October 21, 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:  We the willing people of nine of the thirteen United States commit to and trust in the purpose and goals stated herein --- integrity, justice, collaboration, defense, prosperity, liberty, and perpetuity --- and to cultivate limited services by the USA, beginning on June 21, 1788.

Composing their own paraphrase, citizens may consider the actual preamble and perceive whether they are willing or dissident toward its agreement.   

Today’s thought, G.E. Dean (Matthew 10:28 CJB)

“Do not fear those who kill the body but are powerless to kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gei-Hinnom.”

Dean says “The person we should fear is God himself. He has the last word on all of us.”

My origins were loving. Neither the Bible nor Dean can dissuade me from appreciation for my past, present, and future.

  

Letters

NFL out of control (Duran) (theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_60975f12-b4f8-11e7-ab1b-e34c96dfcc71.html)

I wish I could agree, but Duran seemed to say he admires ignorance and excuses media “omission”.

Also, an attorney could help Louisiana residents appreciate the state constitution’s freedom of responsible expression.

  

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

  

Billy Graham? (Rich Lowry) (http://nypost.com/2017/10/16/from-carson-to-kimmel-the-collapse-of-the-late-night-empire/)

How can Lowry leap from Billy Graham to President Donald Trump? I don’t get it.

  

Everyone exploits public ignorance (Walter Williams) creators.com/read/walter-williams/10/17/who-pays-what-in-taxes

Williams column illustrates but does not explicitly say that politicians pick the people’s pockets, not only the taxpayers’ pockets. Williams’s data does not connect with my perspective of justice as much as his prose suggests the problems.

“There's a severe political problem of so many Americans not having any skin in the game. These Americans become natural constituencies for big-spending politicians. After all, if you don't [think you] pay federal taxes, what do you care about big spending?” However, they pay through corporate tax collections.

“Corporations are merely tax collectors for the government.”

The cost of tax collection is $0.4 trillion annually, or 2% of the national debt.

  

Obama sponsored opoids distribution (Clarence Page) (chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/page/ct-perspec-page-trump-drug-czar-marino-swamp-1018-20171017-story.html)

I think it’s good that Page wrote, “Even when President Barack Obama signed the bill into law, officials told the Post and CBS, his administration was unaware of its potential impact.”

Other forums 

libertylawsite.org/2017/10/11/dethroning-false-europe/#comment-1599141

[Your comment is awaiting moderation. And was rejected at 11:00 PM, October 21. Will try again, perhaps with revision.]

Adam Smith (d. 1790) instructed western thought: A person must have propriety if he or she is to influence a field of study. For example, only an economist may advise the people about capitalism or free trade. In other words, in the presence of economists, the people’s propriety about their life can be overlooked! If so, is the civic citizen of no value to the people? Is influence only for scholars? I don’t think so.

There exists an overarching propriety that appreciates reality over scholarship, and we assert that a civic people collaborate for justice. During the short time I have contributed to this forum, a privilege for which I am humbly grateful, my focus has evolved to the-objective-truth which is ineluctably pursued by civic citizens—two controversial ideas.

I perceive insight about this dilemma in the wiki sentence: “Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars, philosophers, and theologians” [online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth, with footnote to Alexis G. Burgess and John P. Burgess, Truth, Princeton University Press, 2011.] Again, scholarly writers arbitrarily exclude individuals from public deliberation for common-sense discovery: Scholars erroneously stonewall citizens.

I use hyphens to keep readers from ignoring words needed for an idea, especially to distinguish the-objective-truth. Personally trusting in and committing to the-objective-truth requires denying the risk of expressing opinion that could be false, whether ancient or new. For example, a globally dominating opinion is that the God controls the-objective-truth. In private integrity, an individual has three possible responses to theism: yes, no, and I don’t know. By the responses, humans divide themselves as theist, atheist, or innocent. The innocents are too humble to act without evidence, often called “acting on faith”. The innocents trust and commit to the-objective-truth rather than impose ideology, whether by created opinion or by learned doctrine. Some innocents know they don’t have to know to hope. They admit to themselves that they think their God exists yet do not turn their backs on the-objective-truth.

In summary, accepting the-objective-truth entails the personal preference for humility—to not promote a possible falsehood. Adopting this restrained worldview establishes a propriety that may presently be rare yet essential to a future with justice. This forum has the opportunity to develop this worldview: To be the originating proprietor and advocate for the-objective-truth. That is, some individuals in this forum may become the advocates for the assertion “we know we don’t know what we don’t know, responsibly uphold private hopes, and expect other civic citizens to responsibly pursue their private happiness.”

Past word usage shows the need for the definitive phrase “the-objective-truth.” Using books.google.com/ngrams, I studied usages of modifiers of “truth” during 1800 through 2000, producing the following table (sorry for the spacing problems, but the table is important only for record; see the comments below):

		Relative use		Percent highest use
	Phrase	1860	2000	1860	2000
	truth	0.025	0.01	100	100
	the truth	0.007	0.0035	28	35
	absolute truth	0.00006	0.000055	0.24	0.55
	ultimate truth	0.000005	0.000032	0.02	0.32
	objective truth	0.00002	0.000032	0.08	0.32
	divine truth	0.0005	0.000022	2	0.22
	God's truth	0.00008	0.000021	0.32	0.21
	the objective truth	0.000003	0.000005	0.012	0.05
	pure truth	0.000018	0.000004	0.072	0.04
	subjective truth	0.000003	0.000003	0.012	0.03

Beyond “truth” and “the truth,” relative usage of all modifiers drops below 1% of the usage of “truth,” with the exception 2% for “divine truth” in 1860. For 2000, “objective truth” is among a pack ranging from 0.21% to 0.55%. “Subjective truth” is almost unused, and “the objective truth” is barely used.

Word usage can seem contradictory. For example, Michael J. Petrilli, in “Is School Choice Enough?,” National Affairs, No. 33, wrote, “But there’s [a gap] between the lofty perceptions Americans have of their own children’s schools and the objective truth, at least as measured by results.” The phrase “the objective truth” leaps out as the undeniable reality. But maybe not. Petrilli wanders from the-objective-truth with the limitation “at least as measured by results.” The-objective-truth does not yield to human measurement, evaluation, or judgement.

My recent Google search ignored the article “the” and presented a definition of objective truth: “A proposition is generally considered [to have objective truth] when its truth conditions are met without biases caused by feelings, ideas, opinions, etc., of a sentient subject.” Google writers did not have the propriety to recognize that the-objective-truth may be discovered, but does not yield to perception. That is, the-objective-truth does not respond to feelings.

Quoting Albert Einstein (see essay at samharris.org/blog/item/my-friend-einstein/), “If we can agree on some fundamental ethical propositions, then other theoretical propositions can be derived from them, provided that the original premises are stated with sufficient precision.” Agreement of such importance requires shared word usages. We use “the-objective-truth,” to express the reality, which humankind works to discover and utilize to advantage.

Perhaps the world will open to a better future when propriety for the-objective-truth emerges. We are working on it.

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.