R Magic Brow

A generation was promised a simple path to the American dream: Earn a four-year degree, get a good job, buy a house, start a family. For many Millennials, the diploma arrived. The rest of the bargain did not.Now student loan payments compete with rent, mortgages, and the cost of raising children. Graduates work in jobs that never required the credentials they borrowed money to obtain. Meanwhile, socialism has reached its highest positive rating since Gallup began tracking it in 2010. Who sold Millennials the original promise?You were lied to by leftist universities that gladly took your money and left you in ruin.Gallup’s September report found that 43% of Americans viewed socialism positively, up from 39% in 2025. Among adults ages 18 to 34, the figure was 57%. It is an extraordinary development. If government-backed higher education helped saddle a generation with debt, why would more government look like the solution?The financial burden is real. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported $1.65 trillion in outstanding student loans in the second quarter of 2026. In a separate Federal Reserve survey, 23% of adults with student loans reported recent difficulty making payments. Even a manageable loan bill is money a borrower cannot put toward a down payment or a family.But why did so many people borrow so much for credentials whose value varies so widely? Because Americans were repeatedly told a four-year degree was the necessary ticket to adulthood.Parents heard it. Guidance counselors repeated it. Politicians promised greater access. Universities gladly collected the tuition, helped along by a federal lending system that made borrowing easier today and paying the bill a problem for tomorrow.And some of the professors who taught students to distrust capitalism were only too happy to work within this arrangement. Universities expanded administrative operations while students took on mounting obligations. The people selling degrees should have been the first to explain what those degrees could actually buy.The gamble persists for younger graduates. Federal Reserve research using 2023 data on graduates ages 22 to 27 found an underemployment rate of 9.7% for nursing majors, compared with 56.5% for liberal arts and 67.2% for criminal justice. Underemployment here means holding a job that typically does not require a college degree. These graduates are working, but many are not using the expensive credential they were told they needed.RELATED: CS Lewis knew how clever people teach themselves to be fools John Chillingworth/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesWhat did the colleges tell their applicants about those odds? If an 18-year-old is asked to borrow tens of thousands of dollars, the institution ought to disclose the likely costs, earnings, and risks. A degree is an investment only if the buyer has a realistic picture of the return. Universities should face the same scrutiny over misleading promises that we expect of any business.Students also deserved a serious account of the alternatives: trade schools, apprenticeships, community colleges, military service, and employment without a four-year degree. These are legitimate paths to adulthood, not consolation prizes for people supposedly unfit for college.There is a cultural problem, too. On too many campuses, students are trained to interpret society through oppression, power, and inequality. Let them study those arguments. But also make them confront the best defenses of markets, private property, entrepreneurship, and the limits of government. A university should teach students to examine competing ideas, not recruit them to a fashionable orthodoxy.RELATED: Warning: This college course may be bad for your brain Andi Purnomo/Getty ImagesProfessors who preach against capitalist exploitation might begin by examining the financial incentives of their own institutions. Some feed students a steady diet of anti-market rhetoric while they borrow heavily for degrees with uncertain returns. That is champagne communism for the faculty and a monthly payment for the graduate.The irony is hard to miss. A generation taught to question capitalism and burdened by debt from a government-supported lending system may now look to government for relief. But another subsidy does not require universities to tell the truth about what they sell. Nor does it hold anyone accountable for promises that proved empty.Accountability begins with honest disclosures in university advertising and recruitment. I am working on that problem through the Intellectual Nutrition Label project. If a school makes demonstrably deceptive promises, lawyers and class-action lawsuits may have a role. Institutions that charge families so much should not be exempt from answering for what they represent.The lesson for Millennials is all too clear. You were lied to by leftist universities that gladly took your money and left you in ruin. It isn’t too late to see the leftist worldview for what it is: the road to serfdom. It’s time to hold the universities that pushed these lies accountable.

When J.K. Rowling’s "Harry Potter" series became a film franchise in 2001, it intensified an existing controversy among some evangelical Christians, who argued that its positive portrayal of witchcraft could desensitize children to the occult, blur the line between fantasy and real spiritual practices, and serve as a gateway to interest in actual witchcraft or Wicca.Others argued that the magic in the series was purely fictional rather than real occult practice, that the series promoted moral values such as courage, loyalty, and self-sacrifice, and that it could be read with discernment or even used to illustrate Christian themes.While the "Harry Potter" dispute is largely a thing of the past, the debate over whether or not it is sinful for Christians to watch movies about magic and witchcraft remains. On a recent episode of “Live Free with Josh Howerton,” co-hosts and pastors Carlos Erazo and Paul Cunningham dove into the debate. While Erazo and Cunningham disagree on the issue of movies with magic and witchcraft themes, they do agree that such entertainment falls into the “matters of conscience” category, described by Paul in Romans 14 as disputable issues on which Christians should follow their own convictions without judging others for having different convictions.Erazo, who is more restrictive with entertainment, says he asks himself four questions before deciding whether or not something is OK to engage with: “What type of content am I consuming?”“What is it glorifying?” “Who is the author, and what's his intent or purpose?”“Is it redeeming that which the Bible calls a sin?” When he applies these questions to the "Harry Potter" books and movies, for example, he walks away with a conviction to abstain from them. “'Harry Potter' glorifies something the Bible explicitly condemns, and the specific things it glorifies, I believe, are spiritually dangerous,” he says, citing Deuteronomy 18’s forbiddance of practicing divination, fortune-telling, sorcery, charms, necromancy, and the like. “'Harry Potter' portrays all of these elements as good, exciting, and heroic, and in many ways, we are invited to love these characters, see them as heroes, and love what they do. And so as a Christian, I reject that,” says Erazo, emphasizing that witchcraft is not fictional but a very real practice used by millions of people. Cunningham sees the issue differently. He draws a distinction between committing a sin and watching a fictional character commit a sin. He gives the example of the "John Wick" series, which Erazo says he enjoys watching. The film revolves around a retired assassin who goes on a sustained killing spree for revenge. “If you use that train of logic,” Cunningham argues, “I think you have to land at the exact same place with 'Harry Potter' because both 'John Wick' and 'Harry Potter' … [have sins] that happen in the real world and can happen in the real world. In those movies, it glorifies them.” To hear more of the debate, watch the episode above. Join BlazeTV+ and start watching Josh today at blazetv.com/JOSH. Use promo code JOSH to get $20 off your subscription.

The grass isn't always greener on the other side. Sometimes there's no grass at all, just burning buildings and people defecting on the sidewalk.Many Americans packed their bags when Donald Trump was re-elected, announcing to anyone who would listen that they were moving to enlightened Europe, where the culture is considerably classier and the quality of life infinitely better.Some American expatriates interviewed by Wired described coldness, condescension, and outright mockery of their American identities.Now, according to a new report in Wired, some of these political refugees are having second thoughts. Lower salaries, frustrating bureaucracies, disappointing health care, and the discovery that Europeans aren't necessarily thrilled to have them around have persuaded some to return to the country they were so desperate to escape.Reality checkThey treated fleeing America as a profound political statement, strutting toward passport control with the smug satisfaction of medieval monarchs dodging the plague. That smugness lasted until they received their first European paycheck and realized their homeland offered massive earning potential, dynamic job markets, and grocery stores open past eight o'clock.Perhaps their biggest blunder involved confusing temporary dissatisfaction with the president for permanent hatred of a truly great nation. They emigrated to save their souls, only to discover that they couldn't even save a decent amount of money.The Europe many Americans imagine — the Bernie Sanders-endorsed socialist paradise with free health care, happy families living in happy communities, and shorter working hours — looks considerably less appealing once the bills start arriving. The daily reality can involve crushing taxes, dismal customer service, tiny paychecks, and enough red tape to make Franz Kafka claw his way out of the grave and write a few more novels. Americans fleeing Trump crossed the ocean to escape domestic dysfunction, only to discover that bureaucratic dysfunction translates perfectly into almost every European language.These deluded liberals spent years enjoying the unmatched advantages of American life while loudly condemning the country providing them. They assumed those financial cushions and consumer comforts would automatically replicate overseas, minus the conservative voters they so openly and brazenly smeared. But respectable salaries, professional mobility, and a culture of getting things done aren't standard across the developed world.It's a riotThen there is the social instability, which might come as a shock to these Trump-fearing refugees.Take France, for instance. The idyllic postcard of Parisian cafés and endless vineyards has lately given way to burning streets, smashed storefronts, and riot police struggling to contain violent unrest. Following nationwide riots on October 17 and 18 that resulted in thousands of arrests, authorities imposed curfews in several major cities. As of Friday, October 23, restrictions remain in place, with further demonstrations expected over the weekend.Nor is the disorder confined to the occasional political demonstration. According to France's Interior Ministry, recorded physical violence rose 5% in 2025. Sexual violence also increased. The sophisticated European culture these Americans sought comes with rather more tear gas and police sirens than the travel brochures generally advertise.The situation across the border in Germany offers little reassurance. The myth of Teutonic efficiency is increasingly difficult to reconcile with the experience of navigating modern Berlin's bureaucracy, public transportation, and employment market. One American who moved to Berlin and subsequently returned home told Wired that finding work had been extraordinarily difficult and the bureaucracy seemingly endless.Knife to meet youThen there is crime. According to German government figures released in October, federal police registered 14,049 violent offenses and 1,104 sexual offenses involving trains and railway stations during the first half of 2026. Among suspects in sexual offenses whose German or non-German nationality was known, non-Germans accounted for slightly more than half.Knife attacks, sexual offenses, and violent confrontations in public transportation facilities are hardly advertisements for good old German law and order. The new arrivals banked on German efficiency to keep life running smoothly, only to discover that efficiency itself sometimes seems utterly out of stock.Crossing the Channel to the United Kingdom offers no guarantee of sanctuary either. The belief that British manners, orderly queuing, and civilized teatimes still prevail everywhere is, at best, naive. The country recorded 48,615 knife-enabled offenses in the year ending June 2026. Although that represented a decline from the previous year, it remains an appalling number for a country once celebrated for its orderly public life.Blighty in a burqaThe cultural transformation of Britain's major cities is equally difficult to ignore. Birmingham, the U.K.'s second-biggest city, has changed dramatically in recent decades. According to the 2021 census, nearly 30% of its residents identified as Muslim, up from roughly 22% a decade earlier, while the proportion identifying as Christian fell to 34%. The England of popular American imagination, with its village greens, parish churches, and reassuringly familiar customs, no longer provides a particularly reliable guide to the country as it exists today.Even Americans who welcome these changes may find that British society is considerably less welcoming than expected. One American interviewed by Wired complained about colleagues mocking her accent and culture. She and her husband are now planning to return to the United States.RELATED: How Europe turned illegal immigration into a 5-star vacation package Carlos Jasso/Getty ImagesThey hate America tooCompounding this rude cultural awakening is a growing wave of anti-American sentiment. A Pew Research Center survey published in June found that majorities in nine of the 10 European countries surveyed held unfavorable views of the United States. Europeans may disagree about their own politics, but disapproval of America is one subject on which many seem remarkably united.The New Yorkers and Californians who left home expecting a hero's welcome may discover that sharing a European's dislike of Donald Trump doesn't automatically make them honorary Europeans. Some American expatriates interviewed by Wired described coldness, condescension, and outright mockery of their American identities. Apparently, denouncing one's homeland is no guarantee of acceptance in somebody else's.Ireland remains, in my admittedly biased opinion, about the only country in Western Europe where genuine affection for Americans still comes naturally. Golf enthusiasts like Bill Murray can tour the Irish countryside and find real warmth and friendly conversations. As an Irishman, I understand if some readers say I'm biased. Perhaps, but I'm also right. You don't need to be a Hollywood legend to be warmly embraced. The Irish have a genuine, heartfelt appreciation for our transatlantic cousins, though calls to kick Rosie O'Donnell out are increasing by the day.Elsewhere, the reception can be considerably frostier.Social media feeds and shameless influencers convinced credulous Americans to abandon their lives and embrace a supposed utopian paradise. They mistook strangers' advice for a practical relocation strategy. They imagined a continent without America's political divisions, only to discover that Europe has plenty of its own, along with economic stagnation, immigration controversies, and governments that can make Washington's bureaucrats look positively energetic.Some are now returning home with their tails firmly between their legs, embarrassed and, one hopes, slightly more grateful than before to be citizens of the United States. One American who returned from Berlin told Wired he had begun to wonder whether he had overreacted to the political situation back home.It's an expensive way to discover that America has rather more going for it than the people who spend their lives complaining about it care to admit.

Since 9/11, Western leaders have repeatedly insisted that radical Islam has little to do with the religion’s mainstream teachings — and that Islam, as a whole, is good. But historian and author Raymond Ibrahim argues that this comforting narrative ignores centuries of religious texts, legal traditions, and historical precedent. “Unfortunately here in the West, it’s become so mangled and, you know, apparently an impossible question to answer,” Ibrahim tells Freitas. Islam, Ibrahim says, is “actually very simple, and every Muslim knows what Islam teaches.” Some of what people believe is simply “radical Islam” are beliefs like “killing the apostate or having slaves, having sex slaves, concubines, treating the non-Muslim inferior, as an inferior subject,” and “killing someone because he blasphemed against Muhammad.”“All of these are 100% Islamic. There’s no question to this, and anyone who wants to argue otherwise, be he Muslim or non-Muslim, is either an idiot or a liar,” Ibrahim says. “This is just not even open to debate, OK, it’s in the scriptures. It’s in the Quran. It’s in the Hadith. All the scholars and schools of law have agreed to it,” he explains. “The Muslim who does not do those things … they do exist, OK, he’s good, but he’s not the representative of Islam. We want to convince ourselves that Islam is by nature the good guys. And then you have the few crazy guys,” he continues. “It’s, like you said, the opposite. Islam by nature is radical because it teaches things that are inherently antithetical to Western norms,” he adds. Radical Islam, he says, “is the mainstream way.” “It’s always been understood. You want to know what Islam is? OK, stop listening to the American apologist who no Muslim even has heard of,” he tells Freitas. “Go to the Muslim world and see what happens there. You will find Christians are subjugated. They’re being persecuted. They’re sometimes being killed. They are not allowed to have churches. They’re being thrown in jail because they shared a Facebook post that’s negative about Muhammad, OK, that’s real Islam. It’s happening now,” he continues. “So why on earth would I think it’s not the real thing?” “Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.