A Time of Choosing for Western Civilization

On this Friday, February 6, 2026 broadcast, Kim Monson marks Ronald Reagan’s birthday by weaving his 1964 Time of Choosing speech throughout the show, connecting Cold War-era warnings about appeasement to today’s ideological battles over education, immigration enforcement, and the preservation of Western civilization with Molly Lamar, Brad Birzer, Teddy Collins, and Chris Harris. Cherry Creek Schools Superintendent Resigns Amid Toxic Culture Start listening at 20:36 – Hour 1 Molly Lamar, a former State Board of Education candidate who has closely monitored Cherry Creek School District, reports that Superintendent Chris Smith resigned after Channel 7 investigative reporter Tony Kowalewski exposed a pattern of bullying, demeaning language, and a culture of fear within the district’s administrative offices. Smith’s wife, Brenda Smith, who served as chief of HR, creating a conflict of interest that eliminated checks and balances, was placed on administrative leave. Lamar describes teachers appearing on television masked and disguised for fear of losing their positions, and high-performing principals threatened with termination for speaking up. The school board has imposed a six-month travel freeze on district-level travel. Lamar calls for a full audit and warns that interim superintendent Dr. Jennifer Perry, who has been part of the existing culture, faces a pivotal test. Kim Monson connects the story to broader transparency failures across Colorado school districts, noting that Open the Books was told by Cherry Creek it would charge a high fee to release payroll data that should be publicly available. “The resignation of Superintendent Smith is not just a change in leadership. It is a victory for the hundreds of teachers and parents and staff who finally broke the silence on this toxic culture.” Molly Lamar, Education Advocate Tolkien, Lewis, and the Inklings as Defenders of Western Civilization Start listening at 34:47 – Hour 1 Brad Birzer, the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College and a fellow of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, illuminates the Inklings, the literary circle he calls the most important of the 20th century. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met in the mid-1920s, began gathering friends by 1931, and sustained their collaboration for nearly two decades. The group met on Monday mornings at a local pub, welcomed visitors at the Bird and Baby on Tuesdays, and read manuscripts aloud to one another on Thursday nights in Lewis’s rooms at Oxford, where Tolkien read the entire over many sessions. Birzer draws a direct line between the Inklings’ work and the defense of Western civilization, noting that both Tolkien and Lewis were deeply conservative men living through the rise of fascism, Nazism, and communism. The Battle of Vienna in 1683, when Polish King Jan Sobieski’s mounted knights relieved the besieged city at the last moment, directly inspired scenes in The Lord of the Rings. Birzer observes that Mustafa the Black was defeated on September 11, 1683, and that the date was chosen deliberately for the 2001 attacks. For young people especially, Birzer argues, Tolkien and Lewis succeeded where few authors do: they made goodness interesting without being Pollyannish. “When we’re reading The Lord of the Rings, we are truly being called to arms to defend Western civilization.”<...