An achievable dream

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 want to collaborate with other citizens on this paraphrase, yet would always preserve the original, 1787, text.   

Our Views (theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_d8401612-1e57-11e8-aaff-13487295b5a3.html)

Scuddy is right in all three posts. There’s more.

The Advocate “shielded” readers from the facts for reasons the writers may or may not grasp. The Advocate promotes social democracy instead of achievable American republicanism---the American dream.

The Advocate personnel imagine a “path forward”: mysteriously provide “opportunity to all classes, not only those with higher levels of education.”

I hope citizens take every opportunity to educate themselves so as to experience comprehensive, personal safety and security so each can usually, for example, pay taxes. In other words it is better to give to self than to receive from others. In other words, the American dream is private liberty with civic morality. America is not teaching and coaching the human, personal appreciation and discipline needed to live the dream.

I’m not talking about the American dream some patriots and thinkers imagined in 1776---the common good, freedom of religion, natural rights, property rights, natural evil, pursuit of a doctrine of happiness, the rule of lawful opinion. I’m talking about the American dream that is achievable with widespread use of the purpose and goals stated in the preamble to the constitution for the USA: a dream imagined by Abraham Lincoln as governance of by and for the people.

The Advocate’s champion, Angus Deaton, in the NYT opinion (nytimes.com/2018/01/24/opinion/poverty-united-states.html) wrote honestly for social democracy, which has no integrity: “. . . the social contract with our fellow citizens . . . brings unique rights and responsibilities that must sometimes take precedence, especially when they are as destitute as the world’s poorest people.” The American contract, the preamble, does not obligate fellow citizens to take responsibility for wanton living. It seems significant that Deaton is first British. Many Tories in 1787 opposed the preamble and the articles that followed. Some returned to England and some stayed as dissidents. It is not a surprise that many Brits and Europeans in general want to impose social democracy or socialism on American republicanism. What is objectionable is The Advocate personnel’s complicity.
  

Perhaps it’s a matter of poor research rather than possession of an agendumb (a bad business plan that is too transparent to succeed). It did not take me long to find that Deaton partnered with Anne Case and “discovered that the increasing mortality rates among white non-Hispanics could be classified as ‘deaths of despair’, most notably drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis," (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Deaton). In other words, 5.3 million white citizens appreciate neither life nor self-discipline above appetites. There is no morality in civic citizens supporting wantonness. Discourage it, yes; pay for it, no.
  
The Advocate personnel slighted not only Anne Case but, more egregiously, hometown readers. Bias toward social democracy exacerbates press irresponsibility, and the First Amendment needs to be modified to defend responsible and free expression, as the Louisiana Constitution does.

We the People of the United States, a civic people who trust-in and commit-to the preamble rather than Deaton’s “the social contract”, may reform the education system. America may coach each person to understand that the civic human being addresses at least four powers: whatever controls actual reality, the global civil order, the American dream, and private authority. With human, private authority, each citizen may control his or her energy for personal benefit during every moment of life. Humankind is a confused, conflicted whole, but the individual human may develop fidelity to the-objective-truth, in other words, actual reality. If so, he or she may wake up each morning with the commitment:  In every thought, every word, and every action, I will first do no harm.

The fact that this message is coming from a civic citizen is no excuse to not collaborate for a better expression of the American dream rather than promote social democracy or socialism.

To Matthew White: I appreciate your collaboration, especially the appreciation of doubt in "seems to be advocating." My writing, while spontaneous, is packed with grounded opinion. (I do not know the-objective-truth.)

Recall the sentence, "I hope citizens take every opportunity to educate themselves so as to experience comprehensive, personal safety and security so each can usually, for example, pay taxes." I express appreciation for circumstances in "usually . . . pay taxes."

During my lifetime, especially during the peak of parenting three children, I tithed as well as paid taxes. Then I discovered that people in my Christian faction denigrate people in my wife’s Christian faction---not only the people’s faiths but the people themselves. I dropped out of my religion to support my wife’s faith and in so doing discovered I had always trusted-in and committed-to the-objective-truth. I had tried to coerce my person into the religion Mom and Dad wanted for me. I had ups and downs and could have allowed the downs ruin my life. In fact, my life may be ruined and I just don't accept it. One of my strengths is that MWW does not say her life is ruined.

I want part of my tax money---city, state, and federal---to be used to care for people who cannot care for themselves. However, I do not want it used to support people who discover and nourish appetites that harm them and other people. Nor do I want it used to coddle people who, whether falsely influenced by philanthropists, by social democrats, by socialists, by communists, or by wantonness, claim mental deficiencies when their only problem is indolence. I choose that word because “laziness” is not strong enough. Of course, I want criminals, aliens, and evils constrained but don’t always get what I want.

To JT McQuitty: Thank you.

Matt Bruenig seems to be a socialist; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Bruenig. He has interesting concepts on better ways to distribute the GDP, one he calls “Nickel and dime” socialism; youtube.com/watch?v=a7jeovmmjOs.

The article you cited claims education does not help poverty statistics and offers three reasons: 1) graduations don’t create jobs, 2) graduation does not translate to productivity, and 3) causes of poverty affect graduates, too.

Productivity is a concern among the elites, too. I recently expressed to scholars about James Madison’s notes (1787) and originalism that there may be better services they can render to humankind, such as promoting benefits from Albert Einstein’s moral discoveries (e.g., 1941).

To JT McQuitty again: I agree. Good ideas come from all styles of humanity, even persons who declare they are enemies. Sometimes the good is the negative of their claims yet still emerges from their creativity.

From the UK citation, "more advantaged families are using their economic, cultural and social advantages to ensure that their children remain at the top of the social class ladder." Classism has prevailed in England since Magna Carta. But I am concerned about it here. Social studies, for example, have limited value for GDP and thus little utility, unless contacts assure a professorship at Harvard or in a federal department.

 
The article on European “social mobility” illustrates why, in public meetings and in writing, I express opposition to “social” to favor “civic,” referring to collaboration for mutual living rather than for classism. The idea of “social mobility” is moving to a higher class, whereas civic mobility implies opportunity without attention to class.
 
Like Bruenig, I am concerned about income inequality, but do not favor redistribution as the means of sharing GDP.

Perhaps influenced by John Rawls’s unfavorable “Justice as Fairness,” 2001, I envision civic justice when the least labor for which there is a market offers the laborer the cost of living including savings so as to meet life’s major events, such as a child’s education and wedding, plus build wealth on which to retire at the cost of living.

In such a culture, adult entertainment could not have the emphasis today’s economy supports. For example, the exorbitant negotiations conduct by the NFL come at the expense of American children. Because the national debt is increasing, every newborn faces $5.2 million debt; usdebtclock.org and 4 million babies in 2017. That would not be accurate if the debt were being paid.

Today’s thought, G.E. Dean (Psalms 51:10-12 CJB), The Advocate, March 9, 2018, 7B.

“Create in me a clean heart, God; renew in me a resolute spirit. Don’t thrust me away from your presence, don’t take your Ruach Kodesh away from me. Restore my joy in your salvation, and let a willing spirit uphold me.”

Dean, omitting V.10-11, says, “Have you lost the joy of the Lord? Repent of sin and follow him.”

How many readers of The Advocate have the arrogance to instruct God: create a clean heart; renew a spirit; don’t neglect me; restore my attraction to you. David had this arrogance as well as the arrogance to assign a man to death so that he could lawfully take the man’s wife. Is David a man The Advocate should recommend? I do not recommend anyone either instruct God or betray fellow humans. I oppose David’s human example.

Dean recommends David and The Advocate publishes Dean. Dean adds his own blasphemy by expressing doubt in God’s power to elect believers: John 6:39; “And this is the will of the One who sent me: that I should not lose any of all those he has given me but should raise them up on the Last Day.” And further, Dean influences doubt in Jesus: John 6:39; “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will certainly not turn away.”

Among readers are both civic people and dissidents for reasons the dissident may or may not understand. In publishing Dean, The Advocate is responsible for any harm done to actual reality, whether God is involved or not. I know nothing about accountability and actual reality.

The Advocate may reform the day their personnel perceive humility is better than hubris respecting both God and man. I humbly hope that happens before Easter, 2018.

Columns

Gov. John Bel Edwards’ irresponsibility (Kennedy and Landry) (theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/article_ffcd8746-22df-11e8-a865-ab8c0c15b354.html)

Is there any reform proposed for the 2018 legislative session?

  

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.