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Glenn's Show Prep

Glenn: The essence of truth

July 23, 2013
Wilson

Writer

Forget the Republicans, forget the Democrats - in order to restore America we have to get back to truth. Our currency says ‘In God we trust’ and people protest it. But what does that really mean? God is truth - and in order to gain the trust of the world again we have to value truth. Glenn explains in a stirring radio monologue today.

Read the full transcript of the segment below:

GLENN: You know what? Let me go in a surprising place and I'm not going to tell this story because I'll butcher it because I'm not a sports fan. But let me go to Ryan, is it Braun?

PAT: Yeah, Ryan Braun.

GLENN: Ryan Braun, this story from what I know of it is a story that, again, shows the health of our nation and the health of our citizens.

PAT: Yeah, you might think it's just about steroids, but it goes so far beyond that. Last year ‑‑ well, Ryan Braun is one of the best players in Major League Baseball. In 2007 he was rookie of the year. In 2011 he was NFL MVP. Last year I think the guy hit 43 home runs.

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: And he was accused of steroid abuse. And he was suspended, and he fought it vehemently and denied it. And on a technicality, because of the way his sample was handled, he had his suspension overturned and he came out and made this statement, really strong statement that he would stake his life, that he guaranteed with his life that he had never ingested steroids or any performance‑enhancing drug. I mean, it was one of the strongest denials I think I've ever seen. And you thought, well, okay, maybe this guy really was innocent. And I think a lot of people were convinced because ‑‑

GLENN: Liars, truth ‑‑ liars, deceivers, lovers of themselves and not the truth.

PAT: And so the arrogance with which he ‑‑ and it looks now like arrogance because he continued the steroid abuse, they found him out again and a second time, and this time he's been suspended for the rest of the season and has admitted it. Now he comes out and says, "Oh, yeah, look, I'm not perfect. As I've said in the past, I'm not perfect. I don't remember you ever saying in the past you weren't perfect. You said you had perfectly performed your duties as a baseball player by never ingesting steroids. You kind of did say you were perfect on this issue. Now he's saying, "Oh, I'm not perfect. I made a mistake. Sorry."

GLENN: Now let me ‑‑ let me go to ‑‑ let me take from this story where his teammates are saying, "Hey, he said he wasn't perfect. None of us are perfect. Let's get over it." The truth matters.

Let me take you to another story now. Let me take you to a story, a personal story of a hedge fund manager that I was talking to and said, you know, what do you think of ‑‑ what do you think of the economy? What do you think's coming? He said, Glenn, I know what you think, he said, and, you know, we disagree on a lot of things, he said, but on this one you're right. He said, but for different reasons because I see it from the inside. He said, we're no longer investing in America. We don't like investments in America now. I said, why is that? He said, "Because we don't believe any of the data that's coming out. We can't believe that any of the data that the corporations or the government is actually churning out is real." So if we don't know what the real metrics are, if we don't know what the data is, how are we going to invest in anything? We'd rather put our money overseas, someplace else, someplace in Asia because we at least know that those metrics, while they may not be as good as the metrics that are happening here in America, we don't believe these metrics. We just don't think these are real." He said, so a collapse is coming. A reset has to happen.

Okay. So let me tie these two stories together. On our money we always focus on the God part on "In God we trust." On our money it says "In God we trust." Gold was up again yesterday. It's now, what, 1360 an ounce? Remember I was a villain when it fell down to 1100 and I said, "Now would be the time to buy some more. Because when everybody else is selling, that's the time to buy." It's back up over 1300. It might go down again, but it will go up again. Why? Why?

Do you know that J.P. Morgan now has less unallocated gold than they have ever had. People are saying, "I want gold. I want gold. I want my gold. I want my gold." So unallocated gold. And this is after the Germans came and said to the Federal Reserve, "We want our gold." That caused more people to go to the bank and say, "I want my gold. I want gold." They have less gold on hand unallocated, less gold on hand than ever before in recorded history. Why again? "In God we trust" is on the money. "In God we trust."

We also say "In the full faith and credit of the United States of America." Well, that's gone. There is no full faith and credit in the United States of America. And that's why it doesn't say that on our money. It says "In God we trust." And everybody always fights, "Oh, God, oh, God." Let me speak ‑‑ let me speak a language that everybody can accept. What is another name for God or another, another descriptive word for "God"? People will say, "Well, God is love." Well, yes, God is love, but what is love? When you boil it down to its essence, God is love, but love is truth. You can't be a parent and not tell your kids the truth. You can't ‑‑ and we've all done it. We know this to be true because we've all watched American Idol. And we've all said, where was their parent? Was there nobody that loved them enough to tell them the truth? "You suck!" Was there no one that loved them enough to tell them the truth? God is not love. God is truth. If you want to ‑‑ if you want to make yourself feel better because you hate God so much or you just think God is some sort of fable or whatever, every time you look at that, just replace the word "God" with "Truth." "In truth we trust." Whose truth? Universal truth. When we say "In God we trust," we're talking about the principles of the Ten Commandments. And I don't know anybody that won't give me seven out of the Ten Commandments. I'm the Lord thy God. There should be no other gods before me. Okay. "Well, I don't believe in God." All right. Great. What do you believe in? Because you do have a god. You serve something. You worship something. "Well, I worship reason." Okay. All right. That's your god. But let's get down to the essence of the ones that we can absolutely agree on. We all agree you can't murder people. It doesn't say thou shall not kill. It says thou shall not murder. We can all agree on that. You get into the thou shalt not kill, "Well, what about war?" Okay. Well, it doesn't say that. It says murder. Can we all agree we don't murder people? "Yes" is the answer. Thou shalt not steal, can we all agree on that? Can we all agree on "covet"? Do you know we're in society now where we can't even agree on coveting. We are a society built on covetness. We are doing nothing more than coveting all day. "They have something. Have you seen this? Have you seen what they have? They have the latest. They have the greatest. Have you seen what's out? I want that. I want that. I want that." My parents used to say there's a difference between need and want. You'll always have what you need, but you may not always get what you want. When's the last time you said that? When's the last time you heard another parent say that? When is the last time you heard that message coming from anybody of any kind of power? You may not always get what you want because life isn't fair. Well, we don't do that anymore because our society is built on covet. I will covet my neighbor's goods. I will even covet my neighbor's wife.

But in our heart of hearts and in our darkest moments and when we have really, truly found truth in our life, every single one of us would admit coveting someone else's stuff is not good. Lying is not good, cheating is not good, stealing is not good, murder is not good. That's the truth. And so when we go down to the basic, "In truth we trust," what it says on our money is we will not lie, we will not steal, we will not covet and because of that you can trust that the system will work.

PAT: I see what you're saying. You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need. You'd get what you need.

GLENN: You know, if we were living in the 1960s, that would be so relatable but I just really, it's just really ‑‑

PAT: Still.

GLENN: We are living in a time that if we can restore the basic truth. Forget about the Republicans. Forget about the Democrats. Forget about all of that stuff. Forget about all the trappings and all the things that man has made. We have to boil it down to the essence of truth. And if we will just live those truths, we can restore things. But until you do, the hedge fund managers are not going to invest. They will invest someplace else because they don't believe that we won't lie, cheat and steal all the way to the top. All the way to the bottom. And baseball will go on because baseball is baseball and who really gives a flying crap if they are all on crack cocaine. I don't really care. But in the end our society doesn't make it. If we don't teach the truth matters. And I'm sorry. Sitting out for 65 games isn't a big enough punishment. Is there ever going to be anybody that says the truth matters, and if you won't tell the truth, we don't want you around. And if that means that we suffer for a while, I am convinced, I am convinced, and I know because I know the millennial ‑‑ what is the millennial choir? The ‑‑ jeez, I can't remember. It's the 2,000 voice choir and orchestra out of California and Arizona. These people are amazing. 2,000 you voices, all volunteer. How do you get people to volunteer and to really be that dedicated? 2,000 people, how do you get them to do it? By having standards. I'm convinced that if you just start having standards and people say, "You know what? I don't really care. If it's only five of us over here, it's only five of us, but we're going to live our lives this way," you are going to be the biggest success story of all time.

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

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Sharia arrives

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

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

The warning from those who have lived under it

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

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

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

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

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

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

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

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

Wake up before it is too late

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.