Can artificial intelligence help us want better, not just more?



The notification chimes. Another algorithmically selected product appears in your feed, something you never knew you wanted until this moment. You pause, finger hovering over the “buy now” button. Is this truly what you desire or just what the algorithm has decided you should want?

We’re standing at a fascinating turning point in human history. Our most advanced technologies — often criticized for trapping us in cycles of shallow wants and helpless determinism — could offer us unprecedented freedom to rediscover what we truly desire. “Agentic AI” — those systems that can perceive, decide, and act on their own toward goals — isn't just another tech advancement. It might actually liberate our attention and intention.

Rather than passively accepting AI's influence, we can actively shape AI systems to reflect and enhance our deeply held values.

So what exactly is agentic AI? Think of it not just as a fancy calculator or clever chatbot, but as a digital entity with real independence.

These systems perceive their environment, make decisions, and take actions with significant autonomy. They learn from experiences, adapt to new information on the fly, and pursue complex goals without our constant direction. Self-driving cars navigate busy streets, trading algorithms make split-second financial decisions, and research systems discover scientific principles on their own.

These aren't just tools any more. They're becoming independent actors in our world.

To understand this shift, I want to introduce you to two key thinkers: Marshall McLuhan, who famously said “the medium is the message,” and René Girard, who revealed how we tend to want what others want — a phenomenon he called “mimetic desire.” Through their insights, we can see how agentic AI works as both a medium and a mediator, reshaping our reality while influencing what we desire. If we understand how agentic AI will continue to shape our world, we can maintain our agency in a world increasingly shaped by technological advances.

McLuhan: AI as medium

McLuhan showed us that technology’s structure, scale, and speed shape our consciousness more profoundly than whatever content it carries. The railway didn’t just introduce transportation; it created entirely new kinds of cities and work.

Similarly, agentic AI isn't just another tool. It's becoming an evolving environment whose very existence transforms us.

McLuhan offers the example of electric light. It had no “content” in the conventional sense, yet it utterly reshaped human existence by eliminating darkness. Agentic AI similarly restructures our world through its core qualities: autonomy, adaptability, and goal-directedness. We aren't just using agentic AI; we’re increasingly living inside its operational logic, an environment where non-human intelligence shapes our decisions, actions, and realities.

Neil Postman, who built on McLuhan’s work, reminds us that while media environments powerfully shape us, we aren't just passive recipients: “Media ecology looks into how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value.” By understanding these effects, we can maintain our agency within them. We can be active readers of the message rather than just being written by it.

One big impact is on how we make sense of the world. As agentic AI increasingly filters, interprets, and generates information, it becomes a powerful participant in constructing our reality. The challenge is maintaining shared reality while technology increasingly forges siloed, personalized worlds. While previous technological advances contributed to this siloing, AI offers the possibility of connectivity. Walter Ong's concept of "secondary orality" suggests AI might help create new forms of connection that overcome the isolating aspects of earlier digital technologies.

Girard: AI as mediator of desire

While McLuhan helps us understand how agentic AI reshapes our perception, René Girard offers a framework for understanding how it reshapes what we want.

Girard’s theory of mimetic desire suggests that human desire is rarely spontaneous. Instead, we learn what to want by imitating others — our "models." This creates a triangle: us, the model we imitate, and the object of desire.

Now, imagine agentic AI entering this dynamic. If human history has been a story of desire mediated by parents, peers, and advertisements, agentic AI is becoming a significant new mediator in our digital landscape. Its ability to learn our preferences, predict our behavior, and present curated choices makes it an influential model, continuously shaping our aspirations.

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Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Peter Thiel, who studied under Girard at Stanford, suggests awareness of these dynamics can lead to more authentic choices. “The most successful businesses come from unique, non-mimetic insights,” Thiel observes. By recognizing how AI systems influence our desires, we can more consciously choose which influences to embrace and which to question, moving toward greater authenticity.

Look at recommendation engines, the precursors to full-blown agentic AI. They already operate on Girardian principles by showing us what others have bought or liked, making those items more desirable to us. Agentic AI takes this farther. Through its autonomous actions and pursuit of goals, it can demonstrate desirability.

The key question becomes: Is your interest in a hobby, conviction about an issue, or lifestyle aspiration truly your own? And more importantly, can you tell the difference, and does it matter if it brings you genuine fulfillment?

A collaborative future

The convergence of AI as both medium and mediator creates unprecedented possibilities for human-AI partnership.

Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology offers a constructive path forward. He argues that technologies aren't neutral tools but are laden with values. However, he rejects technological determinism, emphasizing that these values can be redesigned through what he calls “democratic rationalization,” the process by which users reshape technologies to better reflect their values.

“Technology is not destiny but a scene of struggle,” Feenberg writes. "It is a social battlefield on which civilizational alternatives are debated and decided." Rather than passively accepting AI's influence, we can actively shape AI systems to reflect and enhance our deeply held values.

This vision requires thoughtful design guided by human wisdom. The same capabilities that could liberate us could create more sophisticated traps. The difference lies not in the technology itself but in the values and intentions that shape its development. By drawing on insights from McLuhan, Girard, Postman, Ong, Thiel, Feenberg, and others, we can approach this evolving medium not with fear or passive acceptance, but with creative engagement.

The future of agentic AI isn't predetermined. It’s ours to shape as a technology that enhances rather than diminishes our humanity, that serves as a partner rather than a master in our ongoing quest for meaning, connection, and flourishing.

Global elites think you’re too stupid for soda and beer



The latest wheeze from global public health elites? Jack up taxes on tobacco, alcohol, sugary drinks, and processed food by 50% to raise $3.7 trillion in new revenue. They call it “health policy.” In plain English, it’s government-sanctioned theft.

This isn’t about curing disease. It’s about expanding state power. These so-called health taxes, pushed by academic ideologues and international bureaucrats, are little more than economic punishment disguised as progress. They won’t meaningfully reduce illness, but they’ll absolutely hit working people the hardest.

Sin taxes don’t foster well-being — they weaponize economic pain against the people who can least afford it.

The new push for massive taxes on soda, smokes, beer, and snacks is social engineering with a hefty price tag. The goal isn’t better health so much as behavioral compliance. And who pays for it? Not corporations. Not policymakers. Regular people. Especially those already stretched thin.

The promise of $3.7 trillion in new revenue tells you everything you need to know. This is about cash, not caring. You’re not going to fix the obesity crisis by making a Coke cost $4. You’re just making life worse for the guy who wants a cold drink after work.

These aren’t just products. They’re small pleasures — a beer at dinner, a smoke on break, a soda on a hot afternoon. Legal, affordable, familiar. Stripping them from people’s lives in the name of “health” doesn’t uplift anyone. It makes life more miserable.

And this plan doesn’t educate or empower. It punishes. It uses taxes to bludgeon people into compliance. That’s not public health — that’s moral authoritarianism.

Proponents claim that higher prices discourage consumption, especially among young people. But that’s not smart policy — it’s an admission that the entire strategy relies on pricing people out of their own choices.

That’s not a sign of sound policy; it’s a confession that the aim is to price people out of their own choices. It’s hard not to see this as profoundly elitist. A worldview in which an ignorant public must be nudged, coerced, and taxed into making decisions deemed acceptable by a distant class of arrogant policymakers.

Sin taxes don’t foster well-being — they weaponize economic pain against the people who can least afford it. The more someone spends on a drink or a cigarette, the less they can spend on rent, groceries, or gas. In the U.K., economists found that sin taxes cost low-income families up to 10 times more than they cost the wealthy. That holds true in the United States as well. These are regressive by design.

History offers a warning. Prohibition didn’t end drinking — it empowered criminals. Today, in places like Australia, black markets for vapes and other restricted products are booming. When governments overregulate, people continue to consume. They just go underground, and quality, safety, and accountability go with them.

Public health bureaucrats love to talk about the “commercial determinants of health,” blaming industry for every social ill. But they ignore the personal determinants that matter even more: freedom, dignity, and the right to make informed decisions.

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guruXOOX via iStock/Getty Images

People already know the risks of smoking, drinking, and sugar consumption. They’ve seen the labels and heard the warnings for years. They don’t need lectures from bureaucrats, government ministers, or international agencies. What they need is respect — and the freedom to live as they choose.

These new tax schemes don’t offer support or alternatives. They rely on coercion, not persuasion. The state becomes the enforcer, not the helper. It’s a government model that punishes pleasure and equates restriction with virtue.

The sinister core of this health tax agenda lies in its relentless condescension. It assumes people are too stupid, too reckless, or too addicted to choose what’s best for themselves, and so government must intervene forcefully and repeatedly.

This is control, not compassionate governance.

A better path exists — one rooted in harm reduction, not prohibition. Encourage low-sugar drink options. Expand access to safer nicotine alternatives. Support moderate alcohol consumption. Respect the people you’re trying to help.

If public health advocates truly want to improve outcomes, they should abandon these regressive, punitive proposals. They should promote innovation, not punishment. Education, not enforcement.

Because real public health doesn’t treat people like problems to be managed. It treats them like citizens — free to live, choose, and thrive.

BlackRock and friends may soon control your digital wallet



America is on the edge of a financial cliff, and Washington’s so-called “solution” is yet another clever ploy that could further centralize power and lead to a reduction in freedom.

The latest scheme is a bipartisan bill dubbed the Genius Act. The U.S. Senate passed the bill on Tuesday by a vote of 68-30. The bill now moves on to the House, where its prospects are less clear.

It’s time for the right to sound the alarm and reject the Genius Act — at least until it offers protections for individual liberty.

Supporters of the law claim it will modernize digital finance by issuing new regulations for stablecoins, shoring up assets currently used by millions of people worldwide.

But the legislation comes with serious threats to liberty as well. It could ultimately become a backdoor way to create a digital dollar, one that offers minimal privacy protections and is easily controlled by massive institutions unaccountable to voters.

What is the Genius Act?

Officially named the “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act,” the Genius Act aims to bring order and credibility to the booming stablecoin market.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies tied to supposedly “stable” assets like the U.S. dollar. USD Coin and Tether — two of the most widely used — circulate more than $200 billion combined.

The bill creates a regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers, allowing them to operate under either state or federal supervision. Lawmakers believe this approach will boost credibility with consumers and financial institutions.

The legislation also forces issuers to disclose their reserve assets, submit to public audits, and comply with the Bank Secrecy Act. That law requires financial entities to implement know-your-customer protocols and anti-money-laundering measures — rules that many stablecoin issuers currently avoid.

Most importantly, the Genius Act would force issuers to back their coins with liquid assets, such as U.S. dollars and Treasury securities. For example, for every USD Coin distributed, the issuer would need to maintain $1 in reserves or Treasury bills of equivalent value, ensuring that users can always exchange their stablecoins for dollars.

The Genius Act has drawn broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers from both parties praise its regulatory ambitions. But behind the applause lie serious risks.

Programmable money vs. financial freedom

The bill lays the foundation for a programmable digital currency system — one that lacks basic protections for privacy and liberty.

By granting stablecoins federal recognition and placing them under strict oversight and reserve rules, the Genius Act effectively turns them into government-blessed digital dollars, even if the federal government doesn’t issue them directly.

That might sound like progress — if the bill actually protected consumers. But it doesn’t.

The legislation includes no safeguards to prevent stablecoin issuers from linking usage to social credit systems, such as ESG scores, or restricting legal but politically disfavored transactions. These programmable currencies could easily reflect the ideological preferences of their creators.

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Photo by Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Want to donate to a political cause that a stablecoin company opposes? Expect a digital roadblock. Want to buy red meat, a gas-powered car, or anything else that fails to meet an ESG benchmark? Your money might simply stop working.

That’s not science fiction. That’s the likely outcome if Congress fails to add robust consumer protections to the Genius Act.

A forced hand

No one needs to use stablecoins — at least not yet. The Genius Act doesn’t eliminate traditional dollars. For now, consumers still have alternatives. But that could change quickly.

Stablecoins regulated by the U.S. government offer clear advantages over traditional currency. They move instantly, cost little or nothing to send, and operate around the clock. Because they’re digital, they require no physical infrastructure to create or distribute.

In nearly every respect, government-regulated stablecoins outperform paper money. Once the U.S. government legitimizes them and guarantees their safety, adoption will surge.

As usage grows, demand for traditional dollars could shrink. The companies issuing stablecoins would gain enormous control over economic life. Financial institutions could even begin phasing out physical currency, leaving those who resist digital money with no practical alternative.

That’s why Congress must include strong protections for individual liberty in any bill that accelerates stablecoin adoption. Without those safeguards, Americans may one day wake up to find their economic freedom coded out of existence.

A boon for Treasurys

One of the primary reasons so many in Washington support the Genius Act is that it would increase demand for Treasury bills, which helps the federal government finance its massive debt.

The Genius Act would require stablecoin issuers to back their currencies with cash or U.S. Treasurys. Of the two options, Treasury bills often make more sense for the companies issuing stablecoins. Why? Because Treasury bills pay interest.

Washington is drowning in red ink. With over $36 trillion in national debt and counting, the government desperately needs someone to keep buying its IOUs. Stablecoins could offer a trillion-dollar solution. By 2028, the Treasury Department estimates that stablecoin issuers could hold up to $1 trillion in Treasurys, so long as legislation like the Genius Act becomes law.

The Genius Act isn’t primarily about innovation. It’s about bailing out a bankrupt government.

Who’s pulling the strings?

Even more troubling is who stands to benefit. Major players behind these stablecoins include BlackRock, Fidelity, and other financial giants with deep ties to the globalist ESG agenda and organizations like the World Economic Forum. These aren’t neutral actors. They are ideological enforcers with an appetite for control.

Are these the people we want managing the digital currency of the future?

Are these the institutions we trust to safeguard our freedoms?

It’s time for the right to sound the alarm and reject the Genius Act — at least until it offers protections for individual liberty. If we do not act now, we may soon find ourselves in a nation where every transaction is tracked, every purchase scrutinized, and every dollar you “own” is merely rented from a system that can revoke your access with the flick of a switch.

Park Service Wrongly Celebrates Juneteenth As ‘National Independence Day’

The rhetoric around Juneteenth celebrations is clearly intended to compete with and marginalize the Fourth of July.

‘Actions Of An Authoritarian Regime’: Duo Arrested In Belgium For Signs Defying Transgenderism

Elston said they were taken by van to a police station, stripped down to their underwear, and searched before being put in jail cells.

'Illegal immigration is a cancer': Iranian student sues California college, claiming staff stifled free speech



An international student from Iran is suing a California college for allegedly threatening him with punishment over some political statements.

Matin Samimiat claimed administrators from Golden West College took issue with comments about illegal immigration, men in women's sports, and the Israel-Palestine war.

'I left Iran to enjoy the amazing freedom that the United States offers.'

Samimiat and fellow student Annaliese Hutchings reportedly caused controversy with their booth at Golden West's Club Expo in February in Huntington Beach, California. The booth, which Samimiat operated with the conservative organization Young America’s Foundation, displayed a "change my mind" sign that encouraged students to engage in debate with him and Hutchings.

However, it was not anything Samimiat said that caused an issue with the school. Rather, statements written on a whiteboard in front of the booth allegedly caused the stir.

The board read: "Being an American is a privilege and we should all be thankful for it," "Illegal immigration is a cancer upon any society in the world," and "Men do not belong in women's sports and spaces."

RELATED: Rubio wages war on foreign free-speech tyrants with visa ban

The Young America's Foundation whiteboard at Golden West's Club Expo, February 25, 2025. Image via court documents.

According to the College Fix, the board also labeled Hamas a "terrorist organization" that must be "wiped from the face of the earth."

These statements were apparently enough for Stephanie Smallshaw, Golden West's director of student life and leadership development, to reach out to Samimiat to request a meeting.

Samimiat and Hutchings, along with YAF, were named as plaintiffs in a lawsuit that claimed to provide details of the meeting Smallshaw had with the students.

The lawsuit alleged that while Samimiat and Hutchings were advised the meeting was informal, it was meant to serve as a "courtesy warning."

The lawsuit further alleged that Smallshaw told the students they would be disciplined if they continued writing similar statements as they did on the whiteboard. Smallshaw allegedly claimed the statement regarding illegal immigration "dehumanizes a group of people and compares them to a deadly disease."

Regarding the Hamas statements, Smallshaw allegedly told the students, "You can't use language that can incite violence and encourage the killing of a group of people."

Golden West College and Smallshaw did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

RELATED: Texas takes aim at free speech — with a Republican trigger finger


A power outage at Golden West College campus. Photo by Robert Lachman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

Samimiat told the College Fix that he left the Middle East and came to the U.S. to avoid such things.

"I left Iran to enjoy the amazing freedom that the United States offers. Now I find myself threatened with punishment for expressing political opinions — because they happen to be opinions that administrators don’t like."

Political commentator Ian Miles Cheong told Blaze News that while some schools have faced bans on international student visas, students like Samimiat seem to "understand what it means to be an American" and should not face discipline.

"Isn't the whole point of college to educate students on how to think critically? It's obvious that college administrations, who wield so much power over what happens and what people say on campus, are terrified of some members of the student body," Cheong added.

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False Promises: Sexual Liberation Hurts Us All

A new book details how the sexual revolution has backfired and has severely damaged Western society.

Liberals freaked out over Vance's Munich speech. Just wait till they read the State Department's Substack.



The State Department raised some eyebrows when it launched a Substack last month. Its latest Substack essay highlighting both the importance of renewing Western civilization and the failure of global liberalism might be enough to give liberal establishmentarians ulcers and national conservatives butterflies.

Blaze Media senior politics editor Christopher Bedford said of the recent essay, "To put it simply, the Department of State has been ground zero for undermining Western values and putting American interests last. This turnaround is just incredible to see, and it's not getting the attention it deserves."

President Donald Trump has set about bringing the "golden age of America" into existence. While Trump's is a U.S.-focused endeavor, his administration appears to be simultaneously working on the renewal and strengthening of Western civilization, broadly understood.

'Our transatlantic partnership is underpinned by a rich Western tradition of natural law, virtue ethics, and national sovereignty.'

Vice President JD Vance, for instance, made abundantly clear in his controversial February speech to America's allies at the Munich Security Conference in Europe that it is high time to "change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction."

While prioritizing the interests of America at home and abroad, the State Department has similarly been thinking in civilizational terms, as evidenced by a recent post titled "The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe" on the agency's new Substack. The essay has already upset the usual suspects and wowed conservatives long accustomed to seeing liberal bromides and platitudes from their government.

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Samuel Samson, a senior adviser for the State Department's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, noted in the essay that the relationship between America and Europe "transcends geographic proximity and transactional politics," representing a "unique bond forged in common culture, faith, familial ties, mutual assistance in times of strife, and above all, a shared Western civilizational heritage."

Samson noted further that:

Our transatlantic partnership is underpinned by a rich Western tradition of natural law, virtue ethics, and national sovereignty. This tradition flows from Athens and Rome, through medieval Christianity, to English common law, and ultimately into America's founding documents. The Declaration's revolutionary assertion that men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" echoes the thought of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and other European heavyweights who recognized that all men possess natural rights that no government can arbitrate or deny. America remains indebted to Europe for this intellectual and cultural legacy.

Samson stressed that the deep, unique, and historic relationship between the U.S. and Europe warrants protection, which can take the form of constructive criticism, much like Vance's comments in Munich.

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Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images

The vice president angered European elites with the suggestion in his speech that the more concerning threat posed to Europe is not China, Russia, or any other external actor but rather "the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America."

Vance also put Germany, the United Kingdom, and other European nations on blast for their suppression of political movements and ideas unfavorable to their respective ruling classes; for their dismissal of citizens' concerns and common sense; for their routine attacks on religious liberties; and for their disastrous mass migration policies.

'The global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy.'

Samson echoed a critique now popular among national conservatives and thinkers in the president's orbit, suggesting that the globalist liberal campaign to "usher in an era of unprecedented peace" in the wake of World War II "by overcoming the anchors of nationhood, culture, and tradition" has proven to be a colossal failure.

"This promise lies in tatters," wrote Samson. "What endures instead is an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself."

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Blaze Media Illustration

After recycling a number of Vance's complaints — hammering again on Britain for arresting Christians over silent prayer; on the German government for its clampdown on critics and on the country's ascendant right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany; and on the European Union over its latest censorship scheme — Samson conceded that similar tactics were brought to bear in America against President Donald Trump and his supporters in recent years.

"What this reveals is that the global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy," wrote the State Department adviser. "Rather, it is trampling democracy, and Western heritage along with it, in the name of a decadent governing class afraid of its own people."

By committing to its Western heritage and by reversing the liberal project of deracination, disenchantment, and disorientation, Samson indicated that Europe will be better equipped to stand "firm against external threats and internal decay" and to cooperate with America on "shared foreign policy goals."

'We finally have political leaders who are brave enough to face the crisis head on.'

"Our relationship is too important, our history too valuable, and the international stakes too high to allow this partnership to be undermined," wrote Samson. "Therefore, on both sides of the Atlantic, we must preserve the goods of our common culture, ensuring that Western civilization remains a source of virtue, freedom, and human flourishing for generations to come."

One of Samson's professors at Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C., Dr. Matthew Mehan, associate dean and associate professor of government for the Van Andel Graduate School of Government, told Blaze News, "It is heartening to see from our government a seriously candid psychological operation, one that seeks not to gaslight our allies but to remind them who they truly are and what we have deeply in common, in our shared Western history and our principles of natural right and law."

"This is exactly right," Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt (R) said in response to excerpts of Samson's post shared on X by Blaze Media digital strategist Logan Hall. "Globalism, liberalism, censorship, mass migration — for decades, the West has been war with itself. We finally have political leaders who are brave enough to face the crisis head on."

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Photo by John McDonnell/Getty Images

Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) noted, "The West has spent the last 30 years governed by people who were ashamed of their past and hate Western civilization. President Trump is embracing our heritage, which built the greatest nation on the face of the Earth."

Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, similarly suggested it was remarkable to see this essay from the State Department, calling it "eloquent and true."

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One day to remember, 364 to prove you meant it



Monday night the grill cools, the flag comes down, and you crash on that “half-off” mattress you never planned to buy. By Tuesday morning, America is already scrolling to the next thing. But the moms in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery aren’t scrolling — and neither should we.

Treating Memorial Day like a red, white, and blue props department proves a sad stat from a poll conducted by the National World War II Museum a few years ago: Barely one in five Americans could explain what the holiday is actually for.

We must teach the next generation to remember on purpose. If your kids can quote Marvel but not MacArthur, that’s on us.

So let’s talk about Tuesday morning in America and the 364 days that follow. What does it look like to honor our war dead all year long?

We must price-check freedom — every day. Scripture is always an appropriate place to start. In John 15:13 the Bible teaches us, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This verse is memorialized on headstones form sea to shining sea.

President Reagan reminded the nation at Arlington in 1982 that “freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden.” That burden extends beyond military service. It demands vigilance. It requires raising children who understand why our flag is folded 13 times — not just how many “likes” a TikTok dance racks up.

We must finish the unfinished work.Abraham Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg was delivered five months after that battlefield fell silent, long after the trending topic had shifted. He challenged the living “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

Our unfinished work today is cultural: defending truth in classrooms, fostering marriages that can withstand deployment, protecting girls’ sports from idealogues who would erase biological reality, and pushing back when elites sneer at patriotism as passe.

We must guard the souls who come home. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ most recent suicide-prevention report still lands with a thud: An average of 17.6 veterans take their own lives each day. We flunk Remembrance 101.

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APCortizasJr via iStock/Getty Images

We cannot claim to honor the fallen if we abandon the brothers- and sisters-in-arms who made it home only to fight invisible wars. That means supporting faith-based counseling (which bureaucrats keep trying to sideline), turning the VA paperwork morass into a mission, helping veterans find meaningful and rewarding post-service careers, and checking on the veteran down the street instead of waiting for Washington to do it.

We must restore the faith they fought for.According to Pew Research, eight in ten Americans now believe religion is losing influence in public life, and roughly half say that’s a bad thing.

The men and women we memorialize took an oath to defend a nation “under God.” When pastors self-censor, when corporate America flies a Pride flag over Old Glory, and when our schools swap the Bible for the 1619 Project, we’re torching the spiritual scaffolding those soldiers died to protect. God bless America.

We must teach the next generation to remember on purpose.If your kids can quote Marvel but not MacArthur (“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation”), that’s on us. Take them to a war memorial in July, not just on the last Monday in May. Tell them why “Taps” is 24 notes of holy silence. Ask a Gold Star family to dinner and let the conversation run long. The goal isn’t to glorify war; it’s to glorify virtue — courage, duty, sacrifice — so that when the recruiters call, our sons and daughters know what they’re signing up to defend.

We must live gratefully and live out loud.Gratitude is not a Hallmark feeling; it’s a muscle you flex in public. Fly the flag correctly (sunrise to sunset, illuminated at night). Stand for the anthem even when the stadium lump next to you kneels or leaves his hat on. Support companies that still believe in America like Blaze Media and my podcast, “We the People with Gates Garcia.” And pray for our leaders — yes, even the ones making it hard.

We must trade hashtag for habits. Hashtags flicker; habit forges character. Start small: Write a letter to a deployed Marine, sign up for a volunteer shift at the VA hospital, make a family pledge to read one military biography a year; and if you are blessed with means, cut a check to a veterans’ nonprofit organization. Imagine 20 million American households stepping up to do that. The culture would shift faster than Congress could rename the next great American holiday.

The 365-day test: I love a good cookout more than anyone. That’s part of the freedom they bought us. But the measure of our gratitude isn’t how loudly we celebrate on one Monday — it’s how deliberately we lie on all the rest. Reagan’s challenge, Lincoln’s unfinished work, and Christ’s supreme definition of love converge on a single question the fallen silently ask us every dawn: Are you living a life worthy of my sacrifice?

One day a year it’s fine to say, “Happy Memorial Day.” But on those other 364, make sure you live like you’re worth that sacrifice.

This isn’t just baseball — it’s a rebellion in cowhide



May 31, 1997. I was 9 years old and had just hit my first home run for Tampa Bay Little League. After the game, a parent handed me the ball, and I wrote the date on it. Today, that ball still rests on a shelf in my den — a small monument to childhood and a boyhood milestone.

Last week, my 7-year-old son earned the game ball after his own baseball game. He plays in the same league and on the same field where I hit that home run. Naturally, I placed his ball right next to mine.

After our last game, my fellow coaches and I said what we all knew to be true: We’re not just teaching a sport. We’re raising boys into men — through baseball.

As I set his ball on the shelf, I picked mine up. The handwriting made me laugh — so innocent, with a crossed-out word where I had misspelled something. Suddenly, the memories came rushing back: the smell of the concession stand, the taste of my glove laces from chewing them in the outfield, and the voice of that one dad in the bleachers who never liked an umpire.

Then, something else caught my attention. The two baseballs, separated by 32 years, looked exactly the same. Same color. Same stitching. Same weight. Indistinguishable.

For a few minutes, I just stood there, staring at the two baseballs. In that quiet moment, something struck me: In a world where nearly everything feels up for grabs — values, definitions, identities, expectations, even truth — a baseball almost feels like an act of rebellion.

In a culture obsessed with chasing the next big thing, those two identical balls offered a much-needed reminder: Not everything needs to be reinvented or improved. Some things are worth preserving.

If you’re familiar with my work, you know I take pride in celebrating the things that never go out of style — faith, family, and freedom. I cast shade on what’s trendy and shine a bright light on what’s true, good, and beautiful. When the world wobbles, these values steady the ground beneath us. They hold together not just our personal lives but the country itself.

And let’s be honest. The world feels very wobbly right now.

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Our institutions keep demanding that we reconsider basic truths: that men can become women, that state ideology trumps parental authority, that patriotism poses a threat, that faith offends, and that masculinity is somehow toxic.

Every tradition gets questioned. Every boundary, blurred. Every norm, up for debate.

And yet — there sits the baseball. Quiet. Unchanged. Still exactly where I left it.

That’s not an accident. It points to something deeper, something God has written into the human heart: a longing for the eternal. For stability. For order. For truth that doesn’t shift with the culture.

When I coach my son on the same diamond I played on as a boy, I don’t think about preparing him for the chaos of the world. My job is to anchor him in the things that aren’t chaotic. After our last game, my fellow coaches and I said what we all knew to be true: We’re not just teaching a sport. We’re raising boys into men — through baseball.

We’re teaching them that manhood isn’t a moving target. That marriage is a covenant, not a contract. That freedom comes with responsibility.

Tradition isn’t something to escape. It’s something to inherit, to steward, and to pass on. That’s what fatherhood demands. It’s what citizenship requires. It’s what faith commands.

Despite what modern culture preaches, tradition isn’t about control — it’s about continuity. It’s the through line that links generations, so we don’t get swept away by every cultural trend. Headlines change. They don’t define you.

You’re defined by how you love your family; how you serve your neighbors; how you show up when it’s inconvenient; how you choose courage when convenience would be easier; how you pray when no one’s watching; how you toss the ball around with your kid in the backyard.

The stitching on that baseball never changed; neither did the role of a father; neither did the moral clarity of the gospel; neither did the beauty of a shared meal or the dignity of honest work.

It’s time we return to those things.

In a culture obsessed with change, maybe the wiser path is to focus on what doesn’t. Maybe the real challenge isn’t keeping up with the world — it’s keeping faith with the people and principles that mattered before the world got so loud.

In 1776, North Carolina’s constitution echoed that truth. American founder George Mason wrote, “A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessing of liberty.”

That baseball on the shelf hasn’t changed — neither have the things that matter most.

And I’m holding on tight.