Another social reform policy that has negatively affected the people it was supposed to help is welfare policy. Welfare does a lot of good for a person who is momentarily struggling, and it does a lot of good for those who can’t provide for themselves, like the truly mentally and physically disabled. But consider this, Stephen Hawking was never on welfare.

Again, this policy tells people that if they fall into a certain group, then this is the option they should take. And why not? It’s free.

I have been a recipient of government welfare, and I can speak to its benefits and its dangers. The trap of welfare is real. After a serious work injury, I went back to school. At the end of my first semester, my wife gave birth to our first child. As I made a living as a graduate assistant, we had little money to spare, and not enough for medical expenses. We applied for state assistance, which included baby supplies, food, and medical insurance for my wife and our child. We carried these benefits until after our second child was born 2 1/2 years later. By this time, I had a degree and was back at work. Our family had landed once again on a solid foundation, even though I had an injury that didn’t allow me to participate in many sectors of the workforce.

When the state sent a renewal letter for our benefits, we had to make a decision. Do we want to keep these benefits, or strike out on our own and become more than what these benefits represent to us?

The temptation was real, as was the opportunity.

We sent back the renewal application blank and included a letter saying thank you for the help; it blessed our family greatly, but we no longer needed the assistance.

The alternative: to keep the benefits, maybe stay in school longer than I needed to, and since the welfare culture was intruding into our future, use the injury I had suffered to claim disability.

Staying on welfare would have held our family back. We would have stayed in poverty for the sake of free benefits paid for by our neighbors. Instead, I went back to work and we are financially secure enough that my wife has been able to stay home, raise our kids, and provide them with a homeschool education(she does this with her diploma for her Master’s degree hanging on the wall in our home classroom).

I don’t speak to the issue of race only from my own meditations and experiences. I’ve read books written by Critical Race Theory authors, like Kendi, Tatum, and Coates. Yes, I’ve read the opposing arguments, and that is something we all need to do. When there is something we don’t understand, we need to search for the understanding we don’t have. These books have given me sympathy for the Black experience, which, while I haven’t changed my core views, opens the door for a more meaningful and productive conversation.

We miss this in America, where our views of the opposition are given to us by social media algorithms and corporately influenced news outlets. We are being conditioned to hate the other side, not to understand them. Understanding leads to progress.

Charlie repeatedly stated that what a person does sexually is their own business, but that doesn’t require that he thinks it is morally correct. The Bible says not all will seek God, but many will turn away.

Believers must understand that it is not our job to fix the non-believer’s sin or convince them to turn to God. Our only job is to introduce them to Jesus and His gospel.

The argument that has earned Charlie Kirk and conservative America as being homophobic, particularly regarding transgenderism, is not complex. It says that you can do what you want with your body when you reach an agreed-upon accountable age (you can drive at 16 and vote at 18—these ages would be good candidates), and you must leave children alone.

Children are the most vulnerable and confused people on the planet. For centuries, we have raised them to embrace morals and values. We’ve encouraged them to embrace our culture, to have families, to be productive members of society, and to do that, we’ve guarded their hearts from confusing and perverted ideologies.

By introducing children to homosexual ideas, options, and methods, we are introducing ideologies that contradict nature, thereby contradicting the foundations of what they naturally think of as truth. We are introducing confusion that they can not, nor should not be expected to, handle. In the last 2 decades, the rate of high school kids claiming not to be “something other than heterosexual” has skyrocketed. Studies claim as little as 10% and as high as 30%. An increase as large as that does not represent closeted individuals feeling safe enough to come out. It represents a high level of grooming and influence, and it starts on social media and continues into the classroom.

Individual discrimination aside, the United States has always stood for equality and freedom for everyone, and that is true today. Any adult is free to make decisions regarding their personal life without punishment, as long as it is affecting only their DNA and is done with the consent of any other adult involved. But to bring these ideas into the classroom under the banner of inclusion and anti-discrimination is wrong. The definition of homophobia does not include protecting children from the influence of homosexual propaganda. Protecting future generations from making negative decisions they may not have made without that influence is not hate. It is discernment.

Now that American culture has turned its back on family, has pushed alternative sexual lifestyles into our schools, and has demonized anyone who stands for values, we have arrived at the most devastating results—the transgender movement.

Although I’ve read a couple of books about it, like Irreversible Damage, this topic is quickly evolving, and I am not well educated on it.

What I see when it comes to this topic is a breakdown of the power and influence of family, a complete abandonment of common sense, an embracing of bold-faced lying, and the victory of confusion. Its influence removes the focus from a child’s mental health, from the real-world challenges of being a young person, and from common sense, practical answers to helping them walk through this stage of life. It replaces it with the false premise that if a person could be someone else entirely, then their life would be better.

That if life feels this bad, then something is wrong with who I am.

Let me tell you, as a person who has experienced decades of depression, which started as an adolescent, that life can feel desolate and pointless. There is no permanent fix for any 13-year-old; but there is perseverance, the love and support of family and friends, and self-determination to survive.

Statistics and viable long-term research are lacking on the subject of transgender adolescents, but there are signs that too many kids are choosing this path based on influence and false hopes. While research suggests regret and detransitioning is low for adults, some studies show it as high as 35% for one sex of adolescents and 20% for the other (the wording is confusing, and I couldn’t tell if the sex referred to pre- or post-transitioning). And these are preliminary numbers, not backed by extensive research.

Transgenderism as a cultural movement is dangerous. That’s why families need to come together, have open discussion, avoid indoctrinated content, support each other, and do battle together against the false ideas of this current cultural movement.

Guard the hearts of your children!

We have come to a point in our short history where using terms like racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and bigot to describe someone whom we disagree with has become our only defense. And let’s get real, the disagreements that people have with Charlie Kirk are either policy related or are in opposition to his biblical worldview. I watched scores of people step up to debate Kirk on an issue they only had an emotional attachment to. Many of them failed to arm themselves with facts or truth. And this is what we are battling against—the rebellion against truth. Often, when the counter argument was proposed by Kirk and the debater realized that he or she didn’t have an answer that held any weight, they’d call him a hater, or insult him, or curse him, or physically assault him, then walk away. Anger, hate, bitterness, and violence became the only defense when debate, facts, truth, and conversation failed. Sound familiar?

This is the word that encompasses all of these other negative claims about Charlie Kirk’s character. A man who is racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, homophobic bigot is a pretty bad guy. It is amazing that 6 NFL teams held a moment of silence for this man. Christian churches around the world wept and held vigils for him. Christian music artists wrote songs for him, defended him on social media, and, as a result, unapologetically lost thousands of followers for it. I will make a baseless claim, but it is a powerful observation. Would these institutions and Christian believers back a man who was categorically evil and hateful?

What these accusations against Kirk describe is the alt-right movement, which unashamedly makes claims to each of these titles. These alt-right groups (one is called Groypers and is headed by Nick Fuentes, if you want to look into it) attacked Kirk many times for his conservative views, which they claimed were soft. Charlie Kirk was attacked by the left and the alt-right, placing him closer to the middle than the masses give him credit for. If you actually take a moment and look into what the alt-right stands for, who they are, and what they are doing, you will see that the Republican party, Conservative America, and Charlie Kirk denounce them, disagree with them, and do not claim any ties or unity to them.

The alt-right is truly fascist in thought and deed. Nobody argues they are white-supremacists, anti-semitic, racist, misogynists, and extreme nationalists. They boldly proclaim it. If one were to study what fascism and alt-right policy actually looked like, you could not deny that the Republican party, Conservative Americans, and Charlie Kirk held moral and ethical values far removed from this group.

A Democrat representative from Minnesota called Charlie Kirk a right-wing fascist a day after he was assassinated. A person from our own government made these claims, which transpose onto the Republican party and the current face of the United States. Those are extreme and dangerous claims to make. Claims that have no foundation to stand on, yet these are the people we put in office. People who repeat social media memes, participate in tit-for-tat accusational arguments, and make no progress towards unity, sensibility, and truth.

Charlie Kirk often acknowledged inalienable rights to every human being, called for the death of no one, and believed in a free society and market. This is not fascism. He believed that the people of the United States needed to identify as Americans, and not as individual races, or parties, or groups who are opposed to each other.

Then how did Charlie Kirk become a racist fascist?

Thanks to social media and our corporately influenced news outlets, one of the most ridiculous claims about Charlie Kirk’s character is to call him a misogynist.

According to Merriam-Webster, this is a person who hates or mistrusts women. What has caused this addition to the host of slurs attached to his name?

Charlie Kirk believed in the family unit. A husband, a wife, and children, living together as God laid it out for us in the Bible. This arrangement includes the husband being the head of the family and the provider, while the mother raised the children in God’s word. Our American culture now believes that this worldview devalues women. We believe there is no value in raising our own children! 

But the culture takes it farther and makes the claim that anyone who believes in this family unit also believes women are of less value and should not be in the workforce. Conservatives in the United States, including Charlie Kirk, don’t believe this at all. While this picture of family values is desirable, it is not demanded. 

In one of Charlie’s last podcast episodes, he interviews Megan Basham, an author and Daily Wire reporter. He treats her not as a woman but as any other professional on his show. On August 28th he interviewed a woman called Allie B. Stuckey, whom he praised for her work. He did not tell these women that they should go home and be stay-at-home mothers.

Less than a week after his death, the Board of Turning Point USA posthumously honored a request by Charlie Kirk and appointed his wife, Erika, an amazingly accomplished woman, as the CEO of Turning Point USA. This move debases any claim that Kirk was a misogynist.

Charlie’s statements about the Kelce/Swift union received a lot of criticism. And rightfully so. Charlie is not free from criticism, and he is not perfect. His statement about Swift changing her name is the equivalent of throwing pearls to swine, only to be trampled on. It was unnecessary, unproductive, and likely done for ratings, but the foundation of the truth he was speaking still exists. It doesn’t matter if this entertainer agrees with the biblical view of a family-leading husband, or submission to that authority; that doesn’t change the truth as stated in the Bible.

As a quick footnote, if you’re not a Bible-believing Christian, you might not understand this. The Bible says in Ephesians 5 that wives should submit to their husbands as they do to the Lord (Jesus). The Bible calls for the husband to be the provider and protector, which is linear with tradition and is still the standard. The arrangement is not only biblical, it is common sense. The man is stronger and better suited to protect and provide. God places the burden of leadership on the husband, and any good man will lead his family.

Do you know that God’s commandments for us are helpful to us? Think about not having sex before marriage. Not having sex before marriage creates a stronger marital bond, will limit the chances for sexual sin to enter the marriage, protects against disease, makes unwanted pregnancy impossible, decreases the opportunity for abortion, and promotes mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health. Having sex before marriage decreases the chances of getting married, makes sex the foundation of the relationship instead of emotional and spiritual connections, creates a devalued relationship, creates an environment that avoids commitment, and removes the protections stated in the previous sentence.

But sex is highly pleasurable and desirable. It’s true. But take the word of a married man who has experienced both sides of this debate: sex with a single partner whom you trust and love is infinitely better than frivolous and promiscuous sex.

God’s design for sex is amazing and beautiful. It provides a way for reproduction. God says this in Malachi 2:15.

15 But did He not make them one,
Having a remnant of the Spirit?
And why one?
He seeks godly offspring.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

Sex also gives us the most intimate connection we can have with another person. It unites body, spirit, and soul. It is a physical act, as well as an emotional, mental, and spiritual one. No wonder debates over sex can become heated, and dare I say, passionate.

The United States has always been politically divided. The assassinations of presidents and members of congress go back to our earliest days, with 3 presidents killed between 1865 and 1901, and six attempts, 2 successful, on members of congress between 1905 and 1935.

This is not about a political divide (most certainly a political crisis) any longer, but a cultural divide. American culture, what this country stands for, has been slowly eroded away. The complexity of the problem stems from the source of erosion being plural, not singular, and these sources, while existing separately, have worked together to change the narrative in the United States.

These forces have changed the way traditional American culture is viewed, passing through the lens of race, oppression, and the sense that equality goes beyond our God-given, inalienable rights. This has led a large portion of our population and others around the globe to view American culture as rooted in white-supremacy; intolerant, racist, nationalist, and evil. Many of the same attacks on Charlie Kirk’s character and platform are applied to the United States of America.

America is a large country. Naturally, there are going to be different people groups with their own customs and traditions, regional differences within the country, and different historical impressions left on these people and their regions. However, the United States of America as a whole does stand for something. It is for this, no matter who you are, where you live, or where you came from, that we all must collectively buy into.

American culture values individualism and self-reliance, independence, entrepreneurship, equality, diversity, immigration, a free market, time and productivity, freedom to worship, and democracy. Our country’s creation was rooted in Christian principles, and like it or not, Christian values are a part of American culture. An attack on Christianity is an attack on the United States.

That is why gay marriage was a hard law to pass, and why gay marriage should not be a part of the Christian church. It is contrary to Christian principles and the Bible. Regardless of what you think about gay marriage, involving the Christian church goes against the Bible, Christian tradition, and Christian teaching. That doesn’t make our nation homophobic. It makes us a nation that is troubled when demands are made upon our values and they are disregarded.

Given the historical influence of immigration in our country, it has been said that American culture is always shifting based on these influences, but that is not true. We only become richer as we accept these cultural influences into our society, but they do not change our core culture.

Everyone in America has the right to embrace their ethnicity and the traditions of their cultural roots. We see it occurring everywhere, and many of us participate in these celebrations. That is what makes our country ethnically rich and beautifully diverse. But within our cultural background and celebrations, we must embrace what it means to be American and to live on American soil.

For example, Black Americans invented the greatest musical movement of our country’s history. Jazz and Blues did not change American culture, but they undeniably made it richer, more diverse, and more enjoyable.

Sub-cultures within the United States that attack American culture by making claims of white-supremacy and fascism against it are using weak and cowardly arguments to avoid the greater problems of their own culture. It is a disease rooted in blaming. The United States is the land of opportunity. It always has been. Individuals and groups of every creed, race, and sexual preference have found success here.

Basic assimilation to the culture, instead of attacking it, is critical to success anywhere one goes. Thousands of immigrants legally come into this country every year and begin building a life for themselves. They can do this because they want to be here, they appreciate what the United States stands for, and they are willing to work hard to provide for their families. These courageous individuals and families will learn English, will often modify their names for easier pronunciation and memorization, and will embrace the culture to some extent for survival and prosperity.

They don’t arrive in the US to put their hands out and ask, “what will the government do for me?”. Why? They didn’t come from a place where that is expected. As a nation, we are desensitized to the government providing for our needs. This is where conservative Americans break from liberal Americans.

But no matter where you stand on the debate between community action and social policy, American culture does not change. Social policies will always exist. Some people need help, and that’s OK, but to replace individual and community responsibility with government is not in step with American culture.

Charlie Kirk, a man who was shot by a coward without the emotional intelligence to deal with the toxicity of an invading culture, has been mocked posthumously for a sentence he said in a discourse that included 545 words.

Just before he made the statement that some gun deaths are worth the greater good, he said, “We should have a honest and clear reductionist view of gun violence, but we should not have a utopian one.”

Being a conservative American doesn’t mean you support every policy or opinion wholeheartedly. In fact, being American means you think for yourself on every issue and come to your own conclusion. In the age of social media and unaccountability in the news, we have lost that today. Too many Americans get their information from sound bites, social media memes, and the opinions of others who use the same insignificant information to form a reasonable opinion. This has led to the emergence of a society that is fueled by hate for those who disagree and an inability to have an intelligent dialogue about a topic.

It is clear that firearm ownership in America has influenced made its mark on our traditional culture. But it is also clear that as the world changes around us, and as weapons become more efficient and effective, America’s unchanging and unbending obsession with guns has now tainted our culture.

The argument for access to weapons consists of four bullet points, as far as I can tell:

Self-protection
Hunting
Defense from Tyrannical Government
God-given rights

I easily buy into the first 2 points. If one wants to have a gun in their home for protection, then they should be allowed to have that protection. Guns for hunting, which also crossover to protection, again, allowed.

But when we start talking about defending ourselves from an out-of-control government, I get a little skeptical. Weapons are highly advanced and very powerful. To protect ourselves against a government force would require military-grade weaponry. Each home would now need a shoulder-held rocket launcher to take out fighter jets.

And that brings to light a major problem with gun policy. Individuals don’t need arsenals in their basements, or military-grade weapons, or high-powered sniper rifles. These weapons are meant for one thing—to kill other people. Furthermore, an attack by a government force would be far superior to anything found in a home, no matter how well stocked.

In our social media age, where, based on a 2028 MIT study, false information appears on your media feed 6 times faster than true information (if you ever see the true). As our ability to connect with opposing opinions in a meaningful, to learn the full scope of an argument, and to be able to discern content diminishes, it too often leaves the gun as the only solution.

This is why Charlie Kirk was killed. And if you really meditate on it, it is unimaginable that a man lost his life because of false accusations against his character, when he made his true opinions completely transparent on the social stage.

My biggest beef with our unfettered and unquenchable obsession with guns is that outside of America’s founding documents, (I’m not going to give you a rundown of the US Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, or state charters, or what our founding fathers intended. But I will give you a reference and you can do your own study, because finding our for ourselves has become a lost motivation around the world. You can participate in constitutional studies for free through Hillsdale College. That’s right—for free. https://online.hillsdale.edu/), I don’t see Jesus telling us to arm ourselves to the hilt in preparation for what’s to come.

In fact, I see Jesus saying the opposite.

Conservative America makes high claims as being in line with biblical teachings, which would lead one to assume they know the Bible. That means Conservatives are intimately familiar with the condition of the human heart—that every heart carries evil intentions in it, and every heart has the ability to pull the trigger.

If Conservatives know this, then why do we insist on giving every person the opportunity to commit heinous crimes against their fellow man when they reach that breaking point of anger, frustration, bitterness, and embarrassment?

The Christian argument concerning guns should take this into consideration, and that means some form of gun control, or restriction, is necessary. If the gun goes beyond home protection or hunting (I don’t consider shooting an elk from 400 yards away as hunting, by the way), then that gun in the hand of a man or woman is a danger to society.