It is an eerie and existential feeling to be so close to a terrorist attack, especially with your wife and children.

My family came to Colorado for vacation. We visited Boulder for the mountain views — the kind that lift your eyes toward the heavens and, if you’re paying attention, your heart toward the Creator. But here, where beauty should awaken gratitude, the air smells more like weed than wonder.

While Boulder boasts that it welcomes all ‘spiritual paths,’ it slams the door on the word of God. It tolerates everything except truth.

Boulder markets itself as spiritual, but it rejects any higher moral authority. Cafés glow with Himalayan salt lamps. Bumper stickers push peace, pansexuality, and “coexistence.” But behind every soft smile, the city enforces a hard orthodoxy — LGBTQ absolutism, DEI dogma, and the gospel of oppressor versus oppressed. You can burn incense. Just don’t quote Moses. You can chant. Just don’t pray to the living God.

Bookstores warn visitors against racism, as if that’s been a problem in their aisles. Trans flags flutter at courthouse doors. Rainbow crosswalks stretch beneath Pride banners. But real justice doesn’t live here any more. The place preaches inclusion and practices exclusion — especially of Christianity.

Hours before Sunday’s fiery attack on mostly elderly women, we passed the Boulder County courthouse on the Pearl Street Mall. My children strolled beside me, laughing in the sun beneath flags meant to signal that biblical morality and equal justice under law are no longer welcome.

Later that day, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, reportedly shouting “free Palestine,” allegedly hurled a Molotov cocktail at a peaceful gathering of people praying for the hostages held in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.

You might miss Boulder’s spiritual decay if you only look at the Flatirons. But step closer. The library near the creek now serves as a homeless encampment. Spring no longer smells like flowers — it reeks of drugs. Pride Month never ends. Boulder turned it into a liturgical calendar.

And while Boulder boasts that it welcomes all “spiritual paths,” it slams the door on the word of God. It tolerates everything except truth.

Boulder’s decline isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a larger collapse. We buried two Israeli embassy workers gunned down in Washington, D.C. Harvard refused to cooperate with the federal probe into campus anti-Semitism, citing “academic freedom” with zero irony. An MIT commencement speaker scolded graduates for not doing more to “free Palestine.” And across the country, publicly funded professors preach that America’s enemies are “whiteness” and “heteronormativity” — and that resistance justifies any cost.

Sam Harris, atheist poster child of the old intellectual left, recently claimed it would be worth ending democracy to stop a Trump presidency. At my own university, Arizona State, I’ve been forced to complete DEI training, confess “whiteness,” recite native land acknowledgments, and “decolonize” my own syllabus. I’ve been told Christianity is oppressive, gender is infinite, and heteronormativity must go.

This isn’t theory. It’s happening right now. In classrooms. To your kids.

I’m not claiming the Boulder suspect read Ibram X. Kendi before allegedly carrying out his firebombings. But this much is clear: He overstayed his visa, wasn’t deported under the Biden administration, and targeted Jewish women in particular — elderly, peaceful, praying — with fire.

That isn’t coincidence. It fits the anti-Semitic, anti-Western pattern sanctified by academia.

Democrats own this.

RELATED: Feds probe ASU for racial bias — will other universities be held accountable?

Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images

They defend illegal immigration while insisting illegal aliens commit fewer crimes than citizens — ignoring the obvious truth that none of those crimes would happen if they weren’t here at all. They cry “tolerance” while enforcing LGBTQ+ orthodoxy. They call conservatives bigots while defending anti-Semitism as free expression.

Imagine this exchange:

Democrat: “You’re a racist, fascist bigot.”
Republican: “You support anti-Semitism, child mutilation, open borders, and the suppression of Christianity.”
Democrat: “Correct. Read our platform.”

These aren’t insults. These are bragging rights.

As a tenured professor at the largest public university in the country, I can tell you what many humanities programs now teach: grievance. Anger. Victimhood as identity. They don’t educate. They radicalize.

Check the marketing. Many departments proudly list “activist” as a top career goal. They’re not preparing students to build anything. They’re preparing them to burn it down. One poet said the world needs more activists like a fish needs a bicycle. Academia ignored the advice.

Universities now operate like cults of deconstruction. They tear down the Bible, faith, family, and country. They don’t ask students to think. They teach them what to think — and who to hate.

No, not every DEI seminar leads to a Molotov cocktail. But when professors claim that Christianity is oppression, that white families are systems of violence, that gender is a fiction, and that America itself is illegitimate — why are we shocked when students act accordingly?

Smerdyakov acted out Ivan Karamazov’s nihilism. Our students are doing the same.

The solution starts here:

Parents — Stop sending your kids to be trained by people who hate you.
Students — Refuse to pay for indoctrination. Ask hard questions. Better yet, avoid the ideologues altogether.
Legislators — Defund institutions that despise your voters.
Pastors — Prepare your congregations for the wolves that wait in lecture halls.
Donors — Close your wallets. They cash your checks and mock your most cherished beliefs.

Universities hide behind “academic freedom.” Fine. But American freedom means you don’t have to subsidize it. You don’t have to pretend not to see the fire.

And even if the Boulder firebomb had no direct tie to campus ideology — if it was just coincidence — we still have to ask: Why are taxpayers funding professors who hand students the ideological Molotovs?

Hey, teachers! Leave them kids alone.