February 23, 2018

Phil Beaver seeks to collaborate on the-objective-truth, which can only be discovered. The comment box below invites readers to write.

"Civic" refers to citizens who collaborate for responsible freedom more than for the city.

A personal paraphrase of the June 21, 1788 preamble:  We the civic citizens 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 to us by the USA. I am willing to collaborate with other citizens on this paraphrase, yet may settle on and would always preserve the original text.   

Our Views (theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_d34d4dfc-168a-11e8-830f-5f894aba57a3.html)

The caption falsely promised my chance to be thankful to The Advocate personnel. Alas, the text was divisive. (I could recall that my subscription supported a just lawsuit for public information, joined by WBRZ-TV).

The egregious influences in this “Our Views” come in 1) The Advocate’s insidious habit of dividing citizens as taxpayer, voters, the elderly, and an unstated other group and 2) giving the Metro-Council immunity on their wrongful support of COA---on agreeing for a vote, continuing the contested process, and on granting the money after the vote was confirmed worthy of civil rejection.

Both government and the press ought to serve the people---citizens. It is obvious but obfuscated that the people are not together but are divided: civic people vs dissidents. Some dissidents are criminals. Some think crime pays, some because justice fails. We promote both understanding and using the agreement offered in the preamble to the constitution for the USA to guide civic behavior. Nevertheless, individuals know how they manage their personal energy: for justice or against the people. Metro-Council members each know if their personal intent is to first do not harm.

  

The Advocate habitually, harmfully divides the people as taxpayer, voter, and other. “We urged voters to reject the [ten year property tax for COA]” is divisive. Why didn’t The Advocate urge “the people” to reject the tax? Rejecting the COA tax would benefit the people, including the elderly who are victims of COA miss-management. What’s the subtle distinction The Advocate makes with “voters?”

  

“Taxpayers . . . agreed to give COA . . . “ is false. A misled faction of the people, some civic and some dissident, voted to impose a tax that never should have been proposed. The Metro-Council members had the same reports the people read and should not have approved the vote. They also had the news about COA soliciting votes and should have stopped the process. They also read about the graft and should not have awarded the funds. The Metro-Council is complicit in the harm done, and the harm is still in play. But what’s the subtle distinction The Advocate makes with “taxpayers?”

   

The people “can see why the university sent Jackson packing.” Why does The Advocate substitute the divisive “taxpayers?” Bad habit or intention to divide? By using “taxpayers” The Advocate falsely pits the victims of the Metro-Council harm against the people who fell for the Metro-Council miss-management.

 

The current struggles in the special session of the Louisiana Legislature make it clear to me that “taxpayer” is a subtle word that needs a modifier: property, income, or sales. With those modifiers, individuals could better understand how to influence their representatives---their Representative and their Senator---for the individual’s personal benefit rather than for a special interest group, such as Chicago’s Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) affiliate Together Baton Rouge; togetherbr.org/about.

Both The Advocate and politicians can keep the people in the dark by not using the modifiers. The beneficiaries of this subterfuge are the press, the politicians, and special-interest groups. I can still hear Gov. John Bel Edwards saying “It’s the right thing to do,” as he increased Medicaid expansion, further jeopardizing Louisiana people, especially those affected by predatory doctors and drug promoters.

Everywhere I go, and in every contact I make, I see smiles and people who want mutual, comprehensive safety and security. I read about criminals and victims, including the people’s statutory law enforcers. The division of the people between a civic people and dissidents seems obvious, and I carefully choose words to encourage collaboration for justice. However, The Advocate chooses divisive words. Why? What about their business plan inspires the use of divisive language?

What inspires both The Advocate personnel and the Metro-Council to ignore our plea to each individual: in every thought, every word, and every action, first do no harm.

Public application of this ancient idea is only about six weeks old for me, so I am still learning how to apply it, but one idea has emerged:  If I imagine my action could harm to someone, I consult with them before I act. As a corollary result, I am quicker to call customer service if I think an employ has miss-represented the service. I speak, then listen to their views.

To David Martin: Mr. Martin, cats I've known did better than The Advocate personnel do.

COA management has been awful for years, with a free pass, I opine partially due to divisive language in The Advocate's articles and opinions.

  

Also, don't overlook WBRZ-TV's collaboration on the law suit for public information.

But the most egregious part of this story is The Advocate's free pass to the Metro Council, who should never have proposed and approved the tax vote for COA funding.

     

Today’s thought, G.E. Dean (Psalms 42:1-2 CJB), The Advocate, February 23, 2018, 5B.

"For the leader. A maskil of the descendants of Korach: Just as a deer longs for running streams, God, I long for you. I am thirsty for God, for the living God! When can I come and appear before God?”

Dean, addressing only V. 1, says, “This is the way that God’s people should feel about him. Seek the Lord.”

Never before has David’s expression seemed so egocentric; especially in view of his treatment of Uriah to facilitate sex with Bathsheba and Absalom’s consequential rebellion. Having ruined his body, mind and person, it’s no wonder he’d wail for salvation of a soul. I think it is better to develop fidelity to your person, letting the afterdeath take care of itself.
 

I think a better approach is for dads and moms to teach, by example and by coaching, the lifetime development of fidelity to the-objective-truth. It’s a comprehensive fidelity that lends morality to every connection, whether human, environmental or other. Fidelity cannot be taught or imposed, but it can be coached and encouraged.
 

I commend The Advocate, my hometown newspaper to balance David and Dean’s egocentricity with expressions in support of fidelity.

Other forums

libertylawsite.org/2014/05/04/administrating-the-decline-in-american-citizenship/

A search for informed opinions about the Bundy case brought me to this shared concern for restoring America to the signer’s 1787 intentions. Thank you, Professor Codevilla and the publishers.

My first attention collapses a couple paragraphs and prompts more questions than answers: “Americans’ habits of allegiance to government were formed with regard to a government much smaller than today’s—a government defined in practice as well as theory by the Constitution of 1787. But that America no longer exists. Today’s America, ruled over by an administrative state, is ever less different from the rest of the world.”

The “rest of the world?” Less different from Europe? China? Russia? N. Korea? The Middle East? Africa? Australia? South of America’s southern border?

It’s notable that 1787 America was abundantly divided, with over 18% African slavery, active Indian Wars, Catholic settlements, and an eastern seaboard with thirteen free and independent states according to the Treaty of Paris, 1783, ratified by the thirteen states in 1784. The free citizens in those states were 99% factional Protestants who happily dismissed both Catholics and non-theists in the accepted public. They neither contemplated the personal meaning of “We the People of the United States,” nor considered the civic agreement it offers. Like most human beings, they just wanted to live, and Blackstone common law was good enough so long as the God was factional American. About 5% of free citizens could vote.

Consequently, it was not notable that the First Congress, in 1789, set aside the preamble’s agreement and assigned themselves divine authority by hiring factional Protestant ministers for their Congressional divinity; at the expense of the people. That tyranny against the people has persisted now for 229 years, most recently, erroneously codified by Greece v Galloway (2014). The court arrogantly claims that my objections are niggling.

The moral regression that occurred between June 21, 1788, when the people’s representatives of nine states established the USA and the May 1789 self-deification by Congress may be reversed in order to restore the 1787 intentions of the delegates who signed the draft constitution. They were the civic 2/3 of delegates for twelve states attending the Philadelphia convention, where “civic” means people who understand, trust, and commit to the preamble.

“The administrative state” started in May, 1789 with a Congress “responsible only to themselves, to those who appoint them, and to the interest groups with which they are affiliated. Ordinary people have virtually no recourse against them.” This is true because most citizens neglect the preamble. “There is not, nor can there ever be, such a thing as a good citizen in an administrative state.”

Today, the majority by religious categorization is the non-theist faction at 23%, with factional theisms at 21% Catholic and declining; pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/. The Protestant factions from 1787 now account for 14%. Unfortunately, today, 100% of qualified adults may vote. It’s unfortunate, because most citizens do not know how to vote for their personal preferences in governance. Most people seek a higher power to whom they gladly subjugate their personal, human authority and responsibility. But if they mature, they discover they invited tyranny.

“The public’s appetite . . . to walk back the unaccountable administrative state in which we live . . . is strong.” I doubt it; I think most people are bemused by social democracy rather than American republicanism. Most of the public could not care less about 1787. But I hope some people may perceive Codevilla’s reference to “the Constitution of 1787” as invitation to consider the civic agreement: the preamble. In 2018, the preamble is still offered, valid, and essential for an achievable, better USA.

  

Phil Beaver does not “know” the actual-reality. He trusts and is committed to the-objective-truth which can only be discovered. He is agent for A Civic People of the United States, a Louisiana, education non-profit corporation. See online at promotethepreamble.blogspot.com.