Civic kinship: developing equity under statutory justice

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: “Willing citizens collaborate, communicate, and connect to provide 5 public institutions—integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity—so as to encourage responsible human liberty to living people.” I want to collaborate with the other citizens on this paraphrase and theirs yet 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. Equity 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

Civic kinship: developing equity under statutory justice---an impossible perfection but worthy goal that is practiced in the USA.

As civic citizens, we may influence our chosen societies, associations, and other groups to collaborate, communicate, and connect for mutual, comprehensive safety and security.

Thereby, identity politicians will find themselves isolated apart, and it won’t take long.

Columns

Taking exception to the proverb (Christopher Simon) (http://tur.stparchive.com/Archive/TUR/TUR03052018p02.php)

Just as we must earn the opportunity to pay for our food rather than thank a bureaucrat for his or her choice for us, we must work for responsible human liberty. Responsible liberty requires the public provision of Unity, Justice, Tranquility, defense, and Welfare (according to the U.S. preamble).

To individually secure liberty, the responsible citizen must collaborate, communicate, and connect with fellow citizens---must talk then listen or vise-versa. And how can one discern the fool without the mirror a fellow-citizen may share?

The fool is still a fellow citizen and when most people accept the U.S. preamble’s proposition, dissidents have examples that may inspire them to reform. Even the identity politicians such as factional Protestants and factional Catholics may reform.  It is past time to stop publishing bad advice.

Quora

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-important-difference-between-kinship-in-traditional-societies-and-kinship-in-industrial-and-postindustrial-societies?

I do not advocate “social science” but read a couple summaries of the key terms. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_society, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_society, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-industrial_society to learn scholarly authorities on each topic. Next in your concern is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinship. Let me add https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_justice_under_law.

About 2500 years ago, Pericles informed humankind that (in my interpretation) individuals may collaborate, communicate, and connect for equity under statutory law. To do so, the human must accept the individual power, energy, and authority (HIPEA) to develop either integrity to the-objective-truth or infidelity. For example, one may develop banal appetites as Caligula reportedly did. The-objective-truth exists and is discovered on ineluctable evidence. For example, it seems the world is like a globe not a disk.

The cultures developed in geopolitical work to survive, and three features seem essential to flourish: integrity, peace, and strength. These three cultural characteristics may be summarized as fidelity to the-objective-truth. Such fidelity drove agrarian tribalism to industrialism to knowledge predominance. Knowledge has reached the point that world war could end civilization.

I think we are entering the age of mutual, comprehensive safety and security, an age of responsible human liberty. The requirements for individual participation might be imagined by viewing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as obligations to the human self.

Fidelity to the-objective-truth is not unlike the four cardinal virtues: prudence, courage, temperance, and justice. And discovering the-objective-truth is a noble object of the 3 moral virtues: faith, hope, and charity. The mystery of whatever-God-is need not interfere with these 7 individual practices. It seems clear that the seven practices are left to the individual, and his or her geopolitical collectives.

The commitment to fidelity to the-objective-truth seems expressed in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, hereafter the U.S. preamble. It proposes public collaboration for Union, Justice, Tranquility, defense, and Welfare in order to encourage responsible human liberty. Religion and philosophy are neither positives nor negatives. Thereby, the ultimate achievement of posterity is not limited to an identity politics, a modern form of exclusion of those who do not share an opinion.

I encourage everyone, including U.S. citizens and aspiring citizens to interpret the U.S. preamble’s proposition so as to prepare to collaborate, communicate, and connect with fellow citizens under the agreement for equity under the rule of law. What remains is discovery of the standards for justice.

Those who connect under the-objective-truth have human kinship and the others have dissidence to mutual, comprehensive safety and security and perhaps fidelity to the-objective-truth, which I often don’t know.

This is not to imply that the world must adopt the U.S. preamble’s proposition. There remains the need for innovation so that the ultimate fidelity to the-objective-truth may be approached. Again, I think we are in that process as I write:  We live in the best of times, not thanks to social democracy. Humans need conservatism to the-objective-truth.

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/What-is-a-civic-delegation?

In terms of municipalities, a civic delegation may be a group of citizens from one city that attends a state, national, or global conference to share ideas for solving municipal problems, like sewage, response to climate cycles and such.

In my work, “civic” refers to people collaborating for responsible human liberty. A conference would focus on people more than municipalities. A particular conference might address municipal problem solving but would focus on what civic citizens can and should do, including how to involve dissident citizens.

https://www.quora.com/What-we-do-or-our-behaviour-is-mainly-actions-imposed-by-our-society-isnt-it?

The person whose behavior is controlled by his or her human contacts suffers the ultimate misery. The societies, associations, and groups of the world are divided and in conflict, violence, and war. That unfortunate condition does not have to remain predominant and perhaps could end. But I doubt the last possibility, because statistically it seems there will always be some psychological extremes.

Here are a few suggestions for an immediate better future for the individual. With many individuals practicing these ideas, the collective fellow-citizens of the world may begin to experience an achievable better future.

First, consider that the only valid human behavior is collaboration, communication, and connection for freedom-from oppression so that each individual has the privacy to accept the liberty-to responsible pursue personal happiness with civic integrity. In other words, behave for mutual, comprehensive safety and security more than respond to others’ demands.

Second, accept that each human individual has the power, energy, and authority (HIPEA) to pursue either integrity or infidelity to a standard. The standard for human justice is the-objective-truth, which is the ineluctable evidence on which truth is measured. Integrity is the practice of perceiving a concern, proving that the concern is not a mirage, discovering how to benefit from the discovery (if a mirage, forget about it), behaving according to the discovery, publicly explaining the behavior so as to take advantage of any improvements the listener may offer, and remaining ready to change if new discovery requires change.

Third, neither initiate nor tolerate harm to or from any human or property. Property includes societies, associations, and organizations. Intolerance for harm comes as announcement of opposition by report to the proper authorities (the police or the military) or as strength to oppose physical attack. By applying this suggestion, organizations that perpetrate violence would find it hard to recruit unaware soldiers. That is, only fellow citizens who apply HIPEA for infidelity to the-objective-truth would participate in causing harm.

I hope this helps, even though it is not the whole story and translation may be difficult. There is more on my blog, promotethepreamble.blogspot.com. Especially, search for “Glossary.”

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-biggest-illusion-of-civilized-society?

The Western tradition “consent of the governed” empowers the elites to, partnering with the clergy, pick the people’s pockets and the people neither rebel nor emigrate. Perhaps they think that eventually, whatever-God-is will deliver justice, which is fidelity to the-objective-truth.

Individuals may realize that “consent of the governed” means submission to governors. The individual may also accept that despite beliefs or personal Gods, whatever-God-is makes it plain that freedom-from oppression from governors, whether partnership with the church exists or not, requires responsible human liberty.

With a majority of citizens accepting responsible human liberty, governors may be kept accountable to the civic contract: Willing fellow citizens collaborate, communicate, and connect in order to provide civic integrity.

In the USA, the willing-citizens’ agreement is stated in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution for each citizen to interpret so as to encourage individual happiness with civic integrity . . . or not.

The difficult challenge is persuading the elites that the U.S. preamble’s proposition (or better if possible) under the-objective-truth offers them an achievable, individual better future. Anyone who is suffering from infidelity can witness to the wish for another chance. Everyone can benefit by observing the fruits of infidelity, without personally experiencing them.

The flight to human integrity under the-objective-truth as civic, civil, and legal standard could accelerate any day now. We certainly do not want to go back to before---to institutional religious tradition.


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.