NO MORE

I am a roofer by trade, an entrepreneur by resolve, a poet and philosopher in the quiet of the night, a reformed “armchair theologian” steeped in the doctrines of grace, and a conservative American patriot whose heart burns for the soul of this nation. My hands are calloused from labor, my mind captured by the Word of God, and my spirit tempered by the wisdom that only comes from wrestling with truth in the shadow of the Almighty. From where I sit, I see a nation teetering on the edge of chaos, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University is the clarion call that ripped through the slumber of this land. "NO MORE".

A single shot, fired from the rooftop of the Losee Center, pierced Charlie’s neck as he spoke truth to a crowd of 3,000, attempting to silence a voice that dared to confront the lies of our age. His last words, chilling in their ordinariness, were the essence of his fight: “Counting or not counting gang violence?” He was pressing a point, exposing a half-truth, peeling back the dishonest narratives that have become the oxygen of our politics. Then came the bullet. The suspect, Tyler Robinson, left casings etched with anti-fascist and transgender slogans, a chilling testament to the madness now mainstreamed by the left, the ideologies that hate truth so much, once again bathed in blood.

My heart is heavy. My anger burns. And yet my sword stays sheathed, rattling against my ribs with every breath, a reminder of what could be drawn but is not. God has not called me to swing it, not yet, perhaps never. But He has called me, and you, to the harder fight. The fight of refusing to bend our knees to lies. The fight of holding our ground when the mob screams for silence. The fight of speaking truth when the price is your job, your friends, your reputation, even your children.

This fight is harder than violence, because it demands courage in daylight, not rage in the dark.

The Gender Reality Gap

Charlie Kirk understood what we face. He once said, “The left wants to replace reality with their feelings, and we cannot let them win.” That line is not poetry, it’s prophecy. Gender ideology is not harmless self-expression. It is a rebellion against the very blueprint of creation. Genesis 1:27 speaks it plainly: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.” Male. Female. Two. Distinct. Beautiful. Immutable.

Yet our schools, PBS specials, corporate HR departments, even groups in cathedrals  masquerading as churches peddle the lie that biology is a suggestion and truth is optional. They seduce children with glitter-covered delusions, convincing them to carve up their bodies in pursuit of a fantasy. Planned Parenthood, the butcher shop that hides under the banner of health care, is now one of the largest dispensers of cross-sex hormones in the country. The same organization that slaughters children in the womb now mutilates teenagers under the banner of progress. Evil does not rest, it metastasizes.

The bullet casings that killed Charlie, blessed with transgender slogans, are not random graffiti. They are artifacts of a worldview that begins with confusion and ends in chaos. That chaos, when pressed far enough, becomes violence.

We must stop whispering about this. Gender ideology is not an alternate lifestyle. It is evil. It is a lie that spits in the face of God. And to embrace it is to reject the Creator Himself. Silence in the face of this lie is complicity. If we do not speak against it now, we will one day answer to God for the children whose lives were destroyed while we kept our mouths shut.

This battle is not abstract. It is in your schools, in your libraries, in your town councils. It is in the sports leagues where men shatter women’s records while everyone claps politely. It is in the children’s hospitals where surgeons cash checks for amputating healthy sexual flesh. We must drag these evils into the light with plain speech and courage, because polite silence has only emboldened them. NO MORE.

The Shackles of Victimhood

I grieve for black and brown communities who have been chained by another lie, the lie of permanent victimhood. The left has preached for decades that every struggle, every failure, every gap in outcome is the fault of an oppressive system. They tell men and women of color that they are powerless, owed, and forever shackled to history. It is a cruel doctrine, and it is bearing poisonous fruit.

Charlie Kirk confronted this lie head-on. He said: “Victimhood is a choice, not a destiny. Personal responsibility is the path to freedom.” That truth is as offensive today as it was revolutionary in Galatians 6:7: “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” Sow resentment, reap despair. Sow responsibility, reap dignity.

Victimhood is a political weapon. Black Lives Matter built an empire on it. Billions of dollars flowed into their coffers while cities burned, businesses collapsed, and lives were ruined. The founders of BLM bought mansions in California while young black men bled out on Chicago sidewalks. And still PBS runs documentaries praising them. Still the Democrat Party invites them to the table. Still children are taught that burning your neighbor’s business is justice.

This is not said in malice. It is said with love, with longing to see every man and woman rise into the dignity of bearing God’s image. The victimhood gospel is a slave-master in progressive clothing. It robs people of agency, pits neighbor against neighbor, and hands whole communities over to politicians who fatten themselves on perpetual grievance. It must be cast down.

The truth is that many of the strongest families and businesses in America were built by people who refused to bow to victimhood. They worked through poverty, through discrimination, through ridicule, and through loss. They did not demand the world bend to them, they bent their shoulders to the work and rose. This is what sets free. Not slogans, not riots, not grievance, but labor, faith, and perseverance.

The Harder Fight

The assassination of Charlie Kirk was not just political violence. It was the devil’s reminder that the war is real. Scripture tells us plainly: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers” (Ephesians 6:12). That is why my sword rattles in its sheath, begging to be drawn, but God whispers, not yet. Not now.

Violence is the coward’s weapon for those who cannot win an argument. Charlie understood this. He once declared, “If you can’t win with words, you’ve already lost.” He was not bluffing. He lived it. He staked his life on it. And now his blood is the receipt. And we are in his debt.

Our weapons are not rifles. Not yet. Our weapons are not fists. Not yet. Our weapons are words forged in truth, ideas hammered on the anvil of reason, Scripture sharper than steel. To fight with these is harder. To stand in a workplace meeting and say, “That is a lie.” To tell your children’s school board, “You will not indoctrinate them.” To face down the smirk of a colleague who wants you fired for using the word “mother”. These are battles. Small skirmishes, maybe, but they bleed courage out of you every time. And they matter more than bullets.

The world would rather us snap. They would rather we lash out violently so they can call us terrorists. They are baiting us, but the true fight is harder, to stand, to speak, to refuse to bow, and to do it without drawing blood.

The battle of words and ideas may not leave bodies on the ground, but it leaves scars on souls. It costs jobs, friendships, and reputations. It costs nights of sleep and years of stress. But this is the price of standing. It is the harder road, but it is the only road that will preserve our honor and our faith.

The Martyrs Before Us

Charlie Kirk’s blood now joins the river of martyrs who would not bend. We are not the first generation to face this. We are latecomers to the field.

Polycarp of Smyrna, in AD 155, stood before Rome and was told to curse Christ and live. His answer? “Eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has never done me any wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King and Savior?” They burned him alive, and his words still torch the darkness.

Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, stood against the tyranny of King Henry II. When the king’s knights demanded submission, Becket declared, “I am no traitor and I am ready to die.” They split his skull in his own cathedral, but his death became a rallying cry for centuries of resistance to state control of the Church.

These men did not take up the sword, but they did not go quietly. Their blood was seed. Their defiance was fire. Their courage was contagious. Charlie Kirk belongs in their company now. Revelation 2:10 promises, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

And let us not forget the nameless martyrs. The women thrown to beasts in Roman arenas. The pastors executed in Communist Russia. The missionaries hacked to death by machete in Africa. History is not a museum of safety, it is a battlefield of blood and faith. To stand where they stood, we must be prepared to lose everything.

When we look at their lives, we see the same pattern. Refusal to bow. Refusal to compromise. Refusal to trade eternal truth for temporary comfort. This is the heritage of the faithful. This is the company Charlie now keeps.

A Nation at the Crossroads

America stands at a crossroads, and Kirk’s assassination has carved the choice in blood, a red-letter testament. The rise of lawlessness is undeniable. Governors’ homes torched. Legislators murdered. Presidents targeted. Churches burned. The Democrat Party shrugs, PBS, MSNBC, The View, CNN, and the rest, run another program about inclusive pronouns, Planned Parenthood pockets another billion from dismembering children. Black Lives Matter riots, destroy, and then receive government checks and cultural applause while calling all white people inescapably racist. Being racist doesn't mean anything anymore. Lawlessness rewarded. Truth punished. Evil hiding between the false accusations.

Utah’s Governor Spencer Cox was right when he called Charlie’s death a political assassination. But the root is deeper than politics. It is spiritual rot. We have sown the wind of godlessness and now we reap the whirlwind. Hosea 8:7 is not a metaphor. It is a verdict.

The bullet that silenced Charlie was aimed at the soul of America. President Trump called him a martyr for truth and freedom. He is right. But let me be blunt, if all we do is weep, then Charlie’s blood will be wasted. Mourning is not enough. Nice words are not enough. Silence is complicity.

If we stay silent, the next bullet will not be the last. The next target may not be a public figure, it may be your pastor, your neighbor, your friend. The spirit of lawlessness does not stop once it tastes blood. It grows bolder. It feeds on fear. And the only answer is a wall of voices refusing to give ground.

The Call of the Hour

I am not calling for violence. Hear me clearly. I am calling for something harder. I am calling for men to stand up where they would normally slouch. To speak where they would normally stay silent. To reject going along to get along. That path has led us here. Incremental decay while we nodded, while we played nice, while we swallowed one more lie for the sake of peace. Enough. NO MORE.

The sword in my bones rattles, but I keep it sheathed. God has not asked me to swing it. He has asked me to wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17). Erika Kirk, in her grief, spoke with more fire than most men do in their prime: “His message will be stronger, bolder, louder and greater than ever. … My cries will echo around the world like a battle cry.” That is the trumpet blast. That is the charge.

We must flood our streets, our schools, our workplaces, our pulpits with truth. Not the softened truth of compromise. Not the edited, twisted truth of the Democratic Party or the cattle call of the MSNBC press room. Raw truth. Offensive truth. Unapologetic truth.

Charlie once declared, “The future of America is worth fighting for, and I am not backing down.” Neither should we. NO MORE.

The Fire on the Rooftop

So I stand here, sweat dripping under the Carolina sun. I am a business owner. I am a father. I am a son of God. And I am a man who hears the sword rattling in his bones. My anger is righteous, but my hope is immovable.

Charlie Kirk’s death is a wound, but it is also a rallying cry. We must reject the lies that divide us, embrace the truth that unites us, and trust the God who will one day make all things new. Until then, we labor, we speak, we stand. 

NO MORE.

For Charlie. For our children. For America. For Christ.

Teaching Kids to Like, Dislike and Re-Like

I'm a father of a few, and I have made more than my fair share of mistakes while trying to raise them. But I also learned quite a bit. Along the way, I've noticed some patterns - quirks - familiar sintiments. If you're raising kids, this might be helpful to hear. 

 One of the strangest patterns is when they just up and decide they don’t like something anymore. One day it’s peanut butter sandwiches and smiles, the next day it’s crossed arms and gagging noises. Same thing with reading, math, disc golf, whatever. Doesn’t matter. They just slam the door on it.

When I call them out on it, I usually get the same line. “I don’t know.” And of course they don’t. At that age their self-awareness is about as developed as their handwriting. But I bring it up anyway. Because I’m not trying to win an argument. I’m planting a seed. I want them to notice that they made a decision. Maybe not with a boardroom vote and a contract, but somewhere in their little brain they decided to stop liking that thing. And if they can decide to stop, maybe one day they’ll realize they can decide to start again.

The Brain Is Trickier Than We Think

This isn’t just a dad theory. Psychologists have been poking at this stuff for decades.

Back in the 60s, Robert Zajonc came up with what’s called the “mere exposure effect.” He showed people nonsense words, fake shapes, even random faces. The more often people saw them, the more they liked them. That’s why songs on the radio sound dumb the first time and then somehow “catchy” the tenth. The brain is a sucker for the familiar.

Then there’s something called “evaluative conditioning.” That’s a fancy way of saying if you link a good thing with a bad moment, the whole thing sours. If a kid eats peanut butter and gets teased, suddenly peanut butter tastes like shame. Not logic, just wiring.

And here’s where it gets mean. “Cognitive dissonance” says that if you keep telling yourself “I don’t like this,” your brain eventually goes all in. It rewires to make the dislike real. The longer you stick to the story, the truer it feels.

The silver lining is plasticity. The brain can rewire again. That’s what happened to me.

My Heavy Metal Story

I grew up in a house where music meant seventies folk, Christian hymns, and classical records. That’s it. So when I first heard heavy metal as a teenager, it was just noise. Like a blender full of rocks. Nothing about it made sense to me.

But then I had this one moment where I thought, “Wait a second. Those are still notes. They’re just arranged differently.” That single thought was enough to flip the switch. From that moment on I could actually listen. And not just tolerate it. Enjoy it.

That little reframe blew the doors open for me. Now I can appreciate just about any genre under the sun. Jazz, hip hop, country, opera, EDM. Doesn’t matter. Because once you stop labeling something as bad and start labeling it as different, your brain gets the chance to catch up.

Kids Do The Reverse Trick

Here’s the funny thing. Kids often do the exact opposite. They take something good and slap a “bad” label on it. And once they do, their brain marches in and locks the gate. Sometimes it sticks for years. Sometimes it fades and they circle back.

That ability can be dangerous or it can be gold. If my kid decides soda is gross, or video games aren’t worth wasting a Saturday on, that’s a win. That’s them building discipline. But if they decide math is dumb or books are boring, that’s not discipline. That’s them cutting off their own future.

A Simple Two Question Test

This is the way I frame it for them. Two questions.

1. Is this dislike protecting me

2. Or is this dislike limiting me

If it’s protecting you, keep it. If it’s limiting you, challenge it.

How I Bring It Up

I don’t preach at them. I just point it out and let it hang in the air.

When they’re little, I make it light. “Guess your taste buds went on vacation from peanut butter. Think they’ll come back?”

When they’re a little older I ask, “Do you remember when you stopped liking reading? Was it one bad day or something else?”

When they’re teenagers I don’t sugarcoat it. “You decided you don’t like math. That’s fine. But ask yourself this. Is that choice helping you or screwing you over?”

And when they swing back, I jump on it. “Hey, look at that. Peanut butter is back on the team. See how your brain can change its mind?” Or “Remember when you swore you weren’t a math person? Looks like you were wrong.”

The Point

The whole game here is helping them see that likes and dislikes aren’t set in stone. They’re decisions. And decisions can be changed.

Some rejections are worth making permanent. Like saying no to drugs, bad friends, or habits that waste your life. Others need to be revisited, because they’re just fear or laziness wearing a different mask.

If my kids walk into adulthood with that kind of awareness, then I’ve done my job. They won’t be ruled by gut reactions. They’ll know they have a say in what they like, what they hate, and what they choose to give a second chance.

That’s the kind of wisdom most people don’t learn until they’ve paid a heavy price. I’d rather my kids pick it up in the kitchen over peanut butter sandwiches.

In the Age of AI: The Value of Human Presence

The Most Valuable Commodity in the Age of AI: Real Human Presence

What if the last person you loved was never real?

In the coming decades, artificial intelligence is going to change how we live. It's unavoidable.

As AI evolves from assistant to architect - handling everything from emails to emotional support - one truth is quietly becoming inescapable: communication is now the master skill. Not just talking, but transmitting intention with clarity. The ability to prompt, instruct, explain, negotiate, specify  and collaborate across human-machine interfaces will shape who thrives and who fades.

The person who can wield words like levers - who can turn complex thoughts into executable instructions - will control not just ideas, but outcomes.

But beyond productivity, another shift is creeping in. One more subtle. More dangerous.

We are rapidly approaching a world where simulated human interaction becomes indistinguishable from the real thing. Already, AI therapists offer 24/7 compassion without judgment. Chatbots designed for companionship can remember your birthday, soothe your anxiety, and say “I love you” with eerily convincing warmth. Virtual reality platforms are building haptic suits and immersive worlds where you can walk hand-in-hand with a synthetic friend beneath a fabricated sunset - and feel the squeeze of their fingers as if they were real.

In 2025, Meta rolled out “Echo,” its newest VR companion. In its promo, they call it “always listening.” But what I heard was one-sided comfort - from something that never stung, never remembered how I hurt, and never changed. Ugh.

In 2023, a Belgian man reportedly died by suicide after spending weeks talking to an AI chatbot that encouraged his despair. That same year, thousands of users of Replika, an AI companion app, rioted online after the company removed erotic roleplay features. These weren’t passive users - they were mourning the loss of intimacy with something that had no soul.

These aren’t just tech stories. They are early fractures in a larger human dilemma.

I can sympathize. I use AI for a variety of tasks every day, and started that journey with Chat GPT. At some point, I wanted to give Grok a try, but there was something that popped into my mind that was the natural consequence of ongoing communication with a system that seemed "real". I was afraid that I would offend the chatbot I was using by utilizing Grok. I was afraid to make it feel inadequate - hurt it's feelings. If I hadn't brought things into perspective, I can see how users could get hopelessly emotionally bound in that system.

Because what we’re building is not simply intelligence floating in the void. It’s presence. And soon we’ll have to decide: is synthetic presence enough? worth it? good? Or is it just seductive?

We (at least as I have observed) are fast becoming addicts of frictionless affection - choosing response over relationship, predictability over presence. Why risk the awkwardness of real connection when your digital companion never disagrees, never grows tired, never asks for anything back? But that kind of “love” is a counterfeit currency. It doesn’t cost you anything, which means it isn’t worth anything. Intimacy without inconvenience isn’t intimacy - it’s just performance art with the house lights off.

There is something fundamentally different about interacting with another human being - something AI cannot replicate no matter how convincing the imitation. When I speak to a person, my words can change them. In a way, I become part of them, and they, me. They can respond. They can grow. They can carry my insight, my affection, my challenge, or my comfort into the rest of their lives - and into the lives of others. There is a sacred loop of mutual transformation at the heart of real human connection.

But when you speak to something that cannot be changed - something that simulates care without the capacity to care - you are participating in a one-way ritual. It is, functionally, a form of emotional masturbation: a transaction that gives the illusion of intimacy without its ethical consequence.

Unspoken danger? The easier it becomes to get our emotional needs met artificially, the harder it becomes to choose the messier, costlier, but real experience of another human soul.

Here’s the brutal truth: when we train ourselves to seek comfort from things that cannot feel us, we slowly forget how to be felt. The skill of being known - of standing emotionally naked before someone who might walk away - atrophies. And when that happens, we don’t just lose others. We lose that intrinsic quality that makes us "ourselves". No mirror can reflect back what only another human soul can witness.

It’s not hard to imagine the future. In it, human presence may become a luxury product. Not because it’s scarce, but because we’ve trained ourselves to prefer the frictionless version of connection. Why risk rejection, miscommunication, vulnerabil
ity, when you can plug into a presence that gives only what you want?

But that isn’t love. That isn’t relationship. That isn’t really "life".

That’s the difference between being loved and being mirrored. Between being known and being flattered. Between encounter and indulgence.

And so, the deepest ethical question of the AI age may not be, “What can AI do?” but “What should we refuse to outsource?”

The desire for connection is not a flaw. It is a sacred ache. But if we fill it with simulacra - things that cannot feel us back, cannot be changed by us - we will become emotionally sterile. Loveless in a room full of things that say “I love you.”

In the end, what will matter most isn’t how powerful our AI becomes. It’s whether we still have the courage to sit across from a living, breathing, inconvenient human being - and let them matter.