The world is changing, and you need to learn how to adapt

Monday's show really centered around technology and how it impacts you. The world is changing rapidly, and you need to be prepared. It could be really, really cool. But there are dangers that come with every advancement in technology. In his opening monologue, Glenn talked about some of the biggest stories in tech and how quickly things can change in a few short years.

Glenn: Right now, I’m really focused on culture and technology. The world is about to change, but if you talk about the things that are over the horizon, you’re either a prophet or, you know, a guru or a wizard, or in my case, you know, a lunatic, and that’s okay. If you’re a leading voice on an issue, it’s an open invitation to mockery, and that’s totally fine. Caliphate is a good explanation of that. Oh, Glenn Beck is crazy. Everybody said that. I’m a glutton for punishment. I got it. But my record stands for itself.

We were way ahead of the curve on so many things—the rise of the political machine that the progressives were building, ObamaCare, the 2008 economic collapse. The bailouts we told you would come. Iran and the rise of Iran and the way that’s playing out, the caliphate, as I said. We knew these things not because we’re a prophet, because I’m not. I’m a guy who just looks at the big picture, and everybody can see this if you look at the words of leaders, thought leaders, and you believe their words. I do.

If you look at the thought leaders, the leaders in the Islamic world, the radicals, who want to reestablish the caliphate, it doesn’t make me crazy for saying that they’re going to reestablish the caliphate. It makes them crazy for saying it, them, not me, and it also more importantly makes anyone ignoring the threat absolutely nuts. Of course, if you’re running a network, you also have to focus on the big current stories as well, and Dana is going to be here in a few minutes, and she is going to cover some stuff that we covered earlier.

Louie Gohmert is a really big story today. I spoke to him earlier today on the radio program, which you can see that interview on TheBlaze.com/TV. I’m thrilled that he’s gunning for Speaker of the House. John Boehner needs to go. You need to call your congressmen and all of the congressmen that you can think of and tell them you are done with the GOP if they keep Boehner.

They are only a few people away from actually…I mean, this will uproot the establishment leadership of the GOP in Washington. This is a game changer, and it’s within our grasp, but we have to do it. They vote tomorrow, by the way. This is all coming from the fruit that we’ve been reaping for what we’ve been sowing for years and years.

When we were on FOX, there was a movement that was started, and it was dedicated to the principles of our country and the Constitution, the values over politics. That’s what it requires. Otherwise, you’re just playing a game on everything. But if you know the principles and values, you can see what is, and you can look over the horizon and see how it plays out.

We’ve been mocked for an awful lot of stuff. That’s where the Glenn Beck cries comes from, because I believe in these principles, but I don’t think I could have seen Louie Gohmert…in fact, I asked him, I think, in 2012, if he would do this, and he wouldn’t, but this is a direct result of that movement. So, it’s our job to show you what’s coming, to help you make sense of everything that you’re seeing currently, and to prepare you for it. I think it’s also to be uplifters.

We need to show you the positives, so tonight I’m going to talk about some of the things that I see coming next, some of the really scary things and some of the positive things. The future is not frightening. It really isn’t. It’s just different, and you have to be prepared for it.

For instance, this is a word that I think you’re going to really understand by the end of this next year in the next 12 months. It’s called doxing. Watch for it. When this becomes part of the lexicon, you know the world has changed. It is the idea that you can publish personal information about someone without their consent. The term is not really new. It came out around 2000-2001, but it has largely been contained in the hacker community until now.

The Sony hacking is what shook the media world, and the hackers promise now to attack a cable news company. I wonder which cable news company that might be. But that’s what they’re going to attack next, and I believe it’s going to be effective, because social media, stolen emails, information spreads like wildfire. Even though it is stolen, it doesn’t matter.

In the middle of the riots, Officer Darren Wilson’s address was released. Who would do that? It’s a dangerous, dangerous thing and a dangerous time that we’re rapidly entering into, and it’s rapidly changing. All secrets are going to be gone. That’s a good thing unless you like secrets.

Just a couple of years ago, to show you how really we mocked ourselves on this one, 3-D printing. This was three years ago, I think. We brought a 3-D printer into the studio. It was right around this time, and I said 3-D printing is going to become big this year. And I printed a bunch of stuff like toy little sharks. Where’s the Batman? Do we have the Batman? Here it is. Thank you.

This, I printed, the head of Batman, and I printed this on that 3-D printer three years ago. Justin, our jib operator, which is this camera that I’m talking to right now, he didn’t tell me at the time, but he kind of mocked me in his head. He’s like yeah, right, okay, we’re going to print little plastic toys, and I said you’ll be able to print anything with this new technology. He didn’t believe me.

Well, it wasn’t too much later; it was within a year that we interviewed a guy who created a new blueprint. This is him on the air. We are holding a plastic version of what he’s talking about making, the world’s first fully 3-D printed gun. He had printed it in plastic, but at the time he couldn’t print it in metal.

In two or three years…how old is this, Tiffany, two years or three years? Two years, in two years, we’ve gone from this to this. This is number 15. This is in the museum, and I wish you could hold this, because you would not believe what this thing feels like. It is absolutely real. This is a 1911. This is the 15th digitally printed gun ever made, and it’s real. Everybody I’ve handed this to today, they have all said you’ve got to be kidding me. They expected it to be plastic. It’s not. This is the future.

That’s three years ago. See how fast things are changing? We are in uncharted territory. We have social media changing everything. We are growing up now, our kids have social media, and our kids and we don’t have any idea the implication of social media. I was on vacation. I kept everybody…I took everybody on vacation with me—pictures, thoughts, everything else. I write a lot on my Facebook page. Am I going to regret that?

Well, according to our good friend Eric Schmidt, he says, “I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time…every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.”

Well, that sounds nuts, until you see the news today—Facebook. Facebook is now indexing all of our posts, one trillion posts, so you can search anything. You can search what did Glenn Beck say about worried? They don’t have enough storage to be able to do that. But you can find anything about anyone at any time. It’s the Wikipedia now of Facebook.

Let me switch gears, another story from today, Oculus Rift. They are the leading virtual reality innovators, and they have developed now sensors so you can use your hands. Here’s the problem, our kids are no longer going to be looking at their games like this; they are going to be in virtual reality. They’re going to be having the Oculus glasses which pretty much blacks out their entire face. You think your kids are not tuned into you now? The virtual reality world completely blocks out your face.

Now, here’s the problem. Right now, if I wanted to play virtual reality in Oculus, and I wanted to take a drink, and I’m all blacked out, I’m looking for my cup to drink. That’s hard to do. Here’s what happened. They’ve just invented a new switch that now your hands are involved, so now you do this, and you’re back into the real world. You do this, you’re back into virtual reality. It’s the blending of virtual and actual reality now.

They said today that at the end of the year, they believe there are going to be 10 million people using it by the end of the year, 10 million people. They believe by, I think it’s 2018-2020, it’ll be 25 million people, and it will just skyrocket. By the way, we are now closer to 2030 than we are to 1990. To me, 1990 seems close. 2030 seems space-age. No, no, no, no—one of my…in fact, my brother’s daughter is going to graduate in 2021.

By the way, 2015…we have to do a special. Tiffany, remind me we have to do a special on what Back to the Future got right, because when Michael J. Fox went back to the future, he went to the year 2015. It doesn’t seem like we’re futuristic yet, does it? Oh yes, yes, the iPhone will be a joke soon. We’ll be saying stuff to our grandkids, you know, in my day we used to have to type things into our phones with our bare hands, and we liked it. None of us had these newfangled artificial intelligence things that does stuff before you actually think it. No, we had to actually ask Siri to look something up with our own voices, right?

Check this out. A user on Reddit just purchased a 1997 Ford. In the Ford, inside the glove box, they found this, a welcome message on VHS, 1997—one of the largest companies in the world, Ford, in 1997, still schlepping around those giant VHS tapes. It seems like a lifetime ago when people were proudly displaying their home movie collections in a special VHS bookcase that took up half the wall. Remember the big DVDs, or not even DVDs…I don’t remember, they were the big disks that had the movies on them, the movie discs? Then we went to DVDs. Now, we’re on Netflix.

Seeing that post made me think of cars today, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about…I wanted to show you how fast things are changing now, and I can’t really even go into great detail because I don’t have…well, I’ll show you. Things are changing faster than you can possibly even imagine, and I wanted to bring some cars in to show you how fast they’re changing.

So…by the way, this is Stage 19. This is where the Dana show happens, my show. Radio show currently happens there. These are the historic studios of Las Colinas, the Mercury Studios now, where we’re going to be doing all kinds of things, but we’ll talk about that later. I brought the cars in because I wanted to show you something that I realized when I was driving this.

This is the car my wife got me for my 50th anniversary or my 50th birthday. I wanted a car that was like my grandfather’s, and I have to tell you, I have learned more from driving this car than any vehicle I’ve ever been in. This was hard work. I used to think that it was like, I don’t know, male chauvinist that, you know, my grandmother never drove. She wouldn’t have wanted to drive this. It’s hard work. I don’t want to drive this—no power steering, nothing.

If you look into the interior, you will see that it’s pretty simple. It’s pretty bare. If you look into the engine, even I can figure this one out. You can get in here, lift up the hood, and track it all down and fix it yourself. This is 1957.

This is the car that I drive in to work every day. This is 1976. This is a Land Cruiser. Let me show you the difference. 20 years, 20 years, here’s the Chevrolet engine. Here’s the Toyota engine. It’s a little more complex. It’s got power steering now, power brakes, but still, I can get in, and I can change the air filter. I can change things myself. I can figure it out. I don’t need a computer. All I need is a little bit of knowledge. I can get it in a book, a little bit of knowledge, and I can trace all the wires back, and I can figure out what’s going on with my car.

And what I learned is when you look in the interior of this car, you’ll see that nothing has really changed. In 20 years, power steering, power brakes, the car was the same.

Go 20 years ahead. I’m going to show you a Mercedes. The Mercedes, pretty much the same car. You look at the dashboard, it has some bells and whistles on it. It has some digital going on, but it is still the same basic car. Key turns the ignition. Here’s the difference, I don’t know how to fix his car. You can’t fix this car. In fact, they seal the car so you can’t fix it. You have to take it in to somebody with a machine. It becomes a magic box. Nobody’s going to fix this car. Now, this is 2000…Sara, when is this car? This is 2009.

Here’s the brand-new Vanquish that would make me Handsome Rob. I actually had to ask the guy how you even open the door. You have to push here and then pull it out. This is an entirely carbon fiber car. It’s absolutely unbelievable. This is built for speed. Those cars, no production car was going 200 miles an hour. Nothing would take you 200 miles an hour. This car, 205 miles an hour, and it’s not the only one in production that will do about 200 miles an hour.

This is the key. I mean, this looks like something like Superman dropped in the cave of…what was that cave where the crystal, the ice crystals? This is the key. Let me show you how this works—not built for somebody my size. Okay, put the key in, and I don’t know what happened. All I know is the speaker system came in. Everything started to come up. Do I push? Hang on.

I have absolutely no idea, absolutely no idea. I don’t even know how to get out of this car. No idea how to fix this car, barely have any idea how to drive this car, and this is today, but this one is all in the engine. Nobody is changing this engine. Nobody’s getting into this engine. This one is built for speed.

Okay, take this car and look at this one and compare it to Tesla. There is no engine in Tesla. The next generation of cars is going to be linked to your iPad, so whatever you’re listening on to your iPad, forget about the radio. The radio doesn’t matter anymore. Forget about a key. Your key is your iPad. Everything will be controlled with your iPad. That’s the future—2006, 2015, 20 years apart, not a lot of difference.

The world used to take a long time to change. Think about our parents’ and our grandparents’ generation, decades and decades of living life without technology, the same picture tube as they used to call television. They didn’t see a reason to change it. They didn’t have cell phones. They didn’t have computers. It was charming, great little throwback on things and the way they used to be, but you’re not going to have that luxury of choosing not to join in. It just will. It will just be this way because everything is changing.

During my vacation, I tried to change the water pump on my car. That didn’t go well. People my age used to be able to fix an engine. You cannot fix these two cars. You can’t. The water pump for the 1976, as we pulled it out, I said to the guy who was helping me, “Do we rebuild this one? He just looked at me like I was an alien. “No.” “Well, is it cheaper to rebuild?” I’d like to learn how to rebuild. He said nobody rebuilds. We’re a disposable society. It’s $2.00 more expensive now to buy a brand-new one. Nobody rebuilds anything. You dispose of it.

That’s not good for two reasons. One, what Carl Sagan talked about in his book that came out right before he died, The Demon-Haunted World, things become magic, or better yet, better expressed, Latin. You have to go to a high priest to have them fix it because you can’t fix it yourself. What’s the difference between a priest and a mechanic? Nothing, because you’re beholden to one of them.

The second problem with it is how do you defeat an army? The best way to defeat an army is to cut off its supply chain. Well, everything is a supply chain now. Tell me how to fix a water pump. Tell me how to rebuild a water pump. Tell me how you can grow your own food, fix your own car. Show me the TV that you have where you can change the tubes in. Show me how you can repair a telephone. There is no such thing as the local repair man anymore.

Well, that is good in some ways. It is also very dangerous if you’re not wide awake. But that’s the way the world is going, and there’s nothing to fear as long as you’re aware that you are growing up in an age where literally anything you dream you’ll be able to do, and if you can’t do it, you have to make the tools to make it happen, but understand the tools as we go along.

Everything that we have has to be based on something real or it will not last in an ever-changing world, one where a thirty-something will be the one who can’t figure out how the latest newfangled remote for the TV or more likely the virtual reality glasses actually work, a 30-year-old. Twelve-year-olds will figure it out because they’ll be able to adapt quickly. That’s our job from here on out, adapt.

The days of picking one career, one car, one thing, and clinging onto it for 50 years are over. I’m buying old cars because I think we need to preserve this. I want a simpler life, but it’s hard to have a simpler life, and if you’re not willing to adapt, you’re going to be left behind. You can’t just plug into the old time and disregard what’s coming.

I think it was this summer that I realized I was probably scaring the crap out of my 10-year-old son, because he talked to me. He had overheard me have a couple of conversations about a special we’re doing next week on Russia, and he said, “Dad, do you believe we’re headed for World War III, and what does that mean?” I told him I’m not sure. I’m not sure, but I know that the world that he’s going to live in is going to be extremely challenging and dynamic and not to fear, because if we choose, it can be great.

For tonight and the days to come, we are going to show you the future. What does the future look like? The positives and the negatives, and hopefully we are not going to leave you frightened; we’re going to leave you a little more prepared, a little more knowledgeable, and a little more inspired.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

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.

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.