Elite ignorance effected 2/3 vote against Louisiana’s unanimous-majority verdicts

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.

Selected theme from this week

Elite ignorance effected 2/3 vote against Louisiana’s unanimous-majority verdicts

Our Views (The Advocate, local press in Baton Rouge, LA)

Press hubris perhaps temporarily controls local public policy (Nov. 12) (Our Views:  “La. Shows bipartisan spirit”---not yet online, so I comment here for now)

The wounded We the People of the United States in Louisiana may now move to the intention to provide the prosecuted party a jury of his peers. Perhaps restoring impartiality rather than jury-absolutism will follow.

The erroneous 2/3 vote for jury absolutism demonstrated a popular maxim coming from some journalism schools:  political science manipulates public opinion; policy-directed public-opinion-polls control government; a powerful press controls public opinion, and thereby the press can impose injustice. However, the people ultimately correct injustice, so a reckoning seems inevitable, provided We the People of the United States survives the immediate future.

The neglected phrase in the smear campaign against a Louisiana gift, the unanimous-majority jury-verdict rather than colonial-British jury absolutism, is “his peer.” How do We the People of the United States, fellow citizens who agree to the U.S. preamble’s stated purpose and goals, provide an impartial jury of the prosecuted person’s peers? The 1774 colonial British way was to invent laws against colonists then haul them off to England for a trial before land-owning loyal Protestants. (England has a constitutional church-state-partnership.) The 1787 U.S. reaction is the 230-year-old civic, civil, and legal agreement that is offered in the U.S. preamble. However, political regimes have suppressed “equal justice under law,” or the preamble’s agreement for 229 years.

Directly addressing the British tyranny, the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights states “That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man hath a right to . . . a speedy trial by an impartial jury of his [community], without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty. . . that no man be deprived of his liberty except by the law of the land or the judgement of his peers.”

Key provisions (still part of the Virginia Constitution) include speedy trial,  an impartial jury, community, unanimous consent, found guilty, and his peers. John Adams wondered if these provisions should be met with a jury of 500 (perhaps a reference to the Athenian Greek democracy). However, the U.S. Constitution provides two demands: the Article III, Section 2 trial by jury in the state where the crime happened and the Amendment VI requirement that states provide community speed and an impartial jury. The U.S. Constitution negates the absolutism of “unanimous consent” and “found guilty.”

Any human polity will have a mixture of individual attitudes toward personally collaborating for justice: habitually impartial, inclined to justice, indecisive, subject to injustice, and opposed to justice for various reasons. An impartial jury of the accused’s peers was not likely from the typical human polity in this country in any of 1776, 1879, or 2018. Perhaps the U.S. is at its lowest performance in this regard. If so, the ascent is forthcoming, and otherwise, there’s worse to come.

Any U.S. state may offer an impartial jury with two provisions: 1) a jury-pool of citizens who trust-in and commit-to justice and 2) allowing the unanimous majority jury that emerges from the habitually impartial and impartial-tending peers, leaving the indecisive through criminal fellow citizens who mistakenly get seated in the negated minority. Louisiana, with its French colonial background, understood this in 1879 when lawmakers debated the impartiality of the 9:3 unanimous-majority criminal verdict and enacted the rule in 1880. In 1967, England, perhaps influenced by Louisiana’s jury law, reformed to the impartial 10:2 jury verdicts so as to lessen organized crime’s influence on jury trials.

Congress passed the landmark non-discrimination Civil Rights Act in 1964, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Louisiana’s impartial 9:3 unanimous-majority jury verdict in 1972, eight years later. In 2018, the Louisiana Legislature, prompted by the Louisiana State Bar Association to enact legislation to restore the injustice of jury absolutism, instead created a popular referendum that was relentlessly driven by The Advocate personnel. They shared an egregious error that breached U.S. Amendment XIV.1 (1868).

I think the consequence may include a doubling of Louisiana’s costs for the trial portion of the judicial process. The increases will come from hung juries, less plea bargaining, and more vigilantism. It is critical for the cost data to be reported each year so that the people may observe the cost of allowing favor to the actual criminal. I would not trust The Advocate personnel with this task, as they negated FBI data showing that jury absolutism 700% disproportionally hurts black fellow citizens who are victims of crime, 90% of the time by black family and neighbors. The Advocate arrogantly uses my subscription payments against me and fellow citizens, civic citizens and dissidents alike! I object.

Back in April, I attended a weekly gathering for coffee to alert peers in chemical engineering and chemistry of The Advocate personnel’s April Fools Day passionate ambush of landmark Louisiana and U.S. justice. I made the statement then that a jury of my peers would have to demonstrate commitment-to and trust-in the U.S. preamble’s agreement. A witty detractor said, “Yeah, yeah. And the murderer would need a panel of murderers.” The opposition doesn’t get funnier than that!
 

I do not intend to be the object of a criminal trial. However, I served on a jury once, and if I am asked again, I will make the statement that I would serve only on a panel of fellow citizens who each declares a record of collaborating for justice, even if he or she has a mistake in their past. Belief in the motto on the Supreme Court building, equal justice under law, would suffice. But I prefer the U.S. preamble. I do not want to serve again on a jury that includes a bigoted or criminal fellow citizen.

I contend that The Advocate personnel, collectively, do not qualify; otherwise, they would demand internal reform---that is, they would demand that fellow workers for the press know that they collaborate for equal justice under law rather than some organization’s bid for a dominant opinion. Statutory-justice training would not be unlike sexual-abuse training.

When a mistake has been made, the best policy is to do the research needed to affirm the mistake, work to discover statutory justice, then, without emotions over the past, take leadership and collaborate in the correction. The Advocate personnel could reform from suppressing my research, and State Senator Dan Claitor need not shy from his pivotal role in partnering to dupe the public provided the outcome is: both restoration of Louisiana’s impartial unanimous-majority verdicts and establishment of a jury pool whose members collaborate for equal justice under law or even better future provisions I cannot conceive alone. I share the-objective-truth about too few civic issues: civic people, especially fellow citizens, don’t lie to each other and that’s about it.

The Louisiana justice system may provide jury-peers who collaborate for justice and the jury may be authorized to reach an impartial unanimous majority verdict ranging from 7:5 for a minor felony to 11:1 for aggravated murder.

I commend the Louisiana Legislature to restore and establish statutory justice: reinstitute the unanimous-majority verdict and provide juries of peers for equal justice under law; the U.S. preamble’s agreement would suffice.

Letters

Organized, ignorant hate (Marjorie Esman) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_4a9518e4-e779-11e8-ad0d-a7a28787e6e5.html)

Ms. Esman expresses individual ignorance as she relishes the temporal success of organized hate. Patriotism? Try ignorance.

Scholars have known all along the U.S. struggle for independence from British colonialism arose through the era of slavery and continues with the struggle for recovery from its consequences as well as other British impositions such as Chapter XI Machiavellianism or church-state-dominance. Independence was demanded by formerly loyal British colonists who perceived that shipping African slaves here to further British interests then taxing the fruits of colonial labor effectually enslaved the colonists.

In 1774, the British were charging colonists with fabricated crimes and hauling them to England for trial.

Directly addressing the British tyranny, the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights states “. . . in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man hath a right to . . . a speedy trial by an impartial jury of his [community], without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty. . . that no man be deprived of his liberty except by the law of the land or the judgement of his peers.”

These words live in the Virginia Constitution, but were not adopted by the U.S. The U.S. constitution retains trial by jury in the state where the crime happened and the requirement that states provide community speed and an impartial jury. The U.S. negates the absolutism of “unanimous consent” and “found guilty” and leaves definitions of “peers” to each state.

French-influenced Louisiana brilliantly provided impartiality and peers by enacting the unanimous-majority criminal-jury verdict in 1880. England mimicked Louisiana’s brilliance in 1967, citing the need to lessen crime’s influence on jury trials. Criminals continually challenged Louisiana’s law, and in Johnson v Louisiana (1972), eight years after the non-discrimination Civil Rights Act, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Louisiana’s unanimous-majority jury verdicts.

Thus, the effect of 2/3 approval by ½ of voters, is a move from statutory, constitutional justice to injustice. A civic citizens is constrained to ask:  who caused such tyranny?

My list, ignorant as I may be, begins with all the national organizations that promote dialogues on racialism. Next is the Louisiana State Bar Association and their resolution for the Louisiana Legislature to change the Louisiana Constitution so as to require jury absolutism or 12:0 verdicts. Next is the Louisiana Legislature who schemed to convert the restriction of a 2/3 majority in both chambers to a voter referendum to accomplish the tyranny. I consider this a breach of U.S. Amendment XIV.1. as well as Amendment VI and hope someone sues the state for relief. Last but not least is The Advocate personnel who championed this tyranny starting April Fools Day, 2018.

Now that Louisiana voters negated Louisiana provision of jury “peers” I recommend that members of the jury pool be required to state that they collaborate for statutory justice. This follows the principle “equal justice under law,” which in the U.S. is expressed by the agreement that is offered in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. However, while it would be good for jury members to attest to their trust-in and commitment to this country’s agreement for statutory justice, a simple statement like, “I behave so as to collaborate for statutory justice,” would suffice.

I commend the Louisiana Legislature to enact the provision of peers for jury trials in the next regular session in 2019.

In the meantime, writers like Esman might give some thought to the fact that freedom of speech has an unstated aspect of value. Expressing ignorance represents ignorance; expressing arrogance expresses arrogance; representing an organization expresses the organization.

I seek to collaborate for individual happiness with civic integrity, the preamble- agreement’s tacit offering to fellow U.S. citizens.

Second post:

This a hilarious episode in Facebook anonymity. Phil Beaver is merely a fellow citizen who knows he does not know all the-objective-truth and therefore constantly seeks to discover the actual reality.

I have reported Phil Beaver of her updated beaver-teeth profile-picture and URL “https://www.facebook.com/marsha.marshal.129” a couple ways and the posts from "went to Lee High School" keep coming.

And poor Fumio De La Flambé can’t comprehend that it perhaps reveals its personal interests in posts like: “Phil Beaver Why Mr. Beaver, what big beautiful orange teeth you have! And those cute gals you hang with... might I ask, are they transvestites that read stories of British tyranny to you at the library, tales from Canterbury perhaps? I think the Pardoner's Tale is best : )”

But wait. Somebody said Fumio . . ., URL “https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012604601304” is really GM King, perhaps LSU professor, which seems like a male. Should I trust “To see what she shares with friends, send her a friend request.” Think GM King is smart enough to go female? I doubt it.

I’m beginning to think anonymity-of-no-value is a fun game for the spectators and am glad I do not suffer the privation it expresses.

Anonymous writers may keep in mind that the press uses its freedom ruthlessly and cares not if the author offers no value rather builds a record of harmless folly that can be discovered.

On the other hand, I doubt Facebook, The Advocate online department, and BRPD take anonymity-of-no-value as lightly as I do.

A teacher’s ego (Brooke Kemerer) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_47a2fec4-e695-11e8-a844-cf7942c3ff52.html)

To Eric Tong: I agree and more.

Letter writers may keep three things in mind: 1) The Advocate editor is going to use your concern the way the editor decides by writing the caption (that’s freedom of the U.S. constitutionally irresponsible press), 2) therefore, The Advocate may select your letter for their purpose with no regard for reliability on the topic, and 3) writers may pair heartfelt concern with viable suggestion. Often, it’s better to write a letter, read it, then discard it rather than trust The Advocate collective.

In this case, in lieu of a SSN, illegal-alien students could master the U.S. preamble then state their agreement to collaborate for its purpose and goals as a provision to play sports. This could be a general requirement to attend school, once the civics lesson is done. In fairness, all students could study, master, and sign the U.S. preamble’s agreement. It is the first civic, civil, and legal statement in the U.S. Constitution and fellow citizens should know it even if they think crime pays and choose that lifestyle.

It takes the human body a quarter decade to complete the wisdom parts of the brain. Given a few years for experience and observations to connect, maybe an individual ought to advise school administrations starting at age 35 or 45. Of course, actual wrong ought to be reported upon discovery. But when the wrong is known, whining about consequential policy is unproductive. This particular composition seems more egocentric than anything else.

Concerning Hispanic reliability, the SSN concern is illegal aliens. Fellow citizens do not want illegal aliens benching their perhaps less skilled child. The entire team may resent an illegal alien’s foreign-developed skills.

Count on The Advocate personnel to side with the illegal aliens, disregarding their fellow citizens. The Advocate collective is too sophisticated and institutional to qualify for patience for them to mature beyond the 25-year human awareness:  The Advocate personnel simply take the offensive side in the debate against student-citizens.

To Scuddy LeBlanc: Scuddy, I "liked" your comment with one exception.

I think "and forsake all other allegiances" seems overboard, at least without explanation which I doubt beforehand.

For example, wherein the U.S. policy opposes the-objective-truth I promote U.S. reform. Thus, I want the First Amendment religion clauses deleted and replaced with the protection of the development of integrity, both the individual practice and in developing federal statutory justice.

Also, I promote one and only one political unity: I want fellow citizens to collaborate for mutual, comprehensive safety and security. For now, the focus should be grandchildren.

This means that the U.S. system for distributing GDP must be reformed from the present mixed capitalism so that every adult who fulfills a needed or wanted function may earn a standard living including accumulation of wealth for emergencies and retirement. What’s happening now is that grandchildren are being loaded with debt ($5.5 million to each newborn) in order to nourish adult satisfactions. A long hanging fruit exists in ending tax favor to all philanthropies, religious or not.

My wish extends to fellow citizens who now think that crime pays; if they are caught and face statutory justice they then reform. I don't often get what I want.

More on too soon to tell about Trump, Nov 8 (George Simpson) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_f10140ee-e383-11e8-aa0d-a731499ddb0a.html)

To Matthew White:

My eighth decade is, to this point, the prime of my life and the happiness I enjoy, especially with MWW and the rest of my family and friends. Also, I thoroughly enjoy my public connections and appreciations.

I think after almost five decades of reading and writing to answer two questions, I am on to a good idea: fellow citizens may collaborate for mutual, comprehensive safety and security so that each individual has freedom-from external oppression in order to responsibly exercise the human liberty-to pursue individual happiness. I assert perhaps 2/3 of fellow citizens in this collaboration, which is not utopia.

The two questions I still study are 1) what does it mean to be a human being and 2) what’s different about being a U.S. citizen. To pursue those two questions, the student can only rely on collaboration with fellow citizens---reading what citizens thought in the past and asking what citizens think now.

For the latter, the student can only make a statement and hope for constructive response. Yet the student cannot speak according to the English professor’s instruction “Speak for the listener.” In the first place, the student knows neither what the listener thinks nor how he or she uses the key words the student speaks. I cannot use scholarly language: for example, Western scholars bemuse the public with self-government when self-discipline is required. Scholars speak of reason being superior to nature when physics (E=mCsquared) controls the-objective-truth.

Consider my latest statement and question. I think President Donald Trump is tacitly responding to Matthew 7:6 in order to humbly protect the nation’s information and would not advise him to change because he seems successful whereas I am not successful. Then I ask, how did other presidents protect presidential integrity?

I do not offer that as a challenge to fellow citizens. I sincerely want a thoughtful response. Many readers ignore my plea for collaboration. Some choose to express frustration. Some express foul language.

With some fellow readers who comment to/about me, I draw a line and will not respond until maybe one day there will be reform whether theirs or mine. I am trying to get Facebook to kill accounts created to harass me.

However, you seem to want to collaborate, so I respond and have always responded to you. I appreciate constructive people whatever their opinion and fully expect them to improve or help change my opinion. It's been done in the past.

However, it cannot be done by modifying my words and phrases.

If you were the duly elected president, sworn to defend the U.S. Constitution yet under three years of attack by a nasty press, how would you handle the next writer for the press who approached you with a question not unlike, "Mr. President, when did you stop beating your mother?"

Columns

An ignorant press (Lanny Keller) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/lanny_keller/article_53f4a77a-e75a-11e8-88a1-9f1122b0bf51.html)

Writers for the press relentlessly, shamelessly express abject ignorance.

Consider the nationally and regionally specific course offerings here, like dialogues on racism and such. Consider ongoing lawsuits against Harvard and NYC high schools regarding affirmative action practices that penalize Asian students, both foreign and domestic.

More importantly, consider the dominance of leftist professors in American universities and colleges. Humankind thrives on fidelity to the-objective-truth rather than demands for imaginary “rights” here and now just because "I" want them. What’s critical to each human individual is the self-discipline to live the life he or she needs/wants in such way as to not have to thank a bureaucrat or tyrant.

And President Trump opposes illegal immigration. Trump favors merit immigration and equal justice under law.

Writers for the press try to impose on President Trump the evil in their own hearts and minds. The writer who claims “not me” may create the publications that support the claim.

As soon as MWW agrees sports is not really that critical, I will stop paying for the exposure to ignorance.

In fact, I can start placing The Advocate, unopened, at her spot on the breakfast table and focus on my pursuit of equal justice under the U.S. preamble.

Bipartisanship on mendacity leaves woe to be reckoned with (Melinda Deslate) (https://www.apnews.com/c51755f2b51e4ca497367c5185906edb)

“The push for a constitutional change ending Louisiana’s use of [impartial] juries to convict people of serious felony crimes demonstrates that . . . bipartisanship may be . . . still possible. And voters [scrapped an impartiality] provision dating from the era of racial segregation.”

This is only one of many lies that were used to create this travesty against the people of Louisiana and of the U.S. The U.S. Constitutional requirement that states provide impartial juries rather than jury absolutism dates from 1774, the era of slavery. However, that data point in unreliability of The Advocate personnel’s reporting as civic fellow citizens is in the past, and the work to provide a jury of peers who collaborate for statutory justice and to restore the impartial unanimous-majority verdict may begin.

This post now repeats what I prepared for The Advocate’s Our Views, Nov. 12, which was not put online yet.

Artful arrogance (James Gill) (https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/opinion/james_gill/article_b1fa074a-e42e-11e8-96cf-63a830e1adec.html)

Gill writes for the press in artful arrogance that leaves the reader bemused with a combination of perhaps mendacity, ignorance, and 800-year political correctness. Gill’s craft, whatever it is, works because readers are too busy living to check the innuendos and discover the omissions.

Here are some perspectives.

British social morality since Magna Carta is constitutional, Chapter XI (The Prince) Machiavellian tyranny that was imposed on British colonies. The U.S. has just begun to experience the extreme evil of mimicking Blackstone with constitutional Canterbury partnership. Reform is slow. Also, the independent U.S. only existed for nine months 230 years ago. Establishing independence from the consequences of British colonialism is our generation’s opportunity.

British jury absolutism (12:0 opinion) is politicized as “beyond a shadow of doubt,” a nine-step judicial process leading to jury trial. Absolutism is lobbied as “unanimous” opinion about guilt but applies to innocence as well. But jurors can only form an opinion on the performances of the prosecution and the defense. Jurors are diversely ignorant about the law. Gill artfully references the folly of unanimous ignorance---absolutism by the blind. Most jurors do not understand the judicial process, but good grief! Many jurors oppose justice!

Absolutism as unanimous ignorance is no surrogate for U.S. Amendment VI’s directive to states to provide impartial juries. Louisiana’s 1879 brilliant provision of the impartial 9:3 unanimous-majority verdict is a gift to the world. It has been mimicked by many other former British colonial nations, and England, in 1967 adopted 10:2 unanimous-majority verdicts to replace absolutism in 1967.

Just as there are emotional racists among us, there were passionate racists in the past. However, the unanimous-majority verdict emerged from 1774 rebellion against British colonial classism, the 1787 U.S. Constitution, the 1791 Amendment VI, Louisiana’s 1879 unanimous-majority verdict, and U.S. Supreme Court affirmation in Johnson v Louisiana (1972). Like everything else, it came through Jim Crow decades but was not of Jim Crow.

Gill insinuates that AG Jeff Landry withdrew opposition, and other writers for The Advocate so asserted. However, the word from Landry’s office was that his opposition never changed. It would not surprise me to learn that a lawsuit is being developed based on both Amendment VI and U.S. Amendment XIV.1. XIV.1 speaks to me that a state cannot impose injustice on the people therein. The fact that 48 states tolerate the injustice of obsolete jury absolutism does not exonerate a state that stops providing impartial juries.

The national organizers who pushed jury absolutism persuaded some people that they’d want personal conviction beyond reasonable doubt---in other words, if he or she were on trial and innocent. However, absolutism may hang acquittal just as certainly as it may hang conviction. And thinking like a criminal embraces the belief that crime pays.

CONTINUED

CONTINUATION

There is no way Phil Beaver could get a fair trial:  Too many fellow citizens hate justice! Most people have never thought about “equal justice under law.” A jury of my peers---people who want equal justice under the agreement that is offered in the U.S. preamble---cannot be obtained in the U.S.! The jury system does not now allow it. Reform is needed.

Black fellow citizens suffer more under jury absolutism. FBI data for the nation (48 states with jury absolutism) show that black fellow citizens are 700% disproportionally harmed by states’ failures to provide 9:3 or better unanimous-majority verdicts. Blacks tend to harm blacks 120% more frequently than whites harm whites.

Finally, jury absolutism increases in two ways the human loss and misery that results from crime. First, it increases hung juries, by The Advocate personnel’s statistics, by 40%. With 500 trials per year, that means a future with 200 jury dismissals and judicial-system preparations for a second trial. Second, with the chances of one bigoted or criminal juror being seated, actual criminals will have less incentive to admit the crime and accept a lesser sentence than the jury trial might produce (plea bargain).

It would not surprise me to observe multiplication of judicial-system costs in Louisiana by 200% or more. We the People of the United States needs the benchmark data on which to monitor the cost developments so that other states may reform to do away with jury absolutism. I commend the responsible auditor to gather that data.

Meanwhile, I commend the Louisiana Legislature:  Now that the Jim Crow sentiment has been set aside, begin the work to restore Louisiana’s impartial unanimous-majority felony verdicts, perhaps at 7:5 for minor crime up to 11:1 for aggravated murder. Additionally, I commend the Great State of Louisiana to initiate the provision that a fellow citizen must declare and demonstrate trust-in and commitment to equal justice under law as a qualification to serve on a jury.

For example, someone who does not believe in DNA science should not be allowed among a jury of peers. In judicial failures like seating a DNA denier the impartial majority jurors are victimized by the lawyers and the judge who conduct the trial and the system that pays them for injustice.

Careful consideration of words and phrases writers-for-the-press publish can help discover mendacities arising from either intentions or ignorance of the writer and publisher. The reader need not evaluate the writer’s mind or shy from the reader’s hard-earned opinion. After all, a reader cannot produce the-objective-truth on his or her own. Civic integrity or not comes only from fellow citizens.

To Suddy Leblanc: Not only that, there's no justice in either hung juries or fewer plea bargains. Only the judges and lawyers and other judicial workers win. All the other victims, including the criminal's family, lose.

Other fora

https://www.quora.com/If-you-believe-LGBTQ-people-do-not-deserve-equal-rights-what-is-your-reasoning (commentary)

Alex Johnston

 ‘I think LGBTQ people have equal rights. In other words, the idea that they do not have equal rights is an intellectual construct.’

So, if you think it, it’s true, but if someone else thinks the opposite, it’s an ‘intellectual construct’?

I have some news for you: if you have a thought, it’s an intellectual construct.

Furthermore, ‘the basis of human life is the ovum that may be fertilized by a spermatozoon’ doesn’t really mean anything. You could equally well argue that the basis of human life is the spermatozoon, without which the ovum cannot be fertilised.

None of what you go on to say has any bearing on LGBTQ sexualities. LGBTQ people are just as capable of bearing children and raising them in a loving family as anyone else, and the idea that heterosexual families are intrinsically more stable and secure and capable of love is both factually incorrect and profoundly offensive.

Phil Beaver

There are two parts to responses on Qu0ra: presentation of the expression and the choice to exhort the reader. I try to avoid the second activity and regret it if I err.

I chose to answer Wasserberg’s baited question because my quest for understanding has reached the conclusion that adult conduct that lessens the dignity and equality of an ovum ought to be considered. For example, the mom ought to take care of her body and the relationships she forms that might lead to the conception of a person. It does not follow that spermatozoa should be abused.

I began with the claim that LGBTQ people have equal rights and tacitly assert that they also have responsibilities. I did not exhort LGBTQ people to adopt my opinion.

People all the time look for excuses to become aggressive about another person’s opinion. My approach is to look for a standard rather than dominant opinion and think physics and its progeny biology and psychology offer the common ground. If I knew the-objective-truth, there might be grounds for offense.

I think someone who takes profound offense when none was offered is mistaken.

https://www.lawliberty.org/2018/11/15/trade-nations-and-war-in-an-enlightened-age/

Samuel Gregg’s scholarship is indeed useful, and I think it could be enhanced with modern views of 300-year-old terms and perhaps some newer ones. Most importantly, Albert Einstein’s 77 year old thoughts may be used to collaborate to enrich Hutcheson’ 271 year old thoughts.

“Hutcheson, Hume and Smith . . . approach to international relations is marked by an attention to principle and deep realism about human nature.”

The terms “deep realism” and “nature” may give way to the-objective-truth and physics, the object of study rather than the study. With these two concepts, scholars may collaborate to discover rather than compete for dominant opinion. And physics in my interpretation of Einstein’s 1941 speech, “The Laws of Science and the Laws of Ethics”; online within https://samharris.org/my-friend-einstein/. In my interpretation of Einstein’s language-for-the-audience, civic people don’t lie to each other so as to minimize the misery and loss from error that the laws of physics ineluctably deliver. 

“Francis Hutcheson examined questions of international order in the last chapters of his Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria . . . in terms of sovereign-states interacting with each other according to natural law principles. He also praised people’s willingness to die for their country.”

“Hume explored . . . a balance of power between nations . . . for a relatively peaceful world. Hume held there would always be war-like conflicts between nations because people were imperfect.”

Perhaps he overlooked trader-regulated trade as a means of reducing mendacity and for balancing national powers.

“In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith didn’t argue that our sympathy for others stopped at borders. Though Smith was no jingoist, he regarded fighting and dying for one’s country as deeply honorable. The patriot who does so acted, Smith comments, “with the most exact propriety.”

“Smith agreed with Hume that conflict was part of the human condition. There was no reason to imagine that international relations could be immunized from this reality. Trade could ameliorate international tensions associated with cultural and religious differences, but it wasn’t going to lead to a Kantian perpetual peace.”

“As Western countries debate free trade and the nation-state’s saliency today, such insights are surely worth pondering.” However, the discussion cannot be confined to words and phrases that are hundreds of years old and specific to Western European history.

Every human being has the potential to develop the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (IPEA) to either develop civic integrity or to discover and nourish infidelity. Humans who are aware of IPEA recognize that most people do not use IPEA to develop civic integrity; some humans think crime pays. Therefore there is a need to equalize justice under statutory law.

Most cultures do not coach and encourage citizens to consider and agree to statutory law. For example, most U.S. citizens don’t view the preamble to the U.S. Constitution as the civic, civil, and legal agreement by which civic citizens collaborate to discover and practice statutory justice. Therefore, the world’s perhaps greatest political statement lies fallow.

Just as a person cannot consign his or her IPEA, a nation cannot ignore its IPEA. Just as an individual may agree to equal justice under law, nations may do as individuals do. However, just as U.S. citizens are free to ignore the agreement that is offered in the preamble, nations may be dissidents to any international agreement. And much as the dissident citizen may suffer statutory justice, the dissident nation may suffer war.

The key phrases in this comment--- the-objective-truth and physics (the object of study); collaborate to discover rather than compete for dominant opinion; justice under statutory law; the preamble to the U.S. Constitution as the civic, civil, and legal agreement; U.S. citizens are free to ignore the agreement [but] may suffer statutory justice---may be used to develop a theory for an achievable, better, not too distant future.

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=jt%20mcquitty; Nov 13, 10:16 AM, my comment

Confucius' thought "When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom” seems like thought censorship to me.

Consider the question, "If we are developing integrity is ethics useful?"

To civically preserve freedom, we take our discussion to Merriam-Webster online and find that "integrity" is an adherence, a condition, or a state. Thus, our group may divide three ways, unless some limit their view to comport to the group.

And "ethics" is discipline, principles, or issues. Together the degrees of freedom is nine. Thus, the discussion must limit eight options in order to preserve a freedom.

Moving past MW and perhaps Confucius, Stephen L. Carter authored a book, Integrity; https://books.google.com/books/about/Integrity.html?id=YEWxs1e2Et4C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false.

I think the answer to my question is: the discipline of ethics yields to the adherence to integrity. Of the nine combinations of endeavor, there is one route to goodness: practicing integrity. Fixing principles and specific definitions as integrity (the state) develops may stymie future discovery.

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Who-has-a-bad-influence-on-society-today?

I comprehend “humankind” but do not understand “society” in this context outside intentions to impose an opinion on humankind.

Some people who are of adult age both 1) either have not discovered that human beings work and collaborate for equal justice under statutory law (2400 year old Athenian idea) or think dependency or crime pays and 2) demand “human” rights.

Freeloaders and criminals prevent humankind’s mutual, comprehensive safety and security.

https://www.quora.com/How-should-we-vote-According-to-personal-advantage-or-with-the-intention-of-improving-things-for-society-in-general?

The Question: “How should we vote? According to personal advantage, or with the intention of improving things for society in general?”

An individual may always vote for personal happiness with civic integrity.

Civic integrity is the practice discovering whether a concern is actually real or not, discovering how to benefit from actual reality, behaving that way, sharing the behavior with fellow citizens so as to LISTEN to them for possible improvements on which to collaborate for better behavior, and being open-minded when a modifying discovery occurs.

These principles come first from a view of an Athenian Greek rule: equal justice under law, and second from the tacit agreement that is offered willing citizens under the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Dissidents are still fellow citizens but may suffer civic, civil, or even legal constraint. People who allow institutions or political activists rule their vote often enslave themselves.

A well-grounded vote for personal advantage with civic integrity helps all fellow citizens.

https://www.lawliberty.org/2018/11/12/bores-and-bullies-pursuing-conformity-and-power/

Dr. Dalrymple what’s boring and lame is people trying to gain an advantage over each other by invoking God, whatever that is---phantasm or mystery. Belief in God or a god is a private, adult practice rather than civic integrity. Each individual having inalienable authority, no human will collaborate about his or her god or none.

When I believed a god, I discovered I was trying to shape people’s interpretations of a common literature to impose on myself something I “knew.” I never witnessed two believers collaborating to improve their individual god or to discover God. They always talked beyond each other about an unshared topic with a common label. Then I observed that their gods failed them. I decided to stop turning my back on actual reality.

I began to trust-in and commit-to the-objective-truth, whatever it may be. I don’t know, and it is essential to admit that I don’t know. Otherwise, I am trying to force my belief on what-is. Yet, for all I know, when my body, mind, and person stop functioning, my being will face Jesus’ judgment. In other words, I am prepared for an event I doubt will happen. I don’t want anyone to do as I do. Let each person decide for themselves and be glad and collaborate for mutual, comprehensive safety and security.

Everywhere I go and every person I meet I appreciate for the potential to collaborate for civic integrity. I hope for the best. When someone gives me an ultimatum I accept it and hope for future reconciliation.

I neither question your belief in God nor want you to follow me but am impressed neither by your absolutes nor your lords like Chesterton. I think you cite God to feel a public power when you could be comfortable and confident in privacy.

There is no civic integrity in demanding a product a vendor does not want to supply, even if there are no other shops available. However, civic integrity collaboration about gods.

Putting this another way, if individuals want equal justice under law, they cannot impose their gods, and citing God does not add authority to the imposition.

To QET: Civic integrity is a practice: recognize a personal concern, or imposed fear, or wonder; discover whether the object of interest addresses either the-objective-truth, a human construct, or a mirage; understand how actual reality invokes interest and how to benefit from the understanding; behave accordingly; share with fellow citizens the behavior then LISTEN to their responses for any opportunity to collaborate for mutual improvement; be alert for the need to change, for example, upon new discovery.

The shared basis is the-objective-truth. In scholarly articles about “truth” there’s never a resolution of the debate between nature and reason; science and religion; earth and heaven; evolution and God; my truth and yours. However, there exists an actual reality respecting every query, and whatever it is in each case is the-objective-truth (with the two hyphens to keep the phrase whole). The-objective-truth exists and can only be discovered. For example, there may be an entity that controls the unfolding of the universe, but humankind has not yet discovered whether it’s a god, God, physics (the object of scientific study), or chaos.

Scholars fail to admit to the-objective-truth so they may construct gods by which they may either control other people or pretend they establish better opinion. The-objective-truth does not respond to beliefs, convictions, or opinion, and I covered that point in my earlier post with reference to Jesus’ judgement.

By collaborating to discover the-objective-truth (and agree we do not know when discovery is stymied as in the disproof of God), we may collaborate for mutual, comprehensive safety and security, and every responsible spiritualism, inspiration, or motivation may be pursued in privacy.

To Nancy and N.D.:  "The erroneous notion that private morality and public morality can serve in opposition to one another and are not complementary, has led to grievous error in both Faith and reason."

The-objective-truth yields to no human construction whether the basis is "Faith" or reason. The-objective-truth is not unlike a hurricane: it's best to discover the hurricane, know how to benefit from the discovery, and behave accordingly.

The evil of institutional religion is that its priests construct, preach, and maintain the institution in order to abuse believers. However, believers always reason that the institution will save them because it answers to the believer's god. This was explained by Machiavelli in The Prince, Chapter XI; http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince11.htm.

The believer's warning against Chapter XI Machiavellianism is strengthened when the reader actually ponders the meaning of the-objective-truth. Most readers erroneously convert it to "objective truth" or "Phil's truth" and thus neglect their chance to understand the phrase and either prove it wrong, offer something better, or stonewall the-objective-truth.

When someone trusts-in and commits-to the-objective-truth, they are, perhaps for the first time, allowing God, if God exists, the chance to influence them rather than publically insisting that by Faith and reason their mind defines God. Perhaps for the first time she or he may be able to collaborate for mutual, comprehensive safety and security with a fellow citizen whose God is not her or his God.

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.