When I originally recorded this footage of me riding my bike into downtown Nashville for an event, I had a different idea for what the content would be, of what I would talk about. Obviously, it was going to be in the legal realm, something I felt would benefit not just my clients, or potential clients, but laymen as well. Because my goal in making content is twofold. It is to inform, but it is also for me to condense my ideas and thoughts. Hopefully, people see value in my content, for I do.
My life has been one of quiet debate. Of therapeutic self talking meditative insight. I don’t know what to call it, but I have always talked and debated with myself to overcome conflict, reach a decision, or refine thought. And to be clear, this has always been my avenue to prayer. I include God in these conversations. Prayer is the unveiling of the mind before God.
Thomas Aquinas teaches us that prayer is an act of reason. As we become more humble, we recognize more profoundly our need to pray and humility is a virtue of acknowledging the truth about reality.
After the events of September 10th, I simply couldn’t bring myself to discuss anything else. It’s incredible how the news of Charlie Kirk’s death has sparked such an outpouring of emotions. As a father and husband, I can relate to his struggles and find a part of myself in him. I deeply empathize with his children and wife for the immense loss they’ve endured. I think that sentiment is what has driven so much of the emotions. His supporters saw themselves in him as well. He was their champion and friend. They were or are a media-based tribe. Tribalism is human nature. Human beings need three basic things in order to be content:
They need to feel competent at what they do
They need to feel authentic in their lives
They need to feel connected to others.
These values are considered intrinsic to human happiness. So it is in our nature to be in a tribe of like minded people. It is why we form groups, associations, and countries. This experimental tribe of ours, which is coming up on 250 years, started on the idea that:
“all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
That is what we should all champion and agree with as Americans, but it feels like we are in some cold civil war barreling toward some 1984 future where:
“every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue, street, and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
We blame the other side. The left is violent. The right is violent. It is us against them. Let’s generalize and dehumanize, and group all who are not fully with us as fully against us.
Every individual has the right to live a life free from arbitrary violence or oppression, and to exercise all their constitutional rights, including speech, assembly, due process, privacy, belief, and voting, without interference.
This should not be a controversial idea. This is core of our American identity. But I understand how it has been warped. Let’s use the Gadsden flag as an example. Designed in 1775 by Continental Congress delegate Christopher Gadsden, it was intended as a symbol of the colonies’ resolve to defend their liberties against British oppression. It features a coiled yellow rattlesnake on a bright‑yellow field, with the motto “Don’t Tread on Me” displayed beneath the snake. As someone who flirts with libertarian ideologies, the Gadsden Flag has been a constant presence in my ideological journey. It represents limited government, personal freedom, or protest against tyranny. It has since been adopted by certain people that desire treading on certain people not seeing the irony of celebrating tyranny by waving a flag historically against it. I have since modified my version of the Gadsden flag which I call Nova Americana to change the motto from Don’t Tread on Me to:
Don’t Tread on Anyone
It should not just be about protecting your rights and the rights of those close to you. We should as Americans stand up for everyone’s rights. For if we do not stand up for all who will stand up for us? It should not take a victim being the personal friend of the president for us to recognize the tragedy of violence. It is a disgrace when we feel our rights are more important than another. Your ability to exercise your rights stops the moment it interferes with someone else's ability to exercise their rights. We live in a society, and we should try to be respectful of one another. It should be disgraceful to violate anyone’s rights, no matter the justification. We should try to unite behind this basic idea, this basic philosophy. That is what should hold us together as Americans.
Whether you are advocating for free speech on a college campus, or you a just a kid trying to go to school, or you are an elected official gunned down in your home, or a governor , or a presidential candidate everyone should be entitled to live their lives free from arbitrary violence in pursuit of their own happiness. To paraphrase Robert F. Kennedy, What we need now is not division, hatred, violence, or lawlessness, but love, wisdom, and compassion toward one another.
I always say I am a minority of one, and individual rights are important, but can we also be a tribe of 342 million? Maybe this is not how we are, but it is how we could be. This Nova Americana.
I will end with this Prayer:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
