Texas AG: Price Gouging Is 'Like Porn, You Know It When You See It'

August 31, 2017

WRITER

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined Thursday’s “The Glenn Beck Radio Program” to talk about Texans’ “remarkable” response to Tropical Storm Harvey as well as the politics of price gouging.

“Overall, it’s been a remarkable effort,” Paxton said. “Any loss of life is horrible, but it’s been amazingly low given the magnitude and the length of this storm.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state and federal officials have worked together to mitigate damage from the storm and make sure stranded people are rescued. They have been joined by volunteers from around the country.

“This is the toughest time in my lifetime,” Glenn Beck said. “I’ve never seen our country more divided. And look at what the people of Texas [are doing] coming from all over the region just to go in and help.”

There will be some fluctuation for the price of water, gasoline and other necessities simply because the storm has shut down the country’s biggest oil refinery, reducing how much gas is available to use and to transport goods.

“Gas will go up to some degree,” Paxton said. “Supply and demand is going to be affected here.”

While some expense is normal, an unreasonable increase to products that the government defines as price gouging is against the law.

“Do you remember when the Supreme Court had to deal with pornography, and they basically said, 'We know it when we see it?' When I see gas prices at $20 a gallon, I know it’s price gouging. When I saw water at $100 a case, I know it’s price gouging,” Paxton said. “When I see gas at $2.57, it’s probably not price gouging.”

Based on historic price and context from the current market, officials use discretion to keep people from being ripped off, he asserted.

“We’re not talking about price gouging as it relates to anything other than things that really are critical to people surviving,” Paxton said.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Lots to talk about today. First, I don't know what it's like in your part of the country, but here in Texas, I think there's going to be a lot of people that are late for work. Because anybody who got up this morning and was driving in and saw the little red light go on and went, "Uh-oh, I got to go get gas," you are now sitting in a line. And that line is getting longer. We could be out of gas in Texas by the -- by the weekend.

Ninety percent of all of the gasoline that fuels the cars at least in Texas -- and I bet it's the greater southwest region, comes out of Houston. Forty-two percent of all of the jet fuel comes out of Houston. Those refineries are now gone, or at least shut down.

We don't know when they will start refining again and when trucks will be replenishing again. This is going to affect all of us. We just have to keep our heads about us. And we also have to discuss, how are we going to get some of the -- how is this going to affect the people who are just getting on the road with their trucks and their cars, and they're going to help?

You can't really drive down to Houston, four hours away, if you can't get gas somewhere along the way to get you back.

We've had another wrinkle added now to the hurricane in Houston. We begin there and also talk a little about price gouging with the attorney general in Texas. Ken Paxton joins us. We begin, right now.

(music)

GLENN: This is a really weird situation because the -- the -- if I warn you about gas, it's going to make people go and sit in lines and everybody starts to hoard gas. And I got to get my lawn mower filled. It's probably not the right move.

But I warn you now because I want you to think about this weekend. This is Labor Day Weekend. Especially if you're in the -- in the Dallas area or the Texas area, we get our gas from those refineries.

JEFFY: Yeah, but nobody has to worry until after this program is over.

GLENN: Right.

JEFFY: Then it's fine. Once I go fill up my car, after the show, then -- then they can worry.

GLENN: Right. Well, we got the tweet from a guy in New York just a little while ago that said -- what was it? It went up 17 cents in an hour, or half an hour?

STU: Yeah, another person writes: Gas here in Cincinnati went up 2.23 to 2.59 in the day.

GLENN: I mean, you know, it's going to impact all of us, this hurricane. It's going to impact us hard. But those oil refineries -- it's my understanding, these oil refineries were locked down tight. We didn't have a problem with winds, just flooding. And it's my understanding that, you know, this can and will come back online as soon as the waters recede. And they're going to start those plants back up. Is that your understanding, Stu? Not really?

STU: Yeah. I'm not...

GLENN: Can we get? Keith! Let's see if we can get somebody on from the oil industry. I know they're probably not busy at all, but to give us some information about these oil refineries. And perhaps Ken Paxton knows a little about this, even though this is not his area of expertise. He is our attorney general.

Ken, how are you, sir?

KEN: I'm doing well. How are you this morning?

GLENN: I'm good. Thank you for all of the hard work, and please pass on to the governor how proud we are of him and what a good job he is doing.

KEN: You know, I would have to totally agree. The magnitude of the storm and what they've had to deal with over a long period of time, and obviously still continues. I'm amazed, the job that both the federal and state government have done working together.

GLENN: You know, I know that there was a disagreement -- and I -- I would have been on the wrong side of this disagreement, I think. And I don't know who had what side, and it doesn't matter.

But there was a disagreement on when to evacuate people. And I think the city of Houston said, "No, no, we're not going to evacuate." Which in New Orleans, worked out horribly.

The way this is stacking up, it might have been a blessing that we didn't have a whole bunch of people, a million people on the road, stuck in traffic on Houston when this thing rolled in.

KEN: Yeah, it's so hard to know. Because you've got 7 million people or more down in the Houston area. And to try to evacuate that -- we're not talking about evacuating some small town. We're talking about a massive effort. I don't even know how you get that many people out.

So I don't know, maybe some could have evacuated. We could look at that later.

I do think overall, it's been a remarkable effort. And if you look at loss of life, obviously any loss of life is horrible, but it's been amazingly low, given the magnitude and the length of this storm and what we're still dealing with.

GLENN: I have to tell you, I can't get my arms around how low those numbers are.

Are we concerned that when the waters recede, we're going to just start going through homes, and we're just going to find a lot of people, or are we pretty sure that this is relatively stable? I mean, we know we're going to find a lot more people, but that we haven't lost an eye-bleed amount of people, is astonishing.

KEN: Yeah. You just think about the magnitude of the storm coming to shore, we could have lost hundreds, if not thousands of people. And who knows what the future holds and what we're going to find. I can just say, I think they've done an amazing job rescuing people. They've gotten resources in place.

The federal government was there early and quick and offered up everything we needed. And Abbott and his team have done an amazing job, just keeping this thing going and making sure that we get this thing done right.

GLENN: I will tell you that this is where -- you know, having the governor and the -- and the president and everybody on board come in handy as now cleanup and real big, huge infrastructure pieces need to be moved.

But I have been -- it is -- it is proof to me why I moved here five or six years ago, when I said on the air, "There are going to be tough times, and you just have to know that the people around you have the same kind of attitude, that when push comes to shove, we're all neighbors."

I mean, we've never been -- I don't remember the 1960s. I was like four.

KEN: Me too.

GLENN: But I know those were tough times in our -- in my lifetime. This is the toughest time in my lifetime. I've never seen our country more divided. And look at the people of Texas, coming from all over the region, just to go in and help. Without the government, without anybody organizing, just, "I got a boat. I'm going in."

KEN: Well, not only that, hundreds of people have done that, and it wasn't like it was not risky for them. They were risking their lives.

GLENN: I know.

KEN: You know, there's just so much at stake for them personally. They didn't have to do it. You would think people would want to go out and save their own families, and yet they came back to help. So it does say a lot about the type of people that live in Texas, and it's really encouraging, given what you just talked about, the divisive nature of what's going on in our country and how difficult it is. And yet, you see in Texas, we -- we've had a devastating hurricane, devastating storms. And yet, you know we'll come back.

GLENN: Ken, I know this is not in your purview, and I'm sorry to hit you with this and even the questions I'm asking you. Because this is not what you do for a living.

But have you heard any talk at all about the gasoline situation? We're seeing -- I mean, stopping at four different gas stations here in the Dallas area on the way into work, four of them had signs on the pumps, out of gas. Ninety percent of all of the fuel coming into Texas is coming in from those refineries that have all been shut down. Are we concerned at all about running out of gas temporarily? Do you have any clue as to what's happening with the gas situation?

KEN: Well, I do think that we're going to start getting supplies from other places. But I think gas is going to go up to some degree. Obviously, supply and demand is going to be affected here. But I do think we're going to have other places that it's going to come from. The supply chain is going to change a bit until those refineries in Texas open back up.

GLENN: And the 42 percent of the fuel for jet fuel comes out of Houston. How long before these refineries can open up. Do you know that?

KEN: That I don't know. I think it's been so dependent on when the rain stops and the water receded. So I believe it will be -- I'm hopeful in the next week they'll open back up. It's an issue. But I do think, as I said, I think the supply chain is changing to address that. It's just prices are going to go up some.

GLENN: So that brings me to what we actually wanted to talk about, and that is price gouging. We just had a listener tweet in from New York and said, "I went. I brought my car in. It was, what? 2.41 or 2.43. I fill up. I go and I get my mom's car. I come back, and it's 2.57, 30 minutes later." And that was in New York.

KEN: That was in New York? Wow.

GLENN: Yes.

KEN: It's going to -- look, it's the natural supply and demand. Prices are going to go up, until the refineries are back open. That's just the reality. We're going to see higher gas prices, for at least, you know, the next few weeks.

GLENN: So I, in my head, can make the leap to things like water. I don't want -- I mean, water -- you have to have water to live. But that stops -- by not -- by saying you can't raise the price, that stops the trucker or the somebody else that might live, you know, in another state, who says, you know what, I'm going to go buy a bunch of water, because I'll be able to make it up. And I'm going to deliver a whole truckload of it, and I'm going to sell it.

So it actually, by -- by disrupting the capitalist system or the free market system, it actually can end up hurting the -- the efforts. How do you balance that?

How do you define price gouging and -- and -- and know where the line is?

KEN: Do you remember when the Supreme Court had to deal with pornography, and they basically said, "We know it when we see it?"

So when I see gas prices at $20 a gallon, I know it's price gouging. When I see water at $100 a gas, I know it's price gouging. When I see gas at 2.57, it's probably not price gouging.

So, you know, we take a look at it and we try to figure out based on the historic price, based on what's going on in the market, are these people taking advantage of people in crisis? And, you know, there is some -- there is definitely some discretion here. And we're not trying to stop the market from working. We're just trying to stop people from ripping people off.

STU: Ken, are you at all uncomfortable with -- and I know you're trying to do good work here and help people in need. But are you at all uncomfortable with the government making a standard of, we know it when we see it?

KEN: Well, so, you know, my job isn't to make laws. I have to deal with the laws I'm given. Whether I would have passed a law exactly like this --

GLENN: Yes.

KEN: As I know from being in the legislature, I never got to pass any law that I exactly liked. I get to -- I get to negotiate laws that were partly what I liked and partly what I didn't.

So, yeah. I'm a free market guy. But I don't think -- in this case, we're not talking about efficient markets. We are talking about really inefficient markets. And I don't think we necessarily have a free market right now in Houston. We have limited supplies. And we've got -- we're talking about critical supplies.

So we're not talking about price gouging as it relates to anything other than things that really are critical to people surviving.

GLENN: You know, Ken, there's an article. And I'm not going to mention where. You know, some person on the left said, "What we're seeing in Houston is not miraculous. People just -- people just rise to the occasion." And I think that's absolutely untrue. We have seen other places and other disasters where people don't necessarily rise to the occasion. And the bad guys take advantage of the occasion. And, you know, are doing some really horrible things.

Are we missing the stories of the violence and the looting and everything else that is happening in Houston? Because I know some of it is happening.

But are -- are we just not seeing a large level of that taking root in Houston?

KEN: You know, I don't think there's a large level. Look, I may -- we could be wrong. We may find more than there is. But part of it is, it's hard for looters to get in and out. They're limited by the same things we're limited by. And so it's made it difficult for them to loot. Now, as the water recedes, we may have more of a problem. But I know that local law enforcement is focused on that. Although, they're particularly focused on rescuing lives first.

But as the waters recede, we'll see what happens. Hopefully, you know, there won't be a lot of that going on.

GLENN: You know, there was a story that came out that President Bush just allowed all of the sales of the transfer of, you know, some serious armaments or, you know -- you know, armed personnel, et cetera, to our local police. And that bothers me. It bothered me under George Bush. And it bothered me under Barack Obama. It bothers me under this president.

I don't understand why that's happening. I want our police to be effective and to be safe. But why isn't that equipment just being transferred to our National Guard. Because they're the ones that really need. We don't really need it to serve a warrant of arrest to somebody.

Why -- why is that happening? And what are we doing with that and our police? Do you know?

KEN: I don't know. I'm not involved in that transfer.

GLENN: Okay.

KEN: I don't know that I disagree with you, that local police shouldn't be armed like they're the US military. That would be better served put into the hands of the National Guard. So I tend to agree with your assessment of that. I have the same concerns you do.

GLENN: One last question: Besides prayer, what can we do to help the governor and everybody else in service the next week or so?

KEN: Well, that's a great question. I think you can pray. That's obviously very important. Still people that are in harm's way. Still people that are rescuing. And that will continue. But there's also great organizations on the ground. Like Samaritan's Purse. There's a group called Minute Man out of Texas, actually out of McKinney, Texas, that I'm very aware that are on the ground. We have groups like the Red Cross.

There are some really good groups that are -- that are down there doing -- also, Texas Baptist Men. So those are at least three or four of the groups that I know of, that are down there now that know what they're doing, that are, you know, legitimate organizations. And that are trying to make a difference.

So you can give money to them. I think they will make a difference down there.

GLENN: Ken, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

KEN: Thank you. Absolutely.

GLENN: By the way, yesterday, I got word that Mercury One -- this is about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, hit a million dollars from this audience. And we can't thank you enough. And you can donate.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

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Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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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

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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

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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.