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Rick Santorum says Paul Ryan's new tax plan "headed in the right direction" on radio

March 20, 2012
Wilson

Writer

Rick Santorum has had a busy couple of weeks, but managed to find the time to call into the radio show to discuss some of the top stories in the news today. What does he think of Paul Ryan's new tax plan?

"I talked to Paul last week. As you know my tax plan is 10 and 28% This one is 10% and 25%. But it very much models the two rate idea I've been putting out there, and he does a lot of simplification in his tax plan. Not as dramatic as the tax plan that I go through," Santorum said.

"It's headed in the right direction," he added.

"His changes in the entitled programs were consistent with what they did last year which I embraced. He has a little twist on the Medicare which is the widen Ryan plan now. But it's a strong plan. It waits a little bit to do some entitlement reform. Which is I think is a mistake. I think we need to move forward quicker, and I think we need to get that $5.4 trillion over five years to be more like five trillion over five years so we've got to accelerate this to get to a balanced budget. He doesn't get to a balanced budget until after the budget window. We need to shrink government faster than that."

Ultimately, though, Santorum does not have a lot of confidence it will pass.

"But you know this was in a sense it's a budget document. He knows that the Senate will never approve this. He's put forward a great blueprint for people to campaign upon and shows clearly progress dramatic progress in the direction of shrinking the size of government, and liberating the economy through lower taxes and less regulations"

You can read the full rush transcript below:

GLENN: Rick Santorum is here, and I don't want to waste any time with him because there's serious issues happening in the country. And we're not going to talk about contraception or anything else. I'm going to talk about some of the serious issue that are happening in our world today. First of all J.P. Morgan Chase is closing down the Vatican's account. It seems to be economic terrorism leveled at the Vatican. Comment from Rick Santorum. Hi, Rick.

SANTORUM: Good morning.

GLENN: I know it's a big day for you. Can you comment at all on J.P. Morgan Chase and the President listing the Vatican as a possible money laundering organization.

SANTORUM: That's sort of shocking to hear. I don't know the details of it so I have to tell you I mean I flew in late.

GLENN: J.P. Morgan Chase has closed down the Vatican's account after last week the President put them on the watch list for a money laundering organization, and now J.P. Morgan Chase has closed down their account.

SANTORUM: You're going to give me a pass on that. I've got to dig into that. I know there are certain things that of course there are laws that provide certain triggers for this. I'm not familiar with this. We'll ‑‑ the idea that somehow the Vatican would launder money is absurd to its face. I guess it's not absurd with the Obama Administration.

GLENN: Bloomberg is now banning food donations to the homeless. He says that the DHS commissioner says that the ban on food donations is consistent with the mayor Bloomberg's emphasis on improving nutrition for all New Yorkers. There's a new document that controls what can served at homeless facilities including serving size, as well as fat content, sodium consent plus fiber minimums, and condiment recommendations, and people who're dropping food off. Organizations that have dropped food off for 10 years now in New York are being banned. This is happening also in Philadelphia. It is happening in Houston, Texas where you're not allowed just to drop food to homeless shelter became it may not be the most healthy for homeless.

PAT: Well, can you imagine if starving people got too much saturated fat in their diet. I mean, that could really cause some issues.

GLENN: What is happening to us, Rick.

SANTORUM: It's the nanny state. Welcome to the nanny state, and it's also opens up the question as to these are ‑‑ these are folks who believe that they should control what people's intake, and of course these are folks as you know that believe in government programs, not private sector donations. Because if the government controls these things then they can of course have a closer relationship directly with the individual. The individual becomes more reliant on the government not on private sector donations or their neighbor. This is deeper than trying to control what food ‑‑ what calories intake, and how healthy your food is. This is also about the government knows best. And they need to get things directly from the government not from their neighbor. Because their neighbor isn't going to do what's right for them. The government is going to do what's right for them.

GLENN: It's not possible to slash the budget if you don't have ‑‑ if you don't have neighbors, local farms, other organizations.

SANTORUM: Glenn, what makes you think that they want to slash the budget.

GLENN: Oh no.

SANTORUM: They continually try to go out and grow the budget food stamp program. Try to grow the Medicaid program. They take pride in the fact that more and more people are covered by S chip and everything else. This is a source of accomplishment for them noting that should be reduced or changed.

GLENN: Paul Ryan has his budget out. It is slashing another $5.3 trillion. GOP tax plan is two tiers. It's 25% and 10% We are now at the end of the month we will now have the highest corporate tax rate on planet earth, and yet they're still talking about more. Are you for the Ryan tax plan. Where did you stand on this.

SANTORUM: Yeah, I talked to Paul last week. As you know my tax plan is 10 and 28% This one is 10% and 25%. But it very much models the two rate idea I've been putting out there, and he does a lot of simplification in his tax plan. Not as dramatic as the tax plan that I go through. It's headed in the right direction. His changes in the entitled programs were consistent with what they did last year which I embraced. He has a little twist on the Medicare which is the widen Ryan plan now. But it's a strong plan. It waits a little bit to do some entitlement reform. Which is I think is a mistake. I think we need to move forward quicker, and I think we need to get that $5.4 trillion over five years to be more like five trillion over five years so we've got to accelerate this to get to a balanced budget. He doesn't get to a balanced budget until after the budget window. We need to shrink government faster than that. But you know this was in a sense it's a budget document. He knows that the Senate will never approve this. He's put forward a great blueprint for people to campaign upon and shows clearly progress dramatic progress in the direction of shrinking the size of government, and liberating the economy through lower taxes and less regulations.

GLENN: You're in Illinois today because of the primary in Illinois. Play the audio of the police officer there. There's a real gang violence on the streets of Chicago. This is a police officer yesterday ‑‑ it was in Chicago talk about First Amendment rights that I want to hear a little bit of this, and I'll translate. Because it's a little hard to understand.

[Tape played]

PAT: He's telling news reporters to get across the street.

GLENN: News reporter.

PAT: I don't give an F about the news, and all telling them to go across the street.

VOICE: I'm going to kill you. I'm giving you a legal notice.

GLENN: That's all I'm going to say. So he then says your First Amendment rights can be terminated if you're making a scene or whatever. That's a quote.

CALLER: First Amendment aren't terminated when ‑‑ if they're causing a public disturbance or block agriculture street. I don't know what was going on. Certainly First Amendment like there's no absolute right. There is clearly is the right to exercise your First Amendment as long as you do so in a way that's not causing harm to anybody else the police have to recognize them and respect people's right to protest, and to get information. And this you know, again I don't know the details. I don't want to be critical of it. But there is a balancing act here, and we should balance in favor as I do in certainly in our campaign of letting the news media, and letting them cover what you want to cover.

STU: Senator, are you denying the making a scene clause in the constitution?

PAT: Which is of course right in the separation of church and state.

SANTORUM: Yeah that's in the fine print.

PAT: Senator, have you I know that you and Newt at least friendly before this started. I don't know how things are. Have you contacted him personally personally to get out. Get out.

SANTORUM: No. I have not.

PAT: Oh man.

SANTORUM: Look I didn't ask Newt to get in. I'm not going to ask him to get out. Obviously in Illinois it's a two person race. And Newt is picking up 12; 18% depending on the poll, and obviously we feel like a lot of those votes would be ‑‑ in fact last night the coordinator for Newt who put together his delegate announced that he and all of the delegates were going to vote for me. And we're encouraging Newt supporters throughout the state of Illinois to help us. And the same thing happened in Tennessee. So it's beginning to happen irrespective what Newt is doing. And hopefully that will be a little bump to us the day of the Illinois primary.

GLENN: Let me ask you one quick question before you go, and that is this is a question I would ask Mitt Romney if he would ever come to the show. But he doesn't return any of our phone calls. But it's important to me that the next President of the United States understands that we are dealing with radicals, revolutionaries, socialists, and communists anarchists. Tonight on GBTV we're showing video of all these literal communists gathering together to plot the overthrow of the United States and it's all part of Occupy Wall Street. Is there any doubt in your mind that there are forces that are ‑‑ that are almost cartoonish sounding. Communists, socialists, anarchists that are actively working to destroy our country inside.

SANTORUM: Well yes. I think that's been the case in this country for a long time. With the files being revealed from the old Soviet Union. We have verification of lots of people in this country who were working with the Soviets who were trying to overthrow, and cause chaos in this country, and it's because of the Soviet union failed doesn't mean all these people oh well, it failed, and therefore I must be wrong. No, I mean these people are committed. I think it's a relatively small group of people but that doesn't mean. ‑‑ they are very much engaged in the Occupy Wall Street movement. It's clear you see it with the protests in Washington D.C. with the anarchists coming out. I see them at my rallies. We had a couple of rallies yesterday, and you see some unsavory characters out there trying to disrupt things, and you know push their very radical agenda.

GLENN: Here's the Left Form 2012 Occupy the System. It's a conference where people gathered in New York City for the weekend. The speakers Pearl Granat. Jarvis Tyner of the communist party Gary Hicks Marxist library. Bill Wharton from the Socialist party. Peter Eichler Socialist Action. Larry Holmes Worker World Party. And Pearl Granat, vice president of SEIU. When SEIU, and Steven Lerner are actively engaged, is not SEIU a danger to our country.

SANTORUM: Well look. They're most labor unions are not as radical as SEIU. But SEIU is the one much the most radical left wing organizations. It's of course represents government workers, and these are folks that believe in huge and expansive government. It's good for their business and they'd like more ‑‑ the bigger the government is the more jobs they have, and more control folks like the person that runs the SEIU has in our country. So there's clearly a symbiosis between the radical left, and SEIU. You see the connection right before your eyes.

GLENN: I'm sorry. One more question.

SANTORUM: One more after one more.

GLENN: There was a big story that came out last night. It's being scrubbed from the Internet. It's about the President and I don't want to ask anything about the daughters. But the President allowed his two one young daughter 13‑year‑old to go down to Mexico which the State Department says is dangerous saying that the Americans shouldn't go. With 12, 13‑year‑old friends, 25 Secret Service agents. There's got to be adult supervision besides the Secret Service. Do you send your daughter as President of the United States to a place where the State Department your own State Department says don't go on spring break. It's a danger at 13?

SANTORUM: What I would say is that the President's actions should reflect what his administration is saying. If the administration is saying it's not safe to go down there just because you can send 25 Secret Service agents doesn't mean you should do it. You should set an example. I think this is what presidents do. You should set an example. And when the government is saying this is not safe, then you don't set the example by sending your kids down there. Again, I'm not at all being critical of what his daughter wanted to do. She obviously had friends going there. I think she wanted to go along. But I think you have a higher duty when you're President to set that example as to what ‑‑ you're not above the law. You're not someone who can say one thing to one group, and then do something else. I think that sets a very bad precedent.

GLENN: Rick, good luck today.

SANTORUM: Hey, thank you very much. I appreciate all of the folks in Illinois. Please get out there and help us out. We pulled out a big upset in Mississippi and Alabama when nobody thought we could win, and conservatives get out and vote.

GLENN: We cut him off. Rick, thanks a lot. All right.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

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.