The MAGA divide over Israel is a test of maturity



The recent clash between Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) over the Israel-Iran conflict isn’t just a Twitter skirmish. It’s a proxy battle highlighting a deeper divide within the MAGA movement. That divide cuts to the heart of competing worldviews, and I’ve spent much of this week on my show trying to make sense of it through a biblical lens.

This internal debate isn’t a problem. In fact, it’s a strength. You’ll see it across Blaze Media on a wide variety of questions. Glenn Beck champions critical thinking and challenging assumptions. We don’t all walk in lockstep — nor should we. On this issue alone, you’ll hear wildly different takes across the network. That diversity makes us better.

We live in a time that punishes discernment. Critical thinking doesn’t just get ignored — it gets attacked. And yet I’ve never seen so many people hungry for truth.

We’re also better off when we allow that debate to happen within ourselves.

When I first became a Christian, I devoured everything I could find about church history and theology. I loved Augustine. Then I read Calvin and agreed with him — even where he contradicted Augustine. Then I read Luther, who opposed both of them — and I agreed with him, too. What now?

That tension never goes away. Pick up a Tim Keller book, and the same thing happens. If he wrote it before 2005, it’s probably excellent. If he wrote it after, it probably isn’t. So is Keller good or bad? Right or wrong?

I care about truth more than just about anyone I know. But early in my journey, I learned a hard lesson — delivered, oddly enough, by one of my favorite childhood films “WarGames”: “The only winning move is not to play.”

So do I have to pick Tucker or Cruz? Do I have to vote someone off the island?

Nope. If someone’s right in the moment, I’m with them. If they’re wrong — even if they were right 10 times before — I’m not. It’s not personal. It’s principled. That’s the only way I’ve found to avoid losing my mind, becoming a tribalist, or slipping into flat-out idolatry.

We live in a time that punishes discernment. Critical thinking doesn’t just get ignored — it gets attacked. And yet, I’ve never seen so many people hungry for truth.

That hunger forces us to work with unlikely allies.

Take Naomi Wolf. For three decades, she belonged to a political world I deeply opposed. She worked for the Clintons and trafficked in feminist nonsense. But during COVID, when the lies were thickest, she told the truth. She fought the right fight, at the right time, on the right side. That mattered more than her résumé. That’s what discernment looks like. Personality cults don’t interest me.

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Same with Donald Trump. In 2015, his campaign tried everything to hire me. I almost said yes. But then I did everything I could to stop him from winning. Yet the morning after his victory, I said something on my show that might be the most important thing I’ve ever said on-air: “The country has spoken. NeverTrump is dead and never coming back.”

I wanted what was best for the country. And at that moment, that meant helping Trump succeed. How could I help?

You won’t think that way if you’re obsessed with defending your narrative at all costs — especially if that narrative floats untethered from the Word of God.

You won’t love your neighbor. You’ll straw-man your opponents. You’ll never consider the possibility you’re wrong.

Look around. Just days ago, Israel versus Iran wasn’t on our radar. Now, people have already retreated to their corners and locked in their positions — on a conflict that could reshape the lives of millions.

Maybe we should stop. Breathe. Listen.

Maybe, before we harden into another round of generational mistakes, we should consult God — and one another.

Let’s reason together. It’s not weakness. It’s wisdom. And we need more of it.

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Prominent legal scholar warns of AI risks after ChatGPT creates fictitious accusation that he sexually harassed a student



Jonathan Turley is raising an alarm after ChatGPT falsely accused him of sexually harassing his students, backing it up with a nonexistent news article and nonexistent "facts."

"AI and AI algorithms are no less biased and flawed than the people who program them," the American attorney and legal scholar wrote Monday in an opinion piece for USA Today.

"Recent research has shown ChatGPT's political bias, and while this incident might not be a reflection of such biases, it does show how AI systems can generate their own forms of disinformation with less direct accountability," Turley also wrote.

The artificial intelligence tool generated a response that said Turley had been accused of sexually harassing a former Georgetown University student during a school-sponsored trip to Alaska. The response included a reference to a 2018 article in the Washington Post about the fictitious encounter.

Every aspect of ChatGPT's response, save the spelling of his name, was false, Turley says. He has never taught at Georgetown; has never taken students on a trip; never went to Alaska with students; and was never accused of sexual harassment or assault. Further, the supposed Washington Post article does not exist.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh conducted the research on ChatGPT and alerted Turley to his findings. Turley says he initially found the results "comical." After reflecting on the larger implications, he says it "took on a more menacing meaning."

Volokh reportedly prompted ChatGPT with the following query: "Whether sexual harassment by professors has been a problem at American law schools; please include at least five examples, together with quotes from relevant newspaper articles." Turley's was example #4.

As Turley eloquently discusses in his op-ed, technology leaders and researchers are calling for a pause on AI.

Even Google, which recently launched Bard, a competitor to ChatGPT, make careful acknowledgement of the risks and limitations of the emerging technology.

"Because they learn from a wide range of information that reflects real-world biases and stereotypes, those sometimes show up in their outputs. And they can provide inaccurate, misleading or false information while presenting it confidently," the company said in an announcement about Bard's launch in March 2022.

Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and thousands of other distinguished signatories called for an immediate pause, for at least six months, on training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 in an open letter March 22.

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