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Glenn's Show Prep

Can love conquer all?

December 11, 2014
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The Glenn Beck Program

Last night on the Glenn Beck program, Stu Burguiere filled in for Glenn. Andrew W.K., our favorite rocker with a "philosophy of partying" joined Stu to weigh in on atheists and loving your neighbor. During their conversation, Stu brought up a video of a "prayer" that occured at a city council meeting that left many outraged. Stu took the opportunity to ask Andrew W.K. his thoughts on the video asking, if Andrew was in in the city council meeting would he have acted the same as the "prayer leader"?

In true Andrew W.K. fashion, he took the opportunity to respond to the question in a loving, enlightened and meaningful way:

Well, for me personally, I wouldn’t probably go to a meeting like that. I think there’s other ways to accomplish probably very similar ends that don’t involve as much fighting, I guess, or just battling. I think that certain people are drawn to that kind of environment, that kind of atmosphere where they like debate. You know, debate is a great thing. They teach it. People can become world-class debaters, and again, it stirs up emotions that are very satisfying.

It’s fun to feel like you beat someone in a debate. It’s fun to, you know, to lose sometimes and to sort of have that humiliation. It’s all, I guess, you know, sort of a game in itself there, but these are real things on the line, and I would imagine that, again, if you hold onto these beliefs very passionately and personally, no one can really strip you of what you think. You know what I mean? At least so far, technology has not allowed us to infiltrate someone’s brain completely, so hold onto that, you know, in the midst of all these battles.

As the conversation continued, it turned towards messages of love and hope; beliefs that have played a strong part in Glenn's life and his shows. After all, Glenn does have a song entitled "Love" as his radio theme song. In response to some critics, saying that Andrew W.K. now preaches "hippie-dippey nonsense," he took the opportunity to discuss the complexities, yet beauty of love. And in true Stu fashion, it somehow turned onto a conversation about cute pugs, but it is still worth a watch.

Stu: Joining me now to talk more about this is Andrew W.K. Andrew, first off, what is your opinion on drunken horse chasing? Is that part of the party hard philosophy?

Andrew: Well, drunken riding is never a good idea, even if you’re the horse. You know, it’s dangerous for everybody, so try to avoid drunken really anything with a vehicle, and a horse does count.

Stu: Okay, that’s good. We have that cleared up. And again, this is how we come together, and we can all live a happy life. I’m interested in your take on this, because, you know, there are a lot of different viewpoints out there, and I really do think that is what makes this country great. We’re allowed to express them without fear of, you know, any reprisal from the government, but it seems like people get so antagonistic against each other and just try to basically ruin everybody else’s fun. And you see the story, I think there’s a good part of that in the story from Florida where the atheist tried to basically needle all the people who have faith in the committee. How did you see that?

Andrew: Well, I think that largely what people want in these situations is attention. They want us to be doing what we are doing right now, which is talking about it, but hopefully even more than that that we’re thinking about it. And I think any situation that brings us into personal thought and reflection, ultimately that’s good, so if we give them credit for inspiring thought to see inside of ourselves what we think about these things, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Stu: See, you have too positive a viewpoint. I strive to get to the point where I could handle things the way you do, because, you know, I can’t help to get annoyed sometimes when people needle me or needle something that I care about, and I think that’s the average person. You know, at the end of the day, does it make a difference in your life what someone else thinks about your viewpoint? No, but it’s still something you feel like you need to defend your turf. Maybe you feel like they need to, you know, it’s like sports, you feel like your team is being violated, and you want to defend it. How do you get to that point where you can kind of just sit back and say…? Yeah, go ahead.

Andrew: I think sports are actually a very good comparison, because if we think of sports as a game, we engage in that because it’s fun. We are not defending truly our life in a game like a sport like football, for example. We’re allowed to explore those feelings in a playful way for the sake of competition, the excitement of standing with the team, but at the end of the day, we also do realize that it is kind of just for fun, even very passionate fun, very emotional fun, but for fun.

So when someone needles at me, if I’m not so sure of my point of view, it might threaten me a little bit more, but again, I just have to think about it, and ultimately, like you said, I don’t care that much about what someone else thinks, especially if that person was just trying to get under my skin, you know?

Stu: So put yourself in a position, you’re someone who, you know, you believe strongly in whatever, you know, atheism or whatever, and you’re sitting at a council meeting like that, and you don’t like the prayer thing. You think it’s silly. It’s not your belief structure, but you do recognize that there are good people who are with you who do. Do you take that opportunity to go in there and try to essentially insult them to win them over? Does that work? Or what do you do with that time?

Andrew: Well, for me personally, I wouldn’t probably go to a meeting like that. I think there’s other ways to accomplish probably very similar ends that don’t involve as much fighting, I guess, or just battling. I think that certain people are drawn to that kind of environment, that kind of atmosphere where they like debate. You know, debate is a great thing. They teach it. People can become world-class debaters, and again, it stirs up emotions that are very satisfying.

It’s fun to feel like you beat someone in a debate. It’s fun to, you know, to lose sometimes and to sort of have that humiliation. It’s all, I guess, you know, sort of a game in itself there, but these are real things on the line, and I would imagine that, again, if you hold onto these beliefs very passionately and personally, no one can really strip you of what you think. You know what I mean? At least so far, technology has not allowed us to infiltrate someone’s brain completely, so hold onto that, you know, in the midst of all these battles.

Stu: That would be pretty fun though, because you could get people to do like anything you want. It would be awesome.

Andrew: I’m sure they’re working on it. Yeah, they’re getting along with that technology, but so far, so good, we can still think what we want to think ourselves.

Stu: It’s right around the corner. You had someone kind of take you to task or attempt to take you to task in one of your recent columns where they said basically like Andrew, I love you, I love your music, you’re great, but you’re constantly preaching this hippie-dippy nonsense, and everyone needs to find love and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was interesting to read that, because I could produce 12 letters a day that we get from our listeners that say the same thing—Glenn’s constantly talking about, you know, trying to work together and understand other people, and it’s a different vibe for maybe talk radio or politics.

Andrew: Yes.

Stu: And so it’s tough. I struggle with it, to be honest. You know, I struggle with it. You sit there, and a lot of times I think, you know, love…and you made this point in the column, love can conquer all. Why can’t it? You know, stop doubting it. But there’s a human feeling that it just feels like it’s sort of this, I don’t know, Enya sort of thing that’s just sort of like flowing up there. It’s all feel good and everything, but it doesn’t actually get results. If you don’t go out there and fight for your positions or fight for what you believe in, then you wind up just getting rolled over.

Andrew: The elusive qualities of that approach, loving everybody, it seems…it’s like this, it’s too good to be true combined with too easy combined with unrealistic combined with all these efforts that we make. We’re so used to striving, like it’s an outward push, this, you know, forcing ourselves, forcing our will.

We can judge success more clearly in this material world where we see results that we made happen, and this love approach which is, you know, even the word love, it rubs people the wrong way, which is so strange, but this approach is all the opposite. It’s all about not doing as much, about going inward instead of outward, about getting results in a less tangible way, and for that reason, it is challenging. It isn’t easy, but at the same time it’s like the easiest thing of all.

You know, to love a baby, for example, that’s not…takes a lot of hard work that you have to put all that effort into loving that baby. You just look at its round face and its plushy eyes and its dewy complexion, and you just feel good. So why can’t we, you know, have that same kind of ease in all these other situations? I mean, not everything is as cute as a baby. That’s probably part of the reason.

Stu: That would be a solution. You know, Glenn once said a long time ago, because I have two pugs, and I was arguing that my dog was cute, and he said it was actually incredibly ugly. You look at a pug, you know, it’s got a smashed face. It’s got the giant bulging eyeballs, but it’s still cute, and his point was anything that’s small is cute, and maybe that’s the problem, we’re just too large. If we just were all cute little babies, we’d all be able to love each other a lot more easily. I don’t know if that’s going to be solved anytime soon, but…

Andrew: Well, yeah, that’s a good point. I mean, like is a mountain, a mountain, you wouldn’t call a cute mountain or a cute galaxy.

Stu: It’s grand. It’s beautiful. It’s just you have this little adorable thing that’s just there, and when you see something small and adorable, you can’t help but love it. It’s when they get big, and then they’re ugly dogs.

Andrew: You know, our ability to be bigger than other things is where we can, you know, exhibit mercy and acts of, you know, benevolent kindness because we do have a larger presence to that thing. I mean, we’re bigger than an ant, and we can choose not to step on an ant, for example. And the mountain is bigger than us, you know, or God could be bigger than us and thinks of us like the way we think of a baby. So can we look at least at each other as brothers? I mean, my brother is pretty cute, and he is younger than me, but he’s actually an inch taller than me, and I still feel that kind of affection for him.

Stu: Wow, you actually brought that back to something rational. That was pretty impressive. I have to give you some credit on that.

Andrew: I did lose it for a second there.

Stu: Let me give you this, is it part of the equation here to try to love someone and solve problems that way? Is part of it just being comfortable in your own skin, being comfortable that you can’t convince everyone to agree with you, being comfortable that other people are going to think you’re an idiot sometimes? If you can get to that place, all of this becomes a lot easier.

Andrew: I completely agree. I think maybe that’s the best way to put it actually is that it’s a mindset. You actually can’t ask that much of it to work all the time. It’s sort of like an ideal, and why not have the highest ideal we could possibly conceive of at the forefront of all our behavior in our mind, even if we don’t always get there, even if we never get there? You don’t settle for less. We push for more, you know?

Stu: Yeah, that’s a great point. Andrew W.K., thanks so much for coming on, and we’ll talk. Maybe next time you come on, we can just expand the conversation on the drunken horse riding. I think that was really important.

Andrew: Okay, I like that. That sounds good.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

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

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.