My wife is a teacher at a public school as one of her many careers. I get a firsthand account of the state of public school education in Tennessee. So, when this article came out, I dove in. And I heard the same, tired song.
Tennessee’s Rank in Public School Spending
The newest rage in Tennessee is that the state registered lowest in the country in public school spending. This predictably outraged various groups of uninformed, rage-baiters into the playbook manual of feelings of over facts:
Feel angry
Call it out
See evidence-based refutation
Name-call and scream louder
Rather than look to see why, or if this is even something to be concerned about, how bad it is, they just came out swinging. I dug into it a little. Questions I had were:
One of the fastest improving states in the country.
So let me get this straight. Tennessee ranks lowest in public school spending but above the national average in educational outcomes? This alone indicates a lack of causation between spending and educational outcomes.
By the Numbers
But don’t take my word for it. Let’s actually look at numbers.
Spending
1980: $2300 per student ($9,000 in today’s dollars)
2023: $16,500 per student (National average is now $18,000. Some states exceed $20,000)
Right away, you would expect to see educational output almost double over this same time period. Unfortunately, this isn’t supported by the data.
Educational Outcomes
1980:
NAEP Testing age 13- reading 258, math 266
SAT testing age 13- verbal 421, math 466
2023:
NAEP Testing age 13- reading 256, math 263
SAT testing age 13- verbal 520, math 508
Here’s a graph of what that looks like:
Spending Per Student vs. Educational Outcomes from 1980-2023
This data is controlling for population changes (SES, racial makeup, neighborhood disparity).
The evidence is clear. Spending has no correlation to educational outcomes. By any reasonable logic, we should expect to see an increase in educational outcomes. There is none. So if money doesn’t matter to educational outcomes, what does?
The Monopoly
Competition. The government has no incentive to produce better outcomes because there is no one to compete with. The other two alternatives to public schools are private schools and home schools. Currently, the average cost per student in Tennessee for a private school education is $13,000 per year. The average cost per student in Tennessee for a homeschool education is $2,000 per year. This means that the public school system is the ONLY FREE education offered in Tennessee. This is the literal definition of a monopoly.
Websters Dictionary: Monopoly- An exclusive privilege to carry on a business or service granted by the government. The market condition that exists when there is only one seller.
Everyone knows that competition drives costs down and quality up. Until government schools have competition, there is no incentive to be more proficient, increase educational outcomes, and reduce teacher inefficiency. You can just keep rolling along with arbitrary teacher tenure, protection for ill-behaved children, and lack of control over violence in schools.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but what I know is spending more money on schools is not the answer, and creating competition is at least one answer.
I recently watched a podcast where James Orr discussed with Freya India the idea that therapy, and therapy culture, replaced morality. While I believe the current, overall culture of therapy is the location of toxicity in human behavior, which leads me to agree with their take, true therapy or counseling should operate from sound, objective realities, objective truths, and objective morality. The therapeutic endeavor itself isn’t the problem, it’s the improper application of it. When therapy abandons objective anchors, it stops being therapeutic and becomes permissive. It doesn’t heal, it pathologizes. Having said that, the conversation struck a nerve in the realm of moral relativism.
Moral relativism didn’t arrive like a catastrophe, it showed up like a shrug. Do whatever works for you.It’s your truth (which doesn’t exist). We’ve torn down shared moral boundaries and replaced them with personal preference, as if a society can survive on nothing but individual feelings. The psychological fallout is obvious. Confusion, anxiety, lack of direction, and a culture that can no longer tolerate discomfort without calling it trauma. It is the literal breeding ground for the epidemic of apathy we see in Gen Z.
That’s exactly what this moment feels like. The inability to grip agreed upon values. How did we get there? By wanting the outcomes of moral discipline without the discipline itself. We want the fruits of sacrifice without the sacrifice. We want maturity without constraint. We bought the idea that anything which constrains destroys. The result is a generation that celebrates its authenticity but collapses under the slightest internal pressure.
This is what moral relativism produces. When everyone defines right and wrong according to personal preference, emotional comfort replaces morality. The fear of hurting someone’s feelings now outweighs the obligation to speak truth. People stay silent, not because they’ve thought deeply, but because they’re terrified of being called judgmental. Once emotional safety becomes the highest value, every other value gets downgraded. Responsibility looks oppressive. Boundaries look abusive. Expectations look cruel. Freya said,
Jordan Peterson, for years, has been saying that we’re being taught that all boundaries are tyranny. But a world with no boundaries isn’t free, it’s chaotic. Everyone understands this at the fundamental level. A child without boundaries becomes anxious. A marriage without boundaries falls apart. A society without boundaries dissolves into factions. And yet, somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves that moral boundaries are uniquely dangerous, while pretending the psychological fallout doesn’t exist.
Jonathan Haidt’s research shows how this plays out. When “safetyism”, or harm avoidance, becomes the highest moral priority, the definition of harm expands until anything can count. Expectations hurt. Standards hurt. Disagreement hurts. This inflated sense of fragility is exactly what we see now. We have a population that is both hyper-sensitive and chronically distressed. A terrible psychological combination. People can’t tolerate discomfort, and they can’t find stability. They’re told to look to the self for their moral compass, but the self is what got them here.
The symptoms are real. The rise in anxiety, the inability to commit, the paralysis around decision making, the hostility toward accountability. When nothing is objectively right or wrong, people don’t become liberated, they become overwhelmed. Every choice becomes existential because there’s no stable framework to lean on.
Freya went on to acknowledge something powerful. Society loves celebrating the milestone of marriage. 25 years. 50 years. But hates acknowledging what built it. Sacrifice, grit, restraint, discipline. Those things require boundaries, and boundaries are incompatible with relativism. If my values and your values are all that exist, then no one is allowed to say that any set of behaviors is necessary for a stable relationship. So we glorify the outcome and denounce the process. It’s delusional and dishonest.
Here’s the harsh truth. Boundaries don’t suffocate us, they stabilize us. They give us a structure to push against so we can grow. They keep our impulses in check so we don’t destroy ourselves. They give meaning to our commitments, weight to our promises, and direction to our choices. Remove them, and you don’t get freedom, you get fog.
The Results
And fog is exactly what we’re living in. A society that treats morality as personal preference will inevitably wonder why they feel so detached. Why kids are anxious. Why adults feel lost. Why relationships crumble. Why communities can’t agree on anything. Why we’re constantly offended yet never fulfilled.
We don’t have a cultural crisis of compassion, we have a crisis of clarity. People are starving for direction while being told that direction itself is oppressive. They’re collapsing under the weight of freedom because freedom without structure is psychologically unbearable. It’s too much choice without any grounding.
Our Next Move
We need to stop pretending that moral relativism is harmless. It’s not. It’s a psychological toxin. It produces confused individuals and fragmented communities. It destroys resilience. It undermines accountability. It dissolves meaning. It rewards fragility and punishes strength.
We need to reclaim objective standards. Not because we want control, but because humans cannot function without them. Children need boundaries. Adults need responsibility. Communities need shared expectations. Society needs a common moral starting point, or it will tear itself apart.
This doesn’t mean returning to some rigid, nostalgic fantasy. It means recognizing the psychological truth that people thrive under clear structure and crumble under limitless freedom. Our greatest liberties are found inside boundaries, not outside them.
We can keep pretending relativism works, or we can face reality. One path leads to stability, resilience, and meaning. The other leads exactly where we are now. Resentful, anxious, and foggy.
The recent “No Kings” protests garnered less attention than previous rallies. While it seems to be dying out, it still got my attention. I spoke with people who attended them, read write-ups on the protests, and watched various clips covering the day’s events. I was curious as to what exactly they were protesting. The results were baffling.
Some of the main points included:
Executive orders
Removing illegal aliens
Ignoring the constitution
I couldn’t help but think, where were these outcries when Biden was in office? These are some of the same things the other side were upset about when Biden was in office. I thought, why are they mad now, but not back then? And why are conservatives not mad now, but were back then?
Executive Orders
It is fair to say Trump has issued the most EOs in recent history. As of this writing, here are the EO numbers to date:
Trump – 220 in his first term and 255 so far
Biden issued 150
Obama issued 276.
All three president’s numbers warrant a tyranny label. For reference, James Madison issued 1 in eight years. One.
Deportations
Where were the “No Kings” rallies during the Obama administration? As of this writing, here are the deportation numbers by president:
Trump: approximately 1 million
Biden: approximately 1.5 million
Obama: approximately 3 million (Garnering the nickname Deporter-in-Chief)
Where was the deportation outrage among liberals from 2008-2024? There should have either been outrage this entire time, or no outrage now. And where are the conservatives now that were outraged during the terms of Obama and Biden?
When asked which constitutional amendment, provision, clause Trump is ignoring, the only answer I got was “All of them!” They simply could not answer it. They had no defense of their own. The binary approach is what is disingenuous. It’s not that they disagree with tyranny, it’s that their team isn’t in office.
There is a current issue with this on the other side. Conservatives are no better. Why aren’t more conservatives speaking out against the number of EOs? I understand the need for them, but the abuse is rampant and every president uses them like tyrannical building blocks. They have no place in a republic.
For the record, I haven’t seen much in the way of ignoring the U.S. Constitution on the part of Obama or Trump. Biden, however, trampled on it, particularly through Covid.
A Call to Action
So why are we only hearing about the president on the “other side?” (Reminder, you don’t have a side. They don’t care about you. And the sooner you realize this, the better off your mental health will be).
We must find a way to bridge this divide. The reality that we cannot see or understand those on the “other side” is quietly dissolving the moral and social fabric upon which our society depends.
Homophily is common. This is the tendency to interact with those similar to ourselves more often than those considered different. You see this every day. Think about who you’re drawn to.
Frequents the same establishments
Enjoys the same hobbies
Has a similar intellect
Similar familial situation
Political and religious worldview
What Research Says
Individuals tend to underestimate the extent to which dialogue with those holding opposing views can refine their thinking and enhance their understanding of complex issues. Multiple research studies suggest that individuals may underestimate their level of agreement with a piece of communication from across the political aisle.
People expect that listening to opposing views will be unpleasant (Dorison et al., 2019). This was found to be a forecasting error. Their assumption stood directly in their way, subsequently affecting information consumption.
They expect that others who do not share their views will respond negatively to them (Wald et al., 2024). They found that people underestimate the degree of common ground that would emerge in conversation and from failing to appreciate the power of social forces in conversation that create social connection.
People are afraid they will not feel heard by others during a conversation (Teeny & Petty, 2022). Feeling, in advance, that they will not be heard, they are significantly more reluctant to enter into conversation with anyone with opposing views.
Brand new research showed that each participant underestimated levels of depolarization after having a conversation with them about various topics: Dogs vs cats, cancel culture, Biden’s performance as president (Kardas et al., 2026). All had the same outcome. Another finding within this study was that if one was told that it’s been shown that polarization reduces after conversations with others with different viewpoints, their own polarization reduced, without the conversation ever having taken place. Just the idea that someone else may have a different view and that previous experiments showed most depolarized after discussions caused a solid shift in their own polarization. Each participant found unexpected areas of agreement when discussing issues typically viewed as polarized.
Todd Kashdan proposed that curiosity itself was a driving factor behind reluctance towards political conversation. His team found that people incorrectly assumed others would be closed-minded towards cross-aisle conversations. Yet when they discovered that their political in-group displayed more humility and open-mindedness than originally anticipated, their curiosity increased, leading to more fruitful and willing conversations across the aisle (Kashdan et al., 2025).
Tribalism Must Go
Moral of the story? You’re probably wrong. And so am I. And that’s ok. Let’s change. Tribalism is a cancer. It does no one any good. It becomes evident that we have misjudged the depth of our own intellectual flexibility, as well as that of others, underestimating our shared capacity to adapt, to remain curious, and to reshape our thinking in response to new evidence. I’ve been as guilty as anyone. I get caught up in, “They’re not going to listen to anything I have to say anyway, I’m not going to waste my time.”
Sometimes this is rooted in a quiet but powerful presumption that we already possess the truth, and that the task of the other is merely to recognize it and follow. In such a posture, curiosity is not only diminished but also displaced, though it may be the most essential element of all.
Such curiosity led me to here. Years ago, I decided to learn. Really learn. And the more I learned, the more I understood the premise behind Socrates’ claim, “I am the wisest among you because I know nothing.” He found that the more he learned, the more he realized how much was out there to learn. And he possessed a small, minute fraction of the information available. For me, this led to openness and curiosity. Which led to anti-tribalism.
As stated in my first book, America’s Great Threat: America, America won’t fall from the outside. It will collapse from within, foremost among the causes is a rigid, binary way of thinking that divides people and discourages curiosity.
Kardas, M., Nordgren, L., & Rucker, D. (2026). Unnecessarily divided: Civil conversations reduce attitude polarization more than people expect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 130(2), 187–214. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000469
Kashdan, T. B., McKnight, P. E., Kelso, K., Craig, L., & Gross, M. (2025). Enhancing curiosity with a wise intervention to improve political conversations and relationships. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 40272–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-24021-8
Teeny, J. D., & Petty, R. E. (2022). Attributions of emotion and reduced attitude openness prevent people from engaging others with opposing views. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 102, 104373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104373
Wald, K. A., Kardas, M., & Epley, N. (2024). Misplaced divides? Discussing political disagreement with strangers can be unexpectedly positive. Psychol Sci, 35(5), 471–488. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976241230005
I watched the new Wes Huff interview on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO. Steven is one of my favorite podcasts to watch. He has the best guests and is genuinely curious. This one, however, had a bit of predetermined readiness for a duel. Steven was welcoming as always and asked questions in good faith, but he could not tolerate the way Wes was answering them. So he cut Wes off many times shortly into Wes’ reply.
This showed me he was looking for predetermined outcomes to the questions he was asking and when it didn’t go as planned, he shifted, as if to refocus the conversation on his own skepticism. Wes masterfully put every question to rest with facts and his overall interpretation of the events in question.
Let’s take a few of Steven’s objections for examples of what I’m referring to.
The Great Leap Backwards
The greatest leap was an early one. Steven comes out swinging concerning the time when the gospels were written. John was written approximately 40 years after Jesus’ death. Steven attempts to make the case that this would be hard to remember. If this is the standard, we must throw out almost every text written in the ancient world as fact.
Throw out all of the Roman Empire. All Greek philosophers. Socrates? Gone. His pupil Plato? Gone. Plato’s pupil Aristotle? Gone. Aristotle’s pupil Alexander the Great? Gone. The earliest manuscripts we have of anything being written about Alexander the Great was approximately 250 years after his death. But we hang on every word of it as the undeniable truth.
It would all have to go. But we would never do that. Why? Because we only want to throw out what challenges us.
Both or Neither
Then Steven suggests that there can’t be a God with all of the evil in the world. Here, Wes delicately handles this objection (much more diplomatically than I would have—realizing this interview was a setup for a duel) by illuminating the often agreed upon philosophy that if we acknowledge there is Evil, then we must agree there is Good. And also agree they have origins and authors. Again, he was trying to prove something false only to feed directly into its philosophical objectivity.
The Unmoved Mover
Steven then gets into the evolutionary debate. They both quickly agree on adaptation. But the idea of a transition from chimpanzee to human has yet to be remotely adequately explained. Beyond this, Steven kept referring to existing realities and variations of the existing realities while dodging the origin argument the entire time.
At one point, Wes begins to say that there must have been a beginning and Steven interrupts, again, to shift into his creative brain making sense of the world outside of the need for a God. Wes even alludes to Aristotle’s claim that while moving things are moved by other movers, it could not have begun by a mover. It had to have begun by an eternal, unmoved mover. There has to have been an origin story. But Steven kept dodging it.
The Holy Vending Machine
Lastly, Steven travels into the arena of prayer. He says what many say, “I have prayed for meaningful things that never came true. If there is a God, why would he not answer that prayer? And if He doesn’t answer prayer, then how great of a God could He possibly be?”
This is assuming…
We have asked according to God’s will,
We already know what God’s will is ahead of time,
We somehow have an idea of what should happen regardless of how limited we are in our thinking.
God is not the Holy vending machine in the sky. “A4 – new job!” And prayer isn’t solely asking for things, although at times, it involves that.
The Lord’s Prayer
Allow me to briefly break down the Lord’s Prayer as an example:
Our Father who is in Heaven: This lays out that he is revealed to us as a father (paternal authority) and where he currently is. So when we pray, we know exactly to whom we are praying.
Holy is your name: This indicates that when we pray, we are speaking to a perfect God.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven: Here we see the idea that when we pray, we are to ask for what He wants, not what we want. We are also to ask God to bring what is in heaven here to earth. Eternal rewards in the afterlife are not enough.
Give us this day our daily bread: When we do ask, we should ask for what we need, not necessarily what we want.
Forgive us, as we have forgiven others: This one’s tough. If we haven’t forgiven others very well, we are saying, don’t forgive us either. The opposite is equally true.
It ends with recognition that He is the creator and ruler of all. None of that is easy, nothing suggests indulging the self, and all of it challenge us to aim towards and ineffable telos.
Conclusion
Steven wanted to be right. This is new for him. He usually wants to learn. So why was this different? I think the answer is simple. Christianity calls us towards a better way than the easy path in front of us; the easy path of rejecting notions of delayed gratification. Never mind that delayed gratification is a predictor of economic success. Christianity also rejects the self and requires us to acknowledge the intrinsic deficiencies we all possess. This is often too much for our current self-driven society to handle. Personally, I’m glad I grew up before they invented self-esteem.
Thankfully, Steven eventually gets to a place where he concedes that Wes really is a good guy, knows what he’s talking about, and genuinely means well. It ended better than it started. Maybe next time Steven goes in ready for a fight, he will pick someone less informed so he can win.
Do your best to read this with an open mind and an attempt to discover something new.
The Super Bowl halftime show was talked about more than the game. This has been the norm for the last few years. But this year, because of the strong political divide, there were two halftime shows. One for “each side.” This phrase alone is incredibly stupid to say. What’s a side? You have no side. They don’t care about you. And the fact that they’ve duped you into thinking you have a side that resembles any form of allegiance to you is stupefying.
So in come the predictable and tired political slogans and hateful rhetoric aimed at the “other side.”
“All Spanish! Yay diversity!”
“All Spanish?, we speak English!”
“It’s goIng to be sexy and lit!”
“It’s going to be vulgar!”
“Only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
“How many women does he love? His first song suggests too many!”
The next predictability were those praising the other halftime show. It was terrible. Lee Brice was ok. The others were very subpar. Until it got to Dr. Phil’s redneck cousin. Kid Rock was amazing. And I’m not a Kid Rock fan. Overall, it wasn’t a great show. But good luck telling that to MAGA.
“This was the best. Screw Bad Bunny!”
“I ain’t watching no Spanish show. ‘Merca!”
But the not so predictable part was when many turned on against Kid Rock for singing about Jesus.
The angle was that he, at one time, was a womanizer, and maybe even pedophile. There’s no evidence for the latter. But he was definitely the former. And wild. And crazy. And redneck. But like all people, we change. He did too, apparently. This takes me to my main point.
Tribalism Enters Center Stage
In one show, you have a man who is clearly currently a total womanizer who blatantly disrespects women and does an entire show about how every woman wants him and he does what he wants to them and leaves. But his most notable message was “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
On the other show, you have a character who has also ruffled some feathers, past and present, who ends up with a message saying “You can give your life to Jesus, till you can’t.”
Both artists controversial. Both have disreputable pasts. Both brought a strong positive message. This causes me to ask two questions?
Why is one better (or worse) than the other?
Why are we dismissing the message because of the messenger?
The only possible answer to the 1st question: Tribalism. And the answer to the 2nd question? See 1st question.
Solomon gave us the wisest book of the Bible.
King David gave us the most passionate book in the Bible.
Moses is the father of Jewish law and a foundational pillar of the Christian faith.
One left his first wife, hopped in bed with every chick this side of the Euphrates, decided to have multiple wives, who, eventually, were his downfall.
Another had an affair and killed her husband, who was his most loyal soldier, to cover up the affair.
Another killed a man because he got pissed off.
Do we throw their message out because of their mess-ups? I hope not. I have a lot of good things to say to help people live their best lives. But if you knew me in high school, you may not listen. Because I was a jack-wagon. Ernest Hemmingway and Robin Williams had plenty of good to say but ultimately couldn’t live by their own words. There have been many people in places of leadership that have positively altered the course of people’s lives, changing them forever, yet found themselves in a career-ending scandal.
There’s a strong psychological pull to dismiss a message once we discover flaws in the person delivering it. When someone lives inconsistently with what they teach, the instinct is to label everything they said as invalid. That reaction is understandable, but it isn’t always objective. Information can still carry value independent of the character of the person who delivered it. Sometimes the messenger is simply the vehicle. While the insight itself remains useful, constructive, or even transformative.
The tribalism has to end. There’s no real progress until we see through each other’s eyes.
I thank God every day there were no smart phones when I was in school. I thank God I’m forgiven. Thank God I’ve been given a second chance.
I realize it is uncharacteristic for me to jump into the legal realm, but my criminal justice minor comes out of hiding in certain situations, particularly if the law is being ignored or misrepresented. Knowing the facts behind any situation, juxtaposing those facts against the emission of information, and seeing clear and obvious incongruencies will cause me to write something like this. As a result, we will pause the 3-part series on men valuing marriage and interrupt the regularly schedule program for an important update.
We can all agree that the current crisis of illegal immigration, enforcement of such, and the violent protests that are taking place have captured America, at least in the short-term. We can also agree that loss of life is terrible, regardless of the circumstances. These were human beings coming to the rescue of other human beings (at least in their eyes, this was their intention). These are pure motives. Respectable. Honorable (sort of). But as Thomas Sowell once said, the only thing that made him realize Marxism was the wrong way to go was… Facts. And this is precisely where this story takes a turn, the facts.
Legal facts
Is the current operation lawful under the U.S. Constitution?
In Article I, it states that Congress is to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. From this, SCOTUS has inferred national sovereignty over borders.
In Article II, the executive branch is given authority to enforce such laws using entities available to it, such as ICE and DHS.
Because the courts have determined that immigration enforcement is a civil function and not criminal, immigration laws do not fall under Article III.
INS v. Lopez-Mendoza (1984), The Court explicitly stated that deportation proceedings are civil, not criminal.
Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1952). The Court reinforced Congress’s broad power over deportation. Deportation is not a punishment for crime, but a method of enforcing immigration policy.
It is vital that the public understand the clear distinction the courts have made between civil enforcement and criminal enforcement. If it were criminal enforcement, then Article III would come into play, granting rights to counsel, speedy trial, jury trial, etc. This is not needed for civil enforcement. Therefore:
ICE does not need to provide criminal-level due process.
Immigration courts are administrative courts, not Article III courts.
Standards of proof are lower.
Detention can occur pending proceedings.
The Recent Cases
Now that we have legal facts, let’s break down the facts from this lens for just a couple of recent cases (The Renee Good case is HERE).
Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias
This gentleman was being pursued by ICE for being in the U.S. illegally. Arias also had warrants for multiple criminal offenses. Upon realizing that he was being pursued, Arias fled his vehicle, leaving his son alone in the vehicle. The officers then helped the small child stay warm, provided him food, and sought to reunite him with family. Upon taking the child to a family residence, they refused to open the door and take this child in. Therefore, he has now been rejected by both his father and other family members. ICE then detains Arias, who then agrees to reunite with the child. They are placed in a residential facility together awaiting immigration trial.
When reading the facts, I don’t see detainment of a child, bait, deception on the part of ICE. I see a lawful federal operation.
Alex Pretti
This gentleman attended a protest with a camera and a pistol on his side. ICE agents were there to arrest a different individual. So far, Pretti had been peacefully protesting with a camera in hand. Upon attempting to arrest the targeted individual, Mr. Pretti ceased being peaceful and physically interfered with the arrest. This resulted in an attempt to detain Mr. Pretti for his actions, to which he physically resisted. While agents were attempting to detain him, another agent removed Pretti’s pistol and walked away. Immediately following this, Pretti reaches for his pistol, that he thought was still there, to avoid detainment using lethal force. Neither Pretti nor the agents knew that the pistol had been removed, based on both subsequent actions. ICE agents, believing there to be a pistol, fired shots.
Again, this is a simple case of someone violently interfering with a lawful federal operation, resisting arrest, and attempting to fire shots at an ICE agent. This is sad. Unfortunate. Needless. Preventable. Some say the administration should give ICE a break for a while and let the fury die down. And maybe they’re right. But when they attempt to do their job again, will someone physically attempt to interfere? Will someone hurt the ICE agents who are doing their job? Will someone else lose a loved one? How does culpability rest with those doing their lawful job in the face of unlawful mobs?
All loss is sad. Good’s loss is sad. Pretti’s loss is sad. And you may read this thinking, “This is so wrong!” And maybe you’re right. The solution to these tragedies is quite simple.
Solutions
Exercise your First Amendment right to peacefully protest. Peacefully means:
Do not block the road with your body or a vehicle.
Do not use your vehicle as a weapon.
Do not become physically involved with an ICE agent doing his/her job.
If you legally possess a weapon, do not reach for it at any time while being detained.
Protest with your right to vote
Hold your local leadership accountable for exacerbating anger by not allowing local authorities to assist ICE while fueling anger and division. Local leadership holds at least as much culpability for these tragedies as the individuals themselves for exercising poor judgment.
I am in full support of your right to detest the current administration.
I am in full support of your right to hate what ICE is doing.
I am in full support of your right to peacefully protest.
I cannot support physical interference with lawful federal operations. Either we have laws with consequences, or we have no laws.
So, do you still feel the same now as you did when answering the poll question?
Now, can we get back to talking about how much I love my wife?!
Before we get into this, anyone who knows me knows that I do not take loss of life casually. I do not like it, nor do I celebrate it. This is a tragic situation any way you look at it. I truly have sympathy for someone going through what Good’s wife is going through, as well as the witnesses to such a traumatic event. Prayers are up.
Having said that, this case is difficult, but somewhat predictable. It involves what Thomas Sowell calls the Conflict of Visions. In this book, Sowell refers to two primary ways of looking at the world. Unconstrained and constrained visions.
Unconstrained Vision:
In the unconstrained vision, people are viewed as capable of perfection. Institutions make people evil. People should collectively gather to make each other perfect. When perfection isn’t achieved, it’s because there is a systemic evil preventing this perfection from being achieved rather than fixed human limit.
Constrained Vision:
The constrained vision says that people are imperfect. Perfection will never be achieved. Individuals must work to be the best version of themselves, thus leading to a better society. We must acknowledge and accept that we will never be perfect and must embrace liberty inside of boundaries. Because people are self-interested and imperfect, no system can eliminate trade-offs or achieve ideal outcomes. Social stability depends on traditions, rules, incentives, and limits that restrain human behavior rather than transform it. Progress comes through managing imperfection, not overcoming it.
This case puts these visions on display. There are three topics I’d like to cover here:
Assumption of superiority
The inability to draw a line
The humanity of both the officer and driver of the car.
Assumption of Superiority
Another great book by Thomas Sowell was, TheVision of the Anointed. The book characterizes the “Anointed” as a class of elite intellectuals who, having generously conferred upon themselves superior moral insight, conclude that they are better qualified to make decisions for individuals than those individuals are to make for themselves. These superior beings have decided that if they say it, then it must be true. And if you disagree, then you must be braindead, heartless, or outright evil. As a result, if they claim a moral high ground on any given issue, you must get out of the way because they know what you don’t. Why? Because they said so.
Wokal’s piece on leftist prerogative covers this and is spot on. These elites yell “I’m a doctor” and we are all to relinquish all rules, laws, and civil engagement. We just allow the tyranny of the fringe to step in as the arbiter of all things right. There’s no discourse required, no facts, no data, just “I’m in charge, move!” The end.
Where is the Line?
Another problem is drawing the line. The problem is when you ask to draw a line, you won’t get one on the far left. It’s a result of the unconstrained vision. There are no boundaries.
For instance, it was “Let people love who they want. Love is love.” This, in some countries, has become, “Minor attracted persons have desires and children are capable of the full range of love we have to offer. Love is love.”
Where is the line? Where do we say enough? At what point is it too far?
When I ask those on the right, they are rather quick to draw that line. Sometimes too quick. But on the left, I rarely get a straight answer.
So is violating the law willingly too far? Some claim Martin Luther King Jr. violated the law. He did so peacefully. Never by striking a law enforcement official with a vehicle.
“But Jesus violated the law?” Only Jewish law, that he fulfilled. Not the law of the land, which was Roman law. So no, he didn’t violate the law (In fact, part of the point of the crucifixion being so critical was that it was an illegal execution).
I’m still looking for the line. The line that says, though it’s sad that someone lost their life in an altercation, the primary culpability has to reside with the person initiating a violent altercation.
The line has to be that using a vehicle to both stop and strike someone has to be… TOO FAR.
The Humanity
Another aspect of this is the life that was lost. There’s so much sadness surrounding this. She was told it is perfectly ok, good, acceptable, and even noble, to protest a group of children that don’t exist. She was told that telling anyone to leave our country for any reason is bad. Again, it’s the feeling one has about a single life superseding the betterment of society as a whole, that has agreed to a set of laws that we are all to live by.
Let’s talk about humanity. Let’s talk about the 33 stitches the same ICE agent received after being dragged by a car recently. This event causes PTSD. Maybe, he was quick to act based on that. You could make the argument that given the possible PTSD he should not have been working in this stressful environment. That’s fair. But if you drive your car towards me and I have my pistol, I will shoot to save my life also.
Blocking the road is illegal. In this case, it is also interfering with a federal operation.
The officer on the passenger side walks to the driver’s side to detain the driver for such unlawful actions.
The driver accelerates and strikes an officer with the front left of her car.
The officer, believing his life was at risk, shoots three shots. Much less than typical in a scenario like this (If you want to know why when they fire, they shoot multiple shots, go spend a day with them). These shots are protected and expected both by Minnesota law and federal law.
Preceding Lies
It is sad that there is a life gone. What’s truly sad is that someone has lied to her and told her:
It’s justified to stop federal agents from removing illegal Somali non-citizens who are draining financial resources from the government in a fraud scam.
She was told that feeling a certain way justifies solving it using violent means without consequences.
She was told that public policy must match how she felt at any given time and we all need to just “get out of the doctor’s way.”
Masculinity didn’t cause this.
Patriarchy didn’t cause this.
Misogyny didn’t cause this.
Lies caused this. Refusal to follow the laws that have been drawn and agreed upon by society caused this.
Unfortunately, this situation falls into the predictable “feelings vs. public policy.” Just because it feels right, doesn’t mean it is right. And as I’ve said before, feelings and public policy can both be good and still not match.
I fully support one’s right to protest legally, which means peacefully, according to the First Amendment. MLK did that. Jesus did that. Renee did not. To me, the saddest part of the story (after the death of a human) is that Renee was fed enough lies that she was willing to put her life on the line for children that didn’t exist, leaving her own child motherless in the wake. I will tell the truth, even and especially when it hurts. The alternative is much worse. And the truth is, this could have been avoided by not believing and following every emotional plea one hears.
In my book, What is a Man, I leaned heavily on men to be the man they were designed to be, fathers, husbands of but one wife. Be the man that works hard for his family, comes home to a faithful wife, and serves her in every way. One who finds out his girlfriend is pregnant, and doesn’t run away, but runs towards. At least part of the solution to the abortion issue, in my estimation, is men sticking around and not leaving their ladies feeling helpless and alone. We could get into all the other reasons, which I won’t, so don’t try. But a large portion of the problem stems from men not being men.
Solutions
Like this issue, the issue of solutions to societal problems has a similar twist. No one disagrees that certain things are worse than they’ve ever been. In some cases, things are better than they’ve ever been, but this can be argued. But on the subject of problems, the Monday-morning quarterbacks are quick to diagnose. With the best of them.
Sects of society are greedy.
There are too many poor people in America.
Inequality is at its worst.
Homelessness must be eradicated.
Macro
But we all fall short on solutions. Many, including the great Richard Reeves, look to public policy for solutions. This is where, much like covid, the cure is worse than the disease. Public policy can only be written, voted, and executed by the government. The government regulates behavior under conditions of conflict. When policy becomes our primary solution, we have missed the entire point! What is being framed as a structural deficit is often a developmental one. Covid taught us that, though history taught us that many times over.
The government does not produce meaning, attachment, competence, or character. Actually, the government does not produce anything. It cannot model responsibility or cultivate resilience. Its function is governance, not formation. And psychologically speaking, entities designed to manage conflict trend towards tyranny, not growth. When we outsource solutions to the state, we bypass the family, the community, and the individual psyche, which is where the actual work of human flourishing occurs. Problems of the human condition cannot be legislated into health, they must be developed into it.
Micro
So what is a viable solution? People. Hearts. Discipline. Perseverance. Resilience. Work. Compassion. Self-sacrifice.
Where it really gets off course is bringing Jesus into it. I hear it all the time.
“If you don’t show compassion to the poor, then you’re not following Jesus.”
And on the surface, that’s true.
We love to use the teachings of Jesus to influence public policy. Except he wanted nothing to do with public policy.
“Give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s. Give to God what’s Gods.”
“But wait? He said take care of the poor. He said if someone asks you to go one mile, you go two. He said if someone asks you for your shirt, give them your jacket too. Jesus was interested in sociology.”
Almost. He was interested in people. But from the individual out, not from society in.
Sociologically, problems are viewed as societal, affecting individuals along the way. If the societal issue gets resolved, the individual will be better. The problem with this line of thinking is, what if the institution or system never figures it out? Then we are completely dependent on the system to rectify our shortcomings in life. When we view problems as individual issues, from the inside out, then we are capable of flourishing regardless of systemic fractures.
The apostle Paul wrote this regularly. He consistently wrote about how he could be jailed, but not silenced. They could try to break his spirit, but they would not succeed. Viewing his problem sociologically, he would’ve fallen to extreme despair. Hope remained alive in the idea that he had autonomy, even in chains.
Individual > Government
My contention is that Jesus said the things he said, addressed the things he addressed, to the individual, not the society. He was not instructing the government to feed the poor. He was instructing us to do it. He didn’t tell the government to help those in need, he instructed us as individuals to do so.
Any reliance on a system, institution, or government, is relying on an outside entity to ensure your own personal well-being. It assumes that meaning, safety, and order can be outsourced to an external structure rather than cultivated through agency, virtue, and responsibility. History shows an extended rebuttal to that assumption. Systems do not love, institutions do not sacrifice, and governments do not exist to make individuals whole. They manage, they regulate, they constrain.
When we treat these abstractions as guarantors of our inner stability, we confuse governance with guidance and authority with wisdom. The result is predictable disappointment. Such entities fail us not because they are corrupt in every instance, but because they were never designed to fulfill existential needs.
This is where I lean on the church. If the government is not to be that, then we are. This applies more pressure, but it’s pressure for which we have received mercy and grace. If we fail, the government steps in.
So the ball is in our court. Step up, or watch tyranny take over.
I recently read a great article concerning the plight of boys and young men. It hit home because I’m dealing with this issue in my own family. My oldest bonus son is a self-made millionaire. He’s extremely intelligent, hard worker, and pretty positive guy. He also has almost zero theory of mind. He’s not narcissistic. Just completely unaware there are other people in the world. Therefore, his only logical arguments are online. Then, in his attempt to persuade me into his web of conspiracies, he was met with facts, reason, and experience that he didn’t expect. Then he resorted to, “You just don’t know, you haven’t been educated on the issues.” To which I retorted with education. Now he either steers clear of me or listens intently.
He’s convinced that:
Israel (the country, not people or religion) is the reason for all global woes.
Nick Fuentes is a brilliant mind speaking for his generation.
Charlie Kirk’s death was an entire conspiracy.
He sounds like a male Candace Owen. But Wokal Distance laid this idea out well.
The Path of Thomas Sowell
How we arrived here is similar to the path Thomas Sowell took. When Sowell looked at the issues in the world and primarily in America, it appeared that the rich had taken from the poor, namely the black poor. This had to be dealt with. And to Sowell, the solution was Marxism. The utopian delight. Manage all production. Control all means. Then distribute fairly. To him, it made sense. To Sowell, it was the only alternative presented. And that is precisely where we are. With no alternatives, the course of action is overcorrection. And overcorrection looks like Fuentes, Tate, and Alex Jones. And until someone finds societal homeostasis, they will continue to rise.
These young men, like my bonus son, are looking for an alternative and no one is presenting one. They see that the government is too big. They see that woke-ology doesn’t work, it only stifles businesses. They see that worrying about everyone’s feelings incessantly drives mental health cases up and progress down. But so far, the only solutions presented are the existing ones. Capitalism! No, socialism! No, democratic socialism! (Note that the only one of those three that hasn’t killed millions is capitalism).
Gynocentricism
But maybe more importantly, Wokal points out that the gynocentric zeitgeist we find ourselves in is the real culprit. My wife noticed this recently at a church gathering. We were having a small group gathering and some women kept making comments that displayed beliefs centered on ideas that masculinity, men, and male spaces are inherently malevolent. She almost couldn’t believe her ears. She hears this rhetoric all the time at the high school where she teaches, but not in a church in the Bible belt.
Generational Theory
In Wokal’s post, there’s mention of a catastrophic distrust of institutions. This lines up with the Strauss and Howe Generational Theory. In this theory, it posits that we go through four societal (or generational) turns. The distrust of institutions began the 3rd turn around the early 1980s. We have been in the 4th turn for a while now. This is marked by societal upheaval. Survival. They rolling over stones to find the answer, even if the stone hurts someone along the way. The good news, we should be returning to the 1st turn in the next five years, according to theory.
I mentioned in my post, Gen Z’s Breaking Point, that we have a new group of young men who are over the nonsense they’re being forced to accept. Most of the GenZ men I see are still making sense, common sense. But the ones overcorrecting are grasping onto guys like Fuentes as the lesser of all evils.
The Rise of Peterson
One more excellent point made in the article by Wokal was that Jordan Peterson rose to fame on the position that men are good, needed, and capable of responsibility, protection, and production. He told men to stand up straight. Make your bed. Be early to interviews. Negotiate early and often. Treat yourself like someone you’re responsible for helping. Men gravitated to the call. Peterson was calling them up, not calling them out.
Then Peterson fell ill. This left a void, a void that Tate and Fuentes saw could be filled with an overcorrection of masculinity, conspiracy theories, and righteous anger at the wrong things and people. They swooped in with promises of a better future. But overcorrections always dissolve, they never sustain.
Solutions
There are many possible solutions to this crisis. One real solution is to stop apologizing for what it means to be a man and start insisting on it. One should be capable of danger but wise enough to know when to use it. Not reckless, not violent, but formidable. A man should be the strongest person at this father’s funeral, but willing to express emotions when grief hits. A man handles the crisis first. He stabilizes the chaos. Then, when the threat has passed, he becomes gentle, attentive, and emotionally present for his wife and children. Jason Wilson calls this “The man the moment demands,” and he’s right. What we’ve done instead is shame men into paralysis, telling them their strength is suspect and their masculinity is dangerous unless constantly restrained.
We must be willing to tell men and boys that it’s ok to be a man. That it’s not just ok to be masculine, it’s necessary! Strength is good. Roughness has a place. Humor matters. So does restraint, vulnerability, emotional expression, and clear communication with our wives and children. This is not a contradiction. It’s balance. It’s psychological regulation. It’s Emotional Homeostasis. With this, we must stand against the gynocentric narrative that feminine is the only way forward. It’s one way forward. Masculine is also the way forward. When you suppress one and moralize the other, you don’t get a healthy society. You get confusion, weakness, resentment, and instability. A society that refuses to cultivate strong men is not compassionate. It is reckless. And it is setting itself up to be overwhelmed by the very chaos it pretends to manage.
Gynocentricism has created the very men it fears. There’s a rise in men, but the wrong men. Chaos is recruiting, and it’s becoming successful. We have taught boys to hate themselves, then wonder why they flock to the extreme opposition. Disoriented men are easy targets. Empowered men are unstoppable.
If we want our boys to see Fuentes and Tate for what they really are, vultures thriving on click-bait, contrarians with no real solutions, insecurity hiding behind the masculine façade, we must show them what it means to be a man.
I know a guy who wrote a book about this very subject. Maybe you know him too.
Woke up, had an omelet, cup of coffee, and realized, I chose every bit of that. That freedom is under attack in front of our very eyes.
How did we get to a place where we are having to remind people the disastrous outcomes of socialism? Primarily because the newer generations did not learn about the ills of the socialism. They learned about how awesome it is. They apparently left out the part where it has yet to work anywhere in the world at any time in history. Pretty big thing to leave out. And they’re afraid to admit the connection between socialism and communism.
There are two primary issues I want to discuss here so that we understand that socialism is the gateway drug to communism and why so many are concerned that New York has embraced communism:
Socialism and communism are almost interchangeable
Understanding New York’s own history with socialism.
Let’s briefly take a look at the differences and similarities between socialism and communism.
Differences
Definition
Socialism: an economic and political theory where the community or state owns and controls the means of production, such as industries and natural resources, rather than private individuals or companies. The central idea is that this collective ownership will lead to a more equitable distribution of wealth and a more egalitarian society, with an emphasis on cooperation and social welfare.
Communism: a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war, aiming for a stateless, classless society and leading to a societal system in which all property is publicly owned, and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. (You can find the differences here, but you have to squint).
Government role
Socialism: The state plays a central role in regulating or owning industries.
Communism: The state is meant to eventually “wither away,” leaving no private property, class distinctions, or government at all. (So they regulate their way into total domination, got it)
Economic Role
Socialism: Redistribution of wealth to reduce inequality.
Communism: Total equality. No private ownership, no classes, no money. (distinct but the same result; reduce inequality means total equality)
Transition Stage
Socialism: Marx viewed socialism as the transitional phase between capitalism and full communism.
Communism: Communism is the final goal after socialism’s “temporary” government control. (so socialism is the gateway drug for communism, got it)
Similarities
Despite their subtle theoretical distinctions, both systems share several key principles and outcomes:
Collective Ownership: Both reject private ownership of the means of production.
Class Struggle Narrative: Both view history as a struggle between the rich and poor (bourgeoisie vs. proletariat, insert any binary friction here).
State Control: Both rely on government control or heavy regulation of the economy to achieve equality.
Wealth Redistribution: Both prioritize economic equality over individual liberty or market freedom.
Hostility Toward Religion and the Family: Marx and later communist regimes often viewed religion and the traditional family as tools of oppression that distract from loyalty to the state or the collective. Religion in socialism is seen as selfish and not conducive to an equal society.
Outcome in Practice: Both tend to centralize power in the hands of a ruling elite, suppress dissent, and produce economic stagnation.
Now that we’ve connected the dots of socialism and communism, let’s look at the argument for socialism’s (communism) implementation into the U.S., including where it has worked and not worked, the comparison to Nordic countries, and New York’s own history with socialism.
Where it has been tried, in various forms, and failed:
Soviet Union (1917-1991). Over 20 million dead as a result.
Maoist China (1949-1976) Over 45 million dead as a result.
Venezuela (1999-present). 7 million citizens fled
Notable mentions: Cuba, North Korean. (They’re really doing great these days)
Where it has worked:
Literally nowhere. Except in areas of Nordic countries. Nordic? I’m glad you brough that up.
The Nordic Comparison
Sweden (among other Nordic countries) is often hailed as the standard the U.S. should follow. They have about 10 million citizens. The U.S. has over 330 million. Sweden is highly homogenous. Very little diversity in culture, job market, and existential views. Comparing Sweden to the U.S. directly as national systems is like comparing a neighborhood to a continent. You can’t expect the same mechanisms of trust, coordination, and scale to behave identically. The diversity alone in the U.S. is enough to rule out anything that resembles voluntary, adequate, and consistent contribution to society. So that argument is out.
When Soft Socialism Collides with Hard Math
Then there’s New York. The city under the spotlight. The newest socialist experiment. But it’s not the first time New Yorkers tried socialism.
During the 1960s, under Mayor John Lindsay and the influence of progressive policies, New York City embraced what some economists call “municipal socialism.” The city expanded social services at a breathtaking pace:
Free college at CUNY.
Subsidized housing.
An exploding welfare system. By 1975, one in seven New Yorkers was on welfare.
Government employment and unionized city workers grew massively. Each new program was justified as “helping the people,” but they were funded not by growth in productivity, but by borrowing.
By the early 1970s, the rich and the productive were leaving, taking the tax base with them. By 1975, the city had racked up over $10 billion in debt (massive for the time) and was unable to pay its bills.
The Emergency Financial Control Board cut spending, froze wages, and privatized some services. Essentially reversing the socialist policies that caused the crisis. You mean, socialism didn’t work? Socialism has NEVER worked. But it gets worse.
Public services were slashed, police and firefighters were laid off, and whole neighborhoods descended into chaos. Arson for insurance schemes became common. Garbage piled up. Crime soared. The city looked like it was collapsing.
The mindset that led to the collapse was ideological. It left the arena of belief and was now more inculcated, indoctrinated, and innate that government could solve every problem through redistribution, and that private enterprise would always just pay for it.
That’s the core socialist assumption: the producers will keep producing, no matter what you tax, regulate, or redistribute.
Well they didn’t.
As economist Milton Friedman put it:
“New York City is a beautiful illustration of exactly these effects. New York City is the most welfare state oriented community in the United States. It has gone farther in the direction of governmental involvement in attempting to do good than any other city or state.”
“The first defect is trying to do good with someone else’s money.”
New York’s 1970s collapse is a cautionary tale about the seductive promise of endless compassion through government. Compassion without discipline becomes dependency. Generosity without growth becomes insolvency.
The socialist impulse to help everyone is noble in spirit but disastrous in execution because it severs the link between effort and reward. Remove merit, remove individuality. Remove individuality, you remove hope, exploration, creation, discovery, and innovation. Basically everything America stands for. New York’s brush with bankruptcy was their way of learning the hard way that utopian economics always ends with arithmetic. We now question who learned.
Conclusion
In the late 1970s, New York’s economic collapse didn’t just cripple one city, it sent shockwaves through the entire country. History is knocking again. Make no mistake, the same script will play out. The same smug belief that good intentions can replace basic economics will bring the empire to its knees. It destroyed New York once, and it’s about to do it again.
Every time government is handed more power, tyranny marches in. Every time feelings replace reason, chaos follows. And every time socialism has been tried, Every. Single. Time., it collapses under the weight of its own delusion.
New York City is sleepwalking toward the same cliff it fell off of half a century ago. Only this time, there may be no one left to catch it. The rest of us will have to watch as the “City of Dreams” becomes a slow-motion nightmare proving, once again, that socialism doesn’t save societies. It destroys them.
I started this out talking about my omelet breakfast. I’ll leave you with this, since you made it this far without your stomach growling from hunger enough for you to stop reading: Walter Duranty, a pro-Stalin journalist, once defended Soviet terror in discussion with George Orwell by saying, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” To which Orwell replied, “So where’s the omelet?”
Great, now I want more eggs! Thank God I don’t have to get them rationed from the government… yet.
