May 1, 2017 ed.

Phil Beaver works to establish opinion when the-objective-truth has not been discovered. He seeks to refine his opinion by listening to other people’s experiences and observations. The comment box below invites readers to express facts, opinion, or concern, perhaps to share with people who may follow the blog.

Note:  I often connect words in a phrase with dashes in order to represent an idea. For example, frank-objectivity represents the idea of candidly expressing the-objective-truth despite possible error. In other words, the writer expresses his “belief,” knowing he could be in error. People may collaboratively approach the-objective-truth.

The Advocate:  See online at theadvocate.com/baton_rouge

Our Views (Why pit them as adversaries). Why does The Advocate pit the sheriffs, police, and crime investigators (DA’s)—part of the team of first-responders the people count on for public safety--against the legislature on crime? Is The Advocate an Edwards promoter?

Furthermore, denigrating expectations from legislators as a consequence of the people’s preference for term limits opposes the justice of the people. Many career functions, such as police and sheriffs are protected from legislators by election by the people or Civil Service. Does The Advocate oppose the people? If so, what or whom is The Advocate for?

(Secrecy hurts). The Advocate could set an example of transparency.

The Advocate could state why the legislature should favor opinions of the governor’s political-task-force-on-prison-reduction over the experiences and observations by first responders, and thus over public-safety.

When will our hometown newspaper stop being secretive?

Some people may think I oppose The Advocate: I think The Advocate is still less than what it could be.

   

Today’s thought, Proverbs 26:27. This exaggeration comes at the end of a catalogue of follies, lazy habits, and madness Solomon listed.

  

Clearly, digging a pit and rolling a stone may be accomplished with no threats to the worker who employs fidelity to physics.

  

Dean makes a leap to troubling others. Maybe he stonewalls neighbors who do not agree with him. Maybe he needs a pledge of fidelity to his ideologies before he can talk. Albert Einstein* informed us that civic people don’t lie to each other so they can communicate. Liars isolate themselves.

* samharris.org/blog/item/my-friend-einstein

Letters

Trump please help La. oilpatch (Arnette). It is not clear to me what more you are asking Trump to do. Global competition sets the price of oil. Is there another Obama regulation Trump needs to address?

More statue removals (Carl). A few revolutionaries are repeating history again, and again, the dispute is religion, disguised as racism. Empowered by recognizing the core problem, "My God is all powerful," the people may prevent the unfathomable this time.

In 1861, the South’s God would empower the 7-states CSA to defeat the 27-state North. The CSA seceded on a “more erroneous religious belief.” The Bible condoned slavery of black people.

  

Perhaps John C. Calhoun was saying, “Don’t tell me my God is not all powerful.” Many people in the 1861 south followed Calhoun's error. Many 2017 US citizens are thinking, “My God is all powerful,” and thereby ignoring the adult responsibility for justice. 

In 1967, America’s church revolutionary, Saul Alinsky together with, in 1969, black-power and liberation theology’s James H. Cone perhaps empowered this motivation: The Bible indeed condones slavery but slaves are white and masters are black.

In retrospect, the South’s folly in 1861 was unbelievable. The inspiration for black supremacy in 2017 is also unbelievable. But I hear that claim every time I would collaborate with someone whose refrain is “God is great!”

I work to establish what started and remains a proposal to use the preamble to the constitution for the USA to solve our national dysfunction. However, collaboration with over fifty people, in EBRP library meetings and in private have brought the effort to voluntary public-integrity. Collaboration involved speak and listen then listen and speak until a better expression was discovered.

People whose God is all powerful could not care less about either the preamble or public-integrity. It is not too late to take interest in Abraham Lincoln’s March 4, 1861 response to the CSA’s reliance on God: “Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?”

  

Cal Thomas column, “Conservative media”. Thank you for the perspective you have faced for the last few decades, perhaps five.

 

Michael Barone column, political divisions dominate. Barone’s list of political divides seeming to address President Trump’s victory in 84% of the nation’s counties is relatively young:

            Washington DC vs the counties, with DC approved in 1790

            Labor vs management; industrial revolution began in 1760

            South vs North, 1860

            Protestant vs Catholic, 1517.

Much deeper human divides are involved:

            Evil vs good

            Opinion vs justice

            Dominant opinion vs statutory law

            Democracy vs the better forms of government

            Spiritual belief vs the-objective-truth

            Aid for life vs hope for death

            Individual-independence vs communal risks

            Monarchy vs constitutionalism, esp. representative republicanism in the USA

            Collaboration vs arbitrary power.

  

Like so many writers today, Barone represents himself too shallow to cover the subjects he opens.

 

E. J. Dionne column, Perhaps Obama’s Russia lies. Dionne illustrates well a point Albert Einstein shared in 1941: A civic people don’t lie so that the other party may respond to integrity.

Liars exclude themselves from human talk and count their isolation a mystery.

Kellyanne Conway miss-understood Trump and spoke of alternative facts rather than alternative lies.

Fight (Page 1B). Nothing breaks hearts like the travesty of children suffering today’s dysfunctional education systems, especially right here in river city.

Adults jump over each other either 1) intending to help the children or 2) intending to protect their adult satisfactions (make money). Both ways the children lose. The system needs reform.

We learned from Alvin Plantinga in Saturday’s paper that God chose to allow humans to behave according to either good or evil. That implies that adults are in charge of civic justice. 

It follows that “acquire understanding” seems more appropriate than “fight for a future”; coach the children seems better than “pray for students”; the age of comprehension seems better than “the age of competition”; we want to collaborate seems better than “we’ve got to compete”; opportunity to perfect your unique life seems a better focus--forget disadvantage; “black folks vote, too” is unfathomable and seems unconstitutional (that implies against statutory law---in other words, illegal) and in no way appropriate in public schools; prepare for adulthood seems better than train to be a worker they need.

It’s not merely that children are being abused by dialogues on racism and religion, they are being abused by the education system itself. 

The opportunity to change exists here in Baton Rouge, and (perhaps from the work done here) is appearing in other parts of the country---e.g., New York. See thedreyfussinitiative.org, which dates from 1987, the 200th anniversary of the signing of the draft constitution.

Information developed in EBRP library meetings is being read worldwide. Perhaps the fifty-mile rule is in effect: collaborative ideas can only come from afar.

Nursing home policy (Page 1A). I appreciate The Advocate’s attention to this travesty. I recall this lobby even managed a public vote amending the Louisiana Constitution to favor their piece of the budget in competition with medical and education allocations.

Gov. not seeing eye to eye. (Page 1A). Good grief! The governor did not even see eye to eye with his tax task force.

Infant deaths (Page 1A). When physics’ progeny, biology, corrects its errors, death is the remedy. Perhaps someday failure to correct biology will seem egregious.

However, when behavior causes infant death it is doubly egregious. I don’t know how many deaths could be avoided: In other words, what is the achievable lessening in this misery?

I studied data I could find on reported abortions and think 13% are arbitrary while the rest may be attributed to biology correcting its errors.

Wishing to sue media. (2A). The Louisiana Constitution is stronger than the US Constitution regarding free expression. It states that people may be held responsible for consequences. Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded place comes to mind.

The ratified US constitution, 1788, specified competitive limits on three branches of government: legislative, administrative, and judiciary. However, happily it did not create competitive limits for the media beyond the limitations implied in the preamble: governance of, by, and for a civic people, “civic” indicating informed and committed to the purpose and aims stated in the preamble.

I feel Trump has already brought excellence in a presidency to return power to the people. As always, it is up to the people to know where they stand: among the 1/3 who collaborate to use the preamble’s goals, in the 1/3 who either cooperate or are passive, or in the 1/3 who choose dissidence toward the preamble.

Perhaps in Trump’s second election we’ll see 67% voter turnout and 67% of the turnout voting for Trump, because he is a communicator, even when he makes a mistake. We'll see.

The media partied last Saturday night in Washington while Trump was in Philadelphia. What more could the people want? Integrity by the media? Don’t count on it. Public-integrity is entrusted to the people, and it is not too late for a 2/3 super-majority to emerge.

   

Phil Beaver does not “know” the-indisputable-facts. Phil trusts and is committed to the-objective-truth of which most is undiscovered and some is understood.

Phil Beaver is agent for A Civic People of the United States, a Louisiana, education non-profit. See online at promotethepreamble.blogspot.com.