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Thomas Massie on New Healthcare Bill: 'It's Going to Be Worse Than Obamacare'

March 22, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has been an outspoken critic of the House's leadership Obamacare replacement, joined Glenn on radio today to discuss what he called the "dumpster fire that we're calling Obamacare-lite." Massie's office has received 275 calls from constituents opposing the bill and only four supporting it. He also shared a very troubling change made to the bill just last night, especially in light of Trump's promised commitment to veterans.

"They made another small tweak . . . when people find out about it they are not going to be happy. If you're a veteran and you could go to the VA, but you don't go to the VA, the tweak they made last night says you can't get the health care subsidies that everybody else gets when they go into the individual market," Massie reported.

The news didn't sit well with Glenn and his co-hosts.

"Oh, my gosh," Glenn said.

"What in the . . . what are they thinking! What is this?" Co-host Pat Gray exclaimed.

The House votes Thursday on the new bill in what will be Trump's first major legislative test.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Thomas Massie, a critic of the House's leadership on Obamacare replacement bill is joining us now.

Thomas, how are you, sir?

THOMAS: I am doing great. It's a tale of two chambers today here on Capitol Hill.

GLENN: I bet it is.

THOMAS: You know, in one chamber, you've got Neil Gorsuch doing a great job on his confirmation hearings, and Trump looks like a hero because he listened to conservatives and took advice on the Supreme Court nominee. In the other chamber, you've got this Dumpster fire that we're calling Obamacare-lite, where Trump listened to the swamp creatures. And he's taken a hit in his popularity in trying to get people to vote for something that's not good.

GLENN: He's really come out strongly and said, "If you vote against it, you're going to -- you'll lose your reelection."

THOMAS: Yeah, well, he's got the zeal for the deal, and that's okay. But this is a bad deal.

PAT: Yeah.

THOMAS: And the phone calls to my office are 275 opposed to this bill and four supporting it.

JEFFY: There you go.

PAT: That's widespread.

THOMAS: Yeah, pretty wide.

PAT: Congressman, the other thing is the Republicans -- the G.O.P. yesterday just tweaked the provision to crack down on illegal immigrants getting this health care coverage. Right? They took that provision out of the bill.

So they've even done -- they've even done more than the Democrats kind of did with this particular thing because the Democrats kept telling us, no, illegal aliens will not be part of this. And now, as they tried to stop this from happening, it was taken out.

THOMAS: Well, they made another small tweak when people find out about it are not going to be happy. Which, if you're a veteran and you could go to the VA, but you don't go to the VA, the tweak they made last night says you can't get the health care subsidies that everybody else gets when they go into the individual market.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PAT: What in the -- what are they thinking! What -- what is this?

JEFFY: What.

PAT: Wow.

THOMAS: You know, some of the changes they've made, they say, are because of the so-called birdbath.

GLENN: What the hell is that?

PAT: What's the birdbath?

GLENN: I'd like to drown a lot of these birds.

(laughter)

THOMAS: I call it the hogwash. But it's the bird rule in the Senate that's supposed to make the bill, you know, ecumenical -- or amenable to the parliamentarian. But I think they're just using it as an excuse to keep the things they want for the insurance lobby and to take out the things the insurance lobby doesn't want.

STU: We're talking to Congressman Thomas Massie.

Congressman, let me be a cynic here for just a moment. I was looking at the count from -- I think CNN has a web count from this bill. And I think you can lose, what, 21, is it?

THOMAS: That's right.

STU: Twenty-one votes. And the way they had it broken down was they had lost 19, and there were seven who were leaning no. And, man, does it not look to me that this thing is going to line up, and just, they're going to somehow get this through by one vote. The Freedom Caucus, who we're huge fans of, they're not doing the whole, everyone votes the same way thing on this bill, if I'm understanding that correctly. It seems like they're doing everything they can to kind of have this little wiggle room. And at the last second, they'll give a few things away, and they'll clear this by one vote. So that a lot of people, like yourself, who -- and you've been on record for this from the beginning, you know, fighting it, but everyone is going to be able to say, well, I didn't vote for it, but it's still going to get passed.

GLENN: I've seen this on House of Cards.

STU: That's how this works.

THOMAS: Well, let me what they used to do under Boehner. A lot of times, when it was raising the debt limit or, you know, voting for an omnibus, they would -- when conservatives bucked up, they would go over and get Democrats to vote for it. And so they always had this safety margin. But they don't have that with this bill. And so they can -- it really is 21 votes they can afford to lose.

I've got a Whip vote on my i Phone. Hopefully nobody has hacked it yet. But -- as all the hackers now go after my phone. But 29 conservatives oppose this bill. Those are private conversations I've had with them. They're not leaning no, they're no. Twenty-nine conservatives. That's before you count the moderates who are against this bill. And they're not as audible or public in their opposition, but I think there are probably six of them that are hard-nosed and maybe a dozen more that are leaning no on the moderate side. So if this vote were right now absent the -- the kneecap breaking and the arm twisting, they would probably be short 20 votes. But as you say, the next 24 hours, we're going to see a lot of broken kneecaps.

(chuckling)

GLENN: So what happens after this? Let's take it both ways. This passes. What happens?

THOMAS: It's -- it's going to be worse than Obamacare. I tell people, if we're going to do socialized medicine, leave it up to the real architects like Jonathan Gruber. Because we're doing a horrible job of architecting socialized medicine. You cannot keep the requirement that healthy people and sick people pay the same price for insurance and then lose the individual mandate and expect that to work.

GLENN: It won't.

THOMAS: That market is going to go to hell in a handbasket very quickly. And healthy people are going to flee it. And that's my prediction. And we're going to own it. That means prices will spiral upward. And it will be ours to own. And I think the electoral danger here is to the Republicans in passing it, not opposing it. So that's -- I think it's going to be horrible, and that's my prediction.

GLENN: So let's say it doesn't pass and the thing just gets worse and worse and worse. I mean, either way, with -- presented with this, I just don't see the Republicans being able to win anything because if it doesn't past, most likely, it will just sit there and you guys won't do anything. And Obamacare is just -- it's bad. And people are feeling the pain. And they're not going to take it from somebody who had the House, the Senate, and the White House and couldn't fix this. They'll give it to the Democrats, and the Democrats will engineer a single-payer system. And, quite honestly, Donald Trump will sign it.

THOMAS: Well, I think we're being given a false choice here tomorrow, which, you know, they say you have a binary choice, either you pass this or pass nothing. That's a load of bunk. The negotiations actually start when one side says no. And conservatives tomorrow, hopefully there will be enough of us that say no that we can then have a negotiation. And Paul Ryan cannot go to the Democrats and try and architect another version of Obamacare. He has to do this with conservatives. And hopefully, Donald Trump will come and listen to individuals at Heritage and the other conservative organizations, like Freedom Works, that have credibility when we take another crack at this. I don't see Donald Trump as a person who is going to accept failure. If this bill fails tomorrow, we'll come up with a better one.

STU: Are you at all surprised to see him go to bat as hard as he is for this bill? I mean, it doesn't seem -- it's not like this is the bill he ran on. This is clearly a, you know, Paul Ryan type of thing that he just is kind of just getting behind, and I'm surprised to see him throwing his weight around, to try to push through this bill that really didn't -- isn't really similar to what he argued for in the campaign.

THOMAS: Yeah, well, he wasn't big on specifics in the campaign. And I think he believes that if we pass something, he can check this off, put it in the win column and go on to the next battle. You know, he's got a list of things he wants to accomplish.

The problem is I think he's just got the zeal for the deal here. And the deal is not a good deal. He needs to step back and look at it. I just think he's getting bad advice on this one. And I -- the fallout is going to be interesting because I also think he's being misled by Paul Ryan about how many votes there are to pass this thing.

And maybe he'll come to realize that taking advice from Paul Ryan wasn't the best way -- the best thing to kick off his presidency.

GLENN: I just can't believe -- and I don't know how his supporters are going to shake out, but I can't believe Paul Ryan who was, you know, cancer before the election -- he was cancer. Every conservative -- every Republican was like, I got to get rid of Paul Ryan, that he somehow or another is the savior that everybody is listening to or is shouting praises for with Donald Trump.

And I don't know how it's going to shake out because Donald Trump did say he was going to make sure everybody got covered. You want it to go the opposite way than what he does. This is this awful middle ground that we're negotiating. But I don't know how his voters are going to handle it. Because half of his people wanted, you know, Paul Ryan and everybody out. And half of his people wanted more health care from the government.

THOMAS: Yeah. Well, maybe the silver lining in this is that when Trump moves on to tax reform or immigration that he's promised or taking care of the veterans, he will listen to somebody other than Paul Ryan after Paul Ryan drags him through this debacle. And hopefully the American people don't get drug through it. Hopefully this bill fails, and they don't have to be subjected to this experiment in Donald Trump listening to the swamp and coming up with policy.

Hopefully he'll listen to those voices from the outside like he did so well with Neil Gorsuch.

GLENN: I will tell you that the stock market priced in -- you're seeing the stock market cave. The stock market priced in a repeal of Obamacare. They priced in tax cuts. They're now saying that the tax cuts are going to be a lot lower than they thought. And the stock market is on thin ice now because they had priced in all these things, and it doesn't look like some of these things are going to happen. Does the financial situation worry you at all?

THOMAS: Let me tell you something that's false that's being repeated on Capitol Hill. They're saying that this stuff has to happen like clockwork. And if we don't do health care reform, we can't do tax reform. That's absolutely false. If you go back and look at how the Democrats implemented Obamacare, they did a reconciliation bill, literally a week after they did Obamacare so that they could fix it. And they included student loans in that.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

THOMAS: You can put whatever you want in reconciliation. You can double up and put more than one thing in it. It doesn't have to be health care in this reconciliation bill. Tax reform can still happen. It is not linked to this debacle of a health care bill that we're calling Obamacare-lite.

GLENN: Representative Thomas Massie, thanks so much. And thanks for your leadership on this. We're counting on you guys to do the right thing and actually return us to a free market which would be very, very nice.

THOMAS: Well, thank you, Glenn. It's called the walk of shame here in Congress. When somebody votes one way, and then before the vote closes, they twist their arm and get them to walk down to the counter and turn in a different voting card. Hopefully, we won't see too many conservatives take that walk of shame tomorrow.

GLENN: Are you feeling the pressure? I mean, how much pressure is on these guys?

THOMAS: Well, Trump was in Kentucky a day before yesterday, in my state. And the week before that, Pence was there. And Donald Trump was giving rides to Kentucky congressmen on Air Force One. But I noted, I haven't even gotten a ride on Amtrak One yet.

(chuckling)

GLENN: Wow. Wow.

THOMAS: So I think the pressure is on the other members who they think are more likely to switch.

GLENN: Are you concerned that the -- you know, Trump does not forget who was against him. Are you concerned at all that they will campaign against you?

THOMAS: That's not really a concern for me. I've had so many people here in DC -- it would be ironic if he joins the swamp creatures and goes after conservatives back in their districts, but I don't think that's going to happen. I think when this is all said and done, he may be more upset with Reince Priebus and Paul Ryan than he is with the people that supported him in his election, frankly.

GLENN: Thomas Massie, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

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.