This week, my university emailed a Fourth of July reflection that caught my attention. It claimed the “backbone of our independence” is entrepreneurship and praised secular universities as the seedbed of innovation — and, by extension, democracy itself.
I’m all for business. Enterprise, creativity, and free markets foster prosperity and reward initiative. But business doesn’t create liberty. It depends on liberty. Markets flourish only when justice, rights, and human dignity already exist. In other words, business is a fruit of independence, not its root.
Our freedoms — legal, political, scientific, and economic — grow best in soil nourished by the belief in human dignity grounded in something greater than man.
As we celebrate Independence Day, it’s worth remembering the true foundation of American freedom. The Declaration of Independence doesn’t just announce our break with Britain — it explains why that break was just. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” it says, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
That single sentence tells us where rights come from: not from governments or markets, but from God. Human equality doesn’t rest on ability, wealth, or status — qualities that always vary. It rests on the shared reality that each of us bears the image of the same Creator.
This truth isn’t just historical. It remains the cornerstone of liberty. Without it, terms like “human rights” or “justice” collapse into slogans. If rights don’t come from God, where do they come from? Who gives them? And who can take them away?
Contrast our Declaration with the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That document says people “have” rights — but doesn’t explain why or where they come from or why rights matter. It invokes no Creator, no image of God, no natural law, no self-evident truth or moral source beyond political consensus. Rights, it suggests, are whatever the international community agrees they are.
That’s a dangerous idea. If rights come from consensus, consensus can erase them. If governments or global committees grant rights, they can redefine or revoke them when convenient. There is no firm ground, only shifting sands.
Many Americans now prefer this softer, godless version of human dignity. They invoke justice but reject the Judge. They want rights without a Creator, happiness without truth, liberty without responsibility. But rights without God offer no security — and happiness without God dissolves into fantasy. It’s a mirage.
This project of cutting freedom off from its source cannot last. Our freedoms — legal, political, scientific, and economic — grow best in soil nourished by the belief in human dignity grounded in something greater than man.
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We live in God’s world. That distinction matters. A society built on contracts negotiates rights. A society built on covenants honors obligations to the truth. The difference isn’t just theological — it’s civilizational.
By rejecting the Creator, we don’t advance progress. We erase the foundation that made progress possible. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “You cannot go on 'explaining away' forever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away.”
Explain away God, and you explain away the reason rights exist.
So this Independence Day, remember what liberty really means — and what sustains it. We’re not free because we said so. We’re free because we answer to a law higher than any court or committee. We are created equal because we are created — period.
Entrepreneurship has its place. But the American experiment wasn’t born from a business plan. It began with a declaration that acknowledged God. If we want that experiment to endure, we must not forget what made it possible in the first place.
Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.
You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.
Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.
I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.
Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.
Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.
Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.
— (@)
That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.
It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.
To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.
His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.
In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.
Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?
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As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.
That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.
Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.
Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.
Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?
The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”
BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.
That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.
I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.
This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.
More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.
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Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is leading the effort to make sure our taxpayer dollars are actually working for the American people.
Blackburn introduced the United Nations Voting Accountability Act on Thursday, which would prohibit taxpayer funding or aid from going toward "foreign countries that oppose the position of the United States in the United Nations," Blaze News has exclusively learned.
'It is unacceptable for US aid recipients to use international platforms to undermine America and protect adversaries like Iran.'
Notably, America spends tens of billions of dollars on foreign aid, contributing more to the United Nations than any other country. Blackburn and many other Americans are insisting that we should not owe money to countries that oppose our interests.
"No more should American taxpayers have to question the value of foreign assistance to countries that oppose our values and interests," Blackburn told Blaze News. "The United States must be a good steward of taxpayer dollars, ensuring every dollar that we send to foreign nations drives global stability and advances American interests."
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"The United Nations Voting Accountability Act would ensure that taxpayers are not forced to fund countries that undermine and vote against the U.S. in the United Nations," Blackburn added.
The bill does allow the secretary of state, in this case Marco Rubio, to exempt countries if they make a "fundamental change" to the leadership and policies to the extent that they no longer oppose the position of the United States in the U.N.
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Following American airstrikes in Iran, adversarial countries like Russia, China, and Pakistan began circulating a resolution in the U.N. calling for a ceasefire, which "ignores Iran's support for terrorism" and "shields the Iranian regime from accountability," according to a press release from Blackburn's office obtained by Blaze News.
"While the resolution does not name the U.S. or Israel, its intent is obvious," the press release reads. "It is unacceptable for U.S. aid recipients to use international platforms to undermine America and protect adversaries like Iran."
This bill is also being sponsored in the House by Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, who introduced the legislation in February.
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Iran has once again violated its obligations under the International Atomic Energy Agency, thumbing its nose at the international community and inching the world closer to open conflict.
In the past, such provocation might have triggered a kinetic military response. But what if President Trump had another option — one that avoids American bloodshed, leverages international law, and puts the mullahs on the defensive using the very tools they rely on to maintain power?
President Trump doesn’t need to invade Iran to change it. He needs only to interrupt it.
Rather than ordering a strike package or putting boots on the ground, Trump could pursue a bold diplomatic gambit.
Under Article 41 of the United Nations Charter, the Security Council can authorize measures “not involving the use of armed force” to enforce its will. These include the “complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication” (my emphasis).
In other words, an embargo. But not just the old-fashioned kind.
Time is a critical variable in any conflict. Traditional embargoes — naval blockades, sanctions regimes — require months or years to produce meaningful results. But a digital embargo, launched under the auspices of Article 41, could produce near-instantaneous effects on Iran’s command and control, propaganda apparatus, and internal cohesion.
Imagine this: Iranian cell networks silenced. Internet access throttled or shut down entirely. Satellite links disrupted. State television (or what’s left of it) cut off from its viewers. Social media — so often used as a tool of repression and misinformation — rendered inert.
This isn’t science fiction. These capabilities exist. And with international backing, their coordinated use against the Iranian regime would amount to a strategic information offensive — precisely the kind of campaign envisioned by the pioneering concept of SOFTWAR.
SOFTWAR — short for soft warfare — is the doctrine of using information systems, media, and psychological operations to degrade an adversary’s will and capacity to fight without firing a single shot. The term isn’t just rhetorical flourish. As the progenitor of the U.S. military’s first “virtual unit” — a joint team of California Air and Army National Guardsmen tasked with exploring information dominance — I’ve seen the possibilities firsthand.
In this case, combatant commanders could employ SOFTWAR principles to carry out a tailored, non-kinetic campaign: degrading Iran’s internal communications, disrupting regime propaganda, and flooding the digital space with content that inspires dissent and destabilizes the theocracy’s grip on power.
Article 41 doesn’t just permit such actions — it provides the legal basis for them. The operative word in the U.N. Charter is “interrupt.” That grants flexibility. “Interruption” can mean anything from throttling bandwidth to flipping the narrative script. Every act of suppression by the Iranian regime could be met with a counterstroke that undermines its legitimacy and erodes public confidence.
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Iran’s clerical regime depends on a tightly controlled narrative to survive. Interrupt that narrative — inject confusion, sow doubt, and amplify internal frustrations — and you begin to unmake the regime from within.
Television broadcasts could be co-opted to present alternative visions of Iranian life. Disaffected youth could receive direct messages from the free world. Clerical edicts could be ridiculed, refuted, or simply drowned out.
In the digital age, perception is reality — and controlling perception is a form of power more potent than many realize.
If executed with precision, coordination, and the right legal cover, such a campaign could avoid the mass casualties, blowback, and open-ended commitment of a traditional military operation. It could also mark a new chapter in U.S. strategy — one that prioritizes data dominance over deadweight tonnage.
The 1st Joint SOFTWAR Unit (Virtual), which I had the honor of organizing, was established to explore exactly these kinds of strategies. Though the unit now sits in bureaucratic limbo, its mission has never been more urgent — or more applicable — than in the current standoff with Iran.
President Trump doesn’t need to invade Iran to change it. He needs only to interrupt it.
With the Security Council’s approval and the backing of U.S. information forces, he could do just that — and rewrite the rules of engagement for the 21st century.
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