"When they tell you a story, it is never all of it."
I didn't come from privilege. I came from a shitty family situation that could have defined the rest of my life if I'd let it. I didn't let it.
What saved me were my grandparents. They were farmers — real ones, not the kind who talk about "hard work" from a desk. I was there for all of it. Planting, harvesting, feeding livestock, fixing equipment, doing whatever needed doing regardless of the weather or the hour. My grandfather taught me that work isn't something you talk about. It's something you do. That lesson never left.
I took what I learned on that farm and built a life from scratch. I owned my own business for 10 years. I didn't inherit it. I didn't have investors. I built it with my hands and my brain and whatever grit I could pull together from a childhood that didn't give me much of a head start.
I've been in the computer business since 1983 — before most people knew what a personal computer was. I imported computer parts and built hundreds of PCs by hand. This wasn't ordering from Dell. This was sourcing components, assembling machines, troubleshooting hardware, and putting working systems in people's hands when the industry was still figuring itself out.
Five years on the factory floor at Onan. Manufacturing. The kind of work where you show up, do the job, and nobody cares about your opinions — they care about whether the product works. It teaches you the difference between people who talk and people who produce.
I worked for the Minneapolis Police Department for five years as a civilian. I supported all of their networking — their connections to the rest of the state and to Washington DC. I wasn't a cop — I was the person who kept their systems running and their communications connected.
One of my key responsibilities was managing the Automated Pawn System — a system that tracked pawn transactions across the entire seven-county metro area. That system caught fugitives. Here's the thing I learned: crooks will lie to the police, but they won't lie to their bankers. When someone pawns stolen property, they leave a paper trail. We used that trail to find people who thought they'd disappeared.
Working inside law enforcement gave me a perspective that most people will never have. I saw the good — dedicated officers doing hard work. And I saw the bad — civil asset forfeiture used against citizens who couldn't fight back, institutional arrogance, and a culture where questioning the system was treated as disloyalty. That experience is the foundation of everything I write about on Crisis of Truth.
After the police department, I spent another 21 years working for the State of Minnesota in IT infrastructure — over a quarter century total in government technology. I was the person behind the systems that kept state government running.
Built and ran my own business for a decade. No safety net. No corporate backing. Everything I earned, I earned. Everything I lost, I learned from.
Beyond the work experience, there was one class that fundamentally rewired the way I process information: a formal Critical Thinking course. It wasn't a political class. It wasn't about left or right. It was about learning to identify what's missing from an argument, who benefits from a particular framing, what financial incentives exist behind a public position, and how to distinguish evidence from narrative.
Most people hear a story and react to it. Critical thinking taught me to hear a story and ask: What aren't they telling me? Why are they telling me this now? Who profits if I believe this?
Combined with 21 years inside government — including law enforcement — that skill set gives me a perspective most people simply don't have. When a Sheriff tells you marijuana is dangerous, I ask what forfeiture revenue he stands to lose. When a Governor says he's protecting children, I look at where the children's welfare money actually went. When someone sends me a list of YouTube videos as "proof," I check whether a single claim has survived a courtroom.
"Critical thinking isn't cynicism. It's the refusal to accept an incomplete story when someone has a financial incentive to leave parts out."
I'm 70 years old. I box. I've done Thai boxing. I still lift weights. My max deadlift at 70 is 250 pounds. I don't say that to brag — I say it because the same discipline that got me through a rough childhood, through factory work, through building a business, through 21 years of government IT, through managing a police network — that discipline doesn't retire.
The people who underestimate me have been doing it my whole life. I came from nothing. I built everything I have. I've read more books on politics, history, economics, and power than most people know exist. I've worked inside the systems that most people only see from the outside. And I'm still here, still pushing iron, still fighting for the truth.
I don't form opinions from cable news or social media memes. I read. Pulitzer Prize winners. Investigative journalists. Economists. Historians. Generals. Here's a partial list — every one of these books read cover to cover:
This is a partial list. The full reading list — with author credentials and why each book matters — is on crisisoftruth.org.
I run crisisoftruth.org because the truth doesn't have a marketing budget. The people selling lies do. They have think tanks, PACs, cable networks, and algorithms. The truth has people like me — people who've done the reading, done the work, and seen the inside of the systems being abused.
I don't ask anyone to take my word for it. Every claim I make is sourced. Every page I publish links to court records, investigative reporting, and primary documents. If I'm wrong, show me where. Bring sources, not opinions. Bring evidence, not memes.
I came from nothing. I built everything I have with my own hands. I've worked inside systems most people only see on TV. And at 70 years old, I'm still deadlifting 250 and still fighting for the truth.
That's who I am.