Who Invented the Internet? (It Wasn't Al Gore)

The internet is a product of American ingenuity. Although Al Gore infamously said he "took the initiative in creating the Internet," its creation actually predated him by decades. Vannevar Bush invented the first modern analogue computer in 1930 --- and the concept behind what would become known as the internet.

"The concept was something called memex, which I like better than the internet myself. Memex. Yeah, better name," Glenn said Thursday on his radio program.

Memex was a way to store all of the world's information, like a giant brain or memory bank.

WATCH: Freedom Fighter Ted Cruz Leads Charge to Keep the Internet Away From Liberal Censors

"At first, the idea was to tie it all together on microfilm. Most people refer to the article that he wrote in the Atlantic in 1945 called "As We May Think". This was the first public unveiling of a broader collective memory machine. Because, really, it's not a machine, but that is what the internet is. It's just collective memories. And you have access to that brain of memories and ideas," Glenn said.

Xerox, credited for inventing the Ethernet, also played a key role.

"Xerox, with Robert Taylor, who was influential in the creation of the internet, both at DARPA and then as an employee of Xerox, maintains that The origins of the internet include both work sponsored by the government and Xerox PARC. So you can't say that the internet was developed by Xerox or the government. It was both. But if anyone should get the credit for the creation of the internet, it's the guy named Vannevar . . . and a guy named Robert Taylor," Glenn said.

Should Al Gore want to take credit for creating the internet, it doesn't quite reconcile with his green energy and global warming positions. According to the New York Times, worldwide server farms for the internet use 30 billion watts of electricity. Data centers on average use only six to 12 percent of the electricity powering their servers to perform any kind of computations. The rest of the electricity is used just in case there's a surge of activity.

"In other words, about 90 percent of it, 88 percent of it is completely wasted energy. So, Al, I want everyone to know that Al Gore wants to take credit for the creation of something that wastes 90 percent of 30 billion watts of electricity. It sounds pretty green," Glenn said.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: So let me tell you a little bit about the truth about the internet because Pat just played the truth.

PAT: The truth.

GLENN: The truth. Here, it is, the inventor of the internet.

AL: During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet.

GLENN: He created the internet. How can he say that?

PAT: How do you say that?

GLENN: I'll show you how he says that.

PAT: All right.

GLENN: Let me go back to the very beginning, to the very beginning. The internet starts with a concept in 1930. And the concept was something which was called memex, which I like better than the internet myself. Memex. Yeah, better name.

Memex was a concept developed by a guy named Vannevar. Now, that's his first name. I'll give you his last name in a minute.

But Vannevar --

PAT: Well, his last name is Internet.

GLENN: No.

PAT: Vannevar Internet. No?

GLENN: No. Vannevar invented the first modern analogue computer in 1930.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: And his idea of memex was a way to store all of the world's information using computers tied together.

At first, the idea was to tie it all together on microfilm. And most people refer to the article that he wrote in the Atlantic -- in 1945, it was called As We May Think. And this was the first public unveiling of a broader collective memory machine. Because, really, it's not a machine, but that is what the internet is. It's just -- it's collective memories. And you have access to that brain of memories and ideas.

Now, at the time when he wrote this in 1945, he was working as the chairman of the national defense research committee. So he was working for the government at the time he wrote that. But not at the time he had this original idea.

Yes, Pat.

PAT: Well, isn't that why DARPA hired him in the first place? They were impressed with his work.

GLENN: Do you know, Stu?

STU: Yeah. I mean, it's a part of the reason why --

PAT: Yeah, I think that's why they were attracted to him in the first place.

STU: I mean, think about it. That's the exact reverse of what you're told though. This is a man who came up, as a private citizen, with an amazing idea, and the government hired him because of that idea.

GLENN: Right.

STU: It's not the government creating it.

GLENN: And this is the government seeing what -- what the Nazis and the Japanese had done with the enigma machine. How did we -- the enigma machine changed everything. We've got to have computers because digitization is going to change everything. It's change the game. And so the Defense Department knew in 1945, "Holy cow, we are way behind." Especially the Germans, "We are way behind. We better come up with something." And so they start looking, and they find this guy named Vannevar. And they hire him after he writes As We May Think.

Now, he had been writing about the memex concept since the early 1930s. And he didn't start working for the government until 1938.

So he didn't invent the government -- he didn't invent the internet for the government. His invention, the internet, was one of the reasons why he was hired by the government.

So it isn't to say that the government -- more specifically, the military wasn't highly involved in the development of the internet from concept to reality, but I think it's really important to not give the government the credit, but the military credit. If there's one thing this government does effectively, it is the military.

STU: And this is the only time in history that the left gives the military credit for anything.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: All of a sudden, they're, we love the -- they're the government. See what we're saying. The government is inventing things.

All of a sudden they love the work the military has done.

GLENN: Yeah, except they'll never say that. They just call the military the government.

STU: The government.

GLENN: So by the time Al Gore was 21 -- 21 -- the backbone of the internet, Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, ARPANET, had already been commissioned. So here's the backbone, ARPANET: Al Gore is 21.

And what did he just say?

AL: During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet.

(chuckling)

GLENN: Wow. Wow. So when he was in Congress --

STU: Wow.

GLENN: But ARPANET was already being built when he was 21. And they laid the groundwork starting as a network to connect research computers one to another.

Now, in 1982, ARPANET linked together a grand total of 88 computers.

PAT: Which at that time was probably pretty good.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh, that was huge. That was huge.

PAT: That was amazing.

GLENN: Eighty-two computers. Now, what the government did for the internet was foundational, but rather worthless to your everyday life. The unique thing the government brings to the table for projects like this is unlimited access to your money.

Now, they took this idea. They gobbled it up with unlimited access to your money. This is what they came up with, linking them to 88 computers.

Can you imagine if -- if the people at the very beginning, the private sector, had unlimited access. If Vannevar would have had unlimited access to your money, do you think maybe there may have been more than 88 computers put together, especially if there was the profit incentive at the other end? Wait a minute. I have to eventually get this to pay for itself. How does this work? How can this benefit a lot of people?

Al Gore couldn't even fathom the internet being created without the government funds -- your money -- as he detailed in his 1991 article for Scientific America: Infrastructure For the Global Village. A high-capacity network will not be built without government investment. Congress must formulate the policies that are crucial to realizing the potential of the Information Age. Just as the Interstate Highway System was built with federal funds, so too will high-speed networks require federal seed capital.

So here's what Al Gore did, and you're going to love this. Al Gore was very successful at using your money. He sponsored the High-Performance Computing and Communications Act of 1991.

This is what it did: He took $600 million and poured it into high-performance computing. And with that $600 million, here's what he made.

Have you ever -- have you ever heard of the web browser Mosaic?

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Yeah. That's what the government did. That's what Al Gore gave you. Al Gore gave you a really crappy web browser that nobody uses. That's what he did.

Yes, the government advanced the internet, but what turned the internet from a boring network of 88 computers to the things you post a picture of, you know, of your oatmeal in the morning or, you know, Anthony Weiner's wiener, was the private sector. And more specifically, it was Xerox.

Xerox is credited for inventing the Ethernet, the graphical user interface. You know, I have on the set of The Vault, which premieres next week, is an Apple IIc. Have you guys turned that on? Have you guys seen that? Have you been in The Vault?

PAT: I've seen that, but I haven't turned it on.

GLENN: Oh, my --

STU: Wow.

GLENN: This is what I used to write scripts with. I mean, when it came out in, what, 1982, '83. And so I turned it on. And I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. I haven't sat behind this computer since the 1980s."

And it does nothing.

(chuckling)

GLENN: It does nothing. My son looked at it. He's like, "Dad, this is great." And I said, "You want to play a game on it?" And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "You can't."

(laughter)

So Xerox -- Xerox, with Robert Taylor, who was influential in the creation of the internet, both at DARPA and then as an employee of Xerox, maintains that, quote, the origins of the Internet include both work sponsored by the government and Xerox PARC. So you can't say that the internet was developed by Xerox or the government. It was both.

But if anyone should get the credit for the creation of the internet, it's the guy named Vannevar. Not last name. First name, Vannevar. And a guy named Robert Taylor.

So I just want to -- I want to wrap it up with a couple things. First of all, Al Gore, he wants credit for inventing the internet. We know that's not true. But he also wants to be known as the guy who conserves energy and is a guy who is saying we can't use all this energy. We have to be green.

Let me just give you this: According to the New York Times, that bastion of conservatism, they found that server farms for the internet, server farms worldwide use 30 billion watts of electricity. But, wait, Al, it gets better.

Data centers on average use only six to 12 percent of the electricity powering their servers to perform any kind of computations. The rest of the electricity is used just in case there's a surge of activity.

So, in other words, about 90 percent of it, 88 percent of it is completely wasted energy.

So, Al, I want everyone to know that Al Gore wants to take credit for the creation of something that wastes 90 percent of 30 billion watts of electricity. It sounds pretty green.

Oh, and one more thing: Just -- there's no relation, but just to make everybody feel better, if you have my point of view and everybody who really loves Al Gore, it will make them feel really, really bad, and I don't want to be one that rubs salt in the wound at all, but Al Gore didn't invent it: Vannevar did.

And his last name is not Gore. His last name happens to be Bush. Just thought I'd leave you at that.

Featured Image: Vannevar Bush seated at a desk. This portrait is credited to "OEM Defense", the Office for Emergency Management (part of the United States Federal Government) during World War II; it was probably taken some time between 1940 and 1944.

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.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

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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.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

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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.