The Solution Is the Problem: The U.S. Constitution

February 09, 2016

Writer

Glenn's recent trip to San Francisco inspired a powerful monologue Tuesday on The Glenn Beck Program. Things have changed in America — and that was no more evident than on the streets of San Francisco. Once bound by common principles, Glenn realized he had "very little in common with many of the people who were the loudest on the streets."

There was a time when most Americans were grounded by principles found in the Constitution. Today, too many of us — especially younger citizens — tie themselves to political parties rather than our founding documents, thinking they are the secret to restoring America. In fact, the parties have long been corrupted, and they're exactly what's wrong with America.

We've forgotten our common sense, First Principles, all of which the Founders laid out in the Bill of Rights:

• Practice Your Faith — First Amendment

• Question the Government — First Amendment

• Right to Protect Your Family — Second Amendment

• Right to Protect Your Property — Fourth Amendment

• Right to Privacy — Fourth Amendment

• No Torturing People — Eighth Amendment

• Everything Else — Ninth & Tenth Amendments

These rights are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution — and they're not given to us by any man or government. They're given to us by a higher power — call it the universe, call it God, but don't call it the government.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: Does anybody really wonder what happened to America, the America that we all grew up in? I grew up in a small farming community 90 miles north of Seattle, a small town called Mount Vernon. My dad owned the city bakery. I never remember my folks talking about politics or people framed by who they voted for.

My parents were Republicans. My grandparents were Democrats. They were shaped by FDR, and they never looked at the policies again. Just, FDR was good, and that's all they needed.

But with an exception of the Watergate days, they never argued politics. Even with Nixon in the White House, it was about lies and not politics. My folks believed Richard Nixon; my grandparents did not. When it became apparent Nixon was a liar, my family gathered around principles that they agreed on: Lying is not a quality suitable to be president of the United States.

This last weekend I was in San Francisco. I came to work while the rest of the world came to party at the Super Bowl. And as I walked through the crowds and through the streets, I found that I had very little in common with many of the people who were the loudest on the streets.

From a woman and several women carrying signs that said, "His body, his choice," a bizarre protest against circumcision, the foul lyrics and the gyrating that was happening on the stage across the street in a family park, to the street preachers screaming that we're all going to hell, my country looked like a movie. I didn't even recognize it. My son who is now 11, not one to hold dad's hand in public much anymore, grabbed my hand and held it tight.

Later in a quieter section of town, on a street that sells Bentleys, fine steakhouses, and homes that can cost up to $15 million, we walked to dinner and to CVS. The entire street reeked HEP of urine. While the homeless, dangerous, and mentally ill roamed the streets in such numbers that none of the men with me said they would feel comfortable with their wife or their daughter walking alone on that street, and this was at 4:15 in the afternoon.

No matter where I went in San Francisco, I was greeted as both a hero and a villain. I'm neither. My son spent the week watching, taking it all in, while I who had grown up in Seattle was taking in the memories of a town that was much like mine as a kid and wondering what happened to us.

I think the solution is the problem. Principles. We no longer agree on principles. Actually let me take that back. When the chips are down, we do agree on principles. We did on 9/11.

On 9/11 and 9/12 and 9/13, we were people that had more in common than not. But that was 15 long years ago. This, right now, today's America is the only America anyone under 20 remembers. Restore America, bring back the Reagan years, those are long gone and long forgotten.

How would you even do that? Most people don't even remember it. And too many of us think that it's our political party that's the secret to restoration. It's our political party that is the secret to progress.

Our political parties are not. In fact, they are as Washington pointed out in his Farewell Address, the problem. We hold tight to the idea that the party is our savior. And we know our party platform perhaps better than we know the Constitution. It's time to return to first principles. This election has got to be a return to first principles.

Should people be able to speak their mind in public? We all know the answer to that, yes. Is there a college campus safe zone? If there's a safe zone in college, then why do we have to have on colleges, why do we have to have tenure? Tenure is made so people can say the uncomfortable things and not get fired. But if colleges have a safe zone, what's the point of tenure?

Should the press be free to report on information given to them by whistle-blowers, or should those press members be thrown in jail by the government? Should you be free to practice your faith or science? Should you be able to question the government, protect your family, be the first responder? Should your private property be able to be seized, gone through? Can a squatter come through your house and just take it? Can a hotel chain force you out of your house?

Because the public votes for you to pay more in taxes, can the public vote that somebody can come in and take your money? Do you know what's happening in Spain right now? Spain has become so socialist, that if you have two houses and you don't live full-time in one, the government is now talking about just taking that second house.

Do we have the right to privacy? Can somebody just go through your phone records and your email accounts, listen to your phone calls, read your email? Should we as a nation torture people? I'm not talking waterboarding. I'm talking torture people.

Should we enforce our own laws, or should we have special exceptions for our laws? Is justice blind? Should rich people get off because they're rich or they're in a special protected class? Wasn't it wrong when whites shielded whites in the 1950s, and isn't it wrong now when we shield the rich, the privileged, illegals? Is a finger gun really a Class 2 lookalike weapon, or do we all know that's bullcrap?

Abortion supporters are looking to sell baby parts, and they have. Should you be able to sell human organs? This is beyond, "Are you pro-choice or are you pro-life?" This is is, "Should you sell baby parts?"

Now, here's the latest. Because of the Doritos ad in the Super Bowl, NARAL is saying you can't humanize a fetus. Can't humanize -- they're giving birth to a dog? That's what a fetus is, it's a human fetus. We can argue about when life begins, but whether or not it's human life is settled. Making it a criminal offense for a Class 2 lookalike weapon when it's a finger gun is nuts. And we all know it. These are our principles. These are the things that bring us together.

But we're not tied to any of those. Practice your faith, First Amendment. Question the government. First Amendment. Protect your family, Second Amendment. Property, Fourth Amendment. Right to privacy, Fourth Amendment. Torture people, eighth amendment. Anything that I haven't mentioned, the Ninth and the Tenth Amendment. These all come from the Constitution. These are all the things that we have rights to. And they're not given to us by the government. They're given to us by a higher power. Call it the universe, call it God. All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unchangeable rights.

The government always goes mad, and it always needs to be reigned in. Throughout history, reconstruction, taking guns away from blacks so they could hang them in the trees. Out of fear, Japanese internment camps. Out of fear, the war on the red man. Each time, each time, the government oversteps its bounds and we lose our way. And each time, a coming generation is embarrassed by that and has to apologize. And it soils our reputation. And they blame it on the Founders. They blame it on the government. They blame it on this outdated piece of paper, when this outdated piece of paper had nothing to do with it. This outdated piece of paper called the Constitution railed against it the whole time, crying out, screaming in silence from the paper locked away, behind the walls of the national archives. It screams out, "Listen to me."

This election, we need to see the road that we're on and turn back to the principles that we have -- all of us have in common: the Constitution. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, they all have more in common, if we use the Constitution. And if we, the people, want to get rid of the Constitution, then that is the argument that we should be having. We shouldn't just let it go quietly in the middle of the night. We should have the conversation.

Do we believe in these first principles? Do we, the people, anymore believe in this Constitution? If we do, our first priority must be to restore it, to empower it again, to heed its warnings, to make sure the government is held by its chains and restraints. And if we don't want to do that, then let's have that conversation about real revolution. But what are you going to replace it with?

Most people who are voting for Bernie Sanders say they're for socialism. But when asked, "What is socialism," they have no idea.

It is the step in between capitalism and communism. What rules you, if you can take people's property? Because it isn't the Constitution. What rules you if you can just say, "Well, yes, we're in a panic now. We have fear of an outside force, and so we can scoop people off the street. Or we can just listen to every email and every phone call of every citizen in in America without a warrant?" What rules you if it's not the Constitution?

If we had that conversation, we wouldn't be as divided as we are. But right now, we're in little subsections. This is no longer Republican and Democrat. It's Trump people, Sanders people, Cruz people, Rubio people, Clinton people. And we can't find our way to one another because very few of them are saying, "Look, don't listen to me. I'm not going to make America great again. You're going to make America great again. I don't have the solutions. The solutions are found with the people and the government being restrained by the restraints of the Constitution." Instead, almost all of them offer answers that are beyond the Constitution. You want to save your country, now is the time to do it. And there is truly only one way. Otherwise, the fundamental transformation of America will be sealed and will be cemented in for all time.

The real conversation we should be having in New Hampshire and in South Carolina is, "What rules our nation?" Not a man. If it's ruled by the Constitution, if it's not, then the conversation should be, "How much of a strong man do you really want," as the people cry out for a king.

Featured Image: Screenshot from The Glenn Beck Program

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!

What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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