Should we be shielding our kids from what is happening in the world?

Every time you tune into the news, you can see evil working its way into the world. Whether it be ISIS beheading journalists in the Middle East or kids bullying an autistic teen in Ohio, darkness seems to be covering the world. But you can do something about it, starting by having honest conversations with your kids. They are growing up in a safety bubble, and we shouldn't shield them from the horrors in the world.

Below is a transcript of Glenn's opening monologue

Tonight, I want to start here though on kind of a conversation that I would like to start to have with you over a longer period of time, and that is this, I really think that we all basically are the same inside. We might vote differently. We might, you know, like different colors, whatever, but we all want the freedom to choose. We want the choice of our own path in life. We want the freedom to speak out. We want the freedom and the respect that our voice is being heard without fear of any kind of persecution or repercussion, at least when it comes to the government.

We want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. We want to see a grander vision and build that, mainly for our kids because we want our kids to have it better than we did growing up. There is a ton of noise that gets between all of us, and it suggests otherwise, but I believe it’s true, that we can disagree on a ton of things, and those disagreements are often really very real, but when it all comes down to it and the dust settles, we have more in common than not.

In the days and the weeks ahead, we’re going to be trying to find people who really get that. We might disagree on really big things, but it’s important that we find the things we do agree on. Tomorrow, I’m going to be talking to a guy who I think is one of the more interesting people alive today. I’ve not met him yet. I’ve had him on the show I think once before. His name is Andrew W.K.

He is a rock star. He is a guy who I think writes for the Village Voice. And I’ve read his articles. I agree with this guy. I think he may be one of the most important voices in America today, and I want you to meet him. We’re going to have a fascinating conversation with him. That’s tomorrow night. He’s trying to unite us on the big stuff, and that’s what we have to do.

Now, is that going to help or hurt? Because a lot of people are like you can’t even talk to anybody. No, and by saying that I want my kids to not have the same kind of fears and worries that I had as a kid, is that help or hurt? I don’t know about you, but do you remember when we were kids, and we had this, you know, war, this Cold War, with the Soviet Union. That was really scary, right? I thought we were going to be vaporized. I can’t tell you how many nights I had nightmares as a little kid because that’s all you saw on television. Well, think about what our kids are seeing on television now.

Now, conversations like this may hit close to home, but I think that’s what TheBlaze is really all about. TheBlaze is a place to where we want to be able to challenge and question everything, everything that we’re doing as a parent, everything that we’re doing as people, but that challenge might just affirm the path that you’re on as well.

The world is becoming an increasingly dangerous and dark, dark place, and you know it. You just watch it. I think that’s why people are not watching news the way they used to, because they don’t know what to do about it. They feel helpless. There is no perspective, and when you see something like ISIS and everything else that’s going on, you think to yourself, “What am I going to do about it?”

You don’t have to look overseas to see evil, either. In Ohio, this is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen, an autistic child was tricked into doing the ice bucket challenge, and some of his “friends” dumped feces and urine on him instead. In Seattle, a wheelchair-bound couple had their computer stolen by a pair of thieves while they were at the mall. There is evil everywhere. It’s there. So what are we going to do about it?

Well, I don’t think there’s a better time than right now to first self-examine and honestly ask ourselves, “What are we teaching our kids?” Are we teaching them the things that they will need to be prepared to make sense of the world that they’re going to inherit and then change it for the better or are we just sheltering them so they can save their childhood and then send them off into battle completely naked, woefully ill-informed, and armed with only a phone full of selfies?

We mean well, but in our quest to make things better, we’re probably disabling our children, and we’re shielding them from reality or we think we’re shielding them from reality. I don’t think you can anymore. The things that we saw on TV, our parents kind of monitored. If they walked away from the room, we could change the channel, but there were only three channels.

Now, things are happening, and people have cell phones everywhere. It’s happening, it’s happening live. Anywhere from the greatest of the greats to pornography is happening all around our children in the schools, everywhere. We’ve worked hard to afford suburbia and give them the things that we didn’t have, often times at the expense of our own presence, and then we try to make up with things or we make up or we’re tired.

This is mine. I’m so tired at the end of the day, I’m just like, “Whatever, that’s good. You know what, honey, just go ahead.” No. We prop them up with false compliments. We give them these fake trophies for participation. We don’t discipline. We don’t train them for a life in a broken and a very harsh world. Instead, we try to protect them from it. We’ve shielded their eyes.

You know me well enough to know that I don’t claim to have any answers. I don’t, especially when it comes to parenting. Anybody who says they’re, you know, I’m a parent, and I’ve figured it all out, you’re a liar. As a father of four, I can confidently tell you I am fumbling my way through it. I think I’m getting better, but make no mistake, raising and leading a family, mom or dad doesn’t matter, most important job and the hardest job there is.

But that I think is why we have to have an honest conversation. We have to have this conversation with each other because I don’t know, you’re like me, my wife and I, we sit in bed at night, and we will look at somebody else’s, our friends’ Facebook pages. And we see their put-together life, and it’s not our life. And we have a pretty sweet life, but our kids are, you know, messy and complaining and everything else, and so we look at this, and we say, “How do they do it? How do they do it?”

We can’t figure it out. And then we post all of our perfect moments on Facebook, and our friends are going, “Look at the Becks. How are they doing it?” The deal is none of us are doing it, none of us. And the things that we’re dealing with now have never been dealt before in all of human history. There is no detailed manual on what to do with kids, let alone kids with this kind of technology.

Never before has mankind seen this. With so much information out our own fingertips, what do I show my kids? What do I not show my kids? How do I keep my kids away from finding it on their own? Do I let them see the scary parts of movies? And what is even scary? What was scary is so far beyond what is scary now. What about video games? Do I tell them the truth about what’s happening to children in the Middle East?

You want to talk about nightmares, they’re teaching their children to hate and kill and to behead people. Do I teach them that? Do I show them that? Are they going to see that on their cell phone in grade school? This week is the anniversary of 9/11. A lot of us didn’t even show our kids the horrors of that day. Think about this, the kids born after 9/11 are now reaching their teenage years. That is incredible.

I will never even forget the smell of that day. Our kids weren’t living during that time. We saw evil rain down. We felt it. There was no mistaking it. Now we don’t even show the planes hitting the towers. It’s too scary. It’s too disturbing. If we don’t show them the truth, an entire generation is going to rise up blissfully unaware of what awaits them.

They didn’t feel the terror the morning of 9/11 when one plane hit, and we all said, “That’s a small plane. That has to be a small plane. That was just an accident. Maybe he had a heart attack.” And then another and then another, and then we all said, “How many do they have? Where are they going to hit next? Is this going to go on all day? Are suicide bombers going to be on the streets? Are they going to be in the malls? Is our country over today? Do you remember having that feeling, is our country over today?

Damn right, we were scared, because even though we didn’t know who Osama bin Laden was, even though we were all like who’s doing this to us?, we understood how fragile, just that day, how fragile this whole thing is. Our kids don’t know that, because it’s not. It’s bailouts. Everything is fine. There’s no mistakes. There’s nothing that can ever hurt you.

When our kids get old enough to understand the Muslim Brotherhood and that it’s a legitimate organization and that their real designs…when they get old enough to understand that ISIS is not a jayvee squad, they’ve got an eye-opening experience for them. Heck with our kids, half our population doesn’t even know that. We’re living in denial, and in our quest to give our children better, in our quest to make sure that our kids don’t have the nightmares that we had, they’re growing up in a safety bubble that doesn’t exist, and it’s not working out.

Do they really have it better than we did? Do they really have it better than our grandparents did when they were growing up in the Depression? Are we helping or are we hurting?

So what do you do?

Glenn invited Dr. James Dobson onto the show to explain how you can have conversations with your kids about what is happening in the world:

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.

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

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.