From an early age, growing up hunting and fishing in the wholesome, Norman Rockwell version of America, my thoughts on life, virtue, and human nature began to take shape. Within a couple years of leaving Kentucky, at nineteen years old, I found myself hitchhiking through Europe, sleeping in the back of a Citroën station wagon under the Brandenburg Gate with a girl named Petra. Her parents were Holocaust survivors. She was a little older and well-educated. Over the course of a couple of weeks, she introduced me to Aristotle and his teachings on rhetoric. I became absolutely fascinated. Ever since that time, I've been thinking through what Aristotle described as the twelve core emotions that a human being can feel.
This fascination led me to create 'The Divine DNA of Virtue,' the piece you see here. It visually explores the tension between love, joy, confidence, calmness, gratitude, and compassion on one side, and hatred, anger, fear, envy, shame, and pity on the other.
Studying history through this lens makes me optimistic that artificial intelligence can never truly replace the human soul. AI can simulate knowledge and generate language, but it cannot feel. It lacks the divine DNA God gave us — that sacred capacity to genuinely experience these twelve emotions. Western civilization, built on rugged individualism, merit, and self-worth, draws its strength from a soul that feels deeply. Civilizations that pervert those emotions into hatred, envy, and fear-driven revolutions have always collapsed. The American Revolution, by contrast, was fueled by confidence, love of liberty, and righteous anger channeled toward justice. That’s the difference between movements that endure and those that fail.
To truly understand the South American revolutionary spirit, one must see how deeply Simon Bolivar drew from the same Enlightenment ideals that fueled the American Founding Fathers. Like Washington and Jefferson, Bolivar fought for independence from colonial rule and believed in republican government, individual liberty, and self-determination. He admired the American Revolution’s success and studied its principles closely, viewing it as proof that breaking free from European monarchy was possible.
Yet Bolivar adapted those principles to Latin America’s unique challenges. While he shared the American founders’ vision of democracy, he believed the region’s lack of democratic experience required stronger central leadership to prevent chaos and fragmentation. His push for unity across nations reflected both an idealistic dream of a grand confederation and a pragmatic response to the political instability he saw unfolding.
In this light, Bolivar represents not a rejection of American founding principles, but their passionate translation into South American reality — a bridge between the revolutionary spirit of liberty and the complex path toward stable democracy in a fractured continent.
When I was living and working in England in 1987, it took me three months to finish Ulysses. And since that time, the idea that revolutions are born in the hearts and minds of the peasants in the hillsides has stuck with me.
That same revolutionary spirit lives in the American soul. Our principles of democracy, individual liberty, and free will have always proven far more attractive to people than revolutions based on socialism, terrorism, or Islamist jihad.
We're fiercely loyal to our flag and our freedoms. We have the God-given right to bear arms, and we'll fight with our last breath to defend liberty, free speech, and the American way of life. Our common sense soul knows evil when it sees it, just like that Supreme Court justice said about pornography.
That's why the MAGA movement, with ninety million strong, is awake like never before. After Vietnam, Iraq, and decades of never-ending wars exposed the cracks, we now clearly see the manipulation—the taqiyya tactics, the radical jihadis who've entered our country, and the perverted socialists who've preyed on vulnerable minds, just like they did in Iran in the seventies.
The time for action is now. We need a Congress with real spine to pass the Voting Rights Act, hold accountable those trying to subvert our justice, and root out the rot within. Good will beat evil, because our revolutionary soul is rooted in something far stronger and far better.
Getting Rocinante ready for the road trip of a lifetime. Goal is to make it to Pioneer Days in Cheyenne by July 15th. I need to acquire a Bluetick coon hound along the way.
Back in 1989 I had been living in Brazil for almost a year. My visa was expired so I decided to sneak into Paraguay via Ciudad del Este, in a chicken bus for $20. Why? An America buddy I had met in England had converted to Judaism and flew down to look for Nazis. Figured I could get my visa renewed and maybe beat up some Hitler wannabees. Didn't work so well. I got into Paraguay and we found a compound full of Nazis, but we ended up getting robbed at gunpoint by a crooked cop in horrible bar. So we cooked up a plan to fist fight each other in the world's most dangerous casino saloon. It actually worked and I got enough money to pay $20 to get back into Brazil in the same chicken bus. The beauty was that I had started reading this book on the 18 hour bus ride back to Sao Paulo. By the time I left Brazil in 1990 I had read dozens of great books.
Still probably one of the best bathrooms I built in Grass Valley, CA. Took a couple months ripping out the old vanities and flooring and plumbing. The floating Alma vanities with fogless mirrors, new tub, new flooring etc...
