Carnival Cruise Ship degenerates rapidly

February 14, 2013

Writer

A Carnival Cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico lost power, causing passengers to go into somewhat of a ‘roughing it’ mode. Power went out Sunday night - how long did it take for people to start fighting over food? Glenn explains and shows how dangerous things can get when access to our normal lives are cut off.

TheBlaze reported:

The stranded Carnival cruise ship and its more than 4,000 passengers enter day five without power after a fire in the engine room disabled the ship Sunday. Although the ship is currently being towed into an Alabama port and could arrive late Thursday or early Friday, conditions are still worsening.
Since the initial incident, many passengers have been living on deck in conditions that include feces and urine on the floor with some cases of food poisoning occurring. Recent footage of the ship shows passengers holding signs made with bedsheets and a deck that looked like “a shanty town, with sheets, almost like tents,” one father of a stranded passenger recounted.

Glenn said, "There's a story on the 3,000 passengers on the cruise ship off the coast of Mexico. They have no power, they have been forced to sleep on deck in tents, that you had the toilets are not working, meaning the passengers have to make do with bags and buckets. Now help is on the way. I don't know why it takes this long, but help is on the way. It's not like it's in the ‑‑ it's not like it's at the North Pole. It's in the Gulf of ‑‑ it's off the coast of Mexico, for the love of Pete."

"So here's this giant Carnival cruise ship and on Sunday the power went out. They can't cook any food, and it's all because they have engine problems. Okay. Now, I've been telling you for a while, what happens to us if our lifestyle dramatically changes? I want you to ‑‑ I want you to think about, Sunday, where were you on Sunday? How long would it take for you to go into complete and total chaos and become somebody described as a savage? Where you are fighting people for food? How long would it take?"

"Sunday, I was in my kitchen on Sunday. It was my birthday. And we were having birthday pie because my sister came down and she ‑‑ even though she is on a piatus, she is ‑‑ she's an unbelievable chef and she's a pie chef. And she has this ‑‑ her own business where she makes pies, and she ‑‑ I mean, I don't know how many hundreds of people, actually every month they get a pie from her and they're delicious. And so she came down and she just made an apple pie for me and a lemon meringue pie. My doctor came over and he made a strawberry rhubarb pie. And she made a banana cream pie and a coconut pie. But anyway, so she made some pies."

"So anyway, I was standing in my kitchen with my family on Sunday eating pie. Now, what would it take ‑‑ where were you on Sunday? What were you doing? What would it take for you to be described by somebody who met you yesterday to describe you as a savage? For these 3,000 people, it took living in a tent on a cruise ship with very little food, but food, and no toilets. But you can take it in a bucket and they can clean the bucket out. I mean, I know this is not ideal, but they, you know, you can throw it overboard. I mean, you can still ‑‑ you know, you don't have to keep the filth there in the ship. But they did. The carpets are soaked with urine, and people are fighting each other for food."

"It took them Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before they were savages. Now here's the amazing thing, to me at least. It's not like they're in the middle of Africa. They're in the Gulf of Mexico. They know help is coming. They know the Coast Guard cutters are coming. They can still ‑‑ they can still have outside communication. They knew that everybody was aware, there's got to be some backup generator, something that's at least enough for communication on that ship. So at least the captain and the crew can say, "We've alerted the authorities, they're on their way, it's going to be a few days." So they know they're getting off. They have to get off, and they will, you know, what do you call it, deboard the ship, what, tomorrow, the next day? And they have to ‑‑ they know they are going to have to live with themselves for the rest of their life and how they behaved. Because they were on a vacation cruise that went bad. And all of a sudden it's become, what is that, Lord of the Flies. All of a sudden it's Lord of the Flies. But in Lord of the Flies, I never read it, but those were kids that were ‑‑ and it ‑‑ and there was no hope of rescue. If I understand Lord of the Flies enough from memory, there was no hope of rescue. And there were kids that were raised as savages fending for themselves. That's not what this is. It's three days on a Carnival cruise ship, with the Coast Guard cutters coming."

"How long will it take for our society to break down? You're all having fun, but then the TVs stop working and the toilets won't flush. All of a sudden I have to eat cold food. All of a sudden I have food that was brought onto the ship in freezers and it's shrimp and so they can't get it to the right temperature. I'm going to have to eat ‑‑ I'm going to have to eat some cold veg ‑‑ you know they have enough food that they don't have to cook. There's enough food on that. It's not like anybody's going to starve to death. And it's not like, 'That's the last coconut! I'm going to kill you for it!' Quite honestly have you seen the American people? We could all stand to lose a few lbs. I'm just sayin'. Go to Disneyland. Look at us walking around. Look at us waddle around. You can the people who are from America because we're all like, 'Yeah, I've got to get an ice cream cone but first I've got to stop and get a corn dog.' We're not exactly the most in‑shape people."

"I wonder, I wonder ‑‑ we'll hear the stories of the savages but I wonder if anybody is looking for the stories of the pockets. Because out of 3,000 people, you know there have to be pockets of people. Because they will attract. Light attract light; dark attracts darkness. There has to be somewhere on that ship a pocket of light to where the people on board will become forever friends. They will probably vacation together, not on a cruise ship, but they will probably vacation together many times in their life even though they didn't know each other. But they will become lifelong friends. There will be a group of people that get off that ship that the captain or the crew members sincerely with tears in their eyes say, 'It was a pleasure to have you on board. Thank you.'"

"Are we going to hear the stories of those guys? I challenge the writers at TheBlaze to find those stories because somewhere on that ship out of 3,000 people, there was somebody, and most likely not a preacher like it was in the Poseidon Adventure where the preacher was leading the way out to the light. Most likely it was somebody that is pretty much a nobody that had perspective on the Carnival cruise line from hell. Just yet one of the other 150,000 reasons I ain't getting onto a cruise line ship. 'Here's a bucket for you to pee in." Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. It's been a great holiday.' How many of these people are going to get off the ship and sue?"

"Carnival cruise lines is in trouble because the lawsuits ‑‑ that's what everybody ‑‑ instead of making the best out of it, and I mean, I know this is horrible. I don't want to live like that, I don't want to be on that vacation, and believe me, I'd be pissed. Because I've worked hard for my vacation and I'm going to take this and then I'm going to go right back to work. It will be crazy. I'd be pissed. But somebody in my family, if it wasn't me and if it wasn't my family, if I was alone on the Carnival cruise lines, I'd be trying, 'Where's your 3‑D printer because I'm going to print a gun.' I would probably go crazy but if my family was there, I would be leading, for my wife and my children, I would be leading and saying ‑‑ because you know you're like this, at least I am. When everything else is burning down and the kids are crying and everything, there is a time that I just go, all of you, shut up. Shut it. And there is a time that you then after that say, 'Let's make the best of this. It doesn't have to be this way. Let's make the best of it.'"

"I told you last hour about a pocketknife that my daughter gave me. And if I were on that ship, I would hope that I would have this in there because at some point I would reach into my pocket and I would be saying to my family, 'Hard times make us.' How many people up in Connecticut with 40 inches of snow and they can't get out, that are complaining right now, 'It's been four days and the city hasn't cleared any of the streets.' Yep. Yep, sure is. How many are complaining? How many have their families, you know, falling into fights and everything else? And then how many families in that same situation are experiencing it? I think this is why the Lord said 'Come to me as a child,' are experiencing it like children experience. That they have done enough preparation so they have the food or they have whatever they need. They know they're not going to starve to death. And, yeah, we're going to ‑‑ you know, if you're at Pat's ‑‑ or Stu's house, you're going to ‑‑ you know, you're going to have sweet‑and‑sour sauce and pickles. But how many families have weathered that storm up in New England and now will come out the other end and they will talk about it for a few years and say, 'You know what? That was hard, but that was one of the best times of our life. Brought the family together. We sat and we played games, we read books, we told stories, we were cold, we were ‑‑ remember we were all bundled up, we all had to sleep in one bed and we had get extra blankets, we were all sleeping on the floor by the fireplace?'"

"This pocketknife that my daughter gave me just says four words: Hard times made us. The people on the cruise ship will say the same thing. But instead, instead of looking at that and really realizing that those hard times did make them in their case a savage, instead of doing self‑reflection on that and saying, gee, the hard times I could have gone a different way, instead they will call an attorney because it stops them from looking at the choices that they failed to make, and they'll sue because they'll say the Carnival cruise line made me into that."

'Rage against the dying of the light': Charlie Kirk lived that mandate

PHILL MAGAKOE / Contributor | Getty Images

Kirk’s tragic death challenges us to rise above fear and anger, to rebuild bridges where others build walls, and to fight for the America he believed in.

I’ve only felt this weight once before. It was 2001, just as my radio show was about to begin. The World Trade Center fell, and I was called to speak immediately. I spent the day and night by my bedside, praying for words that could meet the moment.

Yesterday, I found myself in the same position. September 11, 2025. The assassination of Charlie Kirk. A friend. A warrior for truth.

Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins.

Moments like this make words feel inadequate. Yet sometimes, words from another time speak directly to our own. In 1947, Dylan Thomas, watching his father slip toward death, penned lines that now resonate far beyond his own grief:

Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thomas was pleading for his father to resist the impending darkness of death. But those words have become a mandate for all of us: Do not surrender. Do not bow to shadows. Even when the battle feels unwinnable.

Charlie Kirk lived that mandate. He knew the cost of speaking unpopular truths. He knew the fury of those who sought to silence him. And yet he pressed on. In his life, he embodied a defiance rooted not in anger, but in principle.

Picking up his torch

Washington, Jefferson, Adams — our history was started by men who raged against an empire, knowing the gallows might await. Lincoln raged against slavery. Martin Luther King Jr. raged against segregation. Every generation faces a call to resist surrender.

It is our turn. Charlie’s violent death feels like a knockout punch. Yet if his life meant anything, it means this: Silence in the face of darkness is not an option.

He did not go gently. He spoke. He challenged. He stood. And now, the mantle falls to us. To me. To you. To every American.

We cannot drift into the shadows. We cannot sit quietly while freedom fades. This is our moment to rage — not with hatred, not with vengeance, but with courage. Rage against lies, against apathy, against the despair that tells us to do nothing. Because there is always something you can do.

Even small acts — defiance, faith, kindness — are light in the darkness. Reaching out to those who mourn. Speaking truth in a world drowning in deceit. These are the flames that hold back the night. Charlie carried that torch. He laid it down yesterday. It is ours to pick up.

The light may dim, but it always does before dawn. Commit today: I will not sleep as freedom fades. I will not retreat as darkness encroaches. I will not be silent as evil forces claim dominion. I have no king but Christ. And I know whom I serve, as did Charlie.

Two turning points, decades apart

On Wednesday, the world changed again. Two tragedies, separated by decades, bound by the same question: Who are we? Is this worth saving? What kind of people will we choose to be?

Imagine a world where more of us choose to be peacemakers. Not passive, not silent, but builders of bridges where others erect walls. Respect and listening transform even the bitterest of foes. Charlie Kirk embodied this principle.

He did not strike the weak; he challenged the powerful. He reached across divides of politics, culture, and faith. He changed hearts. He sparked healing. And healing is what our nation needs.

At the center of all this is one truth: Every person is a child of God, deserving of dignity. Change will not happen in Washington or on social media. It begins at home, where loneliness and isolation threaten our souls. Family is the antidote. Imperfect, yes — but still the strongest source of stability and meaning.

Mark Wilson / Staff | Getty Images

Forgiveness, fidelity, faithfulness, and honor are not dusty words. They are the foundation of civilization. Strong families produce strong citizens. And today, Charlie’s family mourns. They must become our family too. We must stand as guardians of his legacy, shining examples of the courage he lived by.

A time for courage

I knew Charlie. I know how he would want us to respond: Multiply his courage. Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins. Out of darkness, great and glorious things will sprout — but we must be worthy of them.

Charlie Kirk lived defiantly. He stood in truth. He changed the world. And now, his torch is in our hands. Rage, not in violence, but in unwavering pursuit of truth and goodness. Rage against the dying of the light.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck resurrects the 9-12 Project to support Charlie Kirk's family

Glenn Beck is once again calling on his loyal listeners and viewers to come together and channel the same unity and purpose that defined the historic 9-12 Project. That movement, born in the wake of national challenges, brought millions together to revive core values of faith, hope, and charity.

Glenn created the original 9-12 Project in early 2009 to bring Americans back to where they were in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In those moments, we weren't Democrats and Republicans, conservative or liberal, Red States or Blue States, we were united as one, as America. The original 9-12 Project aimed to root America back in the founding principles of this country that united us during those darkest of days.

This new initiative draws directly from that legacy, focusing on supporting the family of Charlie Kirk in these dark days following his tragic murder.

The revival of the 9-12 Project aims to secure the long-term well-being of Charlie Kirk's wife and children. All donations will go straight to meeting their immediate and future needs. If the family deems the funds surplus to their requirements, Charlie's wife has the option to redirect them toward the vital work of Turning Point USA.

This campaign is more than just financial support—it's a profound gesture of appreciation for Kirk's tireless dedication to the cause of liberty. It embodies the unbreakable bond of our community, proving that when we stand united, we can make a real difference.
Glenn Beck invites you to join this effort. Show your solidarity by donating today and honoring Charlie Kirk and his family in this meaningful way.

You can learn more about the 9-12 Project and donate HERE

The critical difference: Rights from the Creator, not the state

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When politicians claim that rights flow from the state, they pave the way for tyranny.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) recently delivered a lecture that should alarm every American. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, he argued that believing rights come from a Creator rather than government is the same belief held by Iran’s theocratic regime.

Kaine claimed that the principles underpinning Iran’s dictatorship — the same regime that persecutes Sunnis, Jews, Christians, and other minorities — are also the principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.

In America, rights belong to the individual. In Iran, rights serve the state.

That claim exposes either a profound misunderstanding or a reckless indifference to America’s founding. Rights do not come from government. They never did. They come from the Creator, as the Declaration of Independence proclaims without qualification. Jefferson didn’t hedge. Rights are unalienable — built into every human being.

This foundation stands worlds apart from Iran. Its leaders invoke God but grant rights only through clerical interpretation. Freedom of speech, property, religion, and even life itself depend on obedience to the ruling clerics. Step outside their dictates, and those so-called rights vanish.

This is not a trivial difference. It is the essence of liberty versus tyranny. In America, rights belong to the individual. The government’s role is to secure them, not define them. In Iran, rights serve the state. They empower rulers, not the people.

From Muhammad to Marx

The same confusion applies to Marxist regimes. The Soviet Union’s constitutions promised citizens rights — work, health care, education, freedom of speech — but always with fine print. If you spoke out against the party, those rights evaporated. If you practiced religion openly, you were charged with treason. Property and voting were allowed as long as they were filtered and controlled by the state — and could be revoked at any moment. Rights were conditional, granted through obedience.

Kaine seems to be advocating a similar approach — whether consciously or not. By claiming that natural rights are somehow comparable to sharia law, he ignores the critical distinction between inherent rights and conditional privileges. He dismisses the very principle that made America a beacon of freedom.

Jefferson and the founders understood this clearly. “We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” they wrote. No government, no cleric, no king can revoke them. They exist by virtue of humanity itself. The government exists to protect them, not ration them.

This is not a theological quibble. It is the entire basis of our government. Confuse the source of rights, and tyranny hides behind piety or ideology. The people are disempowered. Clerics, bureaucrats, or politicians become arbiters of what rights citizens may enjoy.

John Greim / Contributor | Getty Images

Gifts from God, not the state

Kaine’s statement reflects either a profound ignorance of this principle or an ideological bias that favors state power over individual liberty. Either way, Americans must recognize the danger. Understanding the origin of rights is not academic — it is the difference between freedom and submission, between the American experiment and theocratic or totalitarian rule.

Rights are not gifts from the state. They are gifts from God, secured by reason, protected by law, and defended by the people. Every American must understand this. Because when rights come from government instead of the Creator, freedom disappears.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

POLL: Is Gen Z’s anger over housing driving them toward socialism?

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A recent poll conducted by Justin Haskins, a long-time friend of the show, has uncovered alarming trends among young Americans aged 18-39, revealing a generation grappling with deep frustrations over economic hardships, housing affordability, and a perceived rigged system that favors the wealthy, corporations, and older generations. While nearly half of these likely voters approve of President Trump, seeing him as an anti-establishment figure, over 70% support nationalizing major industries, such as healthcare, energy, and big tech, to promote "equity." Shockingly, 53% want a democratic socialist to win the 2028 presidential election, including a third of Trump voters and conservatives in this age group. Many cite skyrocketing housing costs, unfair taxation on the middle class, and a sense of being "stuck" or in crisis as driving forces, with 62% believing the economy is tilted against them and 55% backing laws to confiscate "excess wealth" like second homes or luxury items to help first-time buyers.

This blend of Trump support and socialist leanings suggests a volatile mix: admiration for disruptors who challenge the status quo, coupled with a desire for radical redistribution to address personal struggles. Yet, it raises profound questions about the roots of this discontent—Is it a failure of education on history's lessons about socialism's failures? Media indoctrination? Or genuine systemic barriers? And what does it portend for the nation’s trajectory—greater division, a shift toward authoritarian policies, or an opportunity for renewal through timeless values like hard work and individual responsibility?

Glenn wants to know what YOU think: Where do Gen Z's socialist sympathies come from? What does it mean for the future of America? Make your voice heard in the poll below:

Do you believe the Gen Z support for socialism comes from perceived economic frustrations like unaffordable housing and a rigged system favoring the wealthy and corporations?

Do you believe the Gen Z support for socialism, including many Trump supporters, is due to a lack of education about the historical failures of socialist systems?

Do you think that these poll results indicate a growing generational divide that could lead to more political instability and authoritarian tendencies in America's future?

Do you think that this poll implies that America's long-term stability relies on older generations teaching Gen Z and younger to prioritize self-reliance, free-market ideals, and personal accountability?

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