Martyrs don’t bend the knee — even to the state



In 1535, Saint Thomas More went to his death, not in defiance of his king but in ultimate service to both God and England. His final words — “I die the king’s faithful servant, and God’s first” — captured the essence of true religious liberty: the freedom to fulfill the duty to worship God rightly. As the patron saint of religious liberty, More challenges lawmakers and church leaders to renew their commitment to defending that sacred duty.

To More, religious liberty wasn’t just freedom from state interference. It meant the freedom to obey God, even at the cost of his life. His last declaration made clear that duty to God comes before any loyalty to civil authority. Pope Leo XIII put it plainly in “Immortale Dei”: “We are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will.”

When laws hinder the duty to worship God rightly, they chip away at the foundation of religious liberty the founders meant to preserve.

More lived this principle, choosing martyrdom over surrender to the world. His death makes clear that real freedom begins with obedience to God — a truth rooted in the moral obligations of human nature. To defend religious liberty is to affirm the duty to give God the worship He deserves, a duty no earthly power — not even a king — can rightly deny.

America’s founders understood this well. They saw religious liberty not as license, but as the right to fulfill one’s duty to God. James Madison wrote, “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”

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America’s founders drafted the Constitution with the understanding that citizens would practice their religious duties — not as optional acts, but as essential to a free and moral society. As John Adams put it, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

That understanding now faces growing threats. When laws hinder the duty to worship God rightly, they chip away at the foundation of religious liberty the founders meant to preserve. Consider the case of Colorado baker Jack Phillips. For refusing to make cakes that violated his faith, Phillips endured more than a decade of legal battles, fines, protests, and business losses. He wasn’t seeking special treatment — he simply wanted to live out his faith. Although the Supreme Court eventually sided with him, the fight drained years of his life and resources. Religious liberty delayed for a decade amounts to religious liberty denied.

True religious freedom, as More and the founders envisioned it, demands strong protections for people and institutions to live out their beliefs in every area of life, not just within a sanctuary or under the narrow shelter of exemptions.

To fulfill the vision of religious liberty embodied by Thomas More and upheld by America’s founders, Americans must renew their commitment to strengthening religious institutions through laws that promote the common good. Elected leaders cannot separate their faith from their public responsibilities. Religious truth shapes just governance.

Having just celebrated Religious Liberty Week, we would do well to recall More’s words: “God’s first.” True religious liberty begins with the duty to worship God as He commands. That duty forms the bedrock of a free and just society.

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Big Tech rigged the algorithm. Then they weaponized it.



The algorithm is its own “Animal Farm.” “Four legs good, two legs bad” may come in the form of binary code, but the tyranny is just as real. Most content in alternative media gets watered down to please the ruling digital overlords.

Unless you work for a company like Blaze Media — which has built talent lineups that can thrive outside the algorithm — odds are, you were made to be ruled.

Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Trans — they’ve all come for you once. They’ll do it again.

Ever wonder why some “conservative” hosts sound bold on a handful of safe topics but go quiet on election interference or the COVID jab? The algorithm spoke. They complied.

Pound for pound, my show may have taken the biggest hit among conservatives trying to monetize YouTube traffic since 2020. That we managed to hit seven-figure revenues without help from the world’s largest search engine is, frankly, a miracle.

Big Tech operates like a loaded gun, aimed and cocked by the federal government.

The Biden administration didn’t just whisper suggestions. It literally contacted YouTube and demanded the censorship of Alex Berenson. That’s bad enough.

But thanks to research by DataRepublican and DOGE, we now know the algorithm went a step further — using your tax dollars to boost regime-approved content across major tech platforms through USAID.

That’s not just outrageous. It’s an antitrust violation, plain and simple. And I don’t plan on taking it lying down.

For several months, I’ve worked with First Liberty in Dallas — one of the nation’s top constitutional conservative legal organizations. With their help, I filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission just before Memorial Day. Here’s a key excerpt:

YouTube’s metrics show that the "Steve Deace Show" experienced explosive growth on YouTube in 2020. The show continued strong in 2021, but toward the end of that year, his videos started being removed. And this precipitated a sharp fall in views and impressions in 2022. The sharp decline strongly suggests that YouTube shadow banned or otherwise limited the visibility of the "Steve Deace Show" in 2022 and possibly starting in the end of 2021. During the same period of time where YouTube views and impressions were sharply declining, the "Steve Deace Show" experienced significant growth on other platforms. The show's strong performance on Apple Podcasts maintained their upper trajectory throughout this period of time.

Consider the contrast: While YouTube buried the show in 2021, my podcast was outperforming on Apple — strong enough to earn me a three-year contract extension with Blaze Media. That same year, my book “Faucian Bargain” became a No. 1 bestseller in the United States.

It doesn’t add up — unless you account for censorship.

In 2021, 69% of our YouTube views came from subscribers, 31% from nonsubscribers. In 2022, that number skewed even further — 76% subscribers, only 24% nonsubscribers. That ratio should never tilt that far. Most YouTube traffic typically comes from recommendations, not regular followers.

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Photo Illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

As we explained in our FTC complaint: “This trend line is clear evidence of suppression because it shows how YouTube refused to feature, refused to recommend, and otherwise decreased the visibility of the platform.”

Word is, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson takes Big Tech censorship seriously. I hope that’s true — because people likely died due to what YouTube did. Shows like mine were offering counternarratives to the COVID cult. And we were silenced.

Whoever controls language controls the debate. That’s why this isn’t just a tech policy fight. It’s a battle for the future of Western civilization.

The left has shown its hand: If they had the power, they’d disappear you. They already tried. Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Trans — they’ve all come for you once. They’ll do it again.

This isn’t a squabble over ad revenue or traffic metrics. It’s a battle against the deliberate unraveling of reality itself.

So fight we must. And with severe prejudice.

Stay tuned.

If we can’t speak civilly, we’ll fight brutally



Last weekend in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, protesters gathered for a No Kings rally, holding signs that compared federal immigration officers to Nazis — one reading, “Nazis used trains. ICE uses planes.” These kinds of messages aren’t just offensive, they’re dangerous. And they’re becoming far too common in politics.

The same weekend, halfway across the country, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman (DFL) was shot and killed in a politically motivated attack. While the investigation is ongoing, the timing is chilling — and it reminds us that words and rhetoric can have consequences far beyond the floor of a legislative chamber.

Most people don’t want politics to be a blood sport. They want real solutions.

When public servants are threatened, harassed, or even harmed for doing their jobs, something has gone deeply wrong in our democracy.

It’s time to turn down the temperature — not just in our political speeches, but on our main streets, in school board meetings, and even our protest signs.

Cool the rhetoric

Public service is about problem-solving, not posturing. I’ve always believed in working with my neighbors — even when we disagree — to make our community safer and stronger. But that’s becoming harder when disagreement is met with dehumanization and history is twisted into political theater.

We’ve seen it right here in my community. At a recent public hearing on how to protect children from online predators, a woman disrupted the meeting to shout that our Jewish sheriff, Fred Harran, was a “Nazi.” A week later, during a Bucks County Commissioners meeting about a law enforcement partnership with ICE, Commissioner Bob Harvie warned of “parallels” between modern politics and pre-war Nazi Germany.

I’ve worked hard in the state House to expand Holocaust education in Pennsylvania schools, because I believe history must be remembered — not weaponized. As the daughter of educators, I was raised to know that using Nazi references as political attacks not only dishonors the memory of those who suffered, it poisons the possibility of honest, civil debate.

Civil discourse is critical

None of this is to say we shouldn’t debate serious issues — immigration, public safety, fiscal priorities, and the future of our communities. Or that we shouldn’t take part in peaceful protest rooted in our First Amendment rights. We must. But we must also remember that democracy isn’t about shouting each other down — it’s about listening, questioning, and finding common ground.

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Blaze Media Illustration

The truth is, most people don’t want politics to be a blood sport. They want real solutions. They want their kids to be safe, their neighborhoods to be strong, and their elected officials to focus on solving problems — not scoring points.

Let’s be better than the signs. Let’s be better than the sound bites. Let’s choose to be neighbors first and partisans second.

Because if we don’t change the tone now, we risk losing more than just elections — we risk losing one another.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPennsylvania and made available via RealClearWire.

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If AI isn’t built for freedom, it will be programmed for control



Once the domain of science fiction, artificial intelligence now shapes the foundations of modern life. It governs how we access information, interact with institutions, and connect with one another. No longer just a tool, AI is becoming infrastructure — an embedded force with the potential to either safeguard our liberty or quietly dismantle it.

In a deeply divided political climate, it is rare to find an issue that unites Americans across ideological lines. But when it comes to AI, something extraordinary is happening: Americans agree that these systems must be designed to protect our most basic rights.

Voters from both parties recognize that AI must be built to reflect the values that make us free.

A new Rasmussen poll reveals that 77% of likely voters, including 80% of Republicans and 77% of Democrats, support laws that would require developers and tech companies to design AI systems to uphold constitutional rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression. Such a consensus is practically unheard of in today’s political climate.

The same poll found that more than 70% of voters are concerned about the growing role of AI in our economy and society. And that concern isn’t limited to any one party: 74% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans say they are “very” or “somewhat concerned.”

Americans are watching the AI revolution unfold, and they’re sending a clear message: If we’re going to let these systems shape our future, they must be governed by the same principles that have preserved freedom for generations.

Why it matters now

That concern is more than hypothetical. We are already seeing the consequences of AI systems that reflect narrow ideological agendas rather than broad constitutional values.

Google’s Gemini AI made headlines last year when it produced historically inaccurate images of black Founding Fathers and Asian Nazi soldiers. This wasn’t a technical glitch. It was the direct result of ideological programming that prioritized “diversity” over truth.

In China, the DeepSeek AI model was trained to avoid any criticism of the Chinese Communist Party. Ask it about the Tiananmen Square massacre, and it refuses to give you an answer at all. When models are trained to serve power rather than seek truth, they become tools of suppression.

If left unchecked, agenda-driven AI systems in the United States could soon shape what news we see, what content is amplified — or buried — on social media, and what opinions are allowed in public discourse, thereby conforming society to its pre-programmed ideals.

Biased AI systems could even influence public policy debates by skewing public opinion toward "solutions" that optimize for social or environmental justice goals. These constitutionally unaligned AI systems may quietly reshape society with complete disregard for liberty, consent, and due process.

Regulation for freedom’s sake

Some conservatives bristle at the word “regulation,” and rightly so. But what we're talking about here isn’t micromanagement or bureaucratic control. It’s the same kind of constraint our Founders placed on government power: constitutional guardrails that prevent abuse and preserve freedom.

When AI is unbound by those principles, it doesn’t become neutral — it becomes ideological. It doesn’t protect liberty; it calculates outcomes. And in doing so, it can rationalize censorship, coercion, and discrimination, all in the name of “progress.”

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This is why Americans are right to demand action now. The window for shaping AI's trajectory is still open, but it won’t remain open forever. As these systems become more advanced and more embedded in our institutions, retrofitting them to respect liberty will become harder, not easier.

Don’t let the opportunity slip away

We are living through a rare moment of political clarity. Voters from both parties recognize that AI must be built to reflect the values that make us free. They want systems to protect speech, not suppress it. They want AI to respect human conscience, not override it. They want AI to serve the people, not manage them.

This is not a partisan issue. It is a moral one. And it’s an opportunity we must seize before the future is decided for us.

AI doesn’t have to be our master. But it must be taught to serve what makes us free.