What is "African-American" to We the People of the United States?

July 28, 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, state, nation, or other institution.

A personal paraphrase of preamble, the USA Constitution’s most neglected legal statement:  For discussion, I convert the preamble’s predicate phrase to nouns and paraphrase it for my proposal as follows: We the willing citizens of the United States collaborate for self-discipline regarding integrity, justice, defense, prosperity, liberty, and children and by this amendable constitution limit the U.S.'s service to the people in their states. I want to collaborate with the other citizens on this paraphrase. I would preserve the original, 1787, text, unless it is amended by the people..

It seems no one has challenged whether or not the preamble is a legal statement. The fact that it changed this independent country from a confederation of states to dual federalism discipline by disciplined people convinces me the preamble is legal.

Every citizen has equal opportunity to either trust-in and collaborate-on the goals stated in the preamble or be dissident to the agreement. I think 2/3 of citizens try somewhat to use the preamble but many do not articulate commitment to the goals. However, it seems less than 2/3 understand that “posterity” implies children. “Freedom of religion,” which civic citizens cannot discipline, oppresses freedom to develop integrity.

Columns

African-Americans (Edward Pratt) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/ed_pratt/article_19bab0fc-90fe-11e8-99ab-af7875f428e0.html)

“If you are African-American and have not voted, I really have a problem with you.” What’s that mean?

I think Pratt’s using the Google definition, “a black American,” but like to consider Merriam-Webster’s ideas. African-American: “an American of African and especially of black African descent.”

If I understand extant impressions of DNA evidences, I am a descendent of a woman in Africa some 140,000 years ago and a man who descended from a man who lived in Africa perhaps 100,000 year earlier. In other words, it’s not an Adam and Eve heritage, but is totally African. I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and named “Ray.” If what is thought from mt-DNA and Y-chromosome studies is the-objective-truth, I am an African-American and proud of it.

Regarding voting, I would like reform such that only U.S. peers were allowed to vote, serve on juries, and hold federal, state, or local office. By “peers” I mean adult non-felon citizens who have demonstrated that they collaborate for civic integrity using the legal agreement that is offered in the preamble to the constitution for the U.S.

I want to develop means of affirming collaboration. I suggest that on reaching age 18 and applying for voter registration in addition to present requirements, 1) the citizen may state his or her understanding of the agreement that is offered in the preamble and 2) Louisiana subjectively affirms that the essence of the applicant's statement relates to the preamble. Then 3) the applicant affirms his or her trust-in and commitment to that agreement. Subsequently, the fact of voting might suffice. On the other hand, actually filing annual statements with the IRS might be in order.

The preamble is a legal statement on two grounds.

First, it provided for termination of the 1774 confederation of states, the 1784 ratification of their global status as free and independent states, and the option for the other four 1784 states and contiguous territories to join the USA after it was established on June 21, 1788.

Second, it provides the basis on which inhabitants willingly divide themselves for living together: those who collaborate for civic integrity and dissidents. “Civic citizens” are alert to injustice and collaborate to reform the laws and law enforcement so as to develop civic integrity. Dissidents may, on lawful behavior, dream about un-civic ways of living without objections. However, rebels, criminals, evils, and worse may expect constraint if actual harm they caused is discovered.

For example, a Bible-thumper may contrive a way to think his or her group ought to be masters and everyone else slaves. He or she may find like-minded believers and celebrate their concurrent opinion. However, if their society does not attest to being a fellow-citizen among We the People of the United States, they ought not apply to vote, let alone be allowed to vote, serve on a jury, or run for office.

I invite Mr. Pratt and other fellow-citizens to engage me in collaboration (mostly, I offer my opinion then listen to the other view, sincerely seeking to learn). I suggest first considering Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech and the quote, “I am glad, fellow-citizens . . . “ as well as the greeting, “Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens”; https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2945. My proposal is to establish shared appreciation of Douglass’s civic integrity two years before Bible-thumpers started the border wars labeled “Bleeding Kansas.” It was white-on-white slaughter. Also, four years before R.E. Lee wrote erroneous religious beliefs in a letter to his wife: https://leefamilyarchive.org/9-family-papers/339-robert-e-lee-to-mary-anna-randolph-custis-lee-1856-december-27 . White-on-white-slaughter equating to 8 million at today’s population ensued.

To JT McQuitty: I don't understand "Not voting can be a princpled decision."

Voting seems disciplining politicians and exercising the obligation to influence the legislation and enforcement you want to live with and you hope the children (posterity) will live with.

JT McQuitty again: Thanks, as always. 

But, following Brian Doherty's article, both Democrats and Republicans would stay home and Libertarians would win the elections.

Even the name of Doherty's magazine is unreasonable. We humans are subject to the-objective-truth, which does not respond to reason or any other human construct.

   

Other fora

http://www.libertylawsite.org/2018/07/23/schmitt-strauss-murray-liberalism

“. . . the human person [may] live a life in common with others, but [seems] a being of eternal significance and cannot be defined by the state”, civilization, socialization, or religious speculation.

Considering his conclusion, Reinsch may think “religion, family, tradition, and culture” is in charge of defining the human person. I ask the forum to consider civic integrity above religious freedom, where “civic” refers to mutual collaboration for living a human lifetime.

The signers of the 1787 Constitution for the U.S. gave us the preamble (after Gouveneur Morris wrote it). It offers a civic agreement with legal power. The people’s representatives of nine states established the USA’s civic authority on June 21, 1788. But the First Congress temporally distracted the people by falsely labeling it a secular sentence; the preamble is neutral to religion, race, and gender. The preamble to the U.S. Constitution offers freedom-from oppression so that each individual may accept the liberty-to responsibly pursue the happiness he or she perceives rather than the constraints someone else or an institution would impose on him or her.

Unfortunately, the 1789 political regime was steeped in English authoritarianism and erroneously re-established Blackstone with American, factional Protestantism rather than Canterbury partnership (English Chapter XI Machiavellianism). Consequently, for 230 years, the possibility for individual liberty with civic morality has been repressed. But the civil power of the preamble is only dormant. The rest of the U.S. Constitution may eventually conform to the preamble.

The preamble’s greatest strength is that it accepts the power of the individual. Every human has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (IPEA) to either discover-and-develop integrity or not. Chapter XI Machiavellianism suppresses the opportunity to discover integrity. The preamble appeals to the people to both accept IPEA and develop integrity. Integrity leads to fidelity to actual reality or the-objective-truth.

Both government and personal gods are human and therefore cannot specify the object of integrity, because too much actual reality has not yet been discovered. Thus, humankind cannot give to the feral human infant, during his or her first three decades, the information he or she may need to establish the understanding, intent and ability to live a complete life in maturing humanity and developing integrity.

The object of integrity is actual reality, or the-objective-truth, which can only be discovered and studied so as to understand how to benefit from the awareness. Integrity is a process: discovery, comprehension, conformity to the understanding, sharing the understanding and listening to public ideas for improvements, and remaining open to new discovery that demands change in understanding. A human being may be encouraged and coached to develop integrity and fidelity, but cannot be taught what has not been discovered.

The greatest error of the 1789 political regime was establishing freedom of religion rather than freedom to develop integrity. Correcting this tyranny would empower religion to freely join the quest for integrity rather than subjugate itself to past errors. Moreover, it would free the individual to appreciate civic citizens for collaboration to provide mutual, comprehensive safety and security for living, without attention to an individual’s hopes for his or her afterdeath, that vast time after body, mind, and person have stopped functioning.

“A good liberal order must be seen as an opening to reason together about how we should order our freedoms. This opening is best explored by a natural law liberalism that has ample material to work with in the American constitutional tradition.”

I could, in Michael Polanyi sympathy, make the case that the above quote is saying the same thing I am saying, except that “reason together” does not equate to “develop integrity,” which sometimes requires individuality. For example, humankind might not have Einstein’s accomplishments if he had been a conformist. One of his greatest gifts is the message not to lie so as to “preserve [life and lessen] pain and sorrow . . . as much as possible.” Also, integrity to self cannot be collaborative.  And “natural law liberalism” does not suggest conformity to the-objective-truth, in other words, actual reality. Finally, “the American constitutional tradition” is specifically amendable, so that civil integrity may be developed.

“. . . we will always need the immanent, not autonomous, reason of the natural law to shore up our civil unity, ordering it by the rule of law. And this is because the core concepts of our Constitution are suffused with the ancient natural law tradition. Take the consent of the governed, a concept that legitimates the Constitution.”

Some people choose to use IPEA to defeat arbitrary laws or dominant opinion rather than to discover the-objective-truth. Therefore, civic morality seeks statutory justice by discovering the-objective-truth rather than by imposing religious doctrine. Plainly, government is compelled to enact and enforce only laws that are based on actual reality. For example, the Church canonized scripture that coerces slaves to accept slavery. But who would trust the god cited in 1 Peter 2:18-21?

Some 1700 years later, African-American Christianity is active and seems to posit that the Holy Bible is correct, but that humans intended for slavery have skins that are every color except black. 

Meanwhile, the pope has not resigned the Church with some priests who abuse children, women, and men. People who develop integrity discover fidelity to the-objective-truth and reject bad examples.

“Consent of the governed” is coercive English tradition. Citizens who adopt the preamble to the U.S. Constitution claim commitment rather than consent. The preamble suggests individual self-discipline leading to collective discipline in a republican federalism: willing citizens discipline both state and the nation. No citizen wants to be governed, but the majority want to discipline themselves for personally preferred living. Self-disciplined citizens ineluctably employ IPEA for civic integrity in personal pursuits. It’s more a matter of acquiring fidelity to the-objective-truth than attempting to force actual reality to conform to personal preferences.

The principle of IPEA used for civic integrity seems to promise an achievable better future, whereas the scholarship drawn from the past seems to promise more of the same: chaos.

  

 Phil Beaver does not “know.” He trusts in and is committed to the-objective-truth which can only be discovered. Conventional wisdom has truth founded on reason, but it obviously does not work. Phil is agent for A Civic People of the United States, a Louisiana, education non-profit corporation. See online at promotethepreamble.blogspot.com, and consider essays from the latest and going back as far as you like.