Is It Morally Ethical to Read Illegally-obtained Private Emails?

October 20, 2016

Writer

The latest WikiLeaks dump included emails from a U.S. citizen's private email account. John David Podesta, Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and previous Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, was hacked and private correspondence released to the media which allegedly revealed inflammatory information.

In response, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued a statement:

I will not discuss any issue that has become public solely on the basis of WikiLeaks. As our intelligence agencies have said, these leaks are an effort by a foreign government to interfere with our electoral process, and I will not indulge it. Further, I want to warn my fellow Republicans who might want to capitalize politically on these leaks. Today it's the Democrats. Tomorrow, it could be us.

It was an interesting position to take and one that launched an introspective conversation on Glenn's radio program Wednesday.

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these questions:

• What if these private emails had been stolen from you?

• Don't we have a right to be secure in our private papers ?

• Will everything be transparent in the future?

• Is this akin to stealing documents form Apple or IBM?

• Is it morally wrong to look at stolen documents?

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: Let's talk a little bit about Marco Rubio and what he said about WikiLeaks.

STU: Statement to NBC.

He says, "I will not discuss any issue that has become public solely on the basis of WikiLeaks. As our intelligence agencies have said, these leaks are an effort by a foreign government to interfere with our electoral process, and I will not indulge it. Further, I want to warn my fellow Republicans who might want to capitalize politically on these leaks. Today it's the Democrats. Tomorrow, it could be us."

Now, of course, the Bush administration -- I mean, that was the WikiLeaks, the first thing they did, was attack the Bush administration. So it already has been the Republicans at some level.

And I think that part of the statement -- you know, look, today it's Democrats, tomorrow it could be us, appeals to probably most people. But I think it appeals least to me. That's certainly true.

I got to say though, I mean, it is an interesting point, in that, we know that -- or at least we think we know that this is coming from a foreign government. But even that part of it is less of the impact of that statement. To me, I think it's a good point in that it's probably just the wrong thing to do. Discussing these things -- and I understand this is not going to be popular. But discussing stolen documents, things that were stolen from private conversations, and discussing them as election issues, is probably just wrong to do. And I will admit this, that I -- it may just be I'm able to see this because I don't like either of the candidates. You know, like maybe if Ted Cruz was the guy and, you know, Ted Cruz was in a tight election battle, maybe I'd be all over this. I admit that I'm a weak enough idiot that I probably would -- you know, be down that road. I hope I would not. But, I mean --

GLENN: I don't think you would be.

STU: I hope not.

GLENN: Let me ask you this.

STU: It doesn't feel like -- and I think there's a distinction between this and, let's say, Edward Snowden, who is trying to be a whistle-blower on his government. And you can argue, whether he's as bad as well. And we've had that argument many times.

I think there's a difference there. This is just stolen from a foreign government and leaked -- and, again, none of this stuff -- it's like leaked internal questioning of issues. And I don't know, I mean, it feels like --

GLENN: Here's where I have a problem with the WikiLeaks things. We are discussing them, and we don't know what's true or not. We do know that one of the WikiLeaks emails that came out was changed by the government. Right? Remember you talked to us about that last week, that there was one email that was quoting an article that actually had an article in the original.

STU: Right. And they blamed the Democrats. In reality, they were quoting an article that was favorable to Republicans.

GLENN: Correct.

STU: They were basically saying -- I don't remember the exact issue. I think it was Benghazi-related. But it was basically like -- it was acting as if the Democrats behind closed doors knew Hillary was responsible for Benghazi, when in reality, they had sent an article that mentioned something about that --

GLENN: Right.

STU: -- internally to like discuss it.

GLENN: So we know at least one of them has been doctored. How do we know that, Stu? I don't remember the story. How do we know this?

STU: Oh, it was the author of the column saw the email exchange. And said, "Wait a minute. That's not their words. Those are my words. I wrote that."

GLENN: Okay.

STU: And, by the way, the author was critical of Republicans about their handling of Benghazi. It wasn't even a pro-Republican article that was -- it just had one paragraph that said, "Look, this is a fair issue to bring up," essentially, if I remember --

GLENN: So we know that one thing has been changed, out of how many thousands of documents. We don't know what's true and what's not coming from them.

What Edward Snowden did -- I'm really torn. Because every time I talk to anybody in the intelligence community that I respect, they say, "There's no way that he tried to go through the system. There's no way." And what I keep going back to is, if you try to go through the system, if you tried to stop it and nobody would listen, then I agree.

Now, I give him the benefit of the doubt because we know four whistle-blowers who tried to go through the system. I know three or five whistle-blowers -- I don't know them on a first-name basis that tried to show us the corruption in the Department of Homeland Security. And they are afraid for their jobs right now. Okay?

And that was involving a lawsuit that I was in. Those three or five whistle-blowers that provided us with information tried to do it the right way. They could not get any movement. And then the -- the top of the State Department started looking for them, and they were on a weasel hunt. Okay?

So I give Edward Snowden the benefit of the doubt that this was important, constitutional stuff, that our own government was violating. That's not the same as WikiLeaks. This is just a document dump. And you'll notice that they haven't documented -- they haven't document dumped anything on Russia. Nothing on enemies of ours. Only our allies and us. And trying to hurt us with our allies. I don't trust Julian Assange or WikiLeaks at all.

And for us to give them credibility is bad. Is really, really bad. Now, do I believe most of the stuff that has come through? Yeah, I do. I do. The latest is the thing on, you know, what Hillary is saying behind the scenes about how she wants to scrap Obamacare and start over. I believe that. Bill Clinton has said that. That it doesn't work. Obamacare doesn't work. Hillary would rather do her own Hillarycare and be the one who is the savior that fixed it. He got it. He did the hard work. He had it. Now let her fix it. I absolutely believe that. And that was one of the things that came out in WikiLeaks.

But that's not a national secret. That is not something that is constitutional. You know what I mean? It is just behind the scenes. And I don't like the fact that somebody that we can't check the -- the credibility on, we don't know what they're putting -- and they're putting thousands of documents out, I don't -- I'm not comfortable with this. It's not right.

STU: Yeah, I mean -- I just -- it's -- because my initial instinct -- I mean, we've talked about the WikiLeaks emails. I mean, I have a story I put in the prep today about -- which I think is interesting -- their -- the short list for the VPs for Hillary Clinton. And they have every single name on there. And they've broken it into categories.

And it's interesting, to look at this. I mean, the books that will be written about this election will be more detailed probably than any book about any previous election. Because there's so much information about what these guys were thinking at the times these decisions were made. But, I mean -- so my instinct was -- and plus, it's in the media. Everybody is talking about it. They're not hiding it --

GLENN: So what did you learn about it from that list?

STU: Am I not just violating -- it's interesting because they -- they played identity politics, without going into all the details. But like, they thought the same way you think Democrats would think about their VP choice. Here's a bunch of black people. Here's a bunch of women. Here's a bunch of people who -- you know, Hispanics. Here's a bunch of people who were in the military -- you know, like, they broke it into categories like that. It's not crazy.

PAT: And they ignored all that, with a white guy. What a bunch of racists. What a bunch of racists.

STU: Yeah, exactly. And they had a white guy category. Which, I mean, look --

PAT: Who else was on the white guy category?

STU: I can look at it.

PAT: Who was on the black guy category?

STU: Is it not -- am I not violating?

GLENN: Yes, I think you are.

STU: This is new information for me. I will say, I have not processed the Rubio thing. The Rubio thing -- and this goes back to the conversation we had with Steven Crowder.

The Rubio thing challenged what I thought. Honestly, I had not really considered it because we're in the heat of the election. And these things are out there. And I want to know the information. And it was there. And that was basically the amount of thought I put into it. And while I agree, they should -- the Russians should not be trying to influence our election process, I hadn't given it a thought of like, "Maybe we shouldn't even reporting on this stuff. I don't know." You could probably talk me into the opposite.

What's made me --

PAT: Worry about that tomorrow. What's in this one today?

STU: Right. Right. What's made me think today is that it just feels kind of morally wrong. I mean, like, these were stolen from these people. Like -- and while I don't like the people they were stolen from, they were stolen from these people. And, you know, I -- I don't know. I mean, while I don't want to stick my head in the sand and --

GLENN: You have a right to be secure in your papers and your person.

STU: Right? I mean, if this had happened to a candidate that I liked, I would be furious about it. And, you know, just because it's a candidate I don't like, you know, I'm supposed to embrace it? I don't know. It doesn't --

JEFFY: You can worry about it tomorrow and tell us about it today.

GLENN: This is espionage on not a government entity. This is a private corporation.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: The DNC and the RNC, they're private institutions. It's not a government institution. So nobody has a right -- that's like breaking into IBM and Apple and just releasing all their documents. You don't have a right to do that. You don't have a right.

STU: Right? I'm trying to challenge myself on this.

GLENN: And the only reason why, if you were pitted against -- if you were Microsoft versus Apple and somebody who hated Apple and was in favor of Microsoft broke in to Apple and you thought Steve Jobs was a great guy, and they released all the stuff that Steve Jobs was doing with the government, which they are -- the government, where he is -- he is -- he started his -- you know, his lobbying firm. He is wickedly involved in politics and deeply -- or was deeply involved in -- in making sure the laws worked to Apple's favor. He was putting himself in -- ahead of a line about getting a kidney transplant. That's not right. You can't do that.

But if we would have just -- if somebody would have gone in that was pro Microsoft and then dumped everything bad about Steve Jobs and Apple, would we be okay with that?

We might be because we would be like, "Eh, Steve Jobs, and that leftist, he finally gets his." Does that make it better? It doesn't.

STU: Right. Again, and this is your fault, Glenn, because you've been talking about principles all day.

But, I mean, you think about that, from a principled perspective, probably shouldn't -- probably shouldn't be. Now, look, it's going to be out there anyway. If you want it, you can get it, right?

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: But the question is, do we play into that? And I don't know. Maybe the answer to that is no. I don't know.

GLENN: Well, here's the problem of playing into it --

PAT: Or maybe the answer is yes.

GLENN: It could be. What do you think? What do you think?

PAT: I don't know. Honestly, until this moment, I haven't even considered it.

STU: Right. Right.

GLENN: Isn't that amazing that we haven't? That nobody has brought this up? This is a pretty big principle: You have a right to be secure in your papers, and it's a private institution.

PAT: These aren't papers. These are digital --

GLENN: Yeah, you have a right to your private thoughts and correspondence. You have a right to that.

PAT: Yeah, but they couldn't foresee email.

GLENN: Yeah, I know. I know.

JEFFY: Thank you.

GLENN: So how we are just going ahead and being fine with it -- we're only fine with it because we're on teams.

PAT: Yeah, I don't know.

GLENN: And we think they're all so support. Transparency won't hurt.

STU: There's really no one to call this out.

PAT: It's like stealing from a rich person. They're so rich, it won't matter. Well, just because we don't like them, doesn't mean that their privacy doesn't matter. That's still constitutional, and it's still a moral issue, and we should still abide by principles and values that we preach about all the time.

JEFFY: What if they have billions?

PAT: Well, if they have billions, you can probably take thousands --

GLENN: See, my feeling on this -- this is where I draw the line on Edward Snowden.

What Edward Snowden showed us was, they were violating the Constitution of the United States. They are breaking the law.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: So it's a whistle-blower to me.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Now, I'm torn on whether or not he did it the right way. I don't think he did. But the information is important because it broke the law.

PAT: Definitely.

GLENN: None of this is law-breaking.

STU: So there's stuff in there that could potentially --

GLENN: And release the law-breaking stuff, possibly. Possibly.

STU: Right.

GLENN: You would have a better chance of being on the moral right side, if it was law-breaking stuff. But just to release people's private emails is absolutely morally reprehensible.

STU: And the issue is. And, you know, I give Rubio credit because he's in a tough spot there. And I think he will tell you --

GLENN: That's not going to help him.

STU: Right. That's not going to help him. He is a guy who takes the world foreign affairs very seriously. So I think his motivation, I think, centrally, probably is that he just -- wait a minute. We're not going to let the Russians invade our election process. And that's a good reason.

GLENN: I got good news for you. It would be an act of war at any other time in our --

STU: Any other time. And I think right now, you have an issue of really neither side has -- has the ability to come out and call this out. One, Trump supporters and Republicans are -- want this information. I mean, there was a Republican congressman -- a Republican congressman, who came out and said, "Thank God for WikiLeaks."

I mean, think about this. This is the Russians hacking our election process, and a Republican congressman said, "Thank God for WikiLeaks."

On the other side, the Democrats have been doing the same thing forever. They used all of this information the same way when it benefited them. So they have no standing. Not to mention, the Clinton campaign has no incentive to draw attention to this. Right? The last thing they want to do is -- I mean, because it's a losing argument for them. Them coming out and saying, "Look, they shouldn't have those private emails."

It doesn't matter. It's a losing argument for them. They can say that, and it's probably true. But it's a losing argument.

So there's really no one with an incentive to come out and say this. And I hope that's -- again, this is why you come to this show, I hope. You come to this show because you want someone who -- you know, a show that's going to not care about those lines.

GLENN: So here's the real answer: The real answer should be that we make our own decision whether or not, and then we consistently apply it. Because everything is going to be transparent. In the years ahead, there's not going to be any secrets.

So do you look into people's private secrets or not? The answer is no, you don't.

JEFFY: You know, but that's the hope of government, right? That fishbowl mentality.

GLENN: No, I think the hope of the government is that you'll react at some point and say, "I want you to clamp down on this," and so they will. And then they have control, and they are the only ones that can look into people's secrets.

Featured Image: John Podesta, Clinton Campaign Chairman, walks to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's Washington DC home October 5, 2016 in Washington, District of Columbia. (Photo Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

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.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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Transcript

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

Ancient evil, new clothes

A time for choosing

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

The new currency of power

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

The forgotten way

The only way