Parents or babysitters: I know which one I am

October 14, 2019

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The joy one feels when your child is born is unparalleled in human experience. Holding that small being in your arms. A new person, a part of you brought into the world. A tiny, fragile little human, one who is wholly dependent on you for its life. Nothing in our experience as people really compares to that moment and that experience. Forget money, forget career, forget a sub-two-hour marathon or Everest or becoming a "Million Miler" on your favorite airline.

When you hold your baby in your arms, you're terrified. You're proud and humbled at the same time. You did that! But also, holy crap, what did you do? In that moment, you realize there is nothing you would not do for that child. Nothing you would not give them, nothing you wouldn't sacrifice to protect him or her. For those of you who've not been through it, I can tell you it is life changing. It's life changing every time you go through it, too. First child or fourteenth.

It's an unspoken bond that we share as parents. If you aren't one yet, just believe me. Parents know.

But today, I think we have to be honest and ask ourselves: Are we still parents? Is that still a thing? Are we still parents, or are we babysitters?

As a parent, you get to direct the affairs and decisions for your kids. While still respecting their basic rights as human beings, you help determine the course of their life. What they wear or don't. What they eat. When they sleep. What books they read. What games they play. When they get a bike, when they get their first BB-gun. It's an awesome, terrifying responsibility, every minute of it. What if you screw something up? What if you let them eat too much candy? What if they sit too close to the TV? What if letting them play with your Apple watch results in accidentally sending dozens of pictures of your nose-hairs to your PTA president? (Try explaining that one at your next parent/teacher conference.)

As far as your kid is concerned, you're a bit of a benevolent dictator, at least until they get into their teens and figure out you're mostly full of crap and start to rebel.

As far as your kid is concerned, you're a bit of a benevolent dictator, at least until they get into their teens and figure out you're mostly full of crap and start to rebel. Those are fun days....

So as a parent, you and your spouse run the show. But when you hire a babysitter, they have only a select set of discretionary powers that you delegate to them. They run the set of plays you select for them. Feed them this, put them to bed at 9, and video games only after homework is done. Babysitters, the good ones at least, simply do the list of things you gave them to do, but don't have real authority to engage in life-altering actions for your kids. They are there to tend for a short period, but not to decide who your kids will be, how they will be raised.

Given that paradigm, and where were are today, I think we have to ask ourselves: Are we parents anymore? Can we still call ourselves that? Or are we just babysitters?

Do we get to decide the how and when of our child's development? Should they take Flintstones vitamins or not? Get all their vaccinations or not? Are they ready to learn about the birds and the bees or not? Are they mature enough to have a sleep over, to carry a cell phone, to ride bikes across Main Street to buy a soda at the Dairy Queen?

If those choices aren't yours anymore, if someone else is deciding, are you a parent....or are you a babysitter?

Today, across many modern countries with progressive Democratic policies, we don't necessarily get to decide the course of our child's life and development.

Consider Charlie Guard, the child whom British socialized medicine decided was too expensive to try to treat for a severe disorder, and was left on feeding tubes to die, despite the parents pleas to remove them from the hospital and taken to another country for attempts at treatment. Despite court battles and global press coverage, the Death Panel decided it would set a bad precedent and the parents didn't get to have the choice to attempt other ways to treat their child, even outside the country at zero cost to the Government.

What about in Canada, where it's considered legal child abuse to not address your child with their own preferred gender pronoun, at any age. Child abuse that could result in your child being removed from your home and placed in Government-ordered foster care, with you in jail the same as if you'd beaten your child with a tire iron. The same goes for teaching your children that homosexuality might be a sin in the eyes of God, also a Federal offense that is punishable by potential jail time, even if your religion beliefs indicate it is a sin.

Or in the EU, where parents can be fined if it's determined they are not giving Islam fair and equal coverage to Christianity or Judaism in their own Homeschooling program. No matter your religious traditions or scriptures, if you teach your kids that Moses was a prophet but Mohammed was not, the PC police can show up, take your kids away, because you're engaging in the hate speech of teaching Christian theology as being superior to Muslim theology. In your own home.

Or consider this.

When are you kids ready to learn about sex? Where babies come from...believe me, they start asking about it way before they're really ready to know much detail...whoever invented the Stork story was a genius, believe me.

But seriously, as parents, we have to decide that. When and how to have that discussion.

Or maybe not. Maybe not anymore. Maybe that ship has sailed. After all, maybe we're not parents anymore at all. Maybe we're just babysitters.

In 2015, advanced Sex Education became required curriculum in Canadian public schools, including primary and secondary schools, for Kindergarten through 12th grade students.

Announcing the controversial program, Education Minister Sebastian Proulx (pronounced "Proo") indicated the program would include what he termed "age-appropriate" instruction on LGBTQ and Gender-expression issues, sexual orientation, sexual assault as well as traditional sex education topics such as preventing STDs.

Although Mr Proulx acknowledged some parents and teachers may be opposed to the new compulsory content, he said the instruction was necessary. "I know it is not an easy subject. I know the questions are sensitive. But we have to respond as a society to a societal issue."

The new program was developed in a collaboration with sexologists as well as public and private organizations, including Planned Parenthood of Canada, according to CNS News Service.

When asked if parents who objected to the content would be allowed to opt-out of the new sex education program, Mr Proulx indicated such waivers would be allowed only in exceptional cases, such as if a student had been the prior victim of sexual abuse. No exemptions would be allowed for moral or religious beliefs.

During the 4 years this program was in place, the following examples of lessons, required by law in public schools, were shared by Canadian students or parents on Social Media:

In Quebec, children as young as 10 years old were taught that a person's gender does not necessarily correspond to their sex at birth.
In Montreal, kindergartners aged 6 were split into small groups and given dolls to enable them to play "house", including same-sex parent couples and gender-neutral couples where parents didn't identify as Mom or Dad, but rather "Parent 1 and Parent 2".
12 & 13 year old students were given a writing exercise based on the following question "How would thinking about your personal limits and making a personal plan influence decisions you may choose to make about your sexual activity?" (from page 216 of Canada's Sex Education curriculum guide for teachers) Note the age of consent in Canada is 18, so sex at age 13 would be, by law, statutory rape.
In a guest-lecture provided by a nurse from Planned Parenthood, one lesson taught to 8th graders (13-14 year old kids) included a slide titled "Ways to Minimize Risk of Pregnancy". Suggestions included condoms, masturbation, same-sex partners and/or anal intercourse. Abstinence was not one of the suggestions.

Quoting again from the Canadian sex-education curriculum, "Children are expected to demonstrate an understanding of gender identity (e.g. male, female, two-spirited, transgender, transsexual, intersex, etc), gender expression, and sexual orientation (e.g., heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual), and identify factors that can help individuals of all identities & orientations develop positive self-concepts."

Of the 240 page Sex Ed curriculum, two words that appear ZERO times? "love" and "marriage".

A 2012 draft of the Canadian sex-education manual for teachers included the name Ben Levin, Deputy Minister of Education of Canada among the authors. In 2015, Ben Levin plead guilty to multiple counts of child exploitation, production and possession of child pornography and pedophilia. The 2015 Canadian Sex-Education manual for teachers omitted Mr Levin's name from the list of authors.

In the 2018 elections, voters in Ontario elected a Conservative majority to parliament, largely based on a campaign against the radical sex-education program and the sexual activation of their children. Conservatives promised to roll sex education programs back to the previous 1998 standards by this school year.

Canada, sadly, is not unique in this type of initiative:

A BBC article from 2017, citing the alleged "success" of the 2015 Canadian Sex Education program, indicated that similar compulsory programs were being rolled out across the UK, replacing the previous programs that had focused on preventing sexually-transmitted diseases.
The new UK program, called "Sexual Relationships Education," would focus on teaching children as young as 12 the importance of developing a proper, healthy sexual identity and relationships.
The mandatory program includes instruction for students about learning to understand their own bodies, including what feels good and what does not. Quoting from a guide provided to grade 7 teachers, for 12 year old students: "Thinking about your sexual health is complicated...It's also about your sexual orientation and gender-identity, your understanding of your own body, including what gives you pleasure, and the emotional implications of sexual intimacy and sexual relationships."

But don't worry Canada, don't worry United Kingdom, we're not far behind. As of 2018, the state of California has also made this type of sexual education mandatory, with no opt-out provisions. Massachusetts has a similar program on it's ballot this fall. So the good old US of A ain't far behind you.

But don't worry Canada, don't worry United Kingdom, we're not far behind.

When the government makes the sexual activation and grooming of 12 year old children State policy, using the threat of fines or jail time for parents who may choose to not have their children instructed on how to develop sexual relationships, your rights as a parent are simply gone. When the state is teaching 5 and 6 year olds how to identify and spell vagina, vulva, anus and penis instead of cat, dog, mom, dad, your rights as a parent are gone. When the State is requiring 1st grade teachers to read My Princess Boy, which teaches "Dyson loves pink, sparkly things. Sometimes he wears dresses. Sometimes he wears jeans. He likes to wear is princess tiara, even when climbing trees. He's a Princess Boy."...when that is required reading for 7 and 8 year olds, but Huck Finn, Catcher in the Rye and The Jungle Book are all banned, your rights as a Parent are gone.

Schools in Canada & the UK have become nothing more than sexual training centers, grooming children as young as 5 and 6 years old for sexually active lives, gender fluidity, and bisexuality. In the name of remaking the world into a politically correct safe space for every possible gender identity, every sexual behavior and proclivity, they've made it the government's business to hyper-sexualize children, normalizing ultra-rare behaviors such as gender-disphoria. They are teaching young children to develop a "plan" around sexual activity and figuring out what they find to be sexually pleasurable...these lessons happen when these kids are pre-teen!

Proponents of such radical ideas claim that "children are going to become sexual active anyway" and "kids are exposed to so much online these days", that the government must step in and provide instruction. "It's a Societal problem."

I can tell you that for sure, 100%, it is a societal problem. We have a problem in our society when we believe that, by LAW, 10 and 12 year old kids need to learn about same sex partners and anal intercourse as a means to not get pregnant.

The problem isn't that kids are more likely to be exposed to pornography than the last generation was, or that they are more likely to be bullied if they are gay. We have solutions for those kinds of problems. Parents doing their job is the solution, the same as it has always been. The problem is that we have somehow come to believe that the only way to solve any perceived ill in the world is for governments to act.

Could churches and religions help provide a framework for understanding relationships, self-worth, sexuality and love? No! Ghosts in the sky aren't real! They can't help us.

Could parents determine the right way and right time to discuss sexual feelings and urges with their kids? No, parents messages will vary and discussing these things with parents can make children feel uncomfortable, only in the scientific-based classroom setting can children freely discover express their sexuality!

If in your state, province, country or local school district, you don't have a choice about sending your kids into a classroom where teachers are required to teach this type of content to your kids, don't even pretend you still have rights as a parent. Are you that delusional? Have we fallen that far, that we believe it is somehow our duty as citizens to let our children be psychologically and philosophically molded by government stooges into sexually active, gender and sex-orientation fluid "agents of change?"

If you think you still have rights as a parent, you must think that the sum total of your rights orients around paying taxes and dropping your kids off on time. That's not parenting. That's babysitting! Babysitting they are asking you to pay them for.

As for me? I'm with Mr Shapiro on this one. Beto, don't show up at my door demanding my kids learn about developing a sexual plan at age 12. If you do, we're going to have a serious disagreement. And we're a 2nd Amendment household, OK? As Ben said, i"t is never radical or outrageous to defend our fundamental rights."

Don't be a babysitter. That can't be who we are. Be a parent. Do your job! We can't surrender this ground. This must be unassailable, sacrosanct territory. Beto, you stay out of my house, my home school and out of my kid's lives. You're not welcome here.

I'm a parent. This is my job, my wife's job. We may hire the occasional babysitter. But we're parents. No others need apply.

UPDATE: Here's how the conversation went on radio.

LGBTQ IN CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS: Beto VS Ben Shapiro & How Parents Are Losing Their Rightswww.youtube.com

Why do Americans feel so empty?

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

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

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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.

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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.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

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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

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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.

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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.