July 23, 2017

Phil Beaver works to establish opinion when the-objective-truth has not been discovered. He seeks to refine his opinion by listening when people share experiences and observations. The comment box below invites readers to write.

Note 1:  I often dash words in phrases in order to express and preserve an idea. For example, frank-objectivity represents the idea of candidly expressing the-objective-truth despite possible error. In other words, a person expresses his “belief,” knowing he or she could be in error. People may collaboratively approach the-objective-truth.
 
 Note 2: It is important to note "civic" refers to citizens who collaborate for the people more than for the city.
 
A personal paraphrase of the preamble by & for Phil Beaver:  Willing people in our state routinely, voluntarily collaborate for comprehensive safety and security: continuity (for self, children, grandchildren & beyond), integrity (both fidelity and wholeness),  justice (freedom-from oppression), defense (prevent or constrain harm), prosperity (acquire the liberty-to pursue choices), privacy (responsibly discover & pursue personal goals), lawfulness (obey the law and reform injustices); and to preserve and cultivate the rule of law for the USA’s service to the people in their states.
 
Composing their own paraphrase, citizens may consider the actual preamble and perceive whether they are willing or dissident toward the preamble.  
   

Our Views (theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_19692fa4-6beb-11e7-81dd-efd908126917.html)

My hometown newspaper tacitly expresses satisfaction that I avoid a city that is an image from the past. The stink, the high-risk tourist draw, the arrogant mayor, Lee circle in shambles; Latrobe Park a mess; moreover inhabitants that look at me as a source of income---either by my gullibility or by their robbery--and otherwise the historical enemy. Harry on TV is as close as I want to get.

And The Advocate states that my Baton Rouge vote is not a state concern? How irrelevant can The Advocate be?

Our Views, July 21 (theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_19692fa4-6beb-11e7-81dd-efd908126917.html)

To Elaine O Coyle: Thank you for your warm expression, "I think that you are too hard on religions." I’m certain you are not the only reader who feels that way about my posts that address the topic. Thank goodness, MWW, who is Catholic, understands my position on separation of state from church.

I do not attack religions, except in so far as their doctrine and practice in the USA conflicts with statutory law. I have suffered the erroneous label "infidel' in Sunday school and reject the very idea of one man judging another. And the Holy Bible is no excuse.

Consider: The Confederate States of America rescinded its commitment in perpetuity to the USA with the concluding statement, “[All] hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.” See the second to last paragraph in the South Carolina declaration, online at: avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp. Four months later, they fired on Fort Sumter.

This was a South white-church vs North white-church squabble over interpretation of Holy Bible passages that condone slavery. Most people in the North accepted that the physics of slavery is evil: chains, whips, guns, brutality, and rape to slaves with burdens to masters and guilt to owners. Such people had argued for emancipation and opposed slave-state applications for statehood during 1789 through 1861. Slave-states ratio lessened from 1.6 to 0.79; initially 8 slave states to 5 non-slave states, evolving to 15:19 during 72 years’ expansion to 34 states.

The Civil War casualties were proportional, at today’s population, to eight million Americans. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln subtly spoke of the military impossibility of the South winning a war against the Union, but the ministers in the 1850s South had instilled the folly that the South god would defeat the North god.

In 2017, errors being made for the sake of erroneous religious belief are staggering. People who want to listen to a minister’s poetry about souls have that prerogative, but minister’s poetry has no place in the determination of civic morality. The non-theists suffer the tyranny of the theists.

I write (to you, too) seeking iterative collaboration. I made some statements about keeping religion out of civic morality. You countered that I am too hard on religions. Then, you listed some “benefits” of religion. For civic morality, I consider children and adults are better served by the-objective-truth. For example, I consider religion’s performance in teaching monogamy for life egregiously failing for centuries. Religious beliefs erroneously keep out of the public schools the companion teaching of human reproduction, forming beneficial human bonds, and fidelity to self. Yet, such essential controversies seem strawmen in the basic issue: “Phil seems too hard on religions.”

I have answered with the South-god vs North-god evidence for my position, only one of many examples regarding infidelity. I hope you will address the CSA’s disastrous reliance on religion to help better inform my plea to the city to prevent the involvement of religion in the discovery of public integrity. I think my plea is valid and urgent, but look forward to your evidences otherwise.

  

Today’s thought, G.E. Dean July 22 (Psalms 139:1-2, CJB).

“Adonai, you have probed me, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I stand up,
you discern my inclinations from afar.”

Dean says “God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows what is best for us.”

David and Dean negotiate this surrogacy for personal responsibility for their responsibilities.

 

Columns. (The fiction/non-fiction comments gallery for readers)

  

State operation of federal elections (Jeff Sadow) theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_d20c1070-6cb9-11e7-996b-4ba08a38469e.html

Once again, I am grateful for Sadow’s research and opinion. Once again, Sadow highlights the conflict between the willing people of the USA and the dissidents.

First there’s, commission member Hans von Spakovsky, appointed by President Trump. He’s an expert on voter fraud. Read a willing people’s enemy’s voice at washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/30/trumps-pick-to-investigate-voter-fraud-is-freaking-out-voting-rights-activists/?utm_term=.80849d0b156d .

  

Louisiana is a 2012 founding member of the Election Registration Information Center. See ericstates.org. With now 16 states + DC, one of their purposes is to “keep voter rolls clean throughout the country. For example, 1 in 8 voter registration records in America contain a serious error.” That’s 12.5%.

The statistics on the November 2016 election are at census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-580.html . There, Table 1 shows a total population above 18 years old of 245.5 million with 224 million citizens, 157.6 million registered voters, and 137.5 million voted. It would seem that 20.1 million registered voters did not vote, compared to 87.9 million who should not vote, 66.5 million because they did not register, and 21.5 million who are not citizens.

Considering the ERIC statement that 12.5% of registrations have serious error, that’s 19.7 million potential voter discrepancies.

I agree with Sadow. At this point, I would not vote for Schedler, and I hope he will show more appreciation for my had work to decide who to vote for in national elections as well as state elections. Schedler owes me integrity on both responsibilities. I don’t want to speculate, but bad behavior invites questions and reform lessens the urgency if not the justification for questions.

SOS Schedler, please grant Louisiana presidential voters the necessary Louisiana collaboration with the USA. We the People of the United States includes the willing people of Louisiana, and in these parts we're No. 1 to willing elected officials. Officials are judged by how they treat the willing people.

PSC (Mark Ballard). theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/mark_ballard/article_2870abea-6e2e-11e7-ac4c-43cdab343e1b.html

“. . . all the sacred elements of political ads: a character-building experience with Dad, praying, family first, and jobs,” turns me off. I want elected officials who are dedicated to reform for comprehensive safety and security in the State of Louisiana and in the USA.

  

A willing people of the US can have comprehensive safety and security by iteratively collaborating to discover the-objective-truth and how to benefit from the discovery. Civic morality may be established with rational thought about evidence of discovery rather than conflict for dominant opinion, often based on speculation.

It seems to me Ballard’s review supports a public forum, and I appreciate his attention. It will be possible but difficult for the other candidates to dissuade me from my initial preference and vote.

Obsolete (George Will) washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-is-the-future-of-the-air-force/2017/07/19/ba45d742-6bf0-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html?utm_term=.1272f3fb0727

It is good to see Will refocused. Yet, he portrays the Air Force as woefully obsolete without supporting President Trump’s action to update capabilities.

  

GOP fidelity (Rich Lowry) nationalreview.com/article/449581/republican-health-care-bill-bad-faith-obamacare

Lowry overrates the relationship between voters and members of the GOP. Like democrats, Lowry does not accept that a willing people voted for Donald Trump to be President of the United States regardless of the best both the GOP and the DNC had to offer.

The sooner the press wakes up to reality, the better. How the GOP fails is of no interest to a willing people. A willing people want Obamacare terminated, letter-writing-physicians’ high hopes for command of the federal budget dashed, insurance companies scrambling for a way to serve the people of the United States, and most people taking care of personal health.

Secular cities (Adelle M. Banks) sojo.net/articles/do-you-live-post-christian-city

It does not seem reasonable for a culture to preserve practices that have proven civically immoral.

The fact that the canonized Holy Bible contains passages that condone slavery is a good indication that literal Christianity is obsolete. The physics of slavery—chains, whips, guns, brutality, and rape to slaves with burdens to masters and built to owners---makes slavery obviously evil.

Imagine how barbaric an RNS article would seem if the subject was churched, un-churched and de-churched based on belief and practice of human, ceremonial sacrifice to bargain with the church’s God.

Church as an association of people who want to secure a good, personal hope for afterdeath is a private choice. Religion as a basis of statutory law is immoral. However, it is no more necessary for a city to be exclusively secular than to ban music or sports or avocations.

I dislike the losses the un-churched and de-churched citizens suffer from the claim that the civic agreement in the preamble to the constitution for the USA is secular.

  

Black clergy (Adelle M. Banks) religionnews.com/2017/07/14/black-clergy-naacp-on-a-path-toward-irrelevancy/

RNS quotes bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, “The Black Church is seeking to confront its own challenges.”

Isn’t “The Black Church” boldly dehumanizing for its believers? What constitutes The Black Church: does it exclude black-skinned Catholics? Are black-skinned Americans un-American?

Is the civic agreement offered to humans in the preamble to the constitution for the USA available to black-skinned people? If so, is the opportunity to trust and commit to the preamble’s purpose and goals available to descendants of African slaves who were shipped from Africa to the colonies that were improved by the American Revolutionary War?

Is The Black Church dehumanizing? If so, how may the believers reform it?

Death by baptism (Fredrick Nzwili) religionnews.com/2017/07/19/after-two-drown-in-tanzania-christians-re-examine-safety-of-river-baptisms/

Only two adults died, but preserving a religious practice that is known to kill seems barbaric. Here’s a case with six children: herald.co.zw/breaking-news-six-children-die-during-baptism/.

Death by pilgrimage seems an accepted tradition: economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21668022-tragedy-strikes-pilgrims-again-stampede-near-mecca-kills-hundreds-people.

Phil Beaver does not “know” the-indisputable-facts. He trusts and is committed to the-objective-truth of which most is undiscovered and some is understood. He is agent for A Civic People of the United States, a Louisiana, education non-profit corporation. See online at promotethepreamble.blogspot.com.