Rick Santorum calls in for in-depth interview

In the wake of the latest debate and with the New Hampshire primary a day away, Glenn interviewed Rick Santorum on radio this morning. What does the candidate think of the latest attacks coming his way?

Read the transcript below:

PAT: Rick, everywhere I go people are asking me is Rick Santorum going to want condoms. Everywhere I go, that's the main question on their mind.

GLENN: And the answer you'll have us believe is no.

PAT: Is that the answer? Is that the answer?

GLENN: Is that the answer you have us believe?

SANTORUM: The answer I have you believe is no.

PAT: Really?

GLENN: Now ‑‑

SANTORUM: But ask Chris Matthews. There's a secret plan.

PAT: Uh‑huh.

GLENN: No, that's not a con ‑‑

SANTORUM: That I really do deeply ‑‑ I mean, this is crazy.

PAT: Yeah.

SANTORUM: I mean, we were talking about the Griswold decision which you know very well which was the precursor to the Roe versus Wade decision and judicial activism and, you know, the creation of new rights because the Court says so. And that's what I've opposed and will continue to oppose.

GLENN: Okay. Well ‑‑

SANTORUM: In this country.

GLENN: We hear your BS answer on the contraception. Now let me ask you this, because it's all about the right question: Is it a state's right to limit all private body parts to bowel and urination evacuation only?

STU: Jeez.

GLENN: Is that what you're going for?

SANTORUM: (Laughing). All I ‑‑

GLENN: Are you going to rename Kansas City Vatican City?

SANTORUM: Oh, my goodness.

GLENN: Do you believe when it comes to language that America should be Latin only?

PAT: Now you're asking the right questions.

SANTORUM: Oh, now you're ‑‑

PAT: Now you're pinning him down.

SANTORUM: You've pulled back the veil.

GLENN: Yeah, I told you it would be tough. We see you squirm in there.

Let me get to some real ‑‑

SANTORUM: I do support English‑only but it's really a ploy to get to Latin, just so you know.

PAT: Uh‑huh.

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: Uh‑huh.

GLENN: Yeah.

SANTORUM: Uh‑huh, there you go. Once you start one, there you go.

PAT: Slippery slope.

GLENN: You notice he didn't talk about the bowel and urination evacuation‑only.

PAT: Yeah, yeah. He conveniently ignored that question.

GLENN: He skipped over that.

SANTORUM: I skipped that. I skipped that, yeah.

GLENN: Let me get to a real question here. You have ‑‑ you have spent some money in your past, Rick, and you have also been for, you know, earmarks. You told us last time you were on, you explained the earmarks, you said that it was your duty. Well, you go ahead and explain it. Real quick, just try to do it real quick because I want to get to a bigger question.

SANTORUM: All I've said is that, you know, under the Constitution congress has the ability to appropriate funds and, you know, one of the ‑‑ one of the things that was generally done and frankly was done for decades is that members of congress, you know, in working with their states would identify things that they would want to spend money on and money that came from my state, taxes that were spent that were going to be reallocated back to the states and the senators in congress in that state would make sure that they were spent in a proper fashion and not just given to the executive branch and let them decide where that money was spent. There was abuse, that abuse led to higher spending, and Jim DeMint who also did those earmarks, too, and I and many others said we should end that abuse.

GLENN: Okay. Some people are saying that you're an economic liberal. And I mean, honestly just about everybody is an economic liberal compared to me now. I want to shut the whole, whole darn thing down enough to the point to where it doesn't ‑‑ we don't become the Articles of Confederation but we still have enough government to be able to manage the country and stop all this spending because we're completely out of money. Tell me about your economic liberalism.

SANTORUM: Well, I propose ‑‑ this economic liberal has proposed $5 trillion in spending cuts over five years, a balanced budget in five years, specific ‑‑ as the Wall Street Journal says, nobody was out there working on entitlement reform. Well, you know, Glenn, that's where the problem is in this country. It's the whole idea that Washington has entitled you to certain things simply because you are here in this country and/or you may be in a situation that requires some help at some point this time. That is the problem. We need to get Washington out of that business, get those ‑‑ get those responsibilities back to the states and give them the flexibility to design programs, if they want to design programs, to deal with ‑‑ to deal with these issues. So if you're looking for the person, the only person in this race and one of the few people who actually stood up when it ‑‑ when we weren't running deficits, when we weren't in fiscal crisis as we are today and said, in the second oldest state in the country, Pennsylvania, as the youngest member of the Senate and talked about the need for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, these big programs that affect disproportionately seniors and I was leading the charge in all those issues. In fact I'm getting questions here in New Hampshire: I can't believe you're out there talking about specific reforms to Social Security, and the answer is yes, I am. Why? Because we need leadership. And so if anyone actually questions my bona fides, don't look at, you know, a few earmarks here and there during my, what I believe my constitutional duty to represent the interests of my state, look at the fundamental reforms that I have been advocating for 20 years in Washington D.C. before anyone was talking about them.

GLENN: By the way, I just want to point out, I don't think it's ‑‑ I think it's bona fides and not bona fatties unless that was a comment about me, Rick. I'm just ‑‑

SANTORUM: Did I say that?

PAT: No.

GLENN: No. All right. It sounded like it.

PAT: Rick, we learned last week from the New York Times ‑‑

GLENN: Maybe I'm sexy.

SANTORUM: It's that Latin again.

GLENN: No, I know. It might be sensitive every time somebody says fatty. Go ahead.

PAT: And we learned last week from the New York Times, and you just said the word: Entitlement. Now, we know that's code speak for your hideous racism. Do you want to explain why you hate all people of color?

SANTORUM: Oh, my goodness. You know ‑‑

GLENN: You know what, can you play this ‑‑ I would like to hear this answer. Can you play this? I hate to bring this up on you, Rick. You know you're a friend but this really was ‑‑ this really doesn't make sense to me. Do you have that audio by any chance?

PAT: No. It was actually printed. It was the op‑ed, remember, from last week?

GLENN: No, no, the audio of where you said, you know, look, we want to make sure that we take care of all people but we shouldn't be giving, you know, black people a handout or ‑‑

SANTORUM: No, no, no, no, no. First off, I didn't ‑‑ I listened to that, I looked at it. I think it was one of those things where I sort of got my tongue tied there for a second and because I just, first off I don't think that, I don't believe that. But I do believe in the concept of what I said that we shouldn't create dependency, that we should create opportunity and, you know, I'm ‑‑ the more I look at it, the more I ‑‑ and by the way, no one in the room ‑‑ and there were 100 reporters in that room ‑‑ came up to me with that question. I think it was ‑‑ I feel to this day that it was simply just, you know, I started to say one thing and then sort of stopped and said something else. But the point is a valid point. The point is that we need to create a society of opportunity instead of dependency and I would absolutely encourage everyone to look at the work that I've done when I was in the United States Senate in working with the African‑American community in the State of Pennsylvania and across this country, no Republican had more interaction and worked closer with the urban areas of my state, with the African‑American community. I got the endorsement of the Black Pastors of Philadelphia which is not, let me assure you, a conservative group because of the work that I did in the inner city in trying to ‑‑ tried to help improve the quality of life there. And the idea that, you know, you make a little bobble with your language and all of a sudden you're ‑‑ you know, you're someone who's insensitive or feels ‑‑ or tries to stereotype blacks is an absolute absurdity and it simply is not what I said and certainly from my actions nothing close to the record that I have.

GLENN: I will tell you that I'm sick of even the pandering now of saying, "Well, I've worked with this group or this group." It's not that you were pandering but people that are pointing this thing out and, you know, "I work with this group or that group." What difference does it make? We all need to work together. The policies are for white, black, brown, yellow.

SANTORUM: I agree.

GLENN: Purple, orange. It doesn't matter. It should be for humans. We are all helping humans and American humans first. I mean, that's just the way it should be. And I don't ‑‑ you know, now I'd be ‑‑ now I'll be a xenophobist for saying that, you know, it should be Americans first.

Let me go to the reduction in the military and its connection to the private hill tear that is being created. Can you tell me anything about the reductions and the private military, the use of ‑‑

SANTORUM: Well, when you say "private military," I'm not ‑‑

GLENN: State Department ‑‑

SANTORUM: It does ‑‑

GLENN: Reducing the number of troops ‑‑

SANTORUM: Private contractors?

GLENN: Yeah, private contractors, reduce ‑‑ the reduction of troops in Iran and using private contractors instead.

SANTORUM: Right.

GLENN: Taking the uniform off and doing it in a different way.

SANTORUM: Well, again, I mean, we've seen this over and over as we originally entered Iraq, it was because we simply didn't have the military capability, we didn't have the force structure to be able to support the mission that we had and so we brought in a bunch of former, you know, former military, on a private contract basis to do a lot of the personal security for people in the country and the like. And now we have the president further now proposing reductions in the military, which is going to lead, as you mentioned, to further growth in these ‑‑ in a variety of these companies that do private, sort of a private military. That is ‑‑ that's not the direction we should be going. You know, we need to be very up front about our costs, we need to be very up front about the accountability of the people that we are deploying around this, around the world to defend our interests, and the less we have of the private military and the more that we have of our men and women in uniform who are accountable to the behavior, the better off we are.

GLENN: Tell me about your ‑‑ because this is being touted ‑‑ your anti‑gun record.

SANTORUM: What?

GLENN: You haven't heard that one yet?

PAT: You haven't seen that yet.

GLENN: Oh, that's everywhere. You're anti‑gun.

PAT: Every time we talk to you, Rick ‑‑

SANTORUM: I'm (inaudible) with the NRA. I'm an NRA member.

GLENN: Yeah, but you can buy that.

SANTORUM: Oh, yeah, sure.

GLENN: Yeah, that and the Better Business Bureau, you can buy into those. For 50 bucks, they will give you an A‑plus rating. Yeah, that's what they all say.

SANTORUM: Well, call Chris Cox. He's the head of the NRA.

GLENN: Yeah, I know.

SANTORUM: And goes out there and fights for the rights of gun owners on a daily basis.

GLENN: I know.

SANTORUM: We work with them very, very closely. I'm as a leader with them in pushing forward. Here's the amazing thing. The guy who attacks me on this is Ron Paul. Ron Paul, if it was Ron Paul had his way, he voted against the most important gun issue in, well, maybe ever because it was a gun manufacturer's liability bill. As you know, Glenn, there were all these trial lawyers were going out and suing gun manufacturers if their gun was used in the commission of a crime. Whether the gun functioned properly or not didn't matter. They were going to hold them liable for any damage that occurred from someone being shot with their gun. And literally manufacturers were going to pack up and leave the United States, which meant we wouldn't have any guns ‑‑ there wouldn't be any guns made in this country or be able to be available to be made in this country and so I'm one of the guys that led the effort to put a ban on these types of lawsuits that passed on a bipartisan basis. Ron Paul was one of I think three Republicans who voted no. This is the kind of ‑‑ for him ‑‑ which would have eliminated de facto, de facto eliminated, one of those Latin words again, de facto eliminated the ‑‑

GLENN: He's slowly working it in. He is a Papist ‑‑

SANTORUM: (Inaudible) the Second Amendment.

GLENN: He's a Papist progressive. He just throws those words in and before you know it, we're all speaking Latin. I know. How long before you make us wear the hat and the shoes that the pope wears?

PAT: (Laughing).

SANTORUM: Got to wear the red shoes, though. Got to wear those red shoes. Slippers, not shoes. Slippers.

GLENN: May I ask you ‑‑

SANTORUM: Slippers, you can't work and so we're going to keep you in the house and keep you under control. You didn't know about all this, huh?

GLENN: May I ask you, how much money have you raised since ‑‑

SANTORUM: Well, we've got a money bomb going right now at RickSantorum.com. We're trying to raise a million dollars here between now and the next few days to get us ready so we can aggressively go out and compete in South Carolina which is the next big primary after New Hampshire and so that's RickSantorum.com if you can help. I can tell you we raised more money in the three days after the Iowa caucuses than I did in the entire year before.

GLENN: Well, wait. Rick, I think you were, you were running your campaign off of candy wrappers.

STU: (Laughing).

SANTORUM: That's an insult to candy wrappers.

GLENN: (Laughing). I mean, that's not really a big statement there.

SANTORUM: Yeah.

GLENN: You're facing ‑‑

SANTORUM: It's true.

GLENN: You're facing Rick Perry alone who I think has, what, $65 million?

STU: No, I don't ‑‑

SANTORUM: Well, reports are that I guess his ‑‑ the reports says his following is like, he has like $3 million left in the bank or something like that. He, I tell you he burned through millions and millions in Iowa. We spent $30,000 on television in Iowa.

GLENN: How are you doing in the polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina? Can you win South Carolina?

SANTORUM: Yeah, absolutely. I think the last poll I saw, we were within three points of Romney in South Carolina.

PAT: Wow.

SANTORUM: And we were just down there yesterday, just made a little quick visit down there for the day and had huge enthusiastic crowds up in the upstate which is, you know, the conservative upstate of South Carolina, the Greenville/Spartanburg area and we'll be heading down there first thing Wednesday morning and do the sprint. We feel like that's a great place for us to really make this a two‑person race.

GLENN: I ‑‑

SANTORUM: We need to get it down to a two‑person race and if we can finish very strongly in either first or second, a strong second in South Carolina, we'll turn it into a two‑person race.

GLENN: I only have just about two minutes left here. Can you help me ‑‑ not even that. Ninety seconds. How are you going to appeal to ‑‑ because while you're not Mitt Romney and certainly not Newt Gingrich, you're not a libertarian.

SANTORUM: I'm not.

GLENN: How are you appeal to the people that ‑‑ like I really lean ‑‑ I think I'm a libertarian that leans more ‑‑ you know, I believe in a little more government than some of the Ron Paul people do. How do you appeal to those people while not compromising your values? So what are the things that you can say to a Ron Paul supporters that they will understand that is true about you, that's not some campaign promise? Where is the libertarian streak in you?

SANTORUM: Well, you know, if you look at, look at the ‑‑ I go with entitlement reform. I mean, you know, welfare reform was a bill that I helped author and I was representing a state with, you know, with big cities and lots of folks who were dependent upon these programs and the second highest per capita population of seniors in the country and I'm out talking about limited government and I'm talking about removing entitlement. I'm talking about, back in the 1990s talking about removing personal retirement accounts which is something that the Cato Institute was pushing back then. So I mean, I think you'll find that I very much believe in free people, free enterprise and free markets but, you know, I do believe in a referee private sector and I do believe government has some roles for helping, for being involved in not just national security but providing some sort of, you know, basic safety net, particularly for those who are on the margins of society, it should be done at the state level, not at the federal level, but I do believe that government has a role to play in that regard to make sure that, you know, we have some basic transitional safety net or help for those, particularly those with disabilities, and it's a little personal to me because of my own situation but it's something that I think is an important safety net that has to be out there.

GLENN: Gotta go. Laus deos. Yeah! You know what it means!

PAT: Starting already.

GLENN: All right. Thank you very much, Rick. I appreciate it. RickSantorum.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.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

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.