May 9, 2017

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 (The Advocate a bully?). Once again The Advocate disappoints me.

  

The Advocate uses their bully pulpit to belittle the opinions of people who are responsible for a civic function. In this case, two dozen Physical Education officials representing the people of Louisiana.

  

My adolescence was in the fifties. We aimed a wooden hand gun and said “Bang” at the Tom Mix image behind a tree. I can only imagine what target games are like. Based on that, I would not care to be a spectator. I do not like human strife or its representation.

However, give me angina from walking a little too fast and a bench where skaters are learning the ollie, nollie shove it, acid drop and many more, and I will watch long after the pain is gone. If someone’s doing bike stunts, I’ll linger a little longer.

Here’s the thing. The skaters and bikers are a unique society of individual-independence with civic-morality. Each person is there to practice a trick they want to master. They are all ages, all ethnicities, all skills, all genders in it together. Hardly ever is there a collision, but never have I seen strife.

Call me a psychobabble sap, but if PE thinks something is bad for student, I want PE to be heard and have dominant influence. Let The Advocate bully me instead of those in charge of students.

Our Views (The Advocate a hypocrite?). It seems to me The Advocate challenges people with a directive The Advocate does not, would not, and cannot fulfill: Honor the Civil War with Dignity. I think I have met that challenge in past posts.
 

The Advocate seems too far out the liberal-democrat limb to think straight, let alone write with integrity.

The South is the victim of 1700 years of Bible canonization that asserts that slavery is an institution of the Christian God. The hell the Catholic Church unleashed with its canonization then 15th century doctrine of discovery for God with slave-labor for colonization victimized both slaves and slave-masters.

Abraham Lincoln used the Declaration of Independence to undermine the preamble to the constitution for the USA. Perhaps he did not appreciate the preamble's power to the people in their states to prevent waring legislators from attacking. We the [Civic] People of the United States---people who had read and believed the preamble---would have said, “Not on my watch will you secede from my country!” Yet one month after the seven-state CSA organized for war, Lincoln said, “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?” That’s a dot that suggests Lincoln did not intend to avoid the Civil War, perhaps not believing religious zealots would risk 7:27 state-military-odds. I won’t bore you with other dots except on request.

The Civil War was Christian church in the South vs Christian church in the North over erroneous Bible interpretation to preserve the economic system with the hell that had been imposed on the south by the African slave trade with European colonizers.

Because The Advocate does not bother to read and share history with readers, it is easy for seeming tyrants like Mitch Landrieu to divide an unsuspecting people. In reality, The Advocate ought to have a historical timeline from which they can routinely update the facts and connect dots. They are wasting lives by not printing the historical facts.

Shame on The Advocate for perhaps honest failure of voluntary public-integrity. Shame on Landrieu. I hope we experience reform from a wicked, fabricated path.

To Cleve Wright on FB: I'm saying throughout history no one wanted to be a slave and thus everyone understood that slaves do not want to be slaves.

However, the slave-master passages in the Bible can mislead a church to follow the minister's instruction that slavery is an institution of the Christian God. My mom used to say, "Be kind Phil: but for the grace of God there we are." She said this for poor whites more often than for blacks, many of whom were wonderful citizens. I listened to Mom's passion more that the minister's instruction: Slaves had been punished for past sins passed on to the generations.

Today, some people tell me that slavery is God's institution, but God is black. The only way I can save my soul is to help black Americans reign supreme. For now, I am a white devil who benefited from white privilege. Of course, I disagree on many points, and think there is no excuse for that theology..

In the first place, I am a body, mind and person whose life began at intended birth to my loving dad and mom without my influence: No sin involved. Likewise, my afterdeath, that vast time after my person stops functioning will be without my influence.

This is the kind of plain talk The Advocate and other media may promote so as to establish voluntary public-integrity. People may believe in salvation of their souls but cannot impose that concern on my person.

    

Today’s thought (James 1:5). As always, I prefer to get the context, so started with James 5..

I add V 6. “⁵ Now if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproach; and it will be given to him. ⁶ But let him ask in trust, doubting nothing; for the doubter is like a wave in the sea being tossed and driven by the wind.”

Dean points to the wisdom of the ages, which might exclude discovery, such as evolution.

When I was about ten years old, I read the last page of the Bible and saw in the last two verses threats. I thought I would not accept as “word of God,” a book that represents a God so doubtful as to threaten me.

I am slow. It took me five decades to accept rejection of the indoctrination I suffered in my first decade.

Letters

Jails full (Moulder). I want laws that protect the public against dissidents to safety & security. In the system from first responders to DA's & investigators to lawyers and judges to jailers to legislators to governors, the team I support is the first responders and DA's & investigators. Listen to them and consider amendments to accommodate their valid point on behalf of the public. That includes funding for perpetrator rehabilitation: they are of the people, even when they cannot vote.  

Landrieu not a statesman (Harper). I like Harper's ideas and civil expressions.

  

I especially like the comments about "the monument already removed"---agree with both the opinion and the avoidance of its title. Good job!

  

Jeff Sadow column (May 7, Death penalty). When all else proves a person committed a heinous crime and also there is DNA evidence, there may be no excuse for a jury trial. The jury introduces uncertainty when there otherwise is none.

If the defense attorney demonstrates weakness in the evidence, especially in the DNA evidence itself, perhaps there is reason for a jury trial anyway.

 More weight on DNA evidence could save money and protect the public---including the heinous criminals, as Sadow argues.

   

Patrick Dobard guest column. I would like to see three TOPS changes: increase qualifications, stagger the award by class with less in freshman year and increases in successive years, and require progress toward graduation in four years.

The smoking reduction proposal by Jim Pitman (see below), I'd like to see used to fund the child incentives program suggested at cipbr.blogspot.com/2016/09/child-incentives-brief.html .

Stephanie Grace column (DA’s practices). As always, perceived ends do not justify unjust means.

Michael Barone column (cultural appropriation). Good job, Barone!

With cultural appropriation police without Italian in your DNA you cannot purchase pizza! Great job. Now, if you can do as well with political correctness, the public might learn to get along.

Charles Krauthammer column (Trump scary). Good grief, Krauthammer! Trump did not promise to become a historian; are you, or are you mimicking writers?

Why would anyone want to second guess President Trump? Everyone he encounters is a potential menace, and he has administrative skills to handle it, including not being shy about ignorance. He reminds me of Socrates, who said, I recall, “I’ll admit to one wisdom: I do not know.”

As his cabinet completes and his further assignments are made, he will become more and more the administrator, dependent upon his team and ready to fire when necessary. But he will not stop being the great, fearless communicator he is.

Get onboard, Krauthammer. You are a great writer, but you do not share my hopes. (I hope he will establish separation of church and state and separation of state and church, but think it’s to soon to express doubt.

Other Forums

libertylawsite.org/2017/05/09/containing-the-weapon-of-mass-disruption/
 

Greg Weiner whines about President Trump’s style and offers as a remedy, “Congressional governance, and its trappings of delay, cooling of the passions and refinement and enlargement of public opinion.” Good grief! It took 228 years for Congress to regress to its current sad state.

Congress has, for decades, assigned its constitutional responsibilities to either the administration or the judicial branch. Curtailing congressional dysfunction-and-shirking-responsibilities is the remedy I sought when I voted for Trump twice.

There is far more behind my vote: I hoped Trump would nominate not one but two Supreme Court justices: one to fill an empty seat and one to replace a voluntary retiree. I hoped he would eliminate as many administration czars as possible along with their regulations and judges. I hoped he would reduce federal controls on states---send decisions closer to the people, where they belong. For example, drastically reduce or eliminate the federal department of education; make medical care a state responsibility perhaps excepting catastrophic care. I hoped he would continue to provide a habitually lying liberal-democrat-media alternative lies until they learned to research, vet, and report with integrity rather than with anonymity, alibi or honesty; that’s right: Honesty is insufficient.

I envisioned President Trump taking three years to transition into the role of president, much as it took President Lincoln that long to realize he was elected into a Civil War. Yet I hoped for and think we are witnessing a faster schedule. I saw Trump as administrator who knows how to select managers for the duties needed, let them manage, and when necessary, say, “You’re fired.” I hoped he really meant he was going to empower the people, and that’s the key to my hope for future satisfaction with my votes for Trump. I hope to vote for Trump in four years, because the people are seeing not America great again, but America great at last. That cannot happen with allegiance to Burke.

America’s potential to be great did not come from England. Loyal colonists from 1720 to 1774 gradually realized they were being enslaved by England. They changed their style from colonists to statesmen and declared independence. When diplomacy did not yield autonomy, they declared war. With France’s strategy and military help at Yorktown, VA, they won the deciding battle. In 1783, they negotiated the treaty, which names each of the thirteen independent states.

Four years later, realizing they could not survive without a nation, they drafted a constitution for the USA predicated on the people in their states who were willing to trust and commit to the purpose and goals stated in the preamble. The articles that followed were known to be insufficient but were amendable. Only 5% of free citizens could vote! At each step in the process to ratification of the negotiated constitution on December 15, 1791, approval was obtained by 2/3 of representatives. The 1/3 dissenters had diverse reasons only they knew.

The people, being accustomed to British common law---Blackstone and Protestantism and property---tried to go back to before, and many insist on British tradition to this day. Most citizens neglected the civic agreement that is stated in the preamble that was ratified in 1788. The consequence is 229 years of imposed confusion and the chaos scholars groan about in 2017. When 2/3 of citizens commit to the preamble for civic-collaboration and the-objective-truth for basis-of-power, America will resume its journey as the world’s greatest hope for justice.

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.