The Arrogant Independent

This Veterans Day, I'm taking a different approach. Instead of simply remembering those who served or asking Americans to thank a veteran, I'm asking a more difficult question: Are we truly honoring the freedoms our veterans sacrificed to defend? Over the past decade, I've experienced discrimination, prejudice, and the painful consequences of hatred. Those experiences challenged my fai...

NEW AUDIO CHAPTER — THE MISSING YEARS INTERRUPTED BY GRACE | CHAPTER 30 “I should have been going to another office.” In May 2023, I believed the Department of Veterans Affairs would transfer me into another federal position. I wanted a stable career, an opportunity to work, and a chance to rebuild my life. Instead, I was escorted from the building. The woman accompanying me brought back the memor...

INTERRUPTED BY GRACE PART VIII — BACK TO BETHEL: THE RETURN OF MEMORY CHAPTER 27 — NEVER BECOME THE ENEMY YOU FOUGHT I'm sharing Chapter 27 now because I previously posted Chapter 28,  The Outsider and the Record , out of sequence. Chapter 27 provides important context for understanding the events and questions explored in Chapter 28. After twenty years of military service, including combat in...

NTERRUPTED BY GRACEPART VIII — BACK TO BETHEL: THE RETURN OF MEMORY SNEAK PEEK — CHAPTER 28: THE OUTSIDER AND THE RECORD What happens when someone finds enjoyment in humiliating a combat veteran who is simply trying to work, recover, and rebuild his life? That is one of the difficult questions I explore in Chapter 28 of my expanding memoir,  Interrupted by Grace . After twenty years of military se...

INTERRUPTED BY GRACE PART VIII — BACK TO BETHEL: THE RETURN OF MEMORY A New Section of My Published Memoir SNEAK PEEK — CHAPTER 26: THE ANATOMY OF A FALSE NARRATIVE Sometimes, one ordinary encounter can bring years of unanswered questions back into focus. Recently, an older gentleman sat beside me at work and began singing a military cadence. At first, I wondered whether the animosity I experience...

In this deeply personal chapter from  Interrupted by Grace , Shawn Havens describes the unsettling experience of fragmented memories returning through familiar people, places, conversations, and events. While trying to rebuild his life and begin a new job, he finds himself confronting memories that do not always align with how others describe the past. Rather than claiming to have every answer, th...

Carried By the Cross  is a memoir of fatherhood, faith, military service, war, loss, and survival—told in the author’s own voice. From a childhood shaped by instability and the steady influence of a Colorado farmhouse, through a career as a Combat Engineer, Drill Sergeant, and combat leader in Bosnia and Iraq, this story follows the experiences that formed a soldier, a father, and a man learning h...

In this episode, I take a thoughtful look at Mike Pence’s book,  What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience , and ask an important question: Do our actions reflect the principles we publicly profess? The discussion explores the relationship between: • Faith and biblical justice • Constitutional rights and individual liberty • Religious freedom and human dignity • Family,...

In this episode, I take a thoughtful look at Mike Pence’s book,  What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience , and ask an important question: Do our actions reflect the principles we publicly profess? The discussion explores the relationship between: • Faith and biblical justice • Constitutional rights and individual liberty • Religious freedom and human dignity • Family,...

Constructive Exile Podcast   Constructive Exile  explores how people can be socially isolated without formal exclusion through rumor, reputational sabotage, bad-jacketing, gaslighting, public humiliation, and unwritten community rules.   Bad-jacketing is the practice of damaging a person’s reputation through false accusations or manufactured suspicion. Historically, these tactics have been discuss...

Tuskegee. My Story. Our Ethical Wake-Up Call. This episode looks at the Tuskegee Syphilis Study not only as a historical tragedy, but as a warning about what happens when institutions lose sight of human dignity, informed consent, autonomy, and fairness. The comparison I’m making is not that every event is identical. The comparison is ethical. History warns us what can happen when a person’s suffe...

The Arrogant Independent Podcast   When Shame Is Used as a Weapon: Restoration, Truth, and the God Who Sees   ———————————————   Some people do not want confession.   They want control.   Some people do not want repentance.   They want leverage.   Some people do not want truth.   They want a label.   This episode looks at a difficult spiritual issue: what happens when someone’s past is used against...

The Arrogant Independent New Research Report & Podcast Release Do We Really Need All These AI Data Centers? Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the largest new sources of electricity demand in the United States. New data centers are being proposed across the country, consuming land, water, electricity, and utility infrastructure. Yet one question rarely gets asked: Does every AI...

The story they tried to discredit.
The memories he struggled to hold onto.
The questions no one wanted answered. It’s a true story. He survived combat in Iraq. What happened afterward was harder to explain. After twenty years of military service, Shawn Havens believed the war was finally behind him. A decorated combat engineer and senior noncommissioned officer, he returned home carrying the invis...

Throughout history, societies have repeatedly attempted to enforce conformity in the name of unity, morality, safety, religion, or national identity.   But forced conformity rarely creates harmony.   It creates fear. It creates coercion. And eventually, it places power over the individual conscience into the hands of institutions, governments, movements, or majorities.   In this episode, I go deep...

Why did the founders of the United States reject a national church while building a republic shaped by deeply religious people? E Pluribus Unum explores one of the most important and misunderstood questions in American history: how the American founding emerged from centuries of religious conflict, persecution, state churches, and struggles over liberty of conscience. Drawing from constitutional d...

Some systems do not seek morality.   They seek obedience.   In tonight’s episode of  The Arrogant Independent , we examine a difficult question:   If people believe they have the right to morally judge, socially punish, economically isolate, or psychologically pressure others based on personal conduct…   Should those same individuals be required to live fully under the exact same standards themsel...

🇺🇸 NEW EPISODE —  Selective Freedom: Federal Money, Moral Judgment, and the Veteran Double Standard What happens when freedom stops being equal? This episode examines a difficult question: If politicians and institutions believe they have the moral authority to judge individual citizens for lawful personal behavior… should governments, states, and federally funded systems be held to the exact same...

Delayed truth should not mean denied justice.   One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a victim is not just the harm itself. It is being kept confused, isolated, misled, or discouraged from getting legal help until years have passed.   Sometimes people do not come forward right away because they are weak. Sometimes they do not come forward because they were manipulated, impaired, thre...

THE ARROGANT INDEPENDENT  Civic Awareness Series   ———————————————   When Care Turns Into Control — And When Systems Benefit From Suffering   We’ve talked about the possibility that individuals could exploit vulnerable veterans for financial gain.   But there’s a harder question most people don’t want to ask:   What if it’s not just individuals?   What if entire systems — even organizations — unin...

On Easter, most people focus on the miracle. The empty tomb. The victory. The moment everything changes. But before the breakthrough… there was the burden. There was suffering. There was silence. There was a stretch of time where it looked like the story was over. And that is where a lot of people are living right now. You survived something difficult… and thought relief would come right after. Yo...

The Final Week That Changed History We’ve all heard the headlines: Palm Sunday. The Last Supper. Good Friday. But headlines don’t tell the story—they simplify it. This episode breaks down what actually happened during that final week: • A crowd that praised… then turned • Leaders balancing power, fear, and control • A system that chose stability over truth • And a man who refused to become the kin...

New on The Arrogant Independent  What happens when a society stops respecting privacy inside the home?   My latest report and podcast examine one of the most dangerous patterns in history: how Nazi Germany used schools, youth organizations, propaganda, and surveillance culture to weaken family privacy and erode parental authority. This was not just about politics. It was about reshaping loyalty, c...

Most people have seen the headline: CEO pay is 300 times, 500 times, or even more than worker pay. What most people do  not  hear is the full explanation behind that number. In this new episode of  The Arrogant Independent , I break down the CEO-to-worker pay ratio in plain language and explain what it really means. This is not a CEO-bashing episode, and it is not a defense of every pay package ei...

THE ARROGANT INDEPENDENT Freedom, Moral Law & Accountability ——————————————— What holds a free society together? Is it laws… Is it rights… Or is it something deeper? In this episode, we take a hard look at the foundation beneath everything— moral law and accountability —and what happens when that balance breaks. ——————————————— We cover: • The difference between  freedom and unchecked behavior...