Voluntary Civic People of Baton Rouge: May 2016

Practice for May 9, 2016, and a two-year review ( revised 5/9/16)

1. We are planning the Third annual Ratification Day celebration. With a complete theory in hand, we will reach out to the public, so we need all the willing help that is possible (see below). Please mark your calendar: Tuesday, June 21, 6:30 PM, Bluebonnet Branch Library, 9200 Bluebonnet Blvd, Baton Rouge, LA 70810. See more details online.[1]

a. We need a volunteer to help design the personalized-preamble writing-contest[2] and three judges. The object is to write a 2016 preamble the entrant would commit to and trust for collaboration. Please distribute this message to people with whom you would like to collaborate for a better future. The preamble is quoted immediately below.

b. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

c. Perhaps the primary reason the USA is in civic conflict (e.g., $20 trillion debt for today’s children and grandchildren) is traditional neglect of the citizens’ contract stated in the preamble--especially neglect/abuse of personal posterity.

d. The willing members of our generation can establish a civic people and it does not have to be the totality hoped for in “We the People of the United States.” Our goal is 70% of willing people involved by Constitution Day, 2017 (September 17). We think Baton Rougeans can achieve that goal, but one willing person cannot wait for another willing person to act: the willing must collaborate.

e. The preamble is intended for everyone who is willing (see below).

f. As always, the ideas stated herein are born of my weakness (despite the collaboration that has happened) and represent neither the objective truth nor consensus of a civic people.

2. Summary after two years’ collaboration to establish personal use of the literal preamble to the constitution for the USA.

a. The first premise of “a civic people” is that integrity (both understanding and wholeness) is attractive to most informed persons, and that if a well-grounded theory for establishing civic morality can be discovered, a super-majority of inhabitants will collaborate for a civic way of living.

b. The USA began operation in 1789 with dominant religious belief--99% factional (sectarian) Protestantism--then diversified to 14% in 2016 (see below). It seems self-evident that religious belief--personal response to private concerns--cannot be the bedrock for national integrity: safety and security in civic life[3]. A civic people need a bedrock for integrity.

c. Theses two years of collaboration suggest that physics-based morality offers the civic bedrock.

d. Once a worthy dream has been imagined, a civic people might make it happen. Yet borrowing words from Mark Twain, we may be observing “the sport of a beautiful dream.” We hope and think this potential theory is real.

3. Two year progress: A cogent theory of a civic people has emerged, and we feel prepared to interest the public. If you agree, we need a separate meeting, after the June 21 meeting, to collaborate for a plan of action.

a. We are a Louisiana non-profit education corporation.[4] Our corporation is prepared for 501(c)3 application to the IRS.

b. The overall goal has evolved to private liberty with civic morality (PLwCM). No one has frowned on hearing it. Jim Callender quietly said, “That’s pretty good: it requires private morality.” Collaboration like Jim’s informs us not to think we have the Occam’s razor[5] of political goals, but with consensus, I’d like to order tee-shirts and other advertising tools.

c. The logo, both the simple form and the wordy one, has taken some “likes.” While developed by online discussion, collaboration has never established a logo. I’d like a tee shirt with the goal on the front and the verbose logo on the back.

d. After two library meetings on how physics informs 1) abortion and 2) family fidelity, respectively, plus applications to other issues, like the physics of slavery—chains, whips, abuse, and burdens—we feel prepared to collaborate for civic morality based on physics.

i. Recognizing that ethics addresses a particular issue but a people need a system for connecting first principles, we tentatively use the phrase “physics-based morality” as the bedrock for civic morality, leaving religious morality a private concern. For example, salvation of the soul is a private concern.

ii. We realize that US history has unfolded on opinion-based law, the American Bar Association adapting Blackstone[6] for government institutions in the USA.

1. The upheaval in the early 2000s is a consequence of civil-opinion’s inadequacy to establish the moral bedrock a civic people can accept. We frequently argue this point and face either severe, weak rebuke[7] or stonewalling.

2. Some lawyers don’t recognize their noble opportunity to reform faulty, opinion-based law to physics-based systems—a civic people with laws that are consistent with physics.

4. People who want reform must collaborate: It seems to me the preamble is for the willing and always has been. A first principle: neither impose nor brook coercion/force. However, the humanly-shared imposition is the inexorable march of physics itself. Clearly, some people cannot abide the no-force civic principle. A no-force and no-real-harm way forward might involve:

a. Stay with library meetings by developing many small groups; use the Internet to develop A Civic People of the United States.

i. On future Ratification Day & Constitution Day, conduct conferences

1. Next Constitution Day celebration is scheduled for Thursday, September 15 at EBRP Main library, Goodwood Blvd.

ii. Eventually, feature personal liberty on each July 4^th national-liberty day, celebrating, for examples,

1. Women’s suffrage

2. Children protected from institutional labor

3. Civil rights

4. Private liberty with civic morality

5. Focus on posterity.

6. The preamble to the constitution for the USA

b. Fund collaboration primarily with volunteered work. Just as a person who does not earn the living they could earn does not enjoy the personal liberty they’d like, a person who does not collaborate for civic morality suffers threat and tyranny--insecurity.

c. To the extent that money is required, use dues from the willing participants. A CPA determines required funds for real needs, and annually reports the target dues for willing contributors. (As participation increases, the target dues should decline.)

d. We have capital needs now:

i. A professional logo; two estimates, $3 K and $6-10 K.

ii. Perhaps a professionally designed website to replace the blog. (Have not explored cost.)

iii. Establish advertising methods and budgets.

iv. Publishing and distribution.

v. Fund educational promotions like the personal-preamble contest

e. To handle money, we need at least

i. A board, perhaps with CEO, directors, an attorney, a webmaster, a publicist and social media expert, and a CPA.

ii. IRS approval as 501(c)3 non-profit education corporation

Items below report activities during the last month:

5. Responding to a post, I naturally used “physics-based morality” rather than “physics-based ethics,” thinking that “ethics” may imply personal thought, whereas “morality” implies a system. Your comments on preference for “ethics” or “morality” would be appreciated. Email philrbeaver@gmail.com.

6. Even though “civic” in A Civic People of the United States seems challenging to some people, most readers perceive that “social” and “society” imply preference, class, or imposition—any of which can involve coercion or force. “Civic” in “civic life,” about which there are books[8], gets close to our meaning, except that our emphasis is personal liberty--even private liberty--with civic morality.

7. Some theists and some atheists objected to my attention to religion. My writing inadequately expresses that both no-real-harm religions and no-real-harm without religion flourish under discovered, physics-based morality.

a. Discovered physics does not negate the god hypothesis; however, some god theory does not conform to reality and therefore cannot be accepted as civic morality. For examples, neither slavery nor murder is moral.

b. But the no-real-harm religious/none pursuits are not a civic people’s business, beyond safety and security in the broadest terms. Salvation of the soul or other no-real-harm spiritual pursuit, such as personal science (subjective study of what has emerged from physics) is private. My objection, and hopefully that of a civic people (you tell me), is imposition of either religion or other opinion, either one a private endeavor, into civics, meaning ineluctable human connections. Civic morality is a public responsibility met by the willing.

c. While it was unjust for the first Congress to re-institute legislative prayer, suspended in the 1787 constitutional convention, by hiring chaplains for Congress, the USA has generously outgrown a previously dominant opinion: Protestantism.

i. Mainline Protestant membership has dropped from 99 % of the 1789 population to 14.7 %[9] in 2015. Expanding, conscientious, free-thought represents human progress toward civic morality.

ii. Broader conscientious thought shifts moral theorist John Locke’s “safety and security” in the broadest application to a duty of the people instead of Protestantism. The chaotic transition is underway, and a civic people have a plan with the potential for integrity.

iii. The data show that the traditionally abused minority in America is the 23 percent who have no player in the theism wars yet suffer the god-wars abuse. (My PLwCM, as one of the abused minority, drives my work. I hope justice inspires a civic people.)

d. The USA started operations in 1789 with 6 % of free inhabitants (82 % of all inhabitants[10]) able to vote. Whereas the land was colonized by five factional-Christian kings, using African slave trade, free-citizens were 99% factional-Protestants, 1% Catholic and a few non-Christians.[11]

e. Today, with 100% of non-criminal inhabitants able to vote, 29.4 % of citizens are non-Christian with 5.9 % other religious believers. The 70.6 % Christians, formerly the majority, are far more factional than in 1789, with 25.4 % evangelical Protestant, 20.8 % Catholic, 14.7 % mainline Protestant, 6.5 % black church, and 3.2 % other Christians. This is not to slight people in the 29.4 percent such as Jews; Buddhists; philosophers; and more; each person counts.

f. One other factor is dominant: the civil-rights achievements of 1964 and 1965 are readily, perhaps erroneously, credited to black church.

i. Overlooked in the success is the disruption, extreme violence and civic destruction during the 1960s—whole communities destroyed.

ii. Overlay liberation theology and the Congressional Black Caucus (1969), and we have the check-cashing-chaos we see today.

1. When police are brutal to a non-black person, most people who learn about it both object and lobby for reform.

2. But police brutality with a black person results in rioting, violence, and multi-million dollar law-suits.

3. Many blacks claim that a black person cannot be helped by a white person. This claim creates brick-wall obstruction of PLwCM.

4. Yet mitochondrial DNA has informed humankind for three decades that everyone alive is kin. Everyone alive is a descendent from one woman, perhaps with more than one mate, who lived about 140,000 years ago. There is no excuse for racism.

5. Divisive President Obama calls slavery “America’s original sin,” and many people[12] condone his support of black anger instead of mtDNA kinship, known to humankind now for three decades. His use of religious terms and promoting ignorance that slavery was imposed on colonial settlers by Christian first principles many of them rejected, for example Quakers, is reprehensible.

iii. It now seems that formerly peaceful events in Baton Rouge suffer systematical, staged violence, inviting perhaps unprofessional reactions by a policeman. Are there dots to connect?

1. Traditionally, Baton Rouge has publically faced racism without influencing its youth to take risks.

2. However, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., on February 19, 2015 at Southern University seemed to tacitly encourage young people to take to the streets led by black Jesus.

3. On August 1, 2015, Mark Hunter and the Advocate published the article, “Leaders unite in prayer against crime in cities,”[13] and its companion article, “Speakers rally crowd with fiery political rhetoric.”[14] The brave article seems replete with quotes of sedition. See comments to Baton Rouge leaders.[15]

4. On April 17, Earth Day 2016, several violent incidents produced a controversial police action involving a young person.[16] It is difficult to relate to black-parent solidarity with child-perpetrated violence.[17] "Adults are encouraging young kids to come down and fight and posting those videos online," said District Attorney Hillar Moore. "We'd like for the public listening to this to let us know who it is who is encouraging this type of behavior to our young kids and to call Crime Stoppers." [18]

5. A civic people want the police to have the monopoly on force.

iv. Enmity based on skin color must end, and that assertion must not be suppressed by a civic people. Everyone alive is kin.

g. But the chief and often resisted reason for widespread change is discoveries in physics—energy, mass and space-time from which everything emerges.

i. Some religions, rather than adjust to accommodate discovery, resist, for example, evolution, and thereby lose civic efficacy for believers. People may resist science, a study, but physics ignores ignorance, and eventually the people favor physics over religion.

ii. Religious institutions that deny evolution are seriously hurting believers. Humankind takes DNA, a first premise of evolution, for granted and mtDNA has been known during the same three decades.

iii. In the worst cases, religions resist securing personal safety.

h. To establish a national culture of PLwCM, perhaps 70 % of members of every real-no-harm social group might collaborate to establish a civic people.

i. Physics-based morality in civic connections with private religious morality offers common ground for integrity.

ii. Serenity in the private pursuit of religious morals relieves the tendency to doubt neighbors who hold diverse conscientious concerns or belong to factional, no-real-harm cultures or merely look different.

iii. Understanding the past helps each person appreciate that the civic trust and commitment stated in the preamble to the constitution for the USA is and always was intended for him or her, regardless of factional cultural identification.

iv. We are working on practical proposals to solve real problems, using education rather than violence.

1. The income inequality this country suffers.

2. Medical marijuana-derivatives provided over-the-counter.

3. Reform from legislative prayer to civic morality.

4. The complete timeline of slavery (covering 3800 years) to allow understanding of what has been accomplished and avoid repetition of past error.

5. Relief from Chapter XI Machiavellianism: the politician-priest partnership tyrannizes the people who have personal gods.

6. Use of mtDNA to relieve any doubt that the people living today are related—need civic morality together.

8. Referring to the April 9 report,[19] I could not confirm hearsay of a removed New Orleans statue of Rev. Dr. Leroy Abernathy, but did find reference to a removed statue of Rev. Avery C. Alexander.[20] Anyone who has information about an Abernathy statue, please share.

a. The report features an interesting, divisive, hypothetical by Mitch Landrieu: “I began to envision myself as an African-American man driving down the street with my little girl behind me, approaching Lee Circle . . .” I would end the story differently—focused on whites convincing whites that certain Bible interpretations are wrong according to physics and concluding that people should never use religion to start a war.

b. Landrieu, who is Roman Catholic, does not seem to realize or perhaps care that 1860s white Christians in the South were indirectly defending 1500 year-old Catholic doctrine that slavery was instituted by the Catholic god for the benefit of both slave and master. (It is not acceptable to me to attribute such erroneous thinking to an entity with a capital “G” even though churches, politicians, and the media do it with apparent impunity despite Exodus 20:7.)

c. Nobody cited in the article seems to care that evolution (mtDNA) informs us what some, for example, Thomas Paine,[21] suspected in colonial America: everyone alive is human. But now, we can say kin, because we descended from the same ancient woman.

d. The loudest portion of black America plus sympathetic whites seem focused on check-cashing, obstruction and Marxism rather than human integrity. Human integrity seems a favorable path forward.

9. Many public events in Baton Rouge cry for the use of physics-based morality, and many problems stem from propriety respecting a faction rather than integrity respecting a civic people. Many people practice factional stonewalling.

a. The Advocate reported a local black conference.[22] I contacted sponsors including Raymond Jetson, minister, and Lori Martin, LSU, to offer these ideas.[23] The conference was announced online.[24] WAFB featured it on April 12.[25] I found some photos[26] and notes[27] about the conference. But I cannot find follow-up reporting by The Advocate or other hometown news. Help would be appreciated.

b. The Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge posted in The Advocate the quarrel, “Black Lives Matter” (BLM). The BLM movement blocks roads and turns cars over (after some police actions, at Trump political events and even at one Clinton event). When I objected to the UCBR article, my posts were treated as unqualified—no civic propriety. Also, since UCBR has a fifty-year history of quarreling, my reaction is unwelcomed. [28] The reasoning is rather comical. I hope persons from UCBR will join a civic people of Baton Rouge.

c. I attended Together Louisiana’s meeting with Gov. John Bel Edwards.

i. Ending a cheerleading part of the introduction Rev. Shawn Anglim,[29] New Orleans, asked us to hold up a clinched fist. Here is a man armed with ministerial spiritual-rectitude that promises treating other humans with “respect” until they fall in line with his opinion. I understand the clinched fist to be a violence-expression[30]--a threat that if you don’t fall in line you’ll face their organization for violence. Perpetrators might claim it’s a warning. I wonder if I am being subjected to tactics from college campuses like the University of Missouri[31] buffaloed by its football team. I know Black Liberation Collective may have been written by students, but student disruptions come with consequences, often not good for civics.

ii. Legislative prayer itself is tyranny. I doubt anyone in the room thought black-church god is aligned with Gov. John Bel Edwards’ Catholic god. Minority that I am, I don’t imagine I’m the only civic participant with that heartfelt concern, but I wonder if anyone else in the room was lobbying for civic morality to make way for their particular religious morality. I speculate most feel their god will eventually conquer the others.

iii. However, Quaker practice, stark, collaborative silence,[32] might allow constructive civic presence--the perception of civic morality in the room. But publically praying for private hopes of legislators or people prayerfully lobbying for legislative attention is imposition of opinion--coercion. When black church accuses white church, it should make exception for Quakers, who were colonial abolitionists.[33] The Quaker god probably has neither skin nor skin-color.

iv. In his speech, Gov. Edwards appealed to Together Louisiana to persuade church members not to oppose reduction of credit for federal itemized-deductions to 50% for state purposes, because that level does not significantly threaten “the tithe” or church income. I’m in the minority that does not want church income to be tax exempt. I’m in the minority (you tell me if I am in the majority) that does not want ministers to have tax favor over small business owners.

v. Rev. Teron Jackson, Civic Academy, presented the four elements of LA Tax Structure for 2013 in dollars per capita, but with numbers not too different from what I found:

1. Individual income tax, $592 or 17% of total (below)

2. Corporate tax, $55 or 1.6%

3. Sales and excise, $2000 or 57% and

4. Property, $849 or 24.3% of $3496 total.[34]

vi. The analysis above encourages the thought that corporate tax is not carrying its fair share of LA taxation. I imagine federal-tax redistribution per capita should be brought into the debate, but I do not know how to accomplish it. Also, I would like to know LABI’s opposition and will seek it. Regardless, I do not want to pay more income tax, sales/excise tax or property tax. And, I doubt the white Legislators Rev Jackson singled out were coerced by his biased presentation.

vii. Gov Edwards correctly said, “The state cannot guarantee outcomes.”

viii. The meeting itself was classic Chapter XI Machiavellianism.[35] That is, state and church partner and the partnership does anything it wants to the people. Many people in the meeting cheered.

d. I witnessed as taxpayer before a senate committee, stating that if there will be a commission for oversight of Louisiana monuments, let it develop event-timelines from which overall history, with Catholic-Church and Protestant responsibilities as well as African slave trading, can be discerned. The Senators had no incentives to consider the comment—their minds were already set and the public hearing was a sham. Nevertheless, the slavery timeline shows that the American Civil War was inspired by a “more erroneous religious belief,” quoting the declaration of secession.[36] A civic people must not let religious opinion cause another war, whether foreign or domestic.

10. I follow emails from Kevin Kane, president, at www.pelicaninstitute.org/ . On April 29, he released a 2 minute video Louisiana Reentry Courts Are Smart On Crime which reports 15,000 views. It talks about a program created in 2014 by Louisiana judges to train prisoners to be employable on release. I like that it does not seem to mention programs for religious indoctrination for which Burl Cain is so famous. The judges’ website does not list sponsors.[37] Since this is 2016, the promises are promises.

a. The term “Smart on Crime,” has a history which includes a conservative-led Washington D. C. think-tank.[38] Their multipart series, “Smart on Crime,” was uploaded on youtube on March 15, 2011.[39] I’ve watched some of the videos and like the idea but don’t trust some phrases. For example, “justice as fairness,” is John-Rawls’ political theory I do not agree with; it proposes forever sustaining error rather than helping people gain personal autonomy. It’s the kind of thinking that leads to courts asserting that a male is she.

b. There’s another youtube series uploaded on Feb 12, 2010 by a PBS station in Colorado.[40]

c. Googling Smart on Crime gives the first and second URLs addressing Eric Holder’s initiative dated August 12, 2013.[41] It leads to the President’s task for report, May 2015.[42] Interestingly, it does not recommend police cameras.

d. San Francisco DA Kamala Harris’s ghost-written book, Smart on Crime, 2009, is rated 4 stars by 20 people on Amazon. She made a bid for US Attorney General.

e. Older background is available online[43].

Can someone on the distribution advise A Civic People of the United States, BR, about the origins of “Smart on Crime”? Smart on Crime seems worthy, because it comes from law-enforcement authorities.

11. My daughter, home for Mother’s Day, objected to current NYC hot ideas (from 2001) that George Washington was not the first president of the USA.[44] [45] Review including an urban-rumor opinion[46] inspired suspicion of proponents of the idea. As always, a timeline helps the student know the facts:

a. Boston tea party in 1773

b. First Continental Congress (delegates from all but Georgia) 1774

c. Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress (cites “immutable laws of nature” naturally omitting “nature’s god”) 1774

d. Shot heard round the world 1775

e. Declaration of Independence (of thirteen states, introduces “Nature’s God”) 1776

f. Articles of Confederation Ratified March 1781

g. British Defeated at Yorktown September 1781

h. King of England signs treaty of Paris saying each of the 13 united states is free and independent of British rule 1783

i. Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia (delegates from all but Rhode Island) 1787

j. Ratification by 9 of 13 states provided the 1st Congress will negotiate a bill of rights, 1788

k. First Congress is seated and George Washington is inaugurated president, 1789

l. Bill of rights ratified by 10 of 14 states, 1791

12. For people who are interested

a. The online-resource suggestions we listed in the past are posted in one file at cipbr.blogspot.com.

b. Any suggestions to add to the list of online resources would be welcomed.

[1] See http://theadvocate.com/calendar#/details/Third-Annual-Ratification-Day-Celebration/2329003/2016-06-21T18

[2] See http://promotethepreamble.blogspot.com/2016/04/rules-for-writing-contest-for-june-21.html .

[3] John Locke used the phrase “safety and security” in 1690. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Treatises_of_Government .

[4] See coraweb.sos.la.gov/commercialsearch/CommercialSearchDetails.aspx?CharterID=1146246_L7D52 .

[5] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

[6] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Laws_of_England .

[7] See http://www.libertylawsite.org/2016/01/06/should-law-schools-pursue-social-justice/#comment-1395072 especially anonymity “gabe” is an antagonist.

[8] For example, Composing a Civic Life: A Rhetoric and Readings for Inquiry and Action. Amy Muse and Michael Berndt. 2002. I want to read this book.

[9] Pew Research online at http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

[10] See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census#Data.

[11] See http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ .

[12] See for example, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/opinion/20cohen.html?_r=0 . I have never felt racism was right and felt great relief in 1964 and 1965 when possible national reform was made real.

[13] See theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/13032262-123/leaders-unite-in-prayer-against .

[14] See http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/13032572-123/speakers-rally-crowd-with-fiery

[15] Online at http://cipbr.blogspot.com/2016/03/open-letter-to-baton-rouge-leaders-ed.html .

[16] See https://www.google.com/search?q=Baton+Rouge+violence+at+earth+day&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 .

[17] See http://www.wbrz.com/videos/mayor-s-office-discusses-earth-day-violence-at-friday-press-conference

[18] See http://www.ksla.com/story/31847427/officials-hold-news-conference-on-series-of-violent-incidents-at-earth-day

[19] See cipbr.blogspot.com

[20] See www.louisianaweekly.com/sclc-wants-confederates-gone-and-alexander-returned/

[21] See http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/paine-the-writings-of-thomas-paine-vol-i-1774-1779

[22] See http://theadvocate.com/news/14606291-64/urban-congress-to-address-problems-facing-young-african-american-males-in-baton-rouge .

[23] See http://metromorphosis.net/

[24] See http://urban-congress.artimization.net/