Celebrating Constitution Day 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 individual happiness with civic integrity more than for the city, state, nation, or society.

Consider writing a personal paraphrase of the preamble, which offers fellow citizens mutual equality:  For discussion, I convert the preamble’s predicate phrases 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, goodwill, defense, prosperity, liberty, and grandchildren 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 and theirs. 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 a union of states deliberately managed by disciplined fellow citizens convinces me the preamble is legal. Equality in opportunity and outcome is shared by the people who collaborate for human justice.

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 grandchildren. “Freedom of religion,” which fellow citizens have no means to discipline, oppresses freedom to develop integrity.

Our Views

Collaboration for individual happiness with civic integrity September 2 (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_07d788b0-abca-11e8-8bb0-0bcbac802b6e.html)

It takes collaboration to inform: a speaker to supply information and a listener to explore, discover, comprehend, understand and benefit. Sometimes, iterative collaboration empowers discovery. Discovery may be impossible when the speaker deplatforms or stonewalls listener; or listener does not appreciate speaker.
 
I apologize to The Advocate personnel, past and present, for my resistance to the information in today’s printed edition of “Our Views.” (Note: I both do not condone the LGBTQT advertising used in the online edition and support individual happiness with civic integrity.) Today, I learned why fellow citizens do not ask, “What are you doing on Constitution Day?” Political regimes and special interest groups have obfuscated the constitution’s potential to increase domestic happiness. Labor Day is used to obfuscate Constitution Day, September 17. Indolence like mine keeps some individuals in the dark, and I work for reform.

Key in today’s “Our View”: “Labor Day is a way station between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, and it was put on the calendar precisely for that reason. New Yorkers observed the first Labor Day in 1882, when [Peter J.] McGuire cooked up the idea, and it became a national holiday in 1893, when President Grover Cleveland signed it into law.”

How could McGuire and Cleveland successfully obfuscate September 17, Constitution Day, and why is such obfuscation the civil norm rather than an irritant to We the People of the United States? What do civic fellow citizens need to discard in order to enjoy freedom; http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/prophet-freedom?

Why only celebrate July 4, when 13 eastern seaboard colonies in 1776 declared independence from English oppression, disclosing their 1774 Confederation’s decision to become states rather than colonies? (Note that Louisiana, a French colony, associated with the second hundred years’ war between France and England. The victory at Yorktown, VA, 1781 was a French battle on Confederation soil.) Is July 4 used to obfuscate June 21, 1788, when 9 of 13 free and independent states (1783 Treaty of Paris) legally terminated the Confederation and established the Union? Since then, another state joined in time for operations beginning March 4, 1789; now there are 50 states and 6 territories.

Perhaps move the days-off national holidays to the weekends near June 21, and September 17, respectively, rather than July 4 and first weekend in September.

Why does the Wikipedia entry refer to September 17 as “adoption” day; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Day_(United_States)? The history of failures covered by the article, like “I am an American Day,” dwarf into obscurity our fifth annual event at EBRP libraries. Wiki obfuscates the fact that only 39 of 55 delegates were signers (https://constitutioncenter.org/constitution-day/about-constitution-day/10-fast-facts-on-the-constitution) and does not share that 1 of the 12 states was a rebel, sending no delegates.

Thus, the 1787 Constitution represents the will of 2/3 of fellow citizens, the other 1/3 being dissidents to the agreement. In the quest for individual happiness with civic integrity, are the signers more precious than the mysterious “founding fathers”? Do scholars, politicians, lawyers and the press use “founding fathers” to obfuscate intentions of the signers? Do some of them use the Declaration of Intendance (1776) to trump the 1787 Constitution? (I think so, and that Abraham Lincoln started that tyranny.) Should fellow citizens in special interest groups dominate civic fellow citizens who collaborate for individual happiness with civic integrity?

We think that by discovering past myths, domestic collaboration for individual happiness with civic integrity may become straightway achievable. We invite fellow citizens to join us to celebrate the U.S. Constitution one evening of September 17, 18, 19, or 20 at EBRP libraries---Carver, Scotlandville, Bluebonnet, and Goodwood---respectively, at 6:00 PM for all except Goodwood at 7:30 PM. There’s more information on The Advocate calendar for September 20 at 7:30 PM. See online under the folder “Entertainment/Life.”

Letters

Conflict for supremacy without military power begs woe (Paul Anger) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_325ffbae-b03d-11e8-9c0a-3b494e3e5530.html)

As long as some actual realities are deplatformed or stonewalled, they will continue to effect misery and loss. At fault is the U.S. failure to separate church and state.

Christian tragedy gained momentum in 405 AD:  The Church canonized the New Testament and could have omitted passages or complete books that condoned slavery. The most egregious passage I noticed is 1 Peter 2:18-21.

Thomas Paine objected to “Christianized” slavery in America in 1775: http://www.constitution.org/tp/afri.htm.

Frederick Douglass, with the U.S. President in the house in July 1852, brilliantly chided fellow-citizens for obvious failure in civic integrity: https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2945.

White Christians from Missouri murdered white Christian abolitionists in Kansas. Lawrence was sacked in May 1856; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacking_of_Lawrence.

  

In December 1856, R. E. Lee mimicked obsolescent Christian ministers rather than respond to both Douglass and “bleeding Kansas”; https://leefamilyarchive.org/9-family-papers/339-robert-e-lee-to-mary-anna-randolph-custis-lee-1856-december-27. By relying on IPEA (individual power, energy, and authority), Lee could have sold out in Virginia and moved his family to a non-slave state.

The Declaration of Secession lists complaints and aggresses “no remedy” because of erroneous Christianity in the north; http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp.

Abraham Lincoln, on March 4, 1861, arrogantly, insolently responded to the CSA’s threat of war, “If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.” Lincoln’s words suggest Christian gods at war but represent superior military power.

The Civil War was an opportunity to emphasize the importance of separating church from state; spiritual beliefs from life preservation; conflict from collaboration; opinion from integrity. Civil War monuments can be preserved with placards that inform the world that Christianity may be preserved for believers’ hopes and comfort against the unknown, provided no one imposes on religion the weight of undiscovered civic integrity.

Each time an existing monument is sacrificed, the economy of the-objective-truth is diminished and the path to the destruction of more serious monuments advances. After Jackson Square there’s St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo. The Jackson equestrian statue is already a target of “Take ‘em down.” Maybe Anger hopes for “progressive” power. We the People of the United States may collaborate for civic integrity or not.

The CSA was civically vulnerable but attacked on erroneous Christian beliefs. The Church is vulnerable (civically erroneous) and, in the U.S., has pivotal opportunity to reform to civic integrity. Time is of the essence.

Marsha Marshal

Once more, Phil argues the American Civil War started in 405 of the Common Era. (And for such an agnostic, he continues to name years 'In the Year of our Lord,' i.e. Anno Domini, or A.D.) 

You can't make up the stuff this guy comes up with.

But to be sure, plenty of slavery justification in the Bible, and it's wrong, but that never convinced enslaved people they were marked by God to suffer. Rather, they read Exodus and Jesus' life story and drew strength and dignity that God suffered like them and God wants all people to be free, and will smite down those who oppress others, as a matter of natural law. 

The way this worked historically in America is the opposite of how you see it. People started the trans-Atlantic slave trade, they built colonial empires on its basis, and then when people came around to criticize them, they got out whatever handy ideology they had laying around and fit it to explain, naturalize, and justify their craven material interests. So it was the Bible one day, and phrenology the next, and 'medical science' thereafter, and 'anthropology' subsequently. The 2018 versions are 'race realism' and 'the alt-right' and 'the Bell Curve' and 'color-blindness.' All bunkum, all hokum, didn't matter. They weren't sitting over in Europe shivering in 1491 reading the Bible and up and decided 'you know, this book justifies slavery, let's go conquer the world and enslave people of color on that basis.' The colonial conquest happens first, and then they went about explaining the material reality they created ex-post facto. 

Kind've like how you twist your backwards-looking, never-never-land view of the 1787 Constitution or Louisiana's colonial past to fit whatever convenient explanations you require to align with your opinions on contemporary American laws, or state laws, as in the non-unanimous jury clause in the state constitution.

To Elaine O Coyle: In your post I perceived exclusiveness in the “our.”

Ending my forties, I was chairman of the family enrichment committee (FEC) for my Baptist church. Also, I was learning from MWW, who is 2-way Louisiana-French, Parisian French and 1/4 German Catholic; her catholic.

We, FEC, were considering adding the Great Books to our youth education regimen when I dropped out of religion. MWW's religion for her is more important to me for her than mine was for me. To put it another way, I found myself in constant debate with my church friends because they continually disparaged the religion MWW and our children believed. I support personal beliefs by individuals but adamantly oppose attempts to impose religion on civic collaboration to discover integrity.

I never cease my wish to be understanding towards individual beliefs without questioning them. To put it another way, I do not want to evaluate someone else’s beliefs. I struggled for four decades to use the religion Mom and Dad wanted me to, the last two to reform my one church to support MWW’s religion for her and our children. In other words, life is too short to debate other people’s religions or spiritualties. Yet we must discover and observe viable regulations for traffic flow and other matters for mutually comprehensive safety and security.

Because of the movement to split Baton Rouge with St. George City, a few of us started library meetings to promote civic use of the agreement that is offered in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. That work led me to explore black power, black liberation theology and most recently African-American Christianity; https://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-kings-radical-biblical-vision-1522970778.

I do not understand African-American Christianity but imagine it depends upon the believer. I understand some people, blacks and whites, hold that God’s chosen people have black skins and that the only way a white-skin can save their soul is to help black Americans reign supreme. If there are such believers, I do not need to know: their beliefs are important to me for them yet mean nothing more to me for me. I neither condone nor oppose an individual’s religious beliefs or god as long as the person does not use them for civic harm.

I think that is one message the Civil War offers: Don’t let religious beliefs motivate civic harm. “Our country” is to be managed by willing fellow citizens under the agreement that is offered in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, established June 21, 1788.

  

To Elaine O Coyle:

I did not know it then, but six and a half decades ago, I wondered: with such a wonderful world and a promising country, why are fellow citizens so in conflict? I now know that despite studying to become a chemical engineer and then practicing its integrity during a 35-year career with one company, I always pursued answers to my two questions.

My studies became serious, along a random experience and observation path, in my mid-forties. By random, I mean I did not choose a field of civic study and pursue it, but rather pursued answers to my temporally urgent question.

Now, half-way to eighty, my urgent question is: Why do fellow citizens disregard the civic agreement that is offered in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution? The preamble offers individual happiness with civic integrity.

A fellow-citizen holds that Christianity emerged in Ethiopia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Ethiopia#Christian_Roots. Neither “our country” nor “our history” is any more valid than “my truth.”

Regardless of Ethiopian evidences, deplatforming or stonewalling the Church’s role in the emergence of African-American Christianity does nothing to establish collaboration for the-objective-truth. We the People of the United States may collaborate rather than conflict to impose factional-Christian opinion on “we, the people.” The preamble calls for placards on monuments that can be economically revised as the-objective-truth is discovered, and the placards needed now explain Christianity’s role. For example, the Civil War occurred because of erroneous Christian opinion that slavery is an instrument of the canonized New Testament’s God. (If not erroneous, the chosen masters have yet to be identified.)

I’m trying to suggest civic integrity for living fellow citizens rather than competition over obsolete, factional opinion. There’s no justification to tear down monuments with placards that teach history rather than “our history” or “our country.” So, I want to place mutually-discovered-objective-truth placards on existing monuments, including St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square.

Maybe there’s a better story, but this one is great! (Darren Muse) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_67c1b8e8-abd1-11e8-9488-fb5b46635697.html)

If there’s a more warming story, I’d like to read it, too.

But I also was shocked, in 2006: McCain wrote two pages to this Baton Rougean about flag desecration. No one else responded.

If my neighbor is so upset that he burns HIS/HER flag, I want to know the complaint. Such urgent expression would alarm me on par with “The British are coming.”

(Expression using individual property on personal property does not relate to the NFL’s desecration. I am glad to herein accept the NFL’s ownership of the debacle they nourish.)

The Church canon itself is an abuse (William Bonin) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_87c6121c-abd4-11e8-a503-2f19ee47ae19.html)

Bonin, I like your suggestions and think a civic people can effect quicker reform.

I urge the Louisiana Legislature to enact a law requiring school uniforms to protect the intimacy of children.

When I asked, a Catholic acquaintance suggested: Catholic-school girls wear short skirts that are titillating on the young and seem inviting on adolescents. In other words, how can anyone blame the priest when a girl wears suggestive skirts?

The State of Louisiana errs to neglect its Catholic girls. Maybe boys need similar legislation.

Standards fitting for the culture (Glenn Everett) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_010336d6-ac71-11e8-a88a-bfb484b858d8.html)

The reader is constrained to ask what culture Max Lerner imagined in his formula for a great president. I think he assumed fellow citizens agreed to the agreement that is offered in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which is not so and not expected:  It seems there will always be dissidents to equality under a civic agreement. In other words, equality under statutory law. Everett did not express the integrity to wonder about Lerner’s mystery. I do not know of a culture that is worthy of the president whom Lerner specified.

Lerner requires 1) intellect, insight, and world knowledge; 2) integrity and recognition of it in others; 3) mature judgement; 4) ability to change when necessary; 5) able to dialogue without alienating the opposition; 6) be symbolic for all citizens.

Accepting Everett’s representation of Lerner, I explain Donald Trump’s timeliness for We the People of the United States in 2016 by Everett’s numbers: 1) no one could beat President Trump’s preparedness; 2) Trump has the humility to protect integrity according to the dialogue he is being offered; 3) Trump is mindful of IPEA (individual power, energy, and authority) to develop personal perfection, accepting the past and whatever comes; 4) Trump changes when his injustice is made clear to him; 5) Trump accepts the opposition’s ultimatums leaving it to the opposition to understand Trump’s path to ultimate justice; and 6) Trump symbolizes both intentions of citizens who trust-in and commit-to the U.S. Constitution with ultimate amendments and hope for fellow citizens who oppose the U.S. Constitution. I add that Trump constitutionally administrates rather than legislating and judging, a point I think Lerner and Everett overlook for reasons they may or may not understand.

I could not have written the above thoughts before witnessing We the People of the United States, through the electoral vote (the republican form of government), defeating some five decades of momentum toward social democracy to replace the U.S. republican federalism. Donald Trump is the great president for this unique time.

I doubt Everett will understand my view, but hope he will, and would like to learn he did. Of course! I do not know the-objective-truth and only express my opinion.

I’m enthusiastic to vote for Trump/Pence the third time and for lesser candidates who would support the administration’s intentions to establish self-discipline of by and for the people---a discipline that empowers the people to limit governments: local, state, and national.

To Jim Devillier: You must associate with Lerner and Everett.

They did not offer how a great president applies the advice that is in Matthew 7:6, but President Trump has presented an example: The humility to respond in kind so as to protect the ultimate integrity of his office.

I'm waiting to hear Devillier's not-as-dumb plan for how to deal with a world of liars.

To Jim Devillier again: You cannot address Matthew 7:6 and have my sympathy.

Greg Thibeaux: Why should I deny you the opportunity to deplatform ideas without considering them? You have the right to remain ignorant about Matthew 6:7 and kibitz Devillier's weakness. You both have my sympathy.

Columns

Nobler topics (Mark Ballard) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/mark_ballard/article_f31b28bc-ad29-11e8-9a47-2be7c61eeecd.html)

Perhaps the first time I tried to promote the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, a couple decades ago, my friend Woody Wilson, a walking LSU-sports statistics reference, replied to my “we, the people”: it’s “We the People of the United States.”

That’s one of the experiences that inspired me to look up what I believe without knowing before I speak or write, so as to not exhibit ignorance. Woody’s understanding was deeper than mine, and I learned. I work hard to use words and phrases that represent what I am thinking, so my listener can then speak informed response. (When someone deplatforms me, it’s OK.)

I listen assiduously to anyone who responds to my speech or writing. Thereby, I discover words and phrases that appeal to many readers or listeners. For example: People who adopt the preamble’s civic agreement collaborate for individual happiness with civic integrity.

I wish Ballard’s quote of President Kennedy’s preparation had been, “America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of [discovery] and [integrity] — or else those who confuse rhetoric with [the-objective-truth] and the plausible with the [achievable] will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.”

The Dale Carnegie Course, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” helped open me to other people’s thoughts. However, one of Carnegie’s lessons, appeal to fellow-citizens’ nobler motives, is challenging in a world of deplatforming.

I mimic Frederick Douglass, 1852: “Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic . . . the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes.”

Please join us to celebrate Constitution Day, 2018, at one of four public library meetings each evening on September 17-20. See The Advocate calendar for September 20, 7:30 PM, for the schedule and the meeting plan.

  

News

Does African-American Christianity support black policemen? (Jim Mustian) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_a39a7862-a6f1-11e8-8b81-aff24672fca9.html)

   

I heard

  

Other fora

https://www.lawliberty.org/2018/09/07/how-originalism-addresses-consequences

Professor McGinnis raises the question of original originalism in “. . . recognize that William Blackstone himself said that to clarify a text a judge should take into account the “spirit” of legal provision.” I prefer what the signers signed on September 17, 1787 to disconnect from Blackstone and own the propriety to have that preference.

The continental history I understand has these elements: invasion under Catholic doctrine of discovery with slavery; Protestant competition with the Catholic doctrine; eastern-seaboard British colonials realized they were being enslaved by the Blackstone with Canterbury constitutional partnership; farmers liberated Worcester MA, the British never to return; patriots formed a Continental Congress and changed their style from colonists to statesmen; 13 eastern-seaboard states declared war against Blackstone-Canterbury England; France waged their battle against England at Yorktown, VA with the continental army’s help; the 13 free and independent eastern-seaboard states ratified the 1783 Treaty of Paris while the rest of the continent continued their French, Spanish, Mexican and other governments; 12 eastern-seaboard states held a convention to strengthen the Articles of Confederation; of 70 appointees 55 attended and 39 signed the 1787 U.S. Constitution; https://www.constitutionfacts.com/us-constitution-amendments/those-who-didnt-sign-the-constitution/.

Thus, accounting for the rebel state who sent no delegates, 1/3 of delegates opposed the outcome of deliberations in Philadelphia. Accounting for the appointees who did not attend, the signers represented perhaps 51.4% of the people.

I am tempted, but refrain from capitalizing “signers,” but the signers were not ordinary representatives, nor can any founding father override their intentions, discovered from May to September 17, 1787. A 2018 writer cannot imagine how much collective wisdom those 39 human beings held. After states’ ratifying conventions, the required nine states established the legal change from the confederation of states under Congress to the union of nine states under the people.

However, the first Congress under the union of ten states acted like a procreating, teen aged couple who know nothing about parenting therefore squabble over the four ideas learned from their parents-in-law. Congress re-imposed Blackstone with modification and Canterbury except with factional-American Protestantism by tradition rather than constitutionally.

Some signers collaborated with Congress’s restoration of British tradition. For example, James Madison, in authoring US Amendment VI, wrote that states must provide unanimous jury verdicts. The Senate changed “unanimous” to “impartial.” Madison was following Magna Carta, about which some “founders” were passionate.

However, French-colonial influenced Louisiana has no such passions and in 1880 adopted 9:3 criminal-jury verdicts so as to improve impartiality. Forty-eight states still require 12:0 verdicts. However, England, in 1967, began to allow 10:2 verdicts so as to lessen the possibility of organized crime or other bigotry from controlling verdicts. Louisiana is presently struggling to preserve its original compliance with US Amendment VI and Amendment XIV.1 as well. [Madison is responsible for more egregious offenses, but they are for other topics and times.]

A more egregious offense against the 39 signers came from the 1857 political expertise of Abraham Lincoln. Faced with a constitution that had left emancipation of the slaves for a more economically viable time, instead of lobbying for emancipation (perhaps citing Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, extolling the preamble and the original US Constitution, and citing 1856 “bleeding Kansas”) Lincoln trumped the US Constitution by citing the Declaration of Independence. Thereby, Lincoln relegated We the People of the United States to a dream many fellow citizens expect will never come to pass.

  

The U.S. has a long way to go to overcome the consequences of British colonialism on the eastern seaboard, and law professors could help by regarding the intentions of the 39 signers over either so-called “founding fathers” or still existing English-constitutional church-state partnership. The words and phrases in the 1787 Constitution represent the original originalism with neither dissent nor deceit.

   

https://www.quora.com/Can-a-mixture-of-equality-of-outcome-and-equality-of-opportunity-help-our-society

Society constrains both outcome and opportunity and always will. But the individual may discover integrity.

There’s only one applicable equality:  Every human being may either use his or her individual power, individual energy, and individual authority (IPEA) to develop integrity or not. The outcome will be unique. The person who discovers IPEA controls the lesser powers: appetites (banality), societies (coercion), and governments (force).

My claim seems so, first, because every human being starts as an ovum. Each ovum is both unlike and unequal. Spermatozoon are both ubiquitous and unique, so every conception is unique. Most conceptions do not survive to 1 month-old infant, and infants who survive travel unique paths.

The human species is so physically and psychologically powerful that it takes a quarter century for him or her to complete construction of his or her brain, and a few more years to develop the understanding and intent to live a complete human lifetime. He or she travels in a confused, conflicted world in which he or she might mature.

Societies neither inform their youth about IPEA nor encourage and coach them to develop the understanding and intent to develop integrity. The individual who discovers IPEA may choose to develop the idea that crime pays rather than to pursue integrity. The ones who choose integrity may discover fidelity.

Developing fidelity, the individual may make the most of his or lifetime. I doubt anyone would review life and think they perfected his or her person. Regardless the psychologically mature person seems more unique than the ovum from which he or she emerged.

Because of its failure to coach and encourage youth to develop IPEA, society has no claim to the mature human individual.

Cleve’s facebook on 9/5/18

I'm never offended by opinion, especially yours, Shipbuilder. 

However, my opinion is that the way things are every human being has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (IPEA) to either develop integrity or not. IPEA is as inalienable for the believer as for the non-believer. Some criminals develop IPEA as successfully as non-criminals. That's why enforceable statutory law cannot be opinionated.

As an individual belief concerning favor for the individual's spirit during afterdeath, that vast time after body, mind, and person have ceased, Christianity is the believer's business and not a civic issue at all. In other words, while I have a say regarding what happens at traffic signals, beliefs about an individual's afterdeath is neither my interest nor my responsibility. 

The kind of group think you enjoyed is what keeps parents sending little girls to Catholic schools where the adults are titillated. Those girls grow into adolescents dressed to tempt the priest, who, after all cannot be blamed for immorality in the face of such temptation.

I urge civic citizens to constrain prayer to its proper place: in hearts, closets, and in assemblies for believers, but away from people who are collaborating for individual happiness with civic integrity.

If you like this, Cleve, as I think you will, I could not have written it before the past five years, speaking in order to listen to people and discover their ideas on how the civic agreement offered in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution might empower the people, both collaborators and dissidents, to imagine becoming fellow citizens.

https://www.quora.com/Is-society-becoming-more-moral-as-time-goes-on

I prefer “humankind” rather than “society,” which can imply exclusive association.

I think humankind divides itself into two broad categories: civic fellow-citizens who collaborate for individual happiness with civic integrity and fellow-citizens who are dissident to the collaboration.

Statutory justice is discovered using the-objective-truth rather than competitive opinion, and the Internet is exponentially empowering collaboration for integrity.

Since morality derives from integrity, the fraction of humankind that has civic mindfulness is increasing exponentially. The opinions that survive the winnowing will be neither competitive nor immoral.

https://www.quora.com/Which-would-you-prefer-Equality-or-Freedom

I prefer freedom-from oppression so that I may responsibly pursue my view of equality rather than cooperate-with or subjugate-to someone else’s imposition.

   

 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.