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Light needs darkness and strength needs weakness. Since men can be weak and that prevents strength what is it that approximates strength for men in our world? 

being Inert. 

Men are expected to be inert, reactionless, emotionless and unfeeling. Unfortunately the measure of a man in the modern world is:

"how miserable can you be in the inside without letting it show on the out?"

This isn't a choice its a cultural expectation that has whittled down the modern man to a shell of a human being. Then somehow we have the gall to be angry at men when we can't answer:

 "how do you feel about that?" 

In this episode we challenge the myth that stoicism equals silence and show how emotional inertia masquerades as strength while damaging love, health, relationships and purpose. We trace how patriarchal male conditioning shuts men down and offer practical steps to feel, speak, and connect without losing stability.

• strength defined as range, not stillness
• how suppression becomes repression and inertia
• why “dude bro” stoicism misreads philosophy
• links between vulnerability and intelligence
• relationship, mental health, and burnout costs
• data on stigma, suicides, and permission
• small daily practices to express emotion
• spotting shutdown signals in the body
• building male friendships through shared goals
• balancing thinking with embodied awareness
• partners setting limits without shaming
• unlearning cultural rules that block feeling

Thank you for listening. Stay curious and stay uncomfortable.

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We follow a veteran journalist’s surreal path through an ICE career expo that “hired” her without finished paperwork, then track how speed, bed quotas, and private prison incentives warp vetting and accountability. We connect personal stories, federal denials, and the money trail to show how throughput beats caution.

• audiobook update for Rethinking Broken and request for reviews
• Laura Jadeed’s six-minute interview and optional screening
• tentative email turning into a final offer and start date
• DHS public denial vs screen-recorded receipts
• sign-on bonuses and the detention bed quota economy
• recruiting veterans into street-first enforcement roles
• trauma, conditioning, and the pipeline from military to ICE
• incentives that favor speed over safety and oversight
• questions about abusers, extremists, and inadequate vetting

Please leave an honest review on Audible if you listen to the audiobook

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Follow the money! That's how to find motivation for everything in today's world. 

So today we trace how a 90 percent bed mandate and per diem payments turn detention into a guaranteed cash business, then map the loop from public money to profit to lobbying and back again. Along the way we expose hiring failures, subcontracting fog, and why humane alternatives get sidelined.

• 90 percent minimum bed guarantee as the engine of detention profits
• $130 per diem creating incentives to cut food, medical, and staffing costs
• Publicly traded status driving expansion and investor-friendly margins
• Lobbying reinforcing stricter enforcement and resistance to alternatives
• Subcontracting layers diffusing accountability for harmful practices
• Policy enforcement clashing with constitutional protections in homes
• Political targets and data power shaping where raids intensify
• Rebranding and EO 14006 shifting optics while ICE contracts persist

If you enjoyed this, consider going in the comments or the description and click the buy me a coffee link, and you can send me a couple of bucks and get me a latte

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We trace how a single counterprotester held space at a small-town Turning Point rally, and how performative civility flipped to petty violence when dissent stayed visible. We dig into the psychology, the power plays, and the stakes for neighbors who want safety without silence.

• why one person chose to protest a local turning point rally
• the role of music and signage as nonviolent counter-speech
• friendly small talk turning into property damage and intimidation
• hypocrisy of “free speech” and “law and order” claims
• private apologies versus public accountability in small towns
• why homogeneous groups radicalize faster
• research on disgust sensitivity and exposure shaping ideology
• first settlers principle and cultural imprint in local power
• how to show up safely, document, and set boundaries
• next steps: return, organize presence, raise a louder voice

If you feel like supporting the show, then go into the notes. There’s a you can buy me a coffee or whatever you feel like doing. Please leave a comment, share this with some friends, spread it, especially if you’re local. If you live in Port Angeles or Washington or Squim or Forks or Joyce or any of these little areas around here, please send this to your friends. We need to get the word out about these people. I hope that you guys come out and join this protest.

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Fear shrinks our world until only the threat remains in view. That biological truth doesn’t stop at the edge of the skin; it scales up to cities and nations. We explore how chronic stress—pandemic fallout, economic pressure, and a nonstop fear feed—can push entire communities toward authoritarian comfort: conformity, punishment, and a single story that feels safe because it’s simple.

I lay out the biology first: how tunnel vision and fight–flight–freeze–fawn tilt our choices when we feel cornered. Then we connect the science to politics with research you can use. Karen Stenner’s work on normative threat explains rising demands for sameness. Terror management theory shows why mortality talk fuels loyalty to strongmen. Michael Hogg’s uncertainty-identity theory clarifies why shaky times tighten in-groups and elevate leaders who promise firm rules. We also examine the media ecosystem, lawsuits that exposed manufactured narratives, and why single-source news becomes addictive when certainty feels like oxygen.

Religion’s role is nuanced and real. The habit of surrender—let go and let God—can slide into civic life as let go and let the Strong Leader. Priming, prophecy, and confirmation bias form a powerful feedback loop that paints outsiders as dangerous and makes crackdowns look like care. I share personal stories from an evangelical upbringing to show how these patterns get baked in early and reactivated under stress.

Here’s the hopeful pivot: the same biology that drifts us toward control can lead us back through connection. Safety downshifts the nervous system. Mutual aid, volunteering, honest conversation, and multiple information streams widen the aperture so complexity feels manageable again. If we regulate our bodies and strengthen our communities, we reduce the appeal of punitive certainty and make democratic solutions visible.

If this resonates, share it with one person who feels alone or overwhelmed. Then do something together—big or small—that builds connection. Subscribe for more grounded, plainspoken dives into how our bodies, beliefs, and politics shape each other, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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We push into the tension of friendships during political stress, mapping why people with the same heart still clash when one acts as a Protector and another as an Integrator. We set clear lines on safety while honoring different methods for reducing harm and keeping communities whole.

• naming the friction between protectors and integrators
• trauma-informed reasons behind sharp boundaries and speech
• why different audiences require different tones and tactics
• separating values, tactics and hard boundaries
• role clarity as a stress and conflict reducer
• designing personal systems to lower reactivity
• time horizons for safety now vs conversion later
• gratitude, accountability and smarter critique across roles

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A conservative activist was shot dead by someone even further to the right than himself, highlighting America's terrifying rightward shift toward extremism. The incident reveals how far-right ideology has become so normalized that prominent figures like Charlie Kirk are considered "sellouts" by even more radical elements.

• Charlie Kirk, 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was killed by a 22-year-old extremist who considered him not conservative enough
• The shooter, son of a Mormon pastor from a Republican family, represents the extreme right-wing fringe that has become increasingly violent
• Understanding the Overton Window helps explain how extreme acts can shift public discourse in dangerous directions
• The host shares personal experience growing up in an evangelical household similar to Kirk's ideology
• White supremacy isn't just a fringe element in America but is woven into the country's social fabric
• When opposing fascism gets you labeled a terrorist while promoting extremist views makes you celebrated, America has reached a dangerous point
• The concerning reality that America continues moving rightward, with no signs of moderating

Stay curious and stay uncomfortable.

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We explore the crucial difference between conflict avoidance and avoidant attachment, examining how avoiding small issues creates bigger problems in long-term relationships. The person who avoids conflict actually controls the relationship dynamic, creating a pressure cooker where ten skipped conversations eventually lead to one explosive confrontation.

• Conflict avoidance is different from avoidant attachment, though they're often confused
• Avoiding issues in long-term relationships causes problems to grow larger over time
• The conflict-avoidant person paradoxically controls the relationship by setting its pace
• Trust requires truth plus timeliness plus completeness—avoidance breaks timeliness
• When we think we're "letting things go," our biology often holds onto tension anyway
• Secure attachment approaches conflict directly with clear communication
• Conflict avoidance can lead to ending valuable relationships when seeing others' pain becomes unbearable

Stay curious and stay uncomfortable.

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My Websites

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We need to recognize ourselves as the human animals we are, understanding that our meat suit houses all our psychological components and significantly impacts what we consider "self." The way stress shapes our bodies and behaviors can explain everything from lacking motivation to experiencing unexplained pain.

• Our biology is the most incredible machine ever created, far superior to any human invention
• Modern society conditions us to ignore physical discomfort through top-down regulation from the prefrontal cortex
• Chronic stress creates hidden tension in our bodies that manifests as pain, emotional problems, and focus issues
• Our bodies are tensegrity structures that need varied, constant movement to maintain health
• Emotions begin as physiological sensations before cognitive awareness
• The lack of species-expected stimuli in modern environments causes our biological systems to short-circuit
• Walking provides both physical movement and creates visual signals that help regulate stress responses
• ADHD often results from being conditioned at home due to stress rather than at school
• Like any animal, humans need touch, play, food, water, sleep, and social connection
• Satisfying these basic animal needs can resolve seemingly complex psychological problems

Check out my upcoming ADHD management course and audiobook release at RethinkingBroken.com. Thank you for listening, and if you want to support the show, buy me a coffee or wait to purchase a copy of the audiobook.

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The difference between commerce and capitalism might seem like a semantic distinction, but understanding this gap illuminates how our entire economic system functions today. Commerce—the simple exchange of goods based on mutual needs—has existed in all human societies since time immemorial. It's relational, built on trust and reciprocity. But capitalism? That's something else entirely.

In this deep dive, we trace capitalism's evolution from feudal Europe through the first multinational corporations to today's tech monopolies. The story begins with the rise of merchant classes who threatened landed elites, and the subsequent creation of corporate charters that married private capital with state violence. The Dutch and British East India Companies—with their own militaries, courts, and prisons—represent the first true capitalistic enterprises, extracting wealth globally while distributing risk through public stock offerings.

This historical development fundamentally transformed human values. Worth became determined not by usefulness but by exchange value. Time became money. Work became wage labor. The abstraction of wealth from tangible goods to returns on investment created our modern financial system where billionaires claim to assume risk while actually transferring it to workers and consumers.

From ExxonMobil's resource extraction backed by military force to Amazon's 30% marketplace cut while enjoying massive tax breaks, the mechanisms have evolved but the underlying structure remains. Delaware's corporate secrecy laws hide the modern version of those early public charters from scrutiny, while our legal system obligates companies to maximize quarterly profits regardless of human or environmental costs.

Understanding this history challenges us to reimagine what trade could look like without domination. How might we increase reciprocal commerce in our communities while resisting exploitative capitalism? Join this conversation about one of the most misunderstood but influential systems shaping our world today, and discover practical ways to support alternatives that benefit everyone, not just those at the top.

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