Words for Words, Hands for Hands, Tools for Tools: The Underpinning of a Civilized Nation and the Rules We Have Broken

By Dr. Keith M Waggoner

 

Introduction: The Execution of a Nation’s Soul and the Bedrock Truth that Every Nation Rests on Its Warriors

Our country has reached a point of collapse in its moral compass. Radical political elements have grown so unhinged that when Charlie Kirk was executed on live television, many cheered. They applauded his murder, celebrating the silencing of a man whose only weapon was words. Yet when violence turns against them, they cry foul. They claim victimhood and demand protection from the very rules they have rejected. This is the essence of the Kafka trap, where guilt is presumed, defense is condemned, and hypocrisy reigns.

The murder of Charlie Kirk is more than the loss of a leader, husband, and father. It is a revelation of the sickness at the core of our society. Words were met with murder. Debate was answered with bullets. What was once the underpinning of every civilized nation, the rule of proportionate escalation, was discarded for ideological possession and mob applause.

Why??? It’s because the untrained mind, heart, and soul are reckless. They lack the strength to resist impulse and the wisdom to weigh consequences. This failure is not small. It is a massive leap into chaos because thoughts, when left ungoverned, spill into words, and words unchecked become deeds. As a nation, we were built upon the trading of ideas, upon the discipline of turning thought into dialogue, and dialogue into vision. The Constitution itself is a document of words, born from debate, forged by disagreement, and rooted in a higher authority, the Word of God. Scripture affirms this order: thought leads to word, word leads to deed, deeds shape habits, habits form character, and character determines destiny. To abandon this progression is to destroy freedom at its root. If we cannot control ourselves, if we cannot discipline our thoughts and words, then our actions will betray us, our habits will enslave us, our character will decay, and our destiny will be ruin.

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The Forgotten Rule of Escalation

Men today no longer know how to deal with conflict. We confuse words with violence, arguments with war, and strength with chaos. When the rules of conflict are lost, men lose themselves, families fall apart, and nations collapse.

I was trained by my friend and instructor Tuhon Harley Elmore. There I learned the rule of escalation, a law as old as civilization itself and which all civilization is hinged upon:

• Words for words

• Hands for hands

• Tools for tools

This is not a suggestion. It is the foundation of justice and order. Break it, and everything collapses. When men leap from disagreement to destruction, when mobs confuse words with violence, when nations refuse to teach their sons restraint, society begins to rot from within.

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Why Every Nation Rests on Its Warriors

To understand the necessity of this rule, one must look beyond the individual and into the nation itself. Every civilized society rests on warriors. Strip away the uniforms, the courthouses, and the paperwork, and what remains is the truth that order depends upon men who carry the weight of violence on behalf of others.

Refuse to pay a ticket, run from the police, or defy lawful authority, and eventually the path of escalation becomes visible. At the far edge of every statute is force. Violence is not an accident of civilization. It is the foundation of it. When governed by discipline and directed by justice, violence sustains peace. Without it, society collapses into lawless chaos where the strong exploit the weak.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead observed that civilization is always one generation away from barbarism, meaning order must be intentionally preserved through the teaching of restraint and responsibility to each generation. If men are not trained in the rules of escalation, the ability to preserve peace will evaporate in a single cycle of decline.¹

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Murder and Killing: A Necessary Distinction

The confusion of our age lies in its inability to distinguish between murder and killing. Scripture makes the difference plain.

• “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13, ESV).

• Yet in the same biblical framework, killing is at times commanded in defense of the innocent and the pursuit of justice.²

Murder is the taking of innocent life. It is motivated by hatred, envy, or ideological corruption. Killing, by contrast, can be the tragic necessity of protecting life. Even Jesus Himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13, ESV).

Charlie Kirk was murdered. His life was taken not in battle, not in defense, not in justice, but in cold blood for his words. A society that applauds such an act condemns itself to decay.

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The Radical Escalation of a Postmodern Age

Why did this happen? Because the culture has abandoned the discipline of escalation. Neo-communism and postmodern relativism have taught that words are violence. If words are violence, then violence against words can be justified. Once this lie takes root, assassins and mobs feel entitled to leap from disagreement to destruction without hesitation.

Psychology supports this observation. Studies on moral disengagement demonstrate how individuals justify immoral acts by reframing them as necessary or defensive.³ When words are redefined as weapons, violent aggression can be falsely cloaked as justice. Social psychologists have shown that this reframing process bypasses conscience and replaces moral reasoning with rationalization, giving people permission to act destructively without perceiving themselves as wrongdoers.⁴ Developmental psychologists such as Albert Bandura warn that when societies normalize this disengagement, violence multiplies because people no longer see themselves as accountable.

This distortion breaks the natural order of thought leading to word, word to deed, and deed to habit, which shapes character and destiny.⁵ Instead of cultivating disciplined men who govern their impulses, a culture of moral disengagement trains people to believe that every thought is already an attack and every disagreement is already violence. Research on aggression confirms this pattern: when individuals believe they are morally justified, they are far more likely to escalate conflict quickly and severely.⁶ In this way, the collapse of restraint is not just a private failure of character but a collective dismantling of civilization’s foundation. It is easy to see how agenda laden media is responsible for this narrative and thus this crisis.

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The Poverty of Premature Escalation

This is the heart of the matter. Escalation is not just a tactic of survival or strategy in combat. It is a law. It is the natural order by which conflict is governed, justice is preserved, and civilization holds together. Break this law, and you unleash chaos. Forget it, and you invite destruction into the home, the family, the city, and the nation. Obey it, and you strengthen the bonds that make freedom possible. Ignore it, and you guarantee tyranny or collapse.

The law of escalation is simple in its words yet profound in its demands.

Words for words

Conflict begins in the mind. Thoughts rise, swirl, and take form as words. This is the first field of battle. Strong men do not lash out blindly. They discipline themselves to master their thoughts and to put those thoughts into words with clarity, truth, and conviction. They know that the tongue can either heal or wound, build or destroy.

A man who cannot govern his words will never govern his fists. The Bible warns that “life and death are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). James exhorts us to be “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20). This is not weakness. It is strength of the highest kind. The man who sharpens his words first is a man capable of building civilization.

Nations themselves are founded on this principle. The Constitution was born of debate, not brawls. It was forged in fierce but principled dialogue, where ideas were traded and truth was refined. To abandon words as the first step of conflict is to abandon the very foundation of our country.

Hands for hands

But there are moments when words are not enough. There are those who choose violence, who strike without reason, who bring hands against the innocent. In that moment, words must give way to strength. Hands must answer hands.

This is not license for cruelty. It is responsibility. Every man must learn to throw hands, to train his body, to cultivate skill and confidence in physical defense. If you will not learn, you will not protect. If you cannot defend yourself and those entrusted to you, then your words become hollow. Physical competence is the ground upon which restraint stands. A man who knows he is strong can afford to be patient. He can absorb insult because he is not afraid.

To strike someone for their words, however, is weakness. It reveals immaturity, fragility, and the poverty of self-control. Modern criminology shows that those who escalate too quickly are marked by low impulse control, poor emotional regulation, and deficient executive functioning. They lash out not because they are powerful but because they have no other tools. True strength is the man who can fight but does not need to, who answers hands with hands only when violence is forced upon him.

Tools for tools

Then there is the last resort, the line that separates the protector from the predator. Tools, weapons, instruments of force. These are not toys. They are sacred responsibilities. To reach for them before they are justified is to commit murder. To use them when life itself is threatened is to act with justice.

Weapons exist with purpose: They are a force multiplying tool that allows people to do what they could not do otherwise… to hunt, to protect, and to defend when no other option remains. And… most importantly… they are not symbols of aggression but of responsibility. They must be guided by conscience and confirmed by law and trained comprehensively. The definition is clear. When an assailant is armed, when intent to harm is shown, when hands are not enough to protect the innocent, then tools must answer tools. Anything earlier is not defense but destruction.

Even in war, the principle of proportionality defines justice. Force must be measured. Weapons must be the last word, not the first. To keep them holy is to ensure that civilization is preserved, for once tools are unleashed without restraint, there is no society left to protect.

Poverty of thought and the example before us

The greatest danger of premature escalation is that it comes from poverty of thought. An impoverished mind cannot process conflict with clarity. It cannot resist the lure of impulse. It cannot anticipate consequences.

When men like those who murdered Charlie Kirk act, they are convinced they are justified. Their reasoning is shallow. Their inner world is malnourished. Their conscience is numbed by ideology. The assassin himself believed his actions were righteous. In his mind, words were violence, so violence against words became justice. This is moral disengagement at its peak, the distortion of conscience into self-deception.

What followed was even more revealing. The very crowd that celebrated Kirk’s death was shocked when condemnation fell upon them. They expected applause. They assumed their destruction would be praised. But they discovered the truth of this law: to abandon proportion is to condemn yourself. Their judgment was inevitable, not only from courts of law but also from the court of conscience and from the verdict of history.

The fruit of the law

The effects of this law are not abstract. They are real. When it is honored, three outcomes are possible.

1. Improved thought and rationalization. By disciplining the mind, men gain impulse control. They learn to master internal narratives, challenge false beliefs, and endure hardship without collapsing into psychopathy or criminality. This produces resilience, clarity, and strength.

2. Increased dialogue and societal progress. When words are answered with words, dialogue strengthens society. Conflict becomes the fuel of improvement. Even disagreement sharpens communities because the exchange of ideas refines truth. This is how nations are built, through fierce debate and principled dialogue.

3. Measured and just force when pushed beyond limit. When all else fails, when hands are raised against the innocent and tools are turned upon families and communities, violence becomes the last resort of the trained against the untrained. Order must confront chaos. Foundation must reset destruction. This is not barbarism but correction, the disciplined use of force to restore peace. It is the role of the warrior in every generation, the protector who holds violence in reserve until the moment justice demands it.

The law of escalation protects the soul of a man and the soul of a nation. It ensures that conflict does not descend into barbarism. It sets the boundary between justice and injustice, between necessary defense and reckless destruction. Where this law is kept, families flourish, communities thrive, and nations endure. Where it is broken, chaos reigns and empires fall.

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From the Field

I have trained men from Navy SEALs to Texas Rangers, from law enforcement officers to martial artists who stand on the front lines of danger. They all learn the same truth: restraint is strength. The weak escalate too soon. The strong measure every step.

A warrior who has never disciplined himself will swing wildly. He will confuse aggression with courage and impulse with power. But a man who has been trained, who has walked through fire and carried the weight of discipline, knows that violence is not the first answer. He knows that power without restraint is not strength but recklessness.

This is why elite warriors train endlessly in escalation. They rehearse scenarios again and again, practicing verbal de-escalation before physical intervention, and physical response before lethal force. They do not rely on rage but on clarity. They understand that every decision carries a consequence, and that the true test of a warrior is not what he can destroy but what he can control.

I have seen the same pattern in the men I coach. Some arrive having lived on the wrong side of this law. They escalated too quickly. They lashed out with words when silence would have been wiser. They struck with hands when conversation could have brought peace. Some even reached for tools before their conscience or the law could justify it. These men carry scars in their families, their careers, and their souls. One man told me that a single moment of rage cost him his marriage and his children’s trust. Another confessed that his inability to control his mouth had ruined partnerships and left him in financial ruin. They were not evil men, but they were impoverished in thought, blind to consequences, and ruled by impulse.

Through coaching, I helped them face the truth. I walked them back through their stories. We named the pattern. We exposed the lie that anger made them strong. And we rebuilt. They learned to discipline their minds, to pause before speaking, to engage with reason rather than rage. Slowly, they began to restore relationships. They rebuilt credibility. They discovered that true strength was not in domination but in restraint.

I have also coached men who came to me on the other side. They were passive, timid, unwilling to fight at all. They had been told that any show of strength was toxic, that masculinity itself was a danger to society. These men avoided conflict entirely, and in doing so, they failed to protect their families and betrayed their own potential. They felt like ghosts in their own homes, men whose voices no longer carried weight. Their wives longed for their strength. Their children looked for leadership they could not find.

For them, the work was different but equally rooted in the law of escalation. I showed them that restraint without the capacity for force is not virtue. It is weakness. A man must be dangerous in order for his restraint to have meaning. We trained them in the discipline of body as well as mind. They learned to throw hands, to build confidence in their ability to protect and defend. As their bodies grew stronger, their words grew clearer. Their families noticed. Their wives respected them again. Their children began to follow them. They discovered that when they carried real strength, they no longer needed to prove it with reckless acts.

The Bible affirms this principle. “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32). Mastery of self is greater than mastery of an enemy. Scripture places patience and self-control above conquest because it recognizes that without inner governance, outward victories are meaningless.

Psychology agrees. Men who develop impulse control live longer lives, achieve more in their work, and build stronger families. Research on self-regulation shows that it is one of the greatest predictors of success across every area of life. A man who can restrain himself in conflict can also resist temptation, endure hardship, and lead others through adversity.

Charlie Kirk was killed because this rule was broken. His words were met with bullets. His ideas were answered with murder. A society that applauds this cannot endure. History bears witness to it. Empires do not fall first because of external enemies. They fall because they lose discipline within. They fall because citizens abandon restraint and trade order for rage. Rome collapsed when its citizens lost virtue. Babylon fell when indulgence replaced responsibility. And America will follow if it does not return to the laws of escalation and civility.

From the battlefield to the boardroom, from the training ground to the family table, the truth is the same: the strong measure every step. The weak strike too soon. The future belongs to the men who can govern themselves and to the nations that honor restraint as the highest form of strength.

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Playing to the Tape: The Law and the Soul

In America, even the courts recognize this principle. If you find yourself in an altercation, you must “play to the tape.” Assume every moment is recorded. A judge and jury will ask: did you respond proportionately? Did you escalate justly?

But the tape or video of man’s conscience is more severe than any courtroom. Romans 14:12 declares, “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” Every act of escalation must be justified not only before men but also before the Author of life.

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Dangerous Men and the Responsibility of Mastery

At Undisputed Mastery, I teach that true masculinity is not recklessness but responsibility. To be a dangerous man is to be a disciplined man. It is to master thought before word, word before hand, and hand before tool.

A man who governs his tongue governs his fists. A man who governs his fists governs his weapons. A man who governs all three governs himself, and in doing so, he safeguards his family, his community, and his nation.

Psychological research on delayed gratification and self-regulation shows that individuals who can regulate their impulses achieve greater success, healthier relationships, and longer lives.⁵ The same applies to societies. Without men who delay escalation, nations collapse into cycles of violence and revenge.

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Conclusion: The Warning of History

Charlie Kirk’s assassination was not only the murder of a man. It was the exposure of a nation’s sickness. A people applauded the breaking of the rule that undergirds all civilization. They traded discipline for rage, order for chaos, justice for vengeance.

If we are to heal, men must recover the rule of escalation. Words must be met with words, hands with hands, tools with tools. To skip these steps is to collapse into barbarism. To honor them is to build a society where warriors sustain peace and where justice is possible.

History offers a sober warning. Ray Dalio, in his studies of long-term cycles, shows that empires fall when internal disorder overwhelms external strength.⁶ Nations crumble when they allow injustice, corruption, and undisciplined violence to spread within their borders. Margaret Mead warned that civilization is only one generation away from collapse, for if the virtues of discipline are not taught to sons, the sins of chaos will rule them.¹

Rome fell not because its armies were weak, but because its citizens abandoned self-governance. Babylon fell not because it lacked walls, but because it lacked virtue. America will fall if it continues to applaud the murder of men for words, if it continues to leap from disagreement to destruction, if it continues to raise men without mastery over thought, word, and deed.

The warning is stark. If we do not reclaim the rule of words for words, hands for hands, and tools for tools, then our empire too will fall.

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Endnotes

1. Mead, M. (1964). Culture and Commitment. New York: Natural History Press.
2. Exodus 20:13; John 15:13. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.
3. Proverbs 16:32. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.
4. Romans 14:12. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.
5. Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193–209.
6. Moore, C. (2015). Moral disengagement. Current Opinion in Psychology, 6, 199–204.
7. Sykes, G. M., & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 22(6), 664–670.
8. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. (Habit, character, and virtue development).
9. Moffitt, T. E. (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100(4), 674–701.
10. Mischel, W. (2014). The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control. New York: Little, Brown.
11. Dalio, R. (2021). Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail. New York: Simon & Schuster.
12. Mead, M. (1949). Male and Female. New York: William Morrow.
13. Peterson, J. B. (2018). 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Toronto: Random House Canada.
14. Eldredge, J. (2001). Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
15. Lewis, R. (1997). Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood. Carol Stream: Tyndale House.
16. Lessons from training and tribe time with Sayoc Kali, Tuhan Harley Elmore, Principled Savage, and the Operators we serve. (1995–2025).

Recommended Reading

• Dalio, Ray. Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail.
• Mead, Margaret. Culture and Commitment.
• Mead, Margaret. Male and Female.
• Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
• Eldredge, John. Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul.
• Lewis, Robert. Raising a Modern-Day Knight.
• Bandura, Albert. Moral Disengagement.
• Mischel, Walter. The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control.
• Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics.
• Waggoner, Keith. How to Live with a Beast (forthcoming).

Suggested Scripture References

• Exodus 20:13 – “You shall not murder.”
• John 15:13 – “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
• Proverbs 16:32 – “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”
• Romans 14:12 – “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.”
• James 1:19–20 – “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”
• Matthew 12:36–37 – “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
• Galatians 5:22–23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”