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Student Activists Against Guns ‘Have a Right to Be Listened to’ – but Here’s the Catch

February 26, 2018
Staff

WRITER

What’s going on?

After the Florida school shooting, teenage survivors turned student activists began fighting for gun control on national media. David Hogg, 17, is one of the activists, and he recently slammed NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch for supposedly controlling Congress and not doing anything – as he defended local law enforcement officers who were warned about the shooter beforehand.

What did he say?

“I don’t want to say anything until after the investigation’s done because I don’t know what happened,” Hogg said of Sheriff Scott Israel. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office is under fire for not flagging a tip about the eventual gunman and missing some serious red flags about his determination to shoot up a school.

While Hogg didn’t presume to know about Israel’s actions, he was certain about Loesch and the power he thinks she has. “She owns these congressmen,” he said.

Glenn’s take:

Glenn, Pat and Stu had a lot of questions about this clip on today’s show – including wondering why Loesch didn’t wield this incredible power over the government on behalf of TheBlaze when she worked here.

“She should have passed things for us,” Stu joked.

Glenn pointed out that while the students should be respected and treated with sympathy, they also can’t expect people not to analyze their arguments.

“They have a right to be listened to,” Glenn said. “They don’t have a right to be listened to unchecked.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: I'd love to have this conversation with you, Pat. I think that we have -- I think we've come to the end of the period of enlightenment.

PAT: Hmm.

GLENN: Everything that this country was based on was the honest search for truth. Empirical truth. You know what I mean?

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: I'm not going to listen to a church tell me that they have all this power, that they can do these things because God gives them the power and so I must fall in line. I'm not going to listen to a king tell me he's got all this power because of God. I'm not going to listen to magicians. I want empirical fact.

Now, if you want to go on faith, that's fine. But keep your faith out of the control of the government. The government and -- and faith should not mix when it says -- when it comes down to control of people's lives.

PAT: Hmm.

GLENN: And we looked for the truth. And let the chips fall where they may. We don't look for that anymore. We're not looking. We're not interested.

PAT: No. We're looking for the win.

GLENN: Exactly right. I -- I am sick of winning.

If this is what winning feels like, I am sick of winning. And we've been playing it now for over 20 years. And I'm sick of it.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: And no one wants to have honest conversations. You know, this is a problem. I bring the -- let me give you these two audio clips. These are specifically selected for Pat Gray's enjoyment here.

GLENN: Okay.

STU: Because these two moments back-to-back in the same interview tells a heck of a story of where we've been over the last week.

Here's David Hogg, one of the students who has been on every show imaginable. Also was on the same show as you were on this week, on CNN with Brian Stelter, talking about Dana Loesch and the NRA.

DAVID: What Dana is trying to do, I believe she's the CEO of the NRA. She's trying to distract people. If you listen --

VOICE: She's the national spokesperson for the NRA.

DAVID: Exactly. She's a national spokeswoman. And as such, she's a national propagandist for the NRA.

If you listen to her speak, she's not really saying anything. She's sounding positive and confident. And that's what she wants the people in the NRA to believe. She wants people in Congress to pass laws that help out with mental health and things like that. And she says she can't do that.

Are you kidding me? You own these politicians.

You've passed legislation that enables these bump stocks. Which, by the way, aren't allowed at NRA shooting ranges because they're too dangerous. That's how bad they are. But continuing on with my point, she wants Congress to take action and says that they won't. Are you kidding me? She owns these congressmen. She can get them to do things --

PAT: She owns them?

DAVID: -- but she doesn't care about these children's lives.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Okay. So he didn't even know who she was at the beginning.

PAT: Right. But he does know that she owns Congress.

STU: And she doesn't care about children's lives, which is odd because she has children. But she doesn't care about children's lives.

PAT: That is interesting. That's interesting.

GLENN: And she owns people, even though she just started with the NRA. She was working with us. I didn't know she had all of those politicians in the pocket.

STU: Yeah. She should have passed stuff for us.

PAT: Wouldn't that have been nice? We could have been on more cable channels probably, damn it.

GLENN: Right.

STU: But again, here is a kid who is put out there as an expert by every media source. Here's a guy, he's got all the passion. He's the guy -- we have to take him seriously. We have to respect all of his views.

We can't say one word of criticism of what he says because that means you just don't care about children, you don't care about the victims of this.

Later on, he's asked not about the NRA, but about the mass disaster that has been Broward County sheriff -- Scot -- what's his name? Israel. I can only think of Sheriff Israel.

And so he's asked about that. Here's what he says.

VOICE: Are you concerned that you might actually lose support if you get too personal, too incendiary?

VOICE: Well, she's already done that by attacking Sheriff Scot Israel, who obviously there were some major mistakes made here and ones that we have to look into.

PAT: Yeah.

VOICE: And I don't want to say anything until after the investigation is done because I don't know what happened. I'm just a student that had to witness this horrifying incident. But honestly, how can you say that you support law enforcement, if you're just constantly attacking them over this?

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

VOICE: -- these are the people that are trying to protect our lives. Did they make a mistake? Absolutely. Is that something that we have to fix? Absolutely. But there is a much bigger problem in Washington.

STU: So he's -- so when it's about the NRA, he knows everything about them. He knows that Dana is the CEO and owns all of these politicians, despite her just starting this position pretty recently. But when it comes to the police, wait for the investigation, he's just a student.

PAT: He's just a student. I don't know. What do I know?

STU: He's just a student. You can't ask him those questions. He's just a kid.

PAT: That was kind of my point from the very beginning.

GLENN: Here's what I -- here's what I can't -- I can't get my arms around.

So what did I say to Brian? I said to Brian, you know, to have these emotional crowds was not a good thing. You want to have them on, great. Let them talk.

And his response was, so you think we should have -- you think Jake should have just said shut up?

No, that's not what I said.

PAT: No. That's not what you said at all.

GLENN: I didn't say that. That's really disrespectful.

PAT: You were talking about the kids, in fact. You were talking about the audience.

GLENN: Yeah, the crowd. The crowd.

STU: I don't know what Jake is supposed to do once the crowd is in the room.

GLENN: No, it's too late.

STU: The problematic decision is the crowd being there.

GLENN: That's CNN's decision up front.

STU: Right. Not the representation of these families. You could have been in there, in a room like Trump did. He did a listening session with people who were victims of the shooting.

PAT: And there wasn't screaming over the top of each other either.

STU: Right. Because it was calm -- it was calm discourse.

You put in 5,000 people, all of which are there to just yell at Dana, her position at the NRA, it's a recipe for disaster, and they should have recognized that.

GLENN: Okay. So he doesn't -- he won't listen to that. And wants -- you know, if you -- did you say we shouldn't have had the arena. Then that's akin to saying, we have to tell these kids to shut up.

We have to take these kids -- they have a right to be listened to.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: They don't have a right to be listened to unchecked. You had Brian Stelter.

STU: Stelter.

GLENN: I can never say his name. Because I always think of Brian Setzer.

STU: Oh, the orchestra?

GLENN: Yeah. So you have Brian sitting there. And who is sitting on the other side of this kid? Dan freaking Rather. And you hear this kid make this argument that Dana is, you know, the NRA. Which is a little ridiculous. More than a little ridiculous.

And then you have him stick up for this sheriff, who nobody in their right mind is sticking up for the sheriff. No one in their right mind is sticking up for the sheriff.

And there's no discussion at all on -- there's no pushback on him.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: On saying, how does this make sense? I thought you wanted this to stop.

And what makes you think that passing a ban on some guns is going to make any of this stop? There's no evidence of that.

And here's some things that we could take care of right now. Because there could be another shooting, in your county, if this is happening with the sheriff's department. There's no pushback at all.

PAT: Yeah, no.

STU: Well, and I think the reason why the advocacy groups and a lot of the media really like these kids that are -- you know, were victims of this, or at least at the school where this occurred, was because of that. You can't push back. You can't push back on the arguments. So the arguments get smooth sailing. They get this nice clear empty highway to just drive down and say every liberal blog statement that's ever been put out there, without anybody saying anything. Because obviously, you can't push back. The kid obviously doesn't know these points.

PAT: Right.

STU: He's just -- he's obviously reading blogs and --

PAT: He's being exploited. He's being exploited by the left.

STU: Obviously.

GLENN: He's being a 16-year-old that is being given a national platform. That's what's happening.

STU: It's definitely not a word of criticism to him personally.

GLENN: No. But you have to be able to push back on the points, or there's no point in having him on.

PAT: May I remind you though, only you can prevent forest fires.

STU: Wow. Thank you, Pat.

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.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.