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TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

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Glenn's Show Prep

Why Don’t People Understand the Dangers of Socialism?

December 29, 2017
Staff

WRITER

In 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) popularized socialism with his presidential campaign. Socialism is no longer seen as a risk by many young voters. What happened? Why don’t people understand the dangers of socialism when they can see how North Korea and Venezuela have used socialist structures to starve their own people?

Doc talked about free markets and capitalism vs. socialism on today’s show, wondering why younger voters don’t seem to understand that socialism is a threat to freedom.

“Capitalism has become a bad word,” Doc said. “From my earliest memories, I learned the truth about socialism. Socialism is an unsustainable political structure and social structure that will lead to one of several evil, oppressive governments: fascism, communism.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

DOC: Doc Thompson in for Glenn Beck today. I'll be with you tomorrow as well, if you want to follow me on Twitter. It's @DocThompsonShow. And I'll engage with you as well. We'll find out what you learned throughout the program, with the #whatIlearnedtoday. We'll get to some calls coming up, 888-727-BECK. 888-727-BECK.

Over the past few years, on our morning broadcast on TheBlaze Radio Network, and you can find out more about me at TheBlazeRadio.com. It's TheBlazeRadio.com.

We have focused on free markets and freedom. The idea that these things are really good. And I know you're like, well, of course, they're good.

But the problem is, capitalism has become a bad word. Socialism has become, as you know, just this norm, accepted, wonderful, starry-eyed way to go. Just bizarre that we've gotten to that.

From my earliest memories, I learned the truth about socialism. Socialism is an unsustainable political structure or social structure that will lead to one of several evil, oppressive governments.

Fascism, communism, theocracies. Any of these things start with the idea of socialism. Somebody can orchestrate the perfect society by dictating how you live, how much you must give, redistributing what everybody has. It's unsustainable and leads to some sort of totalitarianism. It gets the support of the masses from the concept of, well, you don't have enough. So we'll go get it from those people. And the government will tell them how much they can have, and you get to have some of theirs. It all starts off with the noblest of causes and always ends the same way. One bad society.

We're seeing a living example of that throughout 2017. In Venezuela. An absolute disaster.

That's what always ends up happening. The countries that have been totalitarian regimes that have had increased successes over the last few years, decades, are countries who have gone away from that. Countries like China, for example. And taken up more capitalist policies.

So we support the idea of free markets. And not just bitching about the little snowflakes who support socialism in their safe spaces on college campuses and why socialism is so wonderful. "Bernie 2020." But the good news and positive ideas. And positive outcomes from capitalism and free markets and letting people decide for themselves how to live.

And we're going to do even more of that in 2018. We offer free commercials to people on the air. You got a business? Email me. Believe America at TheBlaze.com. We spotlight businesses, just to say, hey, here's your jump-start because marketing is difficult and expensive. And we're going to do even more of that in 2018. We got some huge ideas coming up that are going to help you, even if it's not a full business.

You just have a little side stream of income. Ideas. Practical things that are going to help. Helping you and helping people understand the positive of free markets is where we're going 2018. So please join us on our program. Again, building America at TheBlaze.com if you want to be spotlighted on our show.

All right. We'll get to some calls before we move on. We have some other things happening in the world today.

Let's go to Line 44. Jerry in Wisconsin, you are on the Glenn Beck Program. How are you?

CALLER: Hey, Doc, you're probably right. There's probably sometimes where the media has been unfair to Donald Trump. I'm not going to completely deny that. But considering what Donald Trump has said about the media, he has called the media -- he has stated that it's disgusting, that the American person press, that the media has the right to report what they want.

He has -- he's literally a fascist. You're a Libertarian. He's a fascist. He's an authoritarian. He has contempt for the First Amendment. His quotes are nothing different than what Mussolini might say. He has disdain for our idea, for the press to report. The only media he likes is media that parrots what he says and that praises him like Fox News. This is a man who just shouldn't be president. He has contempt for the first president and what our Founding Fathers gave us.

DOC: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Shouldn't be president. What do you mean by that?

CALLER: Because he has contempt for the Constitution. He has contempt for what the right of free press, as I stated -- he said it was disgusting. Said the media has the media to report what they do --

DOC: Let me ask you something. Hang on one second. Hang on one second, Jerry. I'll let you talk some more.

I just want to explore one thing. Is Donald Trump over the age of 35?

CALLER: Yeah.

DOC: Is he a natural-born citizen?

CALLER: I didn't say that he's ineligible. I said he shouldn't be.

DOC: Well, he became president. Based on --

CALLER: Mussolini became the leader of Italy. Should Mussolini -- tell me, should Mussolini become the leader of Italy? Do you think it was a great thing that Mussolini became the leader of Italy? Because I don't.

DOC: No, no, no, you're conflating it. People supported him, and people have a difference of opinion.

Now, you can say you don't support his ideas. But I hate this idea of shouldn't be and not my president and all of that nonsense.

CALLER: I didn't say not my president. I just said he shouldn't be. He shouldn't be. Like Republicans said the same thing about Obama. When Obama was president for eight years, they said the exact same thing. I'm saying the same thing about Trump. He shouldn't be.

DOC: You mean you don't want him to be president? You wish he was not president?

CALLER: No. Mentally, he's deranged. He's a narcissist. He's emotionally immature. He's completely unqualified. He's president, but he's a horrible president. That's the point.

DOC: Okay. Now, you're basing that on you having different values than him? Is that why you're saying he's a horrible president?

CALLER: I've listened to him for the last 20 years.

DOC: Give me a couple of specifics of him, and you say he's a horrible president.

CALLER: Well, okay. The war on the media -- the war on freedom on the press.

DOC: Hold on one second. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

CALLER: Praising Nazis.

DOC: We're taking this one at a time. This is a conversation. One at a time.

CALLER: Okay.

DOC: So the war on the press. Do you mean the war on the press where he's challenged people like Jim Acosta and said that's fake news? Is that what you mean by that?

CALLER: That's one. But anyway --

DOC: No. Hold on, Jerry. I want to explore these -- hold on. Hang on. Jerry, hang on. Hang on.

We're going to get to this stuff. It's a conversation, Jerry. Hold on. Hold on. So are you talking about stuff like Jim Acosta, where he has challenged them and said, sit down, you're fake news and stuff? Is that what you're talking?

CALLER: Well, anything they report he calls fake news, even if the reporting is exactly right. Because to Donald Trump, anything that's not in his reality is fake news. He praises news that praises him, like Fox News, which is the propaganda arm of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

DOC: And, Jerry, you really -- really are going to say those things without calling out President Obama for his closed door special meetings with certain members of the media? You're not going to call out MSNBC for being his talking surrogate during his platform -- during his presidency? You're not going to be consistent?

CALLER: Okay. Those -- they did favor President Obama. That's true. Yes.

DOC: No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, Jerry, hold on. Hold on. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Hold it. No, no, no. They did not favor him. They promoted him. They, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC --

CALLER: The liberal media. The liberal media.

DOC: Don't do that. See, this is the reason people can't have discussions, Jerry. This is the reason. I'm admitting Donald Trump of course likes media that's going to favor him. And, yes, Fox News praises him because they are a right-wing media outlet. Of course. But you're not willing to give that due? You're not willing to be consistent? You've lost credibility if you're not willing to point out that the other media outlets rabidly, blindly supported President Obama because they are progressives.

CALLER: Okay. Rabidly, blindly, no.

DOC: Hold on. Hold on. Do you work in the media? Do you work in the media?

CALLER: No.

DOC: Okay. I work in the media. My wife works in the media. She works in television media. And I can tell you overwhelmingly, people in the media are progressive. It's not even close. It's not even, well, it's 60-40. It's like 80-20. 90-10. The number of progressives. It's true. But you don't -- hold on, Jerry. You don't even need to know that though to look at the reporting. I can't believe you would defend this, knowing, just admit it -- listen, is Rush Limbaugh, is Glenn Beck, are they on the right? Yes. I'm not disputing that. Were they critical of Obama because they don't like his policies? Yes, I'm not disputing that. So wouldn't you simply hold people accountable to have credibility so we can have honest discussions? Why do you make me go through this when you know the truth?

CALLER: Okay. Know the truth. One, even MSNBC, they're not as biased as Fox News. Probably -- one of the reasons why so many people in the media are on the left are --

DOC: You lost all credibility -- hold it. When you say -- hold it. We can't argue here. When you say they're not biased, you've lost as credibility. You know that's not the truth.

CALLER: Well, Doc, you still don't answer me. Are you fine with Donald Trump saying the media was disgusting, that they have the right to report what they did? Because to me, that's disdain and contempt for our Founding Fathers.

DOC: No, I have no problem with him saying the media is disgusting.

CALLER: No, it's disgusting they have the right to report and publish. He believes the media shouldn't have the right. He believes the media shouldn't have the right -- in the First Amendment that James Madison wrote down --

DOC: Hold it. Jerry, Jerry, stop with the historical lesson. Trust me, I understand the First Amendment. I understand that.

No, of course, the freedom of the press is solid. It's absolute. Of course, it is. And anybody who says, whether it's Donald Trump or President Obama, is wrong. Do you remember President Obama calling out Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh? Do you remember --

CALLER: I don't remember him saying --

DOC: Do you remember him calling out Fox News? Do you remember those things?

CALLER: Disgusting. I don't remember him saying it's disgusting that Sean Hannity can report what he wants. You tell me when President Obama said that and I will apologize and take that -- any position. You tell me when President Obama said it was disgusting for the media to do that.

DOC: When he called them out for their biases and not admitting the other, so you're hung up on the word disgusting. Jerry, you know the truth here. I'm not argue that go Fox News is biased. And I'm not arguing that President Trump shouldn't say people don't have a right to report.

Of course, they do. They can report opinion for that matter. I just prefer them to be transparent up front.

But the fact that you and others are not being consistent now because you simply do not like policies of his and you may not like the way he presents himself, you've lost all credibility. You are actually -- Jerry, you are actually the problem.

CALLER: He's a fascist. He's a fascist.

DOC: Stop. Stop. We're not going down that road. I'm talking about your lack of credibility right now. How are we supposed to find common ground and have discussions when you know the truth and you can't just simply admit that?

CALLER: I know the truth as you stating what I should know the truth.

DOC: Jerry, you've exposed yourself.

CALLER: CNN. Somewhat on the left.

DOC: No, no, no, no. No probably. No, Jerry, no. Hold it. Hold it a second. There's no probably with this, Jerry. There's no probably with, yeah, they are. Just admit it.

MSNBC is every bit as progressive as Fox News is conservative. I'm willing to concede. Fox News -- absolutely the same. But on the other side, CNN, absolutely. I'm not trying to say, oh, Fox News isn't. Fox News is right. Of course. I work for TheBlaze.

We're from a right-leaning perspective. Of course, we're admitting it. We will never get beyond this stuff. We will never find solutions. We will never find common grounds that you supposedly want. You want to have discussions. We got to have a conversation on race in America. We can never have any conversations on this stuff.

Because you will not be consistent. Because that is not what a progressive is. It is a cornerstone of progressivism, which you are, to not be consistent.

CALLER: That's what I wanted to know. Thanks.

DOC: And there you go. There it is.

Willing to have a conversation, but he's a fascist, whatever, whatever. I'm willing to discuss with you. We can find common ground. But if you're going to start with, those people are worse and it didn't happen here, President Trump should not say, people do not have a right to report. Of course, they do. And the things where he has tweeted, suggested, said things like that, absolutely wrong. The First Amendment is absolute. Period.

He was wrong. Calling the media out, I have no problem with. I have no problem challenging the media and reporting.

Why can't you? Why can't you as president or a senator or a governor? Of course, you can call people out.

I had no problem with President Obama calling media sources out, as long as he was being consistent and willing to admit that he has these little back-door meetings, special, private, hey, can you guys report on this and not that meetings, with people at the White House. You're not being honest. You're not being transparent. As long as you do that and you're consistent, we can move forward. We can find solutions.

But until you do, yeah, it actually gives me a little bit of pleasure when President Trump beats up on the media. Because finally, somebody calls them out, unlike you.

This is Doc Thompson in for Glenn Beck.

When 'Abolish America' stops being symbolic

Al Drago / Stringer | Getty Images

Prosecutors stopped a New Year’s Eve bombing plot rooted in ideology that treats the US as an enemy to be destroyed.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced that four members of an anti-capitalist extremist group were arrested on Friday for plotting coordinated bombings in California on New Year’s Eve.

According to the Department of Justice, the suspects planned to detonate explosives concealed in backpacks at various businesses while also targeting ICE agents and vehicles. The attacks were supposed to coincide with midnight celebrations.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed.

The plot was disrupted before any lives were lost. The group behind the plot calls itself the Turtle Island Liberation Front. That name matters more than you might think.

When ideology turns operational

For years, the media has told us that radical, violent rhetoric on the left is mostly symbolic. They explained away the angry slogans, destructive language, and calls for “liberation” as performance or hyperbole.

Bombs are not metaphors, however.

Once explosives enter the picture, framing the issue as harmless expression becomes much more difficult. What makes this case different is the ideological ecosystem behind it.

The Turtle Island Liberation Front was not a single-issue group. It was anti-American, anti-capitalist, and explicitly revolutionary. Its members viewed the United States as an illegitimate occupying force rather than a sovereign nation. America, in their view, is not a nation, not a country; it is a structure that must be dismantled at any cost.

What ‘Turtle Island’ really means

“Turtle Island” is not an innocent cultural reference. In modern activist usage, it is shorthand for the claim that the United States has no moral or legal right to exist. It reframes the country as stolen land, permanently occupied by an illegitimate society.

Once people accept that premise, the use of violence against their perceived enemies becomes not only permissible, but virtuous. That framing is not unique to one movement. It appears again and again across radical networks that otherwise disagree on nearly everything.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements do not share the same vision for the future. They do not even trust one another. But they share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed. The alignment of radical, hostile ideologies is anything but a coincidence.

The red-green alliance

For decades, analysts have warned about what is often called the red-green alliance: the convergence of far-left revolutionary politics with Islamist movements. The alliance is not based on shared values, but on shared enemies. Capitalism, national sovereignty, Western culture, and constitutional government all fall into that category.

History has shown us how this process works. Revolutionary coalitions form to tear down an existing order, promising liberation and justice. Once power is seized, the alliance fractures, and the most ruthless faction takes control.

Iran’s 1979 revolution followed this exact pattern. Leftist revolutionaries helped topple the shah. Within a few years, tens of thousands of them were imprisoned, executed, or “disappeared” by the Islamist regime they helped install. Those who do not understand history, the saying goes, are doomed to repeat it.

ALEX WROBLEWSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

This moment is different

What happened in California was not a foreign conflict bleeding into the United States or a solitary extremist acting on impulse. It was an organized domestic group, steeped in ideological narratives long validated by universities, activist networks, and the media.

The language that once circulated on campuses and social media is now appearing in criminal indictments. “Liberation” has become a justification for explosives. “Resistance” has become a plan with a date and a time. When groups openly call for the destruction of the United States and then prepare bombs to make it happen, the country has entered a new phase. Pretending things have not gotten worse, that we have not crossed a line as a country, is reckless denial.

Every movement like this depends on confusion. Its supporters insist that calls for America’s destruction are symbolic, even as they stockpile weapons. They denounce violence while preparing for it. They cloak criminal intent in the language of justice and morality. That ambiguity is not accidental. It is deliberate.

The California plot should end the debate over whether these red-green alliances exist. They do. The only question left is whether the country will recognize the pattern before more plots advance farther — and succeed.

This is not about one group, one ideology, or one arrest. It is about a growing coalition that has moved past rhetoric and into action. History leaves no doubt where that path leads. The only uncertainty is whether Americans will step in and stop it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump v. Slaughter: The Deep State on trial

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The administrative state has long operated as an unelected super-government. Trump v. Slaughter may be the moment voters reclaim authority over their own institutions.

Washington is watching and worrying about a U.S. Supreme Court case that could very well define the future of American self-government. And I don’t say that lightly. At the center of Trump v. Slaughter is a deceptively simple question: Can the president — the one official chosen by the entire nation — remove the administrators and “experts” who wield enormous, unaccountable power inside the executive branch?

This isn’t a technical fight. It’s not a paperwork dispute. It’s a turning point. Because if the answer is no, then the American people no longer control their own government. Elections become ceremonial. The bureaucracy becomes permanent. And the Constitution becomes a suggestion rather than the law of the land.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

That simply cannot be. Justice Neil Gorsuch summed it up perfectly during oral arguments on Monday: “There is no such thing in our constitutional order as a fourth branch of government that’s quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”

Yet for more than a century, the administrative state has grown like kudzu — quietly, relentlessly, and always in one direction. Today we have a fourth branch of government: unelected, unaccountable, insulated from consequence. Congress hands off lawmaking to agencies. Presidents arrive with agendas, but the bureaucrats remain, and they decide what actually gets done.

If the Supreme Court decides that presidents cannot fire the very people who execute federal power, they are not just rearranging an org chart. The justices are rewriting the structure of the republic. They are confirming what we’ve long feared: Here, the experts rule, not the voters.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

The founders warned us

The men who wrote the Constitution saw this temptation coming. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers hammered home the same principle again and again: Power must remain traceable to the people. They understood human nature far too well. They knew that once administrators are protected from accountability, they will accumulate power endlessly. It is what humans do.

That’s why the Constitution vests the executive power in a single president — someone the entire nation elects and can unelect. They did not want a managerial council. They did not want a permanent priesthood of experts. They wanted responsibility and authority to live in one place so the people could reward or replace it.

So this case will answer a simple question: Do the people still govern this country, or does a protected class of bureaucrats now run the show?

Not-so-expert advice

Look around. The experts insisted they could manage the economy — and produced historic debt and inflation.

The experts insisted they could run public health — and left millions of Americans sick, injured, and dead while avoiding accountability.

The experts insisted they could steer foreign policy — and delivered endless conflict with no measurable benefit to our citizens.

And through it all, they stayed. Untouched, unelected, and utterly unapologetic.

If a president cannot fire these people, then you — the voter — have no ability to change the direction of your own government. You can vote for reform, but you will get the same insiders making the same decisions in the same agencies.

That is not self-government. That is inertia disguised as expertise.

A republic no more?

A monarchy can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A dictatorship can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A constitutional republic cannot. Not for long anyway.

We are supposed to live in a system where the people set the course, Congress writes the laws, and the president carries them out. When agencies write their own rules, judges shield them from oversight, and presidents are forbidden from removing them, we no longer live in that system. We live in something else — something the founders warned us about.

And the people become spectators of their own government.

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The path forward

Restoring the separation of powers does not mean rejecting expertise. It means returning expertise to its proper role: advisory, not sovereign.

No expert should hold power that voters cannot revoke. No agency should drift beyond the reach of the executive. No bureaucracy should be allowed to grow branches the Constitution never gave it.

The Supreme Court now faces a choice that will shape American life for a generation. It can reinforce the Constitution, or it can allow the administrative state to wander even farther from democratic control.

This case isn’t about President Trump. It isn’t about Rebecca Slaughter, the former Federal Trade Commission official suing to get her job back. It’s about whether elections still mean anything — whether the American people still hold the reins of their own government.

That is what is at stake: not procedure, not technicalities, but the survival of a system built on the revolutionary idea that the citizens — not the experts — are the ones who rule.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Vaughn Ridley / Stringer | Getty Images

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Sharia arrives

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

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

The warning from those who have lived under it

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

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

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

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

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

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

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

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

Wake up before it is too late

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.