Who is America's God now? | Cults

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Covid-19 broke us.

People who were once reasonable began to call for the banishment of the unvaccinated from civil society. Death was divided by vaccine status and treated accordingly. Information was censored for “our own good.” Anyone who questioned the leader or fell out of line, was deemed as dangerous or literally accused of murder.

Steven Hassan developed the B.I.T.E model by, among other things, studying brainwashing in Maoist China. B.I.T.E stands for:

B — Behavior
I — Information
T —
Thought and
E — Emotional control

B.I.T.E identifies patterns used by cults to manipulate their members.

There are fifty attributes to watch out for. Listen to some of these and compare them to your experience during the Covid-19 pandemic:

  1. Dictate where, how and with whom the member lives and associates or isolates
  2. Financial exploitation, manipulation or dependence
  3. Restrict leisure, entertainment and vacation time
  4. Permission is required for major decisions
  5. Rewards and punishments are used to modify behaviors, both positive and negative
  6. Discourage individualism, encourage group-think
  7. Impose rigid rules and regulations
  8. Instill dependency and obedience
  9. Deliberately withhold information
  10. Distort information to make it more acceptable
  11. Systematically lie
  12. Minimize or discourage access to non-cult sources of information, including:
    • Internet, TV, radio, books, articles, newspapers, magazines, media
    • Critical information
    • Former members
    • Keep members busy so they don’t have time to think and investigate
    • Control through cell phone with texting, calls, internet tracking
  13. Compartmentalize information into Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
    • Ensure that information is not freely accessible
    • Control information at different levels and missions within group
    • Allow only leadership to decide who needs to know what and when
  14. Encourage spying on other members
    • Impose a buddy system to monitor and control member
    • Report deviant thoughts, feelings and actions to leadership
    • Ensure that individual behavior is monitored by group
  15. Extensive use of cult-generated information and propaganda, including newsletters, magazines, journals, audiotapes, videotapes, YouTube, movies and other media
  16. Require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth
    • Adopting the group’s "map of reality" as reality
    • Instill black and white thinking
    • Decide between good vs. evil
    • Organize people into us vs. them (insiders vs. outsiders)
  17. Use of loaded language and clichés that constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzz words (“Follow the science”)
  18. Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism
  19. Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine or policy allowed
  20. Labeling alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil or not useful
  21. Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the fault of the leaders or the group
  22. Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as:
    • Identity guilt
    • You are not living up to your potential
    • Your family is deficient
    • Your past is suspect
    • Your affiliations are unwise
    • Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish
    • Social guilt
    • Historical guilt
  23. Shunning of those who leave; fear of being rejected by friends and family
  24. Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins
  25. Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority
    • No happiness or fulfillment possible outside of the group
    • Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc.

That is basically all of them except for rape, murder, torture and kidnapping. So that’s horrifying. But what’s even scarier, is that most of us went along with it, even just for a little while. As a nation, as a world, we are still going along with it in many ways.

Now, look at antiracism.

Antiracism requires blind obedience to leaders like Ibram X Kendi — who can arbitrarily assign or remove guilt based on his own perception. The work of being an antiracist never stops. There is always more internalized racism to uncover and implicit bias to reveal.

The work of being an antiracist never stops.

Can you ever be forgiven? Can you ever be cleansed?

No. Because the moment you say you are not racist, it is taken as a proclamation of guilt, and the cycle can just begin again.

It’s brilliant gaslighting.

They convince you that you have a problem — a problem so deep-rooted you can’t even see it, and the only way to solve that problem is to do whatever the leaders say. And if you don’t do what they say, it’s because you are extra guilty.

It’s cult initiation 101.

Cults seek out people with a vulnerability — say a sense of guilt (which almost all humans carry just from being alive) — after they identify the vulnerability, the cult offers an antidote, one that can only be obtained through obedience. From there, the reprogramming begins.

After reprogramming, it’s really hard to come back. But it can be done.

Let's use Megan Phelps Roper's story to illustrate.

Meghan Phelps-Roper was only five years old when she stood on her first picket line in Kansas. She had a sign that read:

“Gays are worthy of death.”

She had no idea what it said, nonetheless what it meant. But her mother had brought her there and handed her that sign, so she waved it around happily. She was making her family proud, for a five-year-old girl, that’s better than candy.

Megan is the granddaughter of the founder of Westboro Baptist Church who, among many other horrific statements, once said:

The Jews killed the Lord Jesus….Now they are carrying water for the f**s; that’s what they do best, sin.”

The Westboro Baptist Church has become infamous for its lack of humanity. They protest military funerals, wish death upon others, and because they are so convinced their crusade is holy, they feel empowered to be as rude and inhumane as they want. The ends justify the means and they feel that hate — directed at the right people — is a holy work.

Megan lived for 27 years under the Westboro Baptist Church. She brandished signs that said things like:

“Thank God for Dead Soldiers.”

and

“God Hates You.”

She was the face of the movement and battled it out on Twitter with the naysayers on behalf of the whole congregation.

Those Twitter battles ended up being her saving grace.

Can you imagine?

The usual crowd of angry people came out on Twitter to admonish her, criticize her, and throw hate right back at her. But not everyone did that. There were a few who never lost their humanity. Their message was “we are all human beings worthy of love and respect, including Megan.” They didn’t condone her hate or tip-toe around her misunderstandings, but they saw beyond them. She was a person who had trapped herself in the toxic ideas she inherited. But, most importantly, she was a person.

Two men went above and beyond — one man named David, who had a blog named Jewlicious. Another named Chad, later became her husband.

What began on Twitter as a verbal rock-throwing fight, slowly evolved into a real conversation — one that appealed to Megan’s humanity. They asked questions, which made Megan feel respected and heard. She could let her guard down now — these people weren’t here to fight, they were here to understand. That changed everything. The questions they asked inspired questions in herself. There were holes in her thinking she hadn’t considered, and given the right environment, she felt safe to really wrestle with those questions.

One day, David met Megan on the picket line to give her food from a market in Jerusalem. A Jewish man brought treats to the woman who held signs that said:

"Your Rabbi is a whore.”

He was a person. A nice person. A smart person who could debate her on the Bible.

And a Jew!

There was no way for Megan to reconcile it. Her whole reality unraveled from there.

Imagine being her, and realizing that you have inherited lies from the people you love most. Knowing the truth meant leaving them, maybe forever. She was the church’s rising star but after leaving the church, she would be just another “them" — another outsider.

Megan and her sister left Westboro baptist church in 2012.

The cult mentality spreads across social media like a virus.

Since leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, Megan has said she sees the tactics of her former cult all over our public discourse. The cult mentality spreads across social media like a virus, and although it’s slower in real life, it’s spreading there too.

To combat this, she gave this advice:

  • Don’t Assume Ill-Intent

This is a hard one because some people actually do have bad intentions, but not everyone. Megan believed she was doing good work with the Westboro Baptist Church. That may be hard for you or me to imagine, but it’s all she knew. It would be easy to assume that the woman tweeting “Thank God for AIDS” has horrible intentions. But the few who chose to believe otherwise changed Megan's life forever.

  • Ask Questions

We can not assume we know why people believe the way they do and even if we really do know, we open doors when we ask questions. Questions indicate sincere interest and respect and in the best cases, may even lead the other person to ask you what you think.

  • Stay Calm

Another hard one. Don’t yell. Don’t freak out. Don’t lose your cool. You don’t have to hold back the truth, but if anger is in the driver's seat — expect a wreck.

  • Make Your Case

Your opinion may not be as self-evident as it seems or even as self-evident as it should be. Why should men not be in women's prison?

We have to make the complete case. Every. Single. Time.

No one had made the case to Megan that what she was doing was harmful. When they did, she changed her mind. The Bible says to be wise as serpents, but also as gentle as doves. We can’t be naive, but we also can’t give up on people prematurely.

It’s tempting to look at the person tweeting that “unvaccinated people deserve death” and assume that they are past hope. But what if they aren’t?

It’s one thing to recognize the cult-like tendencies pulsing through American politics and work to stop it, but the real question is: what made us vulnerable to cultic authoritarianism in the first place?

Why is it that we keep misplacing our religious instincts? Because we all do it. Even if just in small ways, we all are vulnerable to tribal and yes, even cultic inclinations.

Is this whole religion thing just too dangerous? Should we abandon it altogether? Or is an abandonment of religion what got us in this mess in the first place?

In 1798, John Adams wrote in a letter to the Massachusetts militia:

“We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by…morality and Religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Adams said our Representative Republic needed not only a moral, but religious people to survive. If not restrained by the government, then people must foster the discipline to restrain themselves. Religion, having played that role in societies for centuries, seemed the best way to encourage that.

I am not suggesting we all convert to one faith or that, God forbid, the government imposes that on us, but we do need moral agreements. We need a plumbline to guide us as a nation, and we each need to come to it of our own free volition.

Generation to generation we are losing our spiritual well-being.

Our nation is undergoing a cultural revolution, a technological revolution and a sexual revolution, but what we really need is a spiritual restoration.

We need a national revival.

But what does that look like?

They worshiped new gods — gods of meaningless realities. That would always lead to destruction for them.

After God delivered the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt, they did not go straight to the promised land. For forty years they wandered the desert while God prepared their hearts. They still had a slave mentality, they had bad habits and they needed time to work that out of them. But the new generations forgot the God who had parted the sea, sent the plagues and freed them from Pharoah. They worshiped new gods — gods of meaningless realities. That would always lead to destruction for them. Then they would beg God to take them back, and he would, and a generation later the people would forget again.

Joshua, one of the Bible’s mightiest warriors, spoke to the Hebrew people and said:

"If you love God, follow him. If you love Baal, or if you love another god, follow him, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

That is essentially what early Americans said. Other nations could choose a god for themselves. (They had seen how poorly that went.) But America said: As for this Nation, we will humble ourselves before the God of the Bible.

God was with our founding generation. We call it divine providence because it just doesn’t make sense without God. How could we have done that on our own?

But we are the new generation and we have forgotten the God of our ancestors. We forgot the prayers, the devotion and the miracles and we are reaping the consequences.

But because the God our founders worshiped believes in free will, we have a choice to make. Just like the Hebrews, we can decide; do we like our new “gods,” or would like to serve the God we called on to found this nation?

I’m going to use a loaded word — repentance. For some, repentance is associated with shame, guilt, fire and brimstone and for others, it’s a get out a jail free card on your way back to do whatever you want.

But it’s neither of those things.

That’s not what I’m talking about at all.

In Hebrew, the word for repentance is Teshuvah which literally means to turn. If you are going in the wrong direction, repentance/Teshuvah is turning around and going the other way. Repentance is about changing what you do, just as much as it is about the condition of your heart. Thus when we repent, we turn around and start over in the right direction — the direction God wants us to go.

That is not easy. It takes incredible faith to humble yourself and repent.

It’s not easy, but it is possible.

And in the next installment, I will tell you about the impossible repentance of the people we consider to be the most guilty of sinners — the Germans after World War 2.

Catch up with the rest of the "Who Is America's God Now?" series here:

This post is part of a series by Glenn and Mikayla G. Hedrick exploring Who is America's God now?

EXCLUSIVE: Tech Ethicist reveals 5 ways to control AI NOW

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By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

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The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

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If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

How private stewardship could REVIVE America’s wild

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The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

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Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.