to encourage. So mikewoweWORKS scholarships became work ethic scholarships. We started looking for a series of trade schools that did excellent work. We found a few.”

Ultimately, the message of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation is simple: Hard work, skilled labor, alternative education, invention, and entrepreneurship. “These things need a PR campaign,” Mike said. “It's that simple. Every other cause in the world has a PR campaign. So that's our focus.”

“I appreciate your honesty. I appreciate your appearance on the program. I appreciate you not necessarily standing up for my point of view but standing up for common sense and writing what I think was something that is well worth reading,” Glenn said. “And if you would like to donate, if you would like to stand with him, here's a guy who is actually trying to do good. He actually has a solution, and I think we should stand with him at mikeroweWORKS.com.”

Glenn had another message for the audience: “Friend him. Go right now. Show him what this audience can do. Go friend him on Facebook.”

The West is dying—Will we let enemies write our ending?

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The blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, and soldiers built our civilization. Their sacrifice demands courage in the present to preserve it.

Lamentations asks, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”

That question has been weighing on me heavily. Not just as a broadcaster, but as a citizen, a father, a husband, a believer. It is a question that every person who cares about this nation, this culture, and this civilization must confront: Is all of this worth saving?

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

Western civilization — a project born in Judea, refined in Athens, tested in Rome, reawakened in Wittenberg, and baptized again on the shores of Plymouth Rock — is a gift. We didn’t earn it. We didn’t purchase it. We were handed it. And now, we must ask ourselves: Do we even want it?

Across Europe, streets are restless. Not merely with protests, but with ancient, festering hatred — the kind that once marched under swastikas and fueled ovens. Today, it marches under banners of peace while chanting calls for genocide. Violence and division crack societies open. Here in America, it’s left against right, flesh against spirit, neighbor against neighbor.

Truth struggles to find a home. Even the church is slumbering — or worse, collaborating.

Our society tells us that everything must be reset: tradition, marriage, gender, faith, even love. The only sin left is believing in absolute truth. Screens replace Scripture. Entertainment replaces education. Pleasure replaces purpose. Our children are confused, medicated, addicted, fatherless, suicidal. Universities mock virtue. Congress is indifferent. Media programs rather than informs. Schools recondition rather than educate.

Is this worth saving? If not, we should stop fighting and throw up our hands. But if it is, then we must act — and we must act now.

The West: An idea worth saving

What is the West? It’s not a location, race, flag, or a particular constitution. The West is an idea — an idea that man is made in the image of God, that liberty comes from responsibility, not government; that truth exists; that evil exists; and that courage is required every day. The West teaches that education, reason, and revelation walk hand in hand. Beauty matters. Kindness matters. Empathy matters. Sacrifice is holy. Justice is blind. Mercy is near.

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

If not now, when? If not us, who? If this is worth saving, we must know why. Western civilization is worth dying for, worth living for, worth defending. It was built on the blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, pilgrims, moms, dads, and soldiers. They did not die for markets, pronouns, surveillance, or currency. They died for something higher, something bigger.

MATTHIEU RONDEL/AFP via Getty Images | Getty Images

Yet hope remains. Resurrection is real — not only in the tomb outside Jerusalem, but in the bones of any individual or group that returns to truth, honor, and God. It is never too late to return to family, community, accountability, and responsibility.

Pick up your torch

We were chosen for this time. We were made for a moment like this. The events unfolding in Europe and South Korea, the unrest and moral collapse, will all come down to us. Somewhere inside, we know we were called to carry this fire.

We are not called to win. We are called to stand. To hold the torch. To ask ourselves, every day: Is it worth standing? Is it worth saving?

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Pick up your torch. If you choose to carry it, buckle up. The work is only beginning.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Stop coasting: How self-education can save America’s future

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Coasting through life is no longer an option. Charlie Kirk’s pursuit of knowledge challenges all of us to learn, act, and grow every day.

Last year, my wife and I made a commitment: to stop coasting, to learn something new every day, and to grow — not just spiritually, but intellectually. Charlie Kirk’s tragic death crystallized that resolve. It forced a hard look in the mirror, revealing how much I had coasted in both my spiritual and educational life. Coasting implies going downhill. You can’t coast uphill.

Last night, my wife and I re-engaged. We enrolled in Hillsdale College’s free online courses, inspired by the fact that Charlie had done the same. He had quietly completed around 30 courses before I even knew, mastering the classics, civics, and the foundations of liberty. Watching his relentless pursuit of knowledge reminded me that growth never stops, no matter your age.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures.

This lesson is particularly urgent for two groups: young adults stepping into the world and those who may have settled into complacency. Learning is life. Stop learning, and you start dying. To young adults, especially, the college promise has become a trap. Twelve years of K-12 education now leave graduates unprepared for life. Only 35% of seniors are proficient in reading, and just 22% in math. They are asked to bet $100,000 or more for four years of college that will often leave them underemployed and deeply indebted.

Degrees in many “new” fields now carry negative returns. Parents who have already sacrificed for public education find themselves on the hook again, paying for a system that often fails to deliver.

This is one of the reasons why Charlie often described college as a “scam.” Debt accumulates, wages are not what students were promised, doors remain closed, and many are tempted to throw more time and money after a system that won’t yield results. Graduate school, in many cases, compounds the problem. The education system has become a factory of despair, teaching cynicism rather than knowledge and virtue.

Reclaiming educational agency

Yet the solution is not radical revolt against education — it is empowerment to reclaim agency over one’s education. Independent learning, self-guided study, and disciplined curiosity are the modern “Napster moment.” Just as Napster broke the old record industry by digitizing music, the internet has placed knowledge directly in the hands of the individual. Artists like Taylor Swift now thrive outside traditional gatekeepers. Likewise, students and lifelong learners can reclaim intellectual freedom outside of the ivory towers.

Each individual possesses the ability to think, create, and act. This is the power God grants to every human being. Knowledge, faith, and personal responsibility are inseparable. Learning is not a commodity to buy with tuition; it is a birthright to claim with effort.

David Butow / Contributor | Getty Images

Charlie Kirk’s life reminds us that self-education is an act of defiance and empowerment. In his pursuit of knowledge, in his engagement with civics and philosophy, he exemplified the principle that liberty depends on informed, capable citizens. We honor him best by taking up that mantle — by learning relentlessly, thinking critically, and refusing to surrender our minds to a system that profits from ignorance.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures. Every day, seek to grow, create, and act. Charlie showed the way. It is now our responsibility to follow.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins TPUSA tour to honor Charlie Kirk

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If they thought the murder of Charlie Kirk would scare us into silence, they were wrong!

If anything, Turning Point will hit the road louder than ever. On Monday, September 22, less than two weeks after the assassination, Charlie's friends united under the Turning Point USA banner to carry his torch and honor his legacy by doing what he did best: bringing honest and truthful debate to Universities across the nation.

Naturally, Glenn has rallied to the cause and has accepted an invitation to join the TPUSA tour at the University of North Dakota on October 9th.

Want to join Glenn at the University of North Dakota to honor Charlie Kirk and keep his mission alive? Click HERE to sign up or find more information.

Glenn's daughter honors Charlie Kirk with emotional tribute song

MELISSA MAJCHRZAK / Contributor | Getty Images

On September 17th, Glenn commemorated his late friend Charlie Kirk by hosting The Charlie Kirk Show Podcast, where he celebrated and remembered the life of a remarkable young man.

During the broadcast, Glenn shared an emotional new song performed by his daughter, Cheyenne, who was standing only feet away from Charlie when he was assassinated. The song, titled "We Are One," has been dedicated to Charlie Kirk as a tribute and was written and co-performed by David Osmond, son of Alan Osmond, founding member of The Osmonds.

Glenn first asked David Osmond to write "We Are One" in 2018, as he predicted that dark days were on the horizon, but he never imagined that it would be sung by his daughter in honor of Charlie Kirk. The Lord works in mysterious ways; could there have been a more fitting song to honor such a brave man?

"We Are One" is available for download or listening on Spotify HERE