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Mom Who Refused to Abort Survived Cancer – But Now Her Baby Is Fighting This Rare Disease

September 05, 2017
Staff

WRITER

A miracle baby whose mom says saved her from dying of cancer is now fighting to live with a rare genetic condition that damages the immune system.

Single mom of two Katie Hanson shared her incredible story on radio Tuesday. Diagnosed with cervical cancer at age 21 while pregnant, Hanson was advised by doctors to have an abortion.

“You’re 21 years old, and you think you’re invincible. I remember being 21 years old and thinking, ‘Never going to die,’” Glenn said.

Today, Hanson is healthy, but Willow has since been diagnosed with a rare genetic disease that is terminal and affects the immune system. If Willow even gets a cold, she could die, so she requires around-the-clock care just to stay alive. Diagnosed with inclusion-cell (I-cell) disease at 8 months, 2-year-old Willow is one of just 72 people in the world believed to have the rare genetic disorder.

Hanson refused to undergo cancer treatments until she safely delivered baby Willow, saying her baby saved her life because cancer would have gone unnoticed without her pregnancy scans.

“I believe that God gave me Willow exactly when he knew that I needed Willow,” Hanson said. “Knowing the contents of my heart, that I would go through to see her life happen … then I would be there when she would need me.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: So you're 21 years old, and you think you're invincible. I remember being 21 years old and thinking, "Never going to die." Now every day you get up, and you're like, "It could be today."

You're young. You're healthy. You have your whole life in front of you. And that is what Katie thought. She had no idea that anything was wrong with her, until she went in for a routine ultrasound with her second child Willow. And during the ultrasound, it was discovered that Katie had cervical cancer. And the doctor said, "You have to abort your child. You're going to die. The child is going to die." She said, "I won't abort my child." She had to start treatment right away. And the answer was, "No. I'm not going to kill my child."

She was determined to meet the angel that she says saved her life. If it hadn't been for Willow, she would have never known she had cancer. Katie carried Willow to term, and the doctors were able to remove the cancer. Katie was ecstatic. She was cancer-free and mom to a beautiful baby girl. And then trouble set in. Willow stopped eating a couple of months in. The little girl was rushed to the hospital. Stayed there for most of her first year. She dealt with pneumonia and heart failure and respiratory failure. It was one thing after the other. Weeks and weeks of testing. And finally she was diagnosed with a rare terminal condition called Inclusive-cell disease, which inhibits growth and breathing and heart function, digestion, everything. There are only 72 confirmed cases in the world.

And despite her ailments, Willow was finally released from the hospital just in time for her first birthday. And Katie was excited to finally have Willow home, where she could give her the support and love she needed most. While preparing for her birthday, Katie encountered another blow: She became the victim of domestic violence and found herself now a single mother of two young children. The reason why I'm telling you this story is because there is a remarkable person inside mom. Because Katie hasn't lost hope. She is now doing her best to provide for her son and Willow all on her own. And she says, "I am not going to let Willow down because Willow saved my life." And now she vows to save Willow's life. Katie joins us now. Hi, Katie, how are you?

KATIE: Hi, thank you. I'm good. And you?

GLENN: I'm good. This is a remarkable story.

KATIE: Thank you.

GLENN: How is -- how is Willow?

KATIE: Oh, she's doing great. She's still snoozing right now. She loves her sleep. And loves to sleep in. So...

GLENN: And she spent -- in her first year, she spent all, but 12 days in the hospital?

KATIE: From November 18th of 2016 -- or, sorry. January 16th to November 10th of 2016, all, but 12 days was spent between our tiny hospital back in Montana and Seattle children's hospital.

GLENN: So, Katie, what do you say to people who will make the case -- and I'm sure they've made it to you.

KATIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: They'll make the case that, see, you would have been better off. She would have been better off had she never been born.

You know, I could imagine people even said, "God intended her -- you were supposed to do that. That's why she's suffering from all of this." Even though you didn't know.

KATIE: Yeah.

GLENN: How do you respond to that?

KATIE: We've gotten a lot of it and stuff. Especially with the articles going around. There's always those people who are like, "Oh, well, why bring a child into the world, knowing you have cancer, that your cancer is going to affect them, or knowing that something is wrong with your baby and so on and so forth?"

And I take it as an educational moment. Because, one, my cancer did not affect Willow in any way, shape, or form. Cervical cancer has no way to affect an unborn child. Also, cervical cancer cannot cause a genetic mutation, which is what Willow has. And with I-cell being so, so, so rare, obviously -- most people in the world are not aware of it, and most doctors do not even know of its existence -- there's no way to test for it in the womb, unless, say, I have another child. Now we know Willow's exact DNA mutation. We would be able to check to see if that child also has that exact DNA mutation. But when it's your first go-around with a child that you've never had, you know, you didn't have a previous I-cell child, you're kind of in the blind of all of it. Willow was extensively monitored. She was very healthy. She developed totally normal and stuff. So, I mean, people call me selfish for not aborting and stuff. And I'm like, calling me selfish would be calling every other woman in the world selfish because we all put our children at the same exact risk while they're in the womb. There's over 7,000 other rare diseases and stuff that most of them cannot be detected until well after your child is born.

GLENN: Had you known what Willow is going through now, would your answer have been different?

KATIE: I don't think so. I mean, I would never judge on somebody else's choice of whether they keep or abort their child and stuff. But for me, that's just -- it's not in the cards for me. I don't think I could bring myself to do that. I believe that every life out there has a very divine purpose. And stuff. And I believe that God gave me Willow exactly when he knew that I needed Willow, knowing the contents of my heart, that, you know, I would go through to see her life happen and stuff. Then I would be there when she needed me and stuff.

GLENN: And Willow is not expected to live possibly past ten?

KATIE: Yeah. Prognosis, medical prognosis at best is ten years old. There have been a few -- very few kiddoes with this that have made it shortly past ten. But the average span of these kids is three to five years. Because there's no treatment at all whatsoever because there's so little funding happening. There's no government or federal funding like there is for cancer researches and that kind of thing. That doesn't happen. All of the research funding comes directly from, you know, the few families that have been affected.

GLENN: I -- Katie, I will tell you that I'm from a family that has a long history of abuse. And I --

KATIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: I commend you for getting out, especially in your situation, with two children. One of them is severely sick.

KATIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: A lot of people will convince themselves that they either deserve it or it's the -- it's the pressure on him. Or, you know, whatever the excuse is.

KATIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: How -- how difficult was the -- how difficult was it to make the decision, or was it strangely for you just obvious?

KATIE: Well, I mean, it was -- you're kind of in the situation for a while. Like, once Willow started getting sick, unfortunately, her father -- because of the way he grew up, the only way he knew how to cope was to have alcohol to drown out everything he needed to cope. So it was going on for a while. I repeatedly to try to find him help. Get him help and stuff. He would start seeing counselors. And it would get better. But then he would push off and fall back again. It's really true what they say when they say, you can't help somebody who doesn't want to be helped.

But after her terminal diagnosis, it really spiraled for a while. But after she came home, it seemed like things were getting better and stuff. Like, we got into a routine and everything.

I think probably -- he hadn't drank in a while even. But I think what spiked it was, you know, that -- it was Willow's birthday the next day, and even though every birthday just like for every family is a huge milestone, and like it's very exciting for us, it's also extremely, extremely bittersweet and stuff because we know we're not going to have very many of them. So I think that kind of got to him. And that's what stemmed his drinking afterwards that night. For when he came home. And, you know, I don't hold any bad blood for him because none of us know how we're going to cope with something like this. You know, none of us are going to say what's going to happen or how we're going to handle a situation like this, until we're all on the front line of it. And we all have different coping mechanisms. That doesn't mean that what he did was okay. That there's any excuse for it. But once things became physical and once things posed risks to my children and stuff -- again, my life is for my children, just like when I was pregnant with Willow. Like, I will not let anything in the pathway of harming them. So when it became --

GLENN: Go ahead.

KATIE: Yeah. When it became physical, it was -- you know, at that point and stuff -- like obviously police were called. And he was removed from the house.

GLENN: Easy.

KATIE: And since then, we haven't had contact with him.

GLENN: So when I saw your story online, Willow is dependent on 24/7 feeding tube. She's on heart and oxygen monitors. Medication from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. BiPAP at night. Requires what is called deep suctioning, threading of suction catheter through her nose and the airway. This is so -- so harsh for you.

You -- you list all the things that you have to do. And now that you are -- you are out -- you can't go to a shelter because --

KATIE: No.

GLENN: -- you -- you can't -- you can't bring Willow into the shelter. She gets a cold, and she can die.

KATIE: Uh-huh. Yes.

GLENN: You've been accepted on a housing wait list. Which you said, "Could lift our biggest stressor from our shoulders." And the list is long. And we're close to the end and not likely to receive some help until at some point next year. We're just doing all we can for a roof over our heads. You had a goal of $5,000. And you were -- last I checked, you were at $2,900.

KATIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: That doesn't seem like an awful lot of money to believe just to keep the roof over your head. It seems --

KATIE: It's not. Yeah, it's not the -- I'm one of those people, I have a very hard time asking for help as it is. And like, I don't really set my goals too big because I don't want to be disappointed. And I don't want to come off like I'm asking for a handout. You know, I'm asking the world of people. That's not the person I am. So...

GLENN: You're remarkable, Katie. You're remarkable.

KATIE: Thank you.

GLENN: And I applaud you for your strength. And expect miracles because they will happen. Thank you, Katie. God bless.

KATIE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Wow can we change her life.

STU: Yeah. Really have a chance to do something for somebody. Katie Hanson and her daughter Willow Ray Porter. They're up on YouCaring.com. Actually, let me send it right now. Just posted on Twitter @worldofStu, if you want to donate and help. I mean, she only needs a couple thousand dollars. This audience can do that in like nine seconds.

GLENN: Let's change her life. Did you hear her, the way she spoke, I don't want to ask for help. I mean, holy cow, let's change her life. We just tweeted how you can help. Join us on that, will you?

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.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.