Extraordinary Vision for Finding Inner Peace and Joy

December 16, 2016

WRITER

We live in a society that removes pain with safe zones and bailouts. But what if the real secret to joy is suffering?

Douglas Abrams, co-author of The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, joined The Glenn Beck Program to talk about how embracing adversity creates opportunity, growth and joy. This important lesson was reinforced by his two co-authors: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

"These two men, in addition to being global icons and moral leaders for the world, are actually really dear friends and love each other and tease each other. And it's kind of extraordinary to see these two men who are so revered, kind of laughing with each other and teasing each other," Abrams said.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships --- or, as they would say, because of them --- they are two of the most joyful people on the planet.

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World offers a rare opportunity to experience an astonishing and unprecendented look at how to find joy in life's inevitable suffering.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: I want to introduce you to somebody, Douglas Abrams. He is an author and editor. He works with people who are -- are trying to create a wiser and better world. And he has -- was allowed to spend time with two men who were both in their 80s and have a very interesting perspective. If I said to you losing what was most valuable to me, losing my country was the best thing that ever happened to me, you would say, "Excuse me? How could you find joy in that?" You know the best thing that could ever happen to you: Going to prison.

I'm sorry. What?

Two people with extraordinary vision when it comes to finding inner peace and joy. I had the opportunity to meet one of them. And it was -- it was a -- a surreal experience. One of the men that he was allowed to spend time with was the Dalai Lama. And the other is archbishop Desmond Tutu. And the book is The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World.

Doug Abrams. Welcome to the program, Doug, how are you?

DOUG: Great to be here, Glenn. Thanks so much.

GLENN: So, Doug, let's start with losing my country as perhaps the thing that set me free.

DOUG: Yeah. It was a pretty extraordinary moment. We had a week together in Dharamsala, India, with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu.

GLENN: Who, by the way, if anybody doesn't know, that's like way -- it's like, what is it? A 15-hour drive to the closest airport. It's like way out of the way, is it not?

DOUG: It's in the foothills of the Himalayas, in northern India. Many of your listeners know the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet because the Chinese invaded. And this is his home in exile where we had the privilege of spending this week.

And these two men, in addition to being global icons and moral leaders for the world, are actually really dear friends and love each other and tease each other. And it's kind of extraordinary to see these two men who are so revered, kind of laughing with each other and teasing each other.

And so at one point, you know, Archbishop Tutu -- you know, we were talking about what allows us to have joy in our lives, even in the face of adversity, in the face of a world filled with suffering.

And Archbishop Tutu turned to the Dalai Lama, and he said, "Why are you not morose?" You know, you've been run out of your country. And the Dalai Lama didn't know what the word "morose" was, so he turns to his translator.

And Archbishop Tutu says sad. Why are you not sad? You have -- everything that you love has been taken away from you.

And the Dalai Lama turned to him, and he said, "You know, I tried to step back and take a wider perspective and see that, yes, all of this suffering has happened, but if I had stayed in Tibet, I would have never been able to have the life that I had. I would have never had been able to meet all the people that I've met. I never would have met you."

And he was able to shift his perspective and see -- and even in the face of great suffering that he and his people have experienced, he has had a much richer life than he would have had in what he called his gilded cage, being the holy Dalai Lama, as he said, in Tibet.

And then they started cackling and giggling about how, you know, he probably wouldn't have won the Nobel Peace Prize. And here are these two guys, who have won the Nobel Peace Prize, are joking about these supposedly amazing awards that they've gotten, as if they were, you know, kind of peripheral and funny.

But this was -- the whole week together was filled with these kind of counterintuitive insights about how deeply connected joy and sorrow are and how, in fact, it's through the adversity that we discover our joy and our fulfillment.

GLENN: So, Doug, I -- this is something that my father taught me.

I was whining about my life. I'm a recovering alcoholic. And this is 20-some years ago. And I was whining about my life.

DOUG: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And my dad, who is a baker, who was listening to me whine to him on the phone. And he said, "You know, son, I've got to pull some bread out of the oven. Call me tonight. Make a list of all these things. Because, boy, you have suffered so much. Why don't you call me back tonight."

I called him back within ten minutes. Because the first thing that was on my list was my mother's death. And then I don't remember what was on my list. I got to three or four, and I was like, "Now, wait a minute. Hang on just a second. Well, if that wouldn't have happened, then this wouldn't have happened."

And then I went back up to the list. And I got all the way to my mother when I was a teenager dying. And I thought, "Well, that wasn't -- I mean, yes, that was tragic. But that -- that caused all these other things that have put me in a position of X, Y, Z.

I called my father back, and he picked up the phone. And I said, "You don't have any bread in the oven, do you?" And he just laughed and said, "Wow, you're faster than I thought."

But we are now living in a society that is trying to take away -- is trying to say, "Life is painless. If you fail in business, don't worry, we'll bail you out. Let's have safe zones. Et cetera, et cetera. We do have to try to be better to each other. We do have to try to help one another. But there is something huge.

Don't take away my right to -- to fail or to learn from suffering.

DOUG: Well, this is a really good point. Because you even see it with playgrounds, we're taking away swings because kids could get hurt. And I think -- you know, one of the things that they remind us, is that it is actually the -- the adversity that we face, the suffering we go through. And, you know, I'm speaking as a parent of three kids.

GLENN: Yeah.

DOUG: We want to save our children from suffering.

GLENN: Yes, we do.

DOUG: We want to keep them safe. We want to protect them, but it's actually that suffering, that hardship that they go through that helps burnish their character and make them the people that they are.

You know, when we kind of wrap them in bubble wrap and protect them from life, thinking that we're doing the best thing, we're actually robbing them of their capacity, not only to grow and to learn, but I think what they would say is to appreciate life in such a way that allows it to be richer and more joyful.

GLENN: There is story after story, and it depends on how you tell the story.

For instance, Schindler's List. Powerful. Never cried more than in Schindler's List, until I saw Life Is Beautiful.

Same story. One concentrates on the horror, and the other concentrates on how these people lived in such a beautiful world inside of that horror because of the way they chose to live. Almost impossible to see yourself getting there. What is the secret of getting there?

DOUG: Well, you mentioned Schindler's List. And I also have the privilege of working with this extraordinary woman named Edith Eva Eger, who is 90 years old and is an Auschwitz survivor. And she's an incredible psychologist. And she was working with the military. She worked a lot with the military on PTSD. And she went in to work with these two soldiers back-to-back. And both of them had lost their legs in combat. And the first one was kind of -- was, you know, nodded up in the bed. You know, cursing God and country. And, you know, just -- you know, just furious about what had happened. And understandably so.

The next guy that she goes in to see is in his wheelchair. He says to her, you know, "I feel like I've been given a new lease on life. I'm able to look my children in the eye. I'm still here with them. I never noticed how beautiful the flowers in the garden are."

I mean, you know, it's this focus on perspective. Now, look, you know, this is not to tell people that, you know, suffering is easy or to be Pollyannish or to just say, "You know, we just have to look at the glass as half full."

GLENN: Or to even say, flog yourself because you'll be better. No, not good.

PAT: No, no, no. I don't think we're saying that at all.

GLENN: Right.

PAT: But we're saying that their -- so The Book of Joy, one of the things they talk about are these eight pillars of joy in The Book of Joy. That they fell -- you know, they say, "You know, you can't ran after happiness." Archbishop Tutu says, "That's the fastest way to miss the bus, if you're just kind of running after it and trying to pursue it. But if you cultivate these eight pillars of joy, one of which is perspective, you're much more likely to experience joy in your life."

GLENN: What are the eight pillars?

So there are four pillars of the mind and four pillars of the heart. The four pillars of the heart are perspective, humility, humor, which is crucial for them and for life -- being able to laugh at ourselves and life -- and acceptance. Those are the four pillars of the mind. The four pillars of the heart are forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, and generosity.

And, you know, in The Book of Joy, they -- it's kind of three different parts.

The first part of our dialogue was to understand the nature of joy because, you know, there really are only four fundamental human emotions. There's fear, anger, sadness, and joy, according to the scientists, which they wanted us to bring in.

So really, when we're talking about joy, we're talking about everything that we hang a satisfying and meaningful life on. And, in fact, how we deal with the other three profound human emotions of fear, anger, and sadness. And then we actually -- in part two, we look at the obstacles of joy together and looked at things like fear, sadness, anger, illness, fear of death. All the things that kind of rob us of our joy. And then we explore the eight pillars together.

It was incredible. You know, the dialogue was amazing. But what we try to do is actually bring readers on that journey. Because it was an incredible week together --

GLENN: I bet it was.

DOUG: Not just filled with so much laughter and tears and incredible stories that they were sharing, but we also got to -- the Dalai Lama taught us to meditate. Archbishop Tutu gave the Dalai Lama communion. The Dalai Lama danced for the first time in his life because, you know, Archbishop Tutu in his irrepressible African boogie got him up to dance. It was just -- it was pretty magical.

GLENN: I will tell you I spent -- I was lucky enough to spend about eight hours with Billy Graham about five years ago. And everything that you're talking about, I saw from him. And it's -- there's something to a man who has tried to pursue a spiritual, decent, God-fearing life his whole life. And then is in his 80s. They -- they just have a different look to them. You just look them in the eye, and they -- they are full of joy. They don't have fear because they -- they just know. They just know what they know they know. And the acceptance and love of people who are vastly different than them is -- is humbling. Very humbling.

DOUG: It's really -- it's so true. When I was at HarperCollins, we worked with Billy Graham. And I just -- I do think you see it in all of these great spiritual teachers. But I think one of the things that is so extraordinary is that they shared their humanity with us, in a way that was not saying, "Okay. We're these vaunted, you know, special spiritual guys." They were -- we are these human beings, who are on the path with you.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

DOUG: And as Archbishop Tutu said, "We are all masterpieces in the making. You know, we are all on this path. And sometimes we fall, and sometimes we, you know, have bad days. And sometimes we lose our tempers at our wife, as I did last night." You know, we all go there. But we're all on this -- you know, we're all on this path of trying to be the best people that we can be and to grow and learn in our lives.

And the -- what we wanted to try to do, as we said, you know, for these two men who are in their '80s, to try to bottle what is it about these two people who are two of the most joyous people on the planet, who have experienced such incredible adversity and suffering in their lives and still are able to hold on to that quality of joy.

GLENN: Doug Abrams, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And we'll talk to you again. And in this season of joy, I wish you lots of joy.

DOUG: You too, Glenn. Thank you so much.

GLENN: Thank you. You bet. The name of the book is The Book of Joy. Lasting happiness in a changing world. Everything that he just said about the eight pillars is -- is exactly what I saw in Billy Graham. Exactly what I saw in Billy Graham. And it was humility and his humanness as well. His -- his taking me by. The hand and saying -- with tears in his eyes, "I failed so many times in my life. I failed, but I tried my hardest."

Was -- oh, my gosh. You are -- you're just like me. And that is -- there's something special about seeing that from somebody the size of these giants. Know somebody who is looking for joy? The Book of Joy. The Book of Joy.

Featured Image: Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama speaks with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu (L) visit the Concert Noble Building on June 1, 2006 in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Mark Renders/Getty Images)

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

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

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

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

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

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Global reality.

And moral reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our faith is almost gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why can't we open the government?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not in nostalgia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A conservative in 2025, '26.

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

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

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

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

And one can't be stronger than the other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

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

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

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

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

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

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

Ancient evil, new clothes

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

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

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

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The new currency of power

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

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

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

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

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

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

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

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

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

The forgotten way

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

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

Both are traps.

The only way

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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

The new currency of power

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

The forgotten way

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