Affluenza kid captured in Mexico

December 29, 2015

Editor

At long last, the infamous "affluenza" teen Ethan Couch may pay for his crimes.

Couch and his mother were detained in Mexico Tuesday morning in the Pacific resort town of Puerto Vallarta. Couch and his mother were being sought by Texas authorities after he disappeared when video surfaced of him allegedly violating his 10-year probation. Texas authorities then issued a warrant for his arrest. Couch, 18, was under probation for a 2013 drunk driving crash that killed four people and drew nationwide attention over his lawyers' use of his privileged upbringing as part of their defense at trial.

The U.S. Marshals Service tracked Couch down using electronic surveillance, including tracking a cell phone believed to be linked to him, an official briefed on the investigation told CNN. The Marshals Service alerted Mexican authorities, who detained Couch and his mother.

Once "affluenza" teen Ethan Couch and his mother, Tonya Couch, are repatriated to the United States, both will be taken into custody, Tarrant County, Texas, Sheriff Dee Anderson said Tuesday morning. Ethan Couch will be put into the juvenile system and appear before a juvenile judge, and his mother will be arrested and face a charge of hindering apprehension.

Couch could face a maximum sentence of four months in the juvenile system, Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson said. Wilson said she wants to move Couch's case to adult court, where the punishment could be more severe.

Doc and Skip, in for Glenn, discussed details of the case on air today. Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

DOC: His name is Ethan Couch. Do you remember Ethan Couch, also known as the affluenza kid. Affluenza teen. Let me refresh your memory. 2013, at the age of 16, Ethan Couch was speeding, driving a pickup truck in excessive rates of speed. He had a blood alcohol level of almost three times the legal limit, which technically there was no legal limit for him because he was 16.

He fatally struck a stranded motorist on the side of the road and also killed three Good Samaritans who had stopped to help the stranded motorist. Yes, at the age of 16, while drinking and he should not have been, while driving, having been intoxicated and should not have been, killed four people. Also, injured several people riding in the truck with him, including one who is permanently brain damaged.

That was Ethan Couch in 2013. At the trial, he was convicted. And he got probation. He got probation because a psychologist said that he can't tell the difference between wrong and right because he's so wealthy, his parents are so affluent, they have raised him in such an affluent environment that he suffers from affluenza.

SKIP: Affluenza?

DOC: Yeah, affluent affluenza, if you will, affluenza because he's so wealthy.

SKIP: It's the rich illness.

DOC: We can't sentence him to jail for killing four people. We can't do that because he's so rich. He doesn't know what's right and wrong. Apparently, you can be so rich, you don't know what's right and wrong.

He was sentenced to ten years probation. Recently, a video surfaced of him showing him at a party likely violating his probation. I'm going to play a little clip of the video. It's very visual, but we'll play a little of the audio for you. And then we'll go ahead and tweet a link to the video so you can see it. The video shows him playing beer pong

SKIP: Yeah, he's playing beer pong with a bunch of people. He's off to the side. I don't know he was in the exact match. But him and his buddies apparently playing the beer pong.

DOC: At 18, possibly drinking, possibly violating his parole. You can hear them partying. Then you hear the buddy at the end of the beer pong table take a run and jump on to the table and it collapses and everybody laughs. Likely in a drunken stupor. Here's the audio.

(laughter)

DOC: He was at this likely violating his parole. After that came out, when faced with questions violating a probation, he disappeared. No one could find him. His mom disappeared as well. Which prompted the county in Texas which he lives in to put him on the county's most wanted list and issue a warrant. Nobody could find him though. His passport gone. His mom's passport, gone. So he and his mommy, 48-year-old Tonya Couch have been discovered. I'm happy to tell you this morning they've found them and they're being detained in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Likely to be turned over to the U.S. Marshal service. The affluenza teen may finally actually pay for his crimes.

SKIP: Which is wonderful. Not since -- not since OJ Simpson had I had the feelings of, wow, the legal system really got this wrong.

DOC: This is unbelievable. If there's anybody in America that actually says, "Oh, I could see he should have only got ten years probation," I would be shocked. Who in their right mind would say that it's any type of consideration when you commit a crime that you're so rich you don't know what you're doing. If anything, couldn't you say that somebody is so poor that they don't know what they're doing. I mean, that's still not an argument. But it's a better one than you're so rich. At least you could say I'm so poor that I was raised in an environment of criminals or I'm so poor I had to do something because I'm so hungry. But to say I'm so rich I'm above the law!

SKIP: And how can this be a defense when -- obviously ignorance of the law is not an acceptable defense. So you not knowing the right or wrong of it too, isn't that kind of in the same vein of ignorance of the law?

DOC: I know one thing, he may suffer from affluenza, but very soon he'll be suffering from arrestogenic shock. Possibly Bubba Love Syndrome.

SKIP: Yeah, probably.

DOC: Well, I don't know if he'll suffer from those. But he'll definitely feel some sort of pain in his lower quardrant. His backside. Something like that. Probably going to happen.

SKIP: The prison shakes, if you will.

DOC: Could be. Could be.

How do you do that with a straight face? I guess the psychologist -- maybe if you're getting paid, you could do it with a straight face. But an attorney, a psychologist -- you know, because a psychologist, you're supposed to be a doctor. What about your oath? And you're really going to throw this out there? I mean, I know you're getting paid by the defense or whatever.

SKIP: Probably handsomely, by the way.

DOC: But still, does your oath not matter to you? Do you have such low standards for your profession that you would throw out there, he's so rich, he doesn't know what he's doing and it's a syndrome, affluenza?

SKIP: And if you do somehow hit the legal lottery that Ethan Couch was able to get the winning chance for, gets that second chance, where you won't be in jail for murdering four people, how then do you continue to just completely not give a damn about anything and flee, continue to drink underage, and then after this not attempt to do a mea culpa with your life.

DOC: What this shows is having affluenza. That the reason or one of the reasons or a contributing factor to him drinking and driving at 16, killing four people and then still not taking responsibility is that his parents have never made him take responsibility. They likely coddled him with their affluent lifestyle. Never forcing him to take responsibility. And by claiming affluenza, where he gets ten years probation for killing four people, once again not making him take responsibility for actions. And because of that, what happened? He still is being irresponsible.

He still has not learned. Many times throughout his life he likely was not taught the hard life lessons of personal responsibility. And that led, at least a contributing factor likely to what happened. And by getting him off with ten years of probation because of your money, power, and influence, once again is doing him and society a disservice, because you don't know what he's going to end up doing. And here he is again proving what we said. He's still not being responsible. His mommy even ran away with him. Do you believe you're 18, you screw up after your parents get you off of this, killing four people, four people -- think about their families. Did they get justice?

Four families going about their lives, likely at least three of them trying to help somebody else out, being Good Samaritans. Now they're gone? This kid gets off. You go through all that. You get so lucky. And then you're still not responsible enough to keep your nose clean and you don't learn a hard life lesson? No. Because they got him off. Trust me, had his ass been sitting in jail for a couple of years, he would have been learning a lesson.

SKIP: Furthermore, the judge who said, okay, this guy did not know the difference between right and wrong, so you're saying that there's a person out there that killed four people, permanently brain damaged his friend, was so irresponsible, does not know the difference between right and wrong because he was -- you're going to put him back out on the street? This kid that does not understand what was right and what is wrong. He's raised in a system that, I don't know if this is a good or bad thing to do. Just put him back out there with probation. How is that in any way -- this guy should be locked up in a mental institute then.

DOC: You're right. If he doesn't know right from wrong and he has the money to travel and do whatever he wants -- what's going to stop him from running another four people over? I don't know.

SKIP: Oh, that was bad? Oh see, I still didn't know because I have the affluenza.

DOC: Oh, I just raped a couple of girls.

SKIP: That's bad? See, because I wanted to have sex with them. They didn't want to have sex with me, but I did. So I just raped them.

KAL: If it was my daughter that did this, I mean, I'm not going to say for sure, but I'm going to say about 90 percent that I think I would have let -- the first part, once you got to the accident, I would have let the sentence go. Let her do whatever they think is justified.

DOC: Uh-huh.

KAL: And the fact that his mother didn't do that just tells you exactly what kind of people they are.

DOC: It's Doc and Skip pitch-hitting for Glenn Beck this morning. Kal is spinning the dials radio style in New York City.

Kal -- if it were one of my sons, I would do everything I could to see them not go to jail and try to help them. You'll just do that as a parent. However, that does not mean they would not be punished. Because, first of all, I would have no reasonable expectation that he would not get punished somehow. And even probation, it's not completely let off but it's soft for killing four people.

KAL: Killing four people. I feel like that's a lesson that needs to be learned. Your parents cannot protect you from something like that. That's something you need to carry with you for the rest of your life.

DOC: Well, as a parent, Kal, I have a question, what do you think -- the mommy fled with him. They used their influence to get him off, hire attorneys, whatever. What did they say to him at the night of the incident? Four people dead, whatever. You bring the kid home. Or the next morning after he sobers up or whatever.

SKIP: Now, Ethan, you shouldn't be doing that.

DOC: Were they even angry? What did they say to him over the months and months during the investigation leading up to the trial? What did they say to him during the trial and after the trial?

KAL: Don't worry. You'll be fine. We'll take care of it.

DOC: But were they angry, Kal? Did they yell at him? Did they discipline him themself?

KAL: I would like to think they would, but the actions I'm seeing doesn't tell me that they did.

DOC: No, I don't think they did. I think they were like, you know what you need, a time out.

SKIP: Go sit in the corner now, Ethan.

DOC: Right. I don't think they were even angry at him.

SKIP: I'm going to take away your Mercedes. You'll have to drive the Jetta now. Okay?

DOC: Let me get some calls in. We'll open the phone lines. 877-727-BECK.

What would you as a parent do and say in this situation? What would you do? What would your parents have done or said to you if you were Ethan Couch? 877-727-BECK.

Doc and Skip pitch-hitting for Glenn Beck today.

Featured Image: Ethan Couch after being detained by Mexico authorities. Source: ABC News/Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office.

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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