Van-bōōl-zal-ness Must Fall

Under the glow of the “Curves Day” headlines, the show opened with a different curve: a question. Where did America’s courage go, and who taught us to fear our own voice?

The phones flared first. Dan wondered aloud if we were all just pieces on someone else’s board. Stan came in hot, straight talk and common sense, reminding us that character does not have a skin tone. Keith traced the rot back to classrooms and cowards who let propaganda pass for education. Each caller added a brushstroke to a larger picture: a nation nudged into silence, taught to shout down ideas, and told to treat disagreement as violence. It had a name, and it rang through the hour—the Van-bōōl-zal-ness Crisis.

We looked homeward. In a city that pays school boards like champions and graduates children like afterthoughts, free speech grades are failing and moral courage is graded on a curve. We looked outward. October 7 deserved our memory long after the hashtags died. We looked upward. Faith, family, and honest work are still the anchors when every current pulls against them.

Midstream, a new voice joined the story. Stefan Padfield did not come to posture. He came with receipts. He described a world where corporate giants chase applause from activist scorekeepers, then hide behind procedural riddles when asked for proof that any of it serves customers, shareholders, or country. In his telling, the boardroom was not a mystery; it was a mirror. When profits kneel to politics, families pay the tithe.

The numbers were not abstractions. Students self-censor. Crowds cheer the shout-down. Too many nod when someone calls speech “harm” and violence “answer.” That is not education. That is training wheels for tyranny.

Through it all, one line, sharp as a bell, cut the noise: “The white liberal is more deceitful, more hypocritical than the conservative.” It was not comfort food. It was a test. Who is using you, and who is telling you the truth?

By the time the music faded, the path was plain. Parents who teach grit. Entrepreneurs who build. Churches that preach truth instead of trend. Voters who start local before they talk national. New York politicians can mail “inflation checks” and call it relief. We will call it what it is. The best social program remains a job. The best defense of liberty remains you.

This episode is not a rant. It is a reckoning. Listen, share, and then take your next step—in your home, your school board, your church, your business. Dialogue. Discernment. Media. One brave voice at a time is how a free people win.