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Glenn Beck 'Roughs It' at Boy Scout Camporee 2016: Potstickers, CNN & Buc-ee’s

November 14, 2016
Lori Hanes

Writer

It ain't what it used to be, that's for sure. Abandoned in the wilderness that is Texas Motor Speedway, Glenn pitched a tent with his son this weekend at the Boy Scout Camporee, a huge scouting event in North Texas that draws nearly 6,000 scouts.

"So we go and we pack all of our gear, and we pull up to the NASCAR Speedway, and we're in the parking lot outside of the speedway, in between the speedway and the interstate," Glenn said Monday on his radio program.

RELATED: Time to Pass the Baton to the Next Hero Generation: The Millennials

Thinking he'd be roughing it for the weekend, Glenn was surprised to find access to Port-A-Potty row, the giant convenience store that is Buc-ee's and Asian cuisine.

"We're making dinner, and the boys have to come up with what to have for dinner. What kind of Boy Scout troop has potstickers on a campout?" Glenn laughed. "Potstickers. We're having Asian cuisine?"

So much for the skillet cornbread and campfire stew.

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these questions:

• Was shuttle service available from Texas Motor Speedway to Buc-ee's?

• Did Jeffy attend the Camporee with his son?

• Did Glenn schedule a CNN interview at the Camporee?

• What time did Glenn leave the campsite?

• Will Glenn ever camp again?

Listen to this segment, beginning at mark 2:40, from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: It is -- I went out camping with my son on Friday.

JEFFY: Did you?

GLENN: Yeah. And shockingly, your son as well. But you weren't there, for some reason.

JEFFY: No. I don't -- I couldn't make it. I have work here at the network.

GLENN: No. I'm your boss. No, you didn't have work on Friday night.

JEFFY: I do.

GLENN: You didn't have to -- so I went. It was the longest night of my life, I contend. I went, got there about 5:30 with my son.

PAT: It was at the Texas Speedway.

JEFFY: It's a camporee.

PAT: I mean, come on. That's not roughing it.

GLENN: No. No. Really?

PAT: Really.

GLENN: So we're in Texas, the largest state next to Alaska --

PAT: Right. Largest in the 48 contiguous.

GLENN: I mean, it is -- right? We're ten times the size of most countries.

PAT: We've got wilderness.

GLENN: We have it here. We're outdoorsmen. Right?

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: We're tough. I'm not. But that's the -- that's the MO on Texas.

So here's where we end up. So we go and we pack all of our gear, and we pull up to the -- the -- the Speedway.

(laughter)

GLENN: The NASCAR Speedway. And we're in the parking lot outside of the Speedway, in between the Speedway and the interstate.

PAT: In between -- so you're between the Speedway and I-35?

GLENN: And I-35.

PAT: Wow, that's bizarre.

GLENN: And I said to my son, I said, "You know what, let's go see if we can find any animals."

"Oh, there's a beaver across the street. It's Buc-ee's. Let's go."

STU: The convenience store.

GLENN: The convenience store, which is not a convenience store. It is a city.

STU: Yes, it's awesome.

GLENN: If you don't have a Buc-ee's around you -- people wouldn't know what to do -- if you're from New York and you go to a Buc-ee's, they wouldn't know what to think.

STU: It's like a Walmart-sized convenience store. It's unbelievable.

STU: It's unbelievable.

PAT: And another thing, the Texas Motor Speedway is in the metroplex.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: Still in part of this massive city.

GLENN: No. On the other side of the Buc-ee's is the airport.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: So you're having (sound effect). All right? So it's that outdoorsy. It's that outdoorsy.

PAT: Wow. Why did they pick that? Do you have any --

JEFFY: Because there's space.

GLENN: I would imagine because -- yeah, it's 6,000 Boy Scouts.

JEFFY: It's a camporee.

PAT: 6,000.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: 6,000 Boy Scouts. 6,000.

PAT: Again, I will say it again, we have wilderness.

GLENN: I know. I guarantee you --

JEFFY: We don't have enough for areas for that many --

PAT: Yes, we do.

JEFFY: We do not.

GLENN: No, no, no. I guarantee you, you cannot have 6,000 -- Pat. Pat.

PAT: We've had jamborees in Montana. Are you telling me Montana has better facilities than Texas --

JEFFY: This is a camporee.

PAT: Well, we've had that.

JEFFY: Not a jamboree.

PAT: A jamboree and a camporee are essentially the --

GLENN: I can guarantee you -- this is because of the laws, having to make sure that you have access to everything.

PAT: Oh, I bet.

GLENN: That you have the right number of Port-A-Potties. And it's just too expensive to go out and really do it.

PAT: So you had bathrooms what, at the Motor Speedway?

GLENN: Yeah, and also Port-A-Potties everywhere. But we also had real --

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Yeah, okay. So it was at the Motor Speedway. So we're -- I'm pitching a tent on gravel.

JEFFY: Right.

PAT: Come on.

GLENN: And to make it worse, I had scheduled --

PAT: Not even on grass. At least they could have put you on the infield.

GLENN: So I scheduled an interview. I had an interview scheduled for CNN. So I have to do this interview. So they bring this satellite truck. CNN sends this satellite truck. And so it pulls up next to the tents. And it's got all the -- it's like a city now. And the cameras are there. And everything else. This gigantic satellite on this gigantic semi. And all the Boy Scouts are coming --

JEFFY: Nobody knew you were there.

GLENN: Nobody knew I was there. So all the Boy Scouts were coming around because it was there for four hours.

PAT: Oh, my gosh.

GLENN: And they said, "What's with the -- and I said, "We have HBO. We have Showtime. We're not roughing it here. What do you guys have? Because we have every channel known to man at our campsite."

(laughter)

It was nuts.

PAT: I bet they were mad.

GLENN: Then we're making dinner. And the boys have to come up with what to have for dinner.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: What kind of Boy Scout troop has potstickers on a campout? I said, "What are you guys making?"

STU: Like dumplings?

GLENN: Yeah, potstickers.

STU: Right.

GLENN: "Potstickers." I said, "We're having Asian cuisine?"

(chuckling)

GLENN: "How do you make those over a campfire?"

JEFFY: You wrap them in foil, right?

GLENN: Yeah. We didn't actually have a campfire -- you can't have a campfire at the Speedway. So you just bring the kitchen appliances. Oh, my gosh, it was like come on.

STU: Wait. So they had an oven or a microwave?

JEFFY: They have a grill.

GLENN: They made them in -- on a stove.

JEFFY: On the gas grills. The Coleman gas --

GLENN: Yeah. The Coleman gas grills.

So it was camping like no other. I got up -- I finally got up at 4 o'clock in the morning because I couldn't -- I just couldn't take it anymore. And I got up at 4 o'clock in the morning. And I just -- I rolled up my sleeping bag. And then I went -- no, I'm not even rolling it up. I'm just leaving. My son can pack it. So I left. I left --

JEFFY: So is your tent still in the middle of the --

GLENN: No, he did it.

PAT: I love that. That is quintessential Glenn Beck. Quintessential Glenn Beck.

(laughter)

GLENN: My son gets up, and he calls me. And he's like, "You just left the tent?"

PAT: That's the greatest.

GLENN: And I said, "Damn right. You're a Boy Scout. Roll that baby up and make sure you don't lose any of the pieces. I'll see you at home later."

(laughter)

PAT: So you didn't even wake Raphe up to say you were leaving?

GLENN: No.

PAT: You just left?

GLENN: No, he was -- no. Here -- I get here. This really hacked me off.

I get there. And one of the dads drops his son off and says, "I'm just dropping him off."

You're, what?

"I'm just dropping him off."

You're not staying?

"At the Motor Speedway?"

I'm like -- well, no. I didn't know I had that option.

Then -- then as I'm --

PAT: Your wife didn't let you have that option.

GLENN: I know. Then as they're pitching -- as they're pitching their tents and I'm pitching mine, one of the camp -- the counselors comes over and says, "So Raphe -- all the boys are going to be sleeping over there in their tents, and then you just stay in yours, and everybody can just stay in their -- you know, the men will stay in their tents."

PAT: And wasn't the point for the fathers to be with the sons, right?

GLENN: Right. So I stood around all night.

PAT: If you're not with the son, then why be there?

GLENN: Why be there?

PAT: I'm with you on that. I'm with you.

GLENN: Right. Right. So I didn't -- I got up. He wasn't even in my tent. He was in with the other boys in their tent.

PAT: Definitely with you.

GLENN: I'm like, "Oh, man." I said to him, "We're never camping again. Never. At least at a motor speedway."

STU: Interesting. That's also what civilization said about 1900.

GLENN: Right.

STU: We're never camping again.

GLENN: I mean, when you're camping and you're going to the Buc-ee's, that's not camping.

JEFFY: Well, you made the choice to go to Buc-ee's. You can make the choice not to.

GLENN: We could have hiked across the street. I could have put my big hiking boots and gone across the street to the Buc-ee's. That's not camping.

The worst experience next to this one -- the worst experience of my life was my brother convinced me to go hiking. And hike up Mount Baker. Okay? Now, this is a mountain up in northwest Washington. So he says, "Let's hike up Mount Baker. I know this great place that we could camp."

So we hike all day. I mean, we started 6 o'clock in the morning. By the time we make it to camp, it's maybe 9:30 or 10:00 because it's summertime. And it's taken us all day to get there. And it's pitch dark when we get there. And we're pitching the tent in the dark.

STU: What year is this? This is like --

GLENN: I'm 17 years old.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: So we pitch the tent.

The next morning, I'm awakened by the gentle sound of an RV.

(chuckling)

GLENN: And I open up the tent and there is a freaking parking lot. And I look at my brother, and I said, "We hiked all day yesterday so we could get away -- and we're at a parking lot?" He's like, "I knew you wouldn't go any place without a bathroom. So we're just hiking up here. I couldn't imagine you being quiet without an indoor bathroom. This is the only place."

JEFFY: Even then.

GLENN: Even then.

JEFFY: So I want to -- you're upset that you weren't roughing it enough?

GLENN: No.

JEFFY: As --

PAT: You're upset that you didn't drive to the campsite.

JEFFY: You're so upset that you were going camping with your son, that you had a TV live shot scheduled.

GLENN: If you're going to be miserable, at least be out in the middle of nowhere.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Why be miserable, literally ten minutes from my house. All I could think of was, I could get in my house -- I could be sitting in my couch in total comfort within eight minutes.

JEFFY: Yeah, that's why I don't camp.

STU: If you -- this exact monologue occurs if the opposite happens, which if you're in the middle of nowhere, you complain about not being close enough to anything.

JEFFY: Yeah.

STU: Why can't we just go right next door --

PAT: There's no question about that.

STU: -- like the Texas Motor Speedway, across the street from Buc-ee's.

PAT: The issue is camping. Stop it. Let's stop camping. There's no reason for it. We have homes now. Camping was important when we didn't have homes.

(chuckling)

GLENN: Can you imagine --

PAT: Now we have nice places to rest.

GLENN: Imagine -- imagine somebody 100 years ago saying, "Man, some day, people are going to live like this for fun." And everybody would be like, "Crapping in the woods? Being cold, sleeping with a rock print in your face the next morning? I don't think so." No, they'll do it for fun, I'm telling you. No.

PAT: Yeah.

(chuckling)

GLENN: I mean, they didn't know that we were also going to have potstickers.

(chuckling)

GLENN: That may have been the thing that threw it over the edge.

Featured Image: (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

When 'Abolish America' stops being symbolic

Al Drago / Stringer | Getty Images

Prosecutors stopped a New Year’s Eve bombing plot rooted in ideology that treats the US as an enemy to be destroyed.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced that four members of an anti-capitalist extremist group were arrested on Friday for plotting coordinated bombings in California on New Year’s Eve.

According to the Department of Justice, the suspects planned to detonate explosives concealed in backpacks at various businesses while also targeting ICE agents and vehicles. The attacks were supposed to coincide with midnight celebrations.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed.

The plot was disrupted before any lives were lost. The group behind the plot calls itself the Turtle Island Liberation Front. That name matters more than you might think.

When ideology turns operational

For years, the media has told us that radical, violent rhetoric on the left is mostly symbolic. They explained away the angry slogans, destructive language, and calls for “liberation” as performance or hyperbole.

Bombs are not metaphors, however.

Once explosives enter the picture, framing the issue as harmless expression becomes much more difficult. What makes this case different is the ideological ecosystem behind it.

The Turtle Island Liberation Front was not a single-issue group. It was anti-American, anti-capitalist, and explicitly revolutionary. Its members viewed the United States as an illegitimate occupying force rather than a sovereign nation. America, in their view, is not a nation, not a country; it is a structure that must be dismantled at any cost.

What ‘Turtle Island’ really means

“Turtle Island” is not an innocent cultural reference. In modern activist usage, it is shorthand for the claim that the United States has no moral or legal right to exist. It reframes the country as stolen land, permanently occupied by an illegitimate society.

Once people accept that premise, the use of violence against their perceived enemies becomes not only permissible, but virtuous. That framing is not unique to one movement. It appears again and again across radical networks that otherwise disagree on nearly everything.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements do not share the same vision for the future. They do not even trust one another. But they share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed. The alignment of radical, hostile ideologies is anything but a coincidence.

The red-green alliance

For decades, analysts have warned about what is often called the red-green alliance: the convergence of far-left revolutionary politics with Islamist movements. The alliance is not based on shared values, but on shared enemies. Capitalism, national sovereignty, Western culture, and constitutional government all fall into that category.

History has shown us how this process works. Revolutionary coalitions form to tear down an existing order, promising liberation and justice. Once power is seized, the alliance fractures, and the most ruthless faction takes control.

Iran’s 1979 revolution followed this exact pattern. Leftist revolutionaries helped topple the shah. Within a few years, tens of thousands of them were imprisoned, executed, or “disappeared” by the Islamist regime they helped install. Those who do not understand history, the saying goes, are doomed to repeat it.

ALEX WROBLEWSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

This moment is different

What happened in California was not a foreign conflict bleeding into the United States or a solitary extremist acting on impulse. It was an organized domestic group, steeped in ideological narratives long validated by universities, activist networks, and the media.

The language that once circulated on campuses and social media is now appearing in criminal indictments. “Liberation” has become a justification for explosives. “Resistance” has become a plan with a date and a time. When groups openly call for the destruction of the United States and then prepare bombs to make it happen, the country has entered a new phase. Pretending things have not gotten worse, that we have not crossed a line as a country, is reckless denial.

Every movement like this depends on confusion. Its supporters insist that calls for America’s destruction are symbolic, even as they stockpile weapons. They denounce violence while preparing for it. They cloak criminal intent in the language of justice and morality. That ambiguity is not accidental. It is deliberate.

The California plot should end the debate over whether these red-green alliances exist. They do. The only question left is whether the country will recognize the pattern before more plots advance farther — and succeed.

This is not about one group, one ideology, or one arrest. It is about a growing coalition that has moved past rhetoric and into action. History leaves no doubt where that path leads. The only uncertainty is whether Americans will step in and stop it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump v. Slaughter: The Deep State on trial

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The administrative state has long operated as an unelected super-government. Trump v. Slaughter may be the moment voters reclaim authority over their own institutions.

Washington is watching and worrying about a U.S. Supreme Court case that could very well define the future of American self-government. And I don’t say that lightly. At the center of Trump v. Slaughter is a deceptively simple question: Can the president — the one official chosen by the entire nation — remove the administrators and “experts” who wield enormous, unaccountable power inside the executive branch?

This isn’t a technical fight. It’s not a paperwork dispute. It’s a turning point. Because if the answer is no, then the American people no longer control their own government. Elections become ceremonial. The bureaucracy becomes permanent. And the Constitution becomes a suggestion rather than the law of the land.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

That simply cannot be. Justice Neil Gorsuch summed it up perfectly during oral arguments on Monday: “There is no such thing in our constitutional order as a fourth branch of government that’s quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”

Yet for more than a century, the administrative state has grown like kudzu — quietly, relentlessly, and always in one direction. Today we have a fourth branch of government: unelected, unaccountable, insulated from consequence. Congress hands off lawmaking to agencies. Presidents arrive with agendas, but the bureaucrats remain, and they decide what actually gets done.

If the Supreme Court decides that presidents cannot fire the very people who execute federal power, they are not just rearranging an org chart. The justices are rewriting the structure of the republic. They are confirming what we’ve long feared: Here, the experts rule, not the voters.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

The founders warned us

The men who wrote the Constitution saw this temptation coming. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers hammered home the same principle again and again: Power must remain traceable to the people. They understood human nature far too well. They knew that once administrators are protected from accountability, they will accumulate power endlessly. It is what humans do.

That’s why the Constitution vests the executive power in a single president — someone the entire nation elects and can unelect. They did not want a managerial council. They did not want a permanent priesthood of experts. They wanted responsibility and authority to live in one place so the people could reward or replace it.

So this case will answer a simple question: Do the people still govern this country, or does a protected class of bureaucrats now run the show?

Not-so-expert advice

Look around. The experts insisted they could manage the economy — and produced historic debt and inflation.

The experts insisted they could run public health — and left millions of Americans sick, injured, and dead while avoiding accountability.

The experts insisted they could steer foreign policy — and delivered endless conflict with no measurable benefit to our citizens.

And through it all, they stayed. Untouched, unelected, and utterly unapologetic.

If a president cannot fire these people, then you — the voter — have no ability to change the direction of your own government. You can vote for reform, but you will get the same insiders making the same decisions in the same agencies.

That is not self-government. That is inertia disguised as expertise.

A republic no more?

A monarchy can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A dictatorship can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A constitutional republic cannot. Not for long anyway.

We are supposed to live in a system where the people set the course, Congress writes the laws, and the president carries them out. When agencies write their own rules, judges shield them from oversight, and presidents are forbidden from removing them, we no longer live in that system. We live in something else — something the founders warned us about.

And the people become spectators of their own government.

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The path forward

Restoring the separation of powers does not mean rejecting expertise. It means returning expertise to its proper role: advisory, not sovereign.

No expert should hold power that voters cannot revoke. No agency should drift beyond the reach of the executive. No bureaucracy should be allowed to grow branches the Constitution never gave it.

The Supreme Court now faces a choice that will shape American life for a generation. It can reinforce the Constitution, or it can allow the administrative state to wander even farther from democratic control.

This case isn’t about President Trump. It isn’t about Rebecca Slaughter, the former Federal Trade Commission official suing to get her job back. It’s about whether elections still mean anything — whether the American people still hold the reins of their own government.

That is what is at stake: not procedure, not technicalities, but the survival of a system built on the revolutionary idea that the citizens — not the experts — are the ones who rule.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Vaughn Ridley / Stringer | Getty Images

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.