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Chief Surgeon Confirms Fart Fire Exists: 'I Lit a Fart Through a Midline Incision'

November 04, 2016
Lori Hanes

Writer

In one of the more pressing news stories of the day, reports surfaced that a woman undergoing laser surgery actually caused a fire by farting. Naturally, the investigative team at The Glenn Beck Program jumped into action.

"It's not every day that you get a story on a fart fire," Glenn reported. "I want to hear from doctors, because I believe it can."

RELATED: Fart Blamed for Causing a Fire During Surgery at a Tokyo Hospital

As luck would have it, Dr. MacDowell, a chief surgeon from Nashville, Tennessee, called in to lend his expert opinion.

"Would you say that fartology is in your realm of business? You've been around some sort of fartologist?" Glenn asked.

"Definitely, I have. I consider myself an expert on it, in fact," Dr. MacDowell said.

Dr. MacDowell went on to confirm that, under the right conditions, a patient's gas can absolutely spark a fire.

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these explosive questions:

• Under what conditions did Dr. MacDowell light a fart?

• Does Al Gore need to get involved in this methane gas problem?

• Among Glenn and his co-hosts, who has lit their own farts?

• Is Jeffy correct about why doctors wear masks?

• Why does Dr. MacDowell say the U.S. has the best medical system in the world?

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

GLENN: All right. I think we have to start with the fart fire. I mean, you don't -- it's not every day that you get a story on a fart fire.

PAT: I don't even think this can happen.

GLENN: I want to here from doctors. Because I believe it can.

PAT: Do you really?

GLENN: Yes.

All right. Some -- a woman, where was she?

JEFFY: Japan.

GLENN: She's having laser surgery on her butt.

PAT: Well, her cervix.

GLENN: All right. So she's having -- it wasn't colon surgery?

PAT: No.

JEFFY: No.

GLENN: Well then I don't know if this can happen.

PAT: That's what I'm saying.

JEFFY: What?

GLENN: So, anyway, so she's having laser surgery. And they got the lasers fired up, and she passes gas.

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: And the laser hits the gas, ignites a fire.

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: And it sets --

PAT: Of the -- of the, you know, bed she's laying on, ignite and burns her on the lower torso of her body.

JEFFY: She gets burned.

PAT: Her fart didn't cause a laser fire. Come on.

JEFFY: First of all, it couldn't -- I will say -- I believe that it's possible. But it's not the first time that people have passed gas during surgery, right? I mean, that's why doctors wear masks.

GLENN: Yeah. No, that's not why doctors --

JEFFY: They wear the mask so they don't smell the gas.

GLENN: No, it's not for gas. It's really not.

PAT: It's not.

JEFFY: Why else would you --

GLENN: For germs. But it's a good guess on your part. But it's germs.

JEFFY: Okay. All right. If you say so.

PAT: We need to stop the methane gas releases in order to save the planet. It's the SUVs and the farting during surgery that is causing catastrophic damage to the planet.

(chuckling)

GLENN: I mean, so there was a fart fire in the --

JEFFY: Yes.

PAT: I want to hear from doctors whether that's even possible.

GLENN: Of course, it is. People can light their own farts on fire.

STU: No, they can't.

PAT: Not with a laser.

GLENN: You don't know what kind of --

STU: So, Pat, I want to make sure I understand your nuanced position here: You're saying that the issue with this is not that you can't light farts on fire, it's that you can't light farts on fire with a laser.

PAT: Yeah, with a laser.

STU: You can do it with a lighter?

PAT: Yes, you can. Obviously. Were you ever a teenager? Come on.

JEFFY: Haven't you see the YouTube video? Come on.

STU: I don't click on those typically.

PAT: Okay.

JEFFY: Yeah, neither do I. Neither do I.

GLENN: Lori, do you have fart fire on your screen right now? Do you have a YouTube up of a fart fire?

LORI: No.

GLENN: No, you don't? All right. Could you get one?

PAT: She's lying. You know she's lying.

GLENN: Lori who writes for GlennBeck.com is in here. And I'm surprised she didn't have the fart fire up on there, a YouTube video of that, immediately.

STU: So you're saying you can't light farts on fire?

GLENN: Oh.

PAT: No question about it. That's a proven fact.

JEFFY: That's a fact.

PAT: That's a proven fact.

GLENN: Okay. Right here. World fart fire. There it is. Look at that. Look at that.

Now, watch. Look at that.

PAT: Okay.

GLENN: That is a --

JEFFY: Yeah, that -- guys have had their hair burned down their backside for years.

PAT: That's sick. That's sick.

STU: I suppose my question then is why wouldn't you believe that a laser during surgery --

GLENN: That's what I don't understand.

PAT: Just --

GLENN: Of course, this happened.

PAT: I don't think that's possible.

GLENN: Why?

PAT: Because it would have happened a thousand times by now --

STU: Maybe it has.

PAT: And not just in Japan. It would have happened all over the world, and we would have heard about it before now.

GLENN: Maybe -- maybe her gas was a little extra --

JEFFY: Yeah. And it was perfectly timed with the time that the laser came on.

PAT: 877-727-BECK. I got to hear from the audience on this.

GLENN: On fart fires.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: I don't mean to be crude. But seriously, what if her fart was a little more liquidy.

PAT: Ick.

GLENN: That would cause it to go on the sheet and be like a gas fire.

PAT: Ugh.

STU: What do you mean you didn't mean for it to be crude? You absolutely --

GLENN: How else do you explain that?

STU: You don't explain it -- that's how you --

GLENN: Okay. Then I'll just be quiet. Then I -- you're trying to shut down my freedom of speech.

PAT: I wish he would have, yes.

GLENN: I am trying to have a real -- a serious explanation on how it could catch the sheets on fire.

STU: I have not -- I have not passed a congressional law limiting what you're saying. You should just stop saying it.

GLENN: Boycott.

STU: Not a First Amendment.

GLENN: Next it's a boycott.

STU: It's not.

(laughter)

PAT: I would say that would make it less likely. I would think it would have to be more, you know, gaseous.

GLENN: Gaseous?

PAT: Uh-huh. Do we have a doctor?

JEFFY: Yes, we do.

PAT: All right.

GLENN: Dr. McDowell. Doctor. Doctor.

CALLER: Hello.

GLENN: You refer to me -- when I say doctor, you say doctor.

CALLER: I am -- I am a doctor.

GLENN: Well, so am I a doctor.

CALLER: Is this Glenn?

GLENN: Yes, this isn't Glenn. This is Dr. Beck. It's professional courtesy, man. Doctor.

CALLER: I have no idea.

PAT: He doesn't understand how this works. When Glenn addresses you as doctor, you address him back as doctor.

GLENN: Let's try this again, if you are indeed a real doctor who doesn't know the etiquette of addressing a doctor. Doctor.

CALLER: Doctor.

GLENN: Yes! Yes. There you go.

JEFFY: Thank you.

PAT: It wasn't delivered great, but okay.

GLENN: But we'll take it. We'll take.

Okay. So Dr. McDowell. You are a doctor of?

CALLER: Surgery. I'm a surgeon from Nashville, Tennessee.

PAT: You've worked with lasers?

GLENN: Would you say that fartology is in your realm of business? You've been around some sort of fartologist?

CALLER: Definitely I have. I consider myself an expert on it, in fact.

PAT: All right.

GLENN: Excellent. Do you work with lasers?

CALLER: You know, I think "lasers" is a misnomer in our line of work. We really don't use lasers much. I don't really know what they were doing with a laser around an anus. That really doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

(laughter)

I mean, I don't use a lot of lasers around --

PAT: That's one of the best phrases that's ever been uttered on this show. I don't know what they were doing with lasers around an anus.

CALLER: Right. But so -- but the truth is, it very much can happen. And I was telling your screener about a story that happened to me a few years ago. I was a resident. This was probably ten or 15 years ago at Vanderbilt. And I was on trauma call. And a gentleman came in on a Sunday morning with a history that he had been out at a bar on Saturday night here in Nashville and had gotten into a fight and been stabbed in his abdomen. And went home and passed out. And woke up the next morning, and his belly just felt awful. And so he showed up at our emergency department. And we evaluated him and found that he had some unknown injury to his bowels. And so that -- that's a straightforward indication to take him to the operating room and explore his abdomen.

JEFFY: Oh.

CALLER: And so I had him in the operating room, and I had opened up his abdomen. And I had an electric artery, which is -- can cause a spark. And as soon as I entered his abdominal cavity, a blue flame shot out of his wound. It was the craziest thing. And what had happened was is he had been stabbed and had an injury to his colon, and the methane from his colon had leaked out into his peritoneal cavity and had built up over night.

PAT: Ick.

CALLER: And literally, I lit a fart through his midline incision. It was crazy.

(laughter)

PAT: That's what I'm saying. That needs to stop.

CALLER: So, yes, it can happen. And there were no lasers involved. And it really can happen.

PAT: Wow. It can happen. Wow.

JEFFY: So, Doctor, are you going to deny that that's the reason you wear masks in surgery?

CALLER: Well, there's lots of reasons that we wear masks. It's not like that those masks can control the odor if you enter, you know, some untoward organ. It can --

GLENN: Is there ever --

CALLER: You mainly wear masks for your own -- to make sure that you don't pass your -- your germs on to the patient. So that's the reason why you wear masks.

JEFFY: Whatever.

GLENN: Jeffy.

Thank you, Doctor. Doctor. Oh, my gosh, this guy is not a --

CALLER: Doctor.

PAT: There you go.

GLENN: Thank you.

Doctor, let me ask you this, has there ever been a time that you open somebody up or you were treating somebody and you thought, "You know what, they never told us about this in medical school. And why the hell am I doing this job?"

CALLER: It happens to me almost weekly, Glenn. I mean, you know, there are just some days where I'm like, "God, why didn't I go to law school. Jeez." But it's --

JEFFY: That's amazing.

CALLER: But the truth is, a lot is said about American medicine in these days. And I think that -- I'm the chief of surgery of my hospital in Nashville. And I have a great deal of faith in what we do. I think our technology is great. The training that our physicians is great. And I think that we have the best medical system in the world. I just hope that we can maintain it.

GLENN: Me too.

CALLER: With the next administration, whoever that may be. I'm praying for one particular candidate. So...

GLENN: I'm praying for all of them.

(laughter)

CALLER: Good.

GLENN: Thank you very much, Doctor.

CALLER: Whatever is needed.

GLENN: Appreciate it. God bless you.

That's nice.

PAT: It's interesting. So it can happen.

JEFFY: There you go.

STU: Wow, there you go. It's a real story.

PAT: It can happen.

GLENN: I can't believe you didn't believe.

PAT: I did not believe.

GLENN: You saw the evidence on YouTube.

PAT: It's amazing. Well, I knew that could happen. But the laser thing --

STU: I honestly did not even know that could happen. It felt like one of those urban myths that you would say when you were a kid because you thought it was funny, to light your farts on fire. And then it would actually -- if you tried to do it, it wouldn't actually happen.

GLENN: See, I have to tell you, I don't know why I knew that was not a myth because I had never met anybody, nor had I tried to light farts on fire.

JEFFY: Please. We're supposed to believe that. Everyone has.

GLENN: I have not.

PAT: You personally have firsthand knowledge of it, don't you?

GLENN: I have never tried to light --

JEFFY: Everyone has burned some hair between --

GLENN: No, I haven't.

JEFFY: Jeez.

GLENN: And I don't know anybody who has, Jeffy, until right now.

PAT: You know somebody. You know somebody.

STU: We, as a national talk show, don't typically take requests, but on Twitter @worldofStu, and someone mentions this. And I think is needs to happen. Tell Pat to say anus like Al Gore.

(laughter)

STU: What was the sentence again?

GLENN: I don't know what that laser around the anus...

PAT: I don't know why they had a laser around an anus.

(laughter)

STU: It's a great point.

GLENN: It really is.

STU: Not enough people have made it.

GLENN: And only from a chief of surgery.

STU: What a weird show.

Featured Image: U.S. Air Force surgeons repair the ruptured achilles tendon of a service member. (Photo Credit: Wiki Commons)

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

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.