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Glenn's Show Prep

Bishop Jim Lowe gives Glenn an update on the latest happening in Birmingham

June 11, 2015
Wilson

Writer

Bishop Jim Lowe of Guiding Light Church will be hosting Glenn on 8/28 in Birmingham, Alabama for the five-year anniversary of Restoring Honor. Ever since Glenn made the announcement on Monday, people have been flooding the church's phone lines to get more details and make it known they will be there. The event is already starting to get bigger than anyone anticipated, and Bishop Lowe gave Glenn the latest information on what's been happening in Birmingham since the announcement.

Find out more about the 'Never Again Is Now' campaign from Mercury One.

GLENN: Bishop Jim Lowe is our guest. I wanted to get him on the phone and find out how things are going in Birmingham, Alabama, where we'll be at his church, Guiding Light Church, on August 28th. The five-year anniversary to Restoring Honor. Bishop, I have a feeling this thing will grow a little out of control in a good way.

JIM: Well, it looks like it's doing that already. We're getting a lot of people asking questions from all over the nation.

So we're ready to try to see what we can do in order to make this be a great event and to have people come together.

GLENN: I have a feeling. It will be Friday and Saturday.

JIM: Yes, sir.

GLENN: And let me tell you what happened at 8/28, five years ago. We went and we rented the Kennedy Center, and we did a deal at the Kennedy Center. And I had all the pastors and everybody gathered there. There was about -- what was it? 3,000 people that went there?

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: The next day, we did something open for everybody at just an open space in the mall. There were 500,000 people that were there. I don't think we'll hit that or anywhere close to that. But I have a feeling there will be a lot of people there. A lot of people.

JIM: The phone lines have been lighting up. And like I said, got people coming from all over. This looks like it will be a great thing to do when people come to Birmingham, where -- you know, this is where the civil rights struggle was. The struggle for civil rights. And now as we're coming together, we're talking about all lives matter. And the rights of every human being. This seems like this is a good place for that.

GLENN: It sure does.

JIM: To launch forward.

GLENN: So, Bishop, I did notice that you posted something on Facebook. And I know you had a meeting either tonight or last night. With your -- with your congregation because it seems to me that -- the post I read on your Facebook page, seems to me you're getting pushback on being with -- well, with me and apparently I have a Klan mask someplace, so...

JIM: Well, is it in your pocket? Do you have it in?

GLENN: Well, I don't actually have one.

JIM: They say all kinds of things. Quite frankly, Glenn, I don't care about that. What I'm concerned about is the fact that we're unifying together on a principle that we can agree upon. I think people have to recognize and stop looking at one another by the color of their skin or even by what their thought processes may be. We have to learn to join together for principles that are greater than our things that separate us. This thing about all lives matters is what's important. We can agree on that whether you're black or white. If I could get a Klansman to agree that my life is important, I mean, that's good.

GLENN: Okay. I want to make it clear. I'm not a Klansman.

[laughter]

GLENN: So, Bishop, let me ask you this, because this is on your Facebook page, and I don't know why you meant by this.

The question may be asked why I, Jim Lowe, a black man with my background would be willing to work with Glenn Beck, a white man, with his background. My first and most accurate response is, as Jim Lowe, the black man, I would not. But the truth is, I refuse to be defined by the color of my skin and see myself defined by any other man.

Explain that a bit. What do you mean by this?

JIM: Well, listen, Glenn, here's the problem. When people start putting labels on people, they define them. And if you define somebody and a person believes what you define them to be, then their destiny is based upon how they're defined. If I'm told by my parents that I'm dumb. I'm not going to be anything. Then my destiny is affected by the thoughts they have created in my mind. If you can label me and get me thinking that I won't amount to something because of some name that you'll give me. Then that limits me because of how you define me. I refuse to be defined by what some individual wants to call me. I have been defined by my Creator, my God who has created me. And only he has a right to determine what I am to become. No one else. And so if I'm defined by people to be a black person, a black man, then I'm limited to what the concepts of what are acceptable norms for black people. I refuse to be put in a box and be labeled by what humankind says I am, when I have a divine kind that has proclaimed that I'm much more than what man can say I can be. Does that make sense to you?

GLENN: Yes, it sure does. Bishop, let me -- what do you think -- what do you think is happening here? Because I think -- you know, you're -- I've done this. And so I know this audience. And I know what's coming. And I just know how this will work out. But that's not the world you live in. What do you think is happening? What are you feeling?

JIM: Glenn, I believe that God has a purpose for all of us. And I believe that this message that the love of God must be heard and it must be heard at times like these when our streets are -- are being torn up by riots of people talking about justice. No -- no justice, no peace. You cannot do things like this if you expect there to be justice. The message of the truth of the Gospel of the Word of God must be preached. And people must hear. The pulpits must proclaim it. People must speak out for what the truth is and be unashamed of the Gospel. I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the answer that is the answer to the problems of the world today. I'm more intent on being biblically correct than politically correct. And if that means that some people will be challenged by the things I say, so be it. Because I'm not defined by a political doctrine. I'm defined by what God says.

GLENN: You and I both know that I didn't pick Birmingham, and you didn't pick me.

JIM: No. No.

GLENN: You and I were both there. And thank goodness we have witnesses of it because it sounds nuts.

JIM: It does.

GLENN: But when I saw you in an audience that I was speaking to, I knew I had to talk to you. And I didn't know -- do you remember what I said to you when I first walked up to you?

JIM: Yes. Like, I don't know what I'm supposed to say to you. But I feel like the Lord is telling me I need to talk to you.

GLENN: And you said back to me, well, I just wrote you a letter because the Lord told me to write you a letter and I didn't know I was going to be here.

JIM: No, I didn't know that. It was my surprise that we wound up being in your studios. I didn't know that. I didn't control that.

GLENN: Right. Right. And so -- and I still haven't seen your letter. So I don't know what you even wrote to me.

JIM: Glenn, I didn't even mail it. I was thinking -- I thought to myself -- I mean, when I heard you speak about things you want to do, I felt something saying, you need to talk to this man. You need to meet him. And I'm saying, okay, yeah, really, Glenn Beck? Then we wind up getting an opportunity to come to Dallas. Then we wind up that I'm going to be in your studios. I didn't plan that.

You know, the thing about it is that we have a choice in our destiny of what we want to do. But God, he's the one that works the purposes out. He's the one that fulfills our plans, who orders our steps. I was sent there to you by God.

I know people think that's crazy, but that's okay. I'm a man of God. What else do you expect me to say? All glory and honor to God.

GLENN: That's right. And I will tell you this, Bishop, there are -- there are plans and things that I saw in my own head that I don't have the capability, I don't have the staff, I don't have the finances, and everything else to do the things that I want to do. And you and I, through our people I guess, have been talking back and forth. I know what's happening in your city now, and I think exactly what I thought was going to happen -- what I think I've seen is going to happen now, and there's no way I could have pulled it off myself. There's no way any of that. And here you are a guy who is saying, hey, I think we should do this. You're putting something together that I've already seen without knowing what I am seeing. Why do you suppose that God picked Birmingham, Alabama, and your church?

JIM: Listen, Birmingham has been known -- it's known a lot of times because of the racial strike that occurred in the '60s. And it's been known because it's one of the places that they talk about. They always talk about the firehoses and the dogs and everything. My father grew up in this city. And I grew up in this city. I'm familiar. I saw the firehoses. I saw the dogs.

I made mistakes sometimes of going to a white fountain, and my mother hollering at me, move -- you can't go there. You can't go there. I've had to go to the bathrooms that were the colored bathrooms. I know about all of that. That's what our history is of Birmingham. But I choose not to remember that history. I choose to remember that we've overcome those things. That we've achieved a great mighty things in the city of Birmingham. We have a black mayor now. We have city council predominantly black. We do things. We're excelling. We're moving forward.

We don't need to always look back at our past and point the finger at somebody. We need to look at the future and look at how we can come together. And what I believe, it's through the love of the Lord that we come together, that we join hands.

If you came to Birmingham now, if you look for it, you may look to find trouble and racism. But you know what, I live here. I don't see that much of that. There may be others that do because they look for it. But I look for the human beings that are here, that have a heart, that are looking to make this city better. And that's what Birmingham is becoming. That's what Birmingham can show the world.

GLENN: I find it remarkable that the guy who walks in to my studio is the guy who is not only at the city where Martin Luther King began, but also at a time when the country is pulling itself apart, was the epicenter of some of the worst stuff of the 1960s. And we're going to be able to show an explosion of black and white and love coming together. I mean, I think only God could design something like this.

JIM: I give credit to him. I give that glory to him. And to be able to be a part of this is an honor to me. But all I want to do is to let people know, even for my city, I want them to know that it is because of Almighty God that we've been able to hold together. You haven't heard anything like what happened in Ferguson or Baltimore. You haven't heard of that. In most of the South, you don't hear of it. Because what we have in our churches, in our black churches and our white curches, most of all, you're getting taught the Word of God. You're not getting the watered-down mixture of what God says or what some man feels. You're getting the truth. And it's that truth that holds us together. That's what unifies us. When we begin to understand the brotherhood of mankind that all people, black and white, whatever, Asian, Hispanic, that we're all creatures of God and all of our lives we've been created by God for a purpose. And when we honor that, we fulfill what God has for us to do. We learn to work together. To share together. To build together. Because God put us here together.

If he didn't want us to be together, he would not have put us together. And that goes for you and me, Glenn.

GLENN: Bishop Jim Lowe. He is from Birmingham, Alabama. The Guiding Light Church, where we'll kick off a tour and a speaking engagement all around the country. This is the only one that we've announced, and this is the first one. And this is going -- I believe this is going to become historic. All part of our Never Again is Now campaign to bring attention to wake up our churches and bring attention and aid to those in the Middle East who are being slaughtered in Allah's name because they either don't worship Allah, they don't worship Allah enough. They worship a Christian God, a Jewish God, or they just live a different lifestyle than what ISIS says is acceptable. That must stop. And we must stand together as one.

JIM: We must stand together for what's going on in the streets of America too. We must stand together and evergreens that the lives of those blacks and whites and policeman, they all matter also. Listen, if I can rise up above -- in the -- in my church where above, they tried to kill me and how many others there, and I'm ready to still stand together in love for other people, all lives matter. If I can overcome it, others can overcome.

GLENN: Bishop, I love you. Thank you very much.

JIM: God bless you.

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.

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.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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.