Arbitrarily interfering in civic expression

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 interpretation of its proposal as follows: “We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living fellow citizens and future citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.” I want to improve my interpretation by listening to other citizens and their interpretations yet would preserve the original, 1787, text, unless it is amended by the people.

It seems the Supreme Court occasionally refers to it, and 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

Arbitrarily interfering in civic expression

Suddenly in April 2020, I became acutely alert to the public harm of a long standing legal pocket-picking by the media owners. A civic discussion provider gathers subscribers under rules, reportedly for civic/civil expressions. Customers ask questions for no charge and other subscribers offer suggestions for his/her consideration. Since the questions and answers are published, copyright is not a concern unless someone arbitrarily makes it an issue.

Suddenly, provider removes a response and the responder is accused of vague copyright issues and challenged to produce a record of when the idea was published before. The provider has intervened in the dialogue between questioner and responder without evidence of plagiarism. I will always use my old ideas in new concerns and rely on my blog to journal my development of integrity. In other words, I will freely share my ideas. I am pleased to stop writing on a particular site (because it allows me the time to write elsewhere) but am not pleased to be prevented from responding about a shared concern for the questioner’s consideration. Obviously, I can respond to fewer questions, to save my time, and I have done so.

In the 1990s I began writing letters to the editor of my hometown newspaper, The Advocate, Baton Rouge. During 2 decades of experience, observation, and some conversation, I experienced and observed the following:

1.    There is no way to civically appeal to the editor’s silence.

2.    My letter might be rejected because the space had been used, trashing the civic concern I addressed.

3.    The Advocate reserves the right to caption letters to the editor and may slant the expression.

4.    The editor may publish a letter to take advantage of error by the writer.

5.    Journalists hold themselves possessing opinion better than opinions of fellow citizens.

6.    Letters to the editor is part of the business plan more than a public service.

7.    Freedom of the press does not imply published freedom of reader expression.

8.    Most press writers and editors do not consider journalism a civic/civil responsibility.

9.    No one has the intentions to journal the path by We the People of the United States toward civic integrity. Under the First Amendment, journalists should take that role, but there are no journalists.

10.  The writer who wants to learn from writing to the editor ought to keep a file of the submissions and rejections. There will be no notes on shared reasons for the rejections.

11.  Given the chance to redress an editor’s civic arrogance, a fellow citizen should do so.

Starting April, 2020, I think I have noticed a new arrogance by internet-media. Some media have civic/civil rules for using their site. Some invite public questions and answers. A person who submits questions or answers or both may suffer arbitrary judgment of expressions. Often there’s more copyright value in the question than in the responses. There may be an avenue for review, but there’s no arbitration. Users, beware.

News

Writers for the press ought to be journaling the path by We the People of the United States toward civic integrity (John Simerman) (https://www.nola.com/news/courts/article_e446e44e-35f3-11ea-8b1c-8705ca5b3db9.html)

I look forward to reviewing the decision.

Much as I regret it, though, I must accept this travesty against responsible human independence. (Liberty is a failure due to some fellow citizens taking it as license, often to draw a fellow-citizen’s blood. When the mob is marching for liberty, I want independence.)

Organized crime won this case against the 6th amendment, which requires impartially rather than unanimity. Maybe after my lifetime the whole country will reform to split verdicts like this 6:3 opinionated outcome: 2/3 is a good target for opinion, and 2/3, like Louisiana's vote, may not touch the-objective-truth.


Columns

U.S. Constitutional facts flawed by judicial preservation of colonial-English-American opinion (The Advocate) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_df64b01c-83de-11ea-963c-7349989ab418.html)

Perhaps with temporal defeat of Louisiana’s U.S. leadership in providing impartial juries, We the People of the United States, as defined in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, may observe the tyranny of the U.S. Supreme Court. Some justices are emotional for originalism, common law, and precedent as they see it. Their precedent selections often oppose the 5 goals and the purpose of the U.S. Preamble. Many justices have no individual interpretation of the preamble and therefore never established personal U.S. integrity.

Also, it is egregious for the Court to accept 1889 instead of 1880 as the date Louisiana enacted prudent 9:3 criminal jury decisions; https://www.wwno.org/post/history-louisianas-non-unanimous-jury-rule. The likely French influence on the 1880 enactment of 9:3 verdicts as a means of providing impartial verdicts was precedent to the inflammatory 1898 Louisiana convention.

It is statistically unlikely with divided inhabitants to select an impartial jury of 12. Most citizens, divided 51:49, do not accept that they 1) are human beings and 2) are obliged to pursue equity under statutory human justice (an unattainable yet worthy perfection of written law).

The Supreme Court accepts 5:4 decisions to maintain judicial preferences for opinionated facts. Sometimes the dissenting opinions lean more toward the-objective-truth. It’s ironic that a majority vote of 6:3 imposes on Louisiana citizens the requirement of unjust unanimity, 12:0, when U.S. Amendment XIV.1 assures them the U.S. will protect citizens in states from, for example, Louisiana Legislative tyranny. The Legislature should not have proposed defeat of Louisiana’s precedent provision of impartial juries by popular vote. Ramos v Louisiana seems a candidate for immediate reversal.

Here’s the history in my view. The England & France period 1689 through 1789 saw 3 bloodletting revolutions ---the English Civil Revolution of 1689, the American independence from England of 1774, and the French Civil Revolution of 1789---all 3 seeking “liberty” as the license to draw political blood. (Yorktown, VA, 1781, was an England vs France battlefield with the Continental Army assisting France.) As license, liberty is a ruinous activity. When the mob aggresses, I want the independence to object if they are not practicing civic, civil, and legal integrity. Nine states ratified the U.S. in 1788.

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, framers (55) debated and signers (39) approved a proposition for disciplined citizens to hold accountable the fellow citizens who serve/exist in each their state and the national governments. Religious pursuits were private rather than civic, civil, or legal duties. Some of the 16 delegates who did not sign objected to “We the People of the United States” rather than the 13 named states as the entity with the responsibility for human independence. Some others would recognize whatever-God-is (Nature’s God to deists or the Trinity to Christians except Unitarians or African-American Christians).

If states beyond the 13 former English colonies joined the U.S., their diverse thinking would strengthen the preamble’s purpose: pursuit of statutory justice in the Union. Louisiana, influenced by Napoleonic code, joined in 1812. Defending my interpretation of the U.S. Preamble is a matter for another essay, but on May 29, 1787, the Delegate Edmund Randolph used “blessings” to mean “advantages” of a Union rather than divine license; “to p[ro]cure to the several States various blessings, of which an isolated situation was i[n]capable.” See https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/farrand-the-records-of-the-federal-convention-of-1787-vol-1. Thus, “blessings” ought not be attributed to whatever-God-is.

The U.S. Preamble proposes the development of statutory justice by the continuum of living citizens, ultimately by posterity’s posterity. Fellow citizens who do not consider citizenship deeply enough to comprehend their personal interpretation of the preamble risk losing the opportunity to enjoy responsible human independence. That especially includes justices and politicians whose agenda is alien to the U.S. Preamble’s proposition. For example, a citizen whose civic, civil, or legal allegiance is dedicated to religion or race or gender is not of We the People of the United States. When the President nominates an originalist for the Supreme Court, it is likely the nominee has a negative if any interpretation of the U.S. Preamble.

Language The Advocate promotes here---common law, precedent, imposition of unanimity as impartiality---covertly favors “originalism” as English law overriding the U.S. Preamble and the legal system proposed in order to sustain its 5 public disciplines for responsible human independence.

Shame on both The Advocate and he U.S. Supreme Court for imposing English precedent to divide U.S. citizens. We’ll see how the 6:3 vote turns out. Because the 3:6 dissenters made their case, I think posterity’s posterity will overrule.


Quora

https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-about-politics-that-causes-such-discord-even-within-families?

First, let me say that I am inspired by your question, Melissa Jackson, and anyone who would stand between your civic concern and my response seems a tyrant. I am writing from my life experiences, observations, and assessment of them as I see it this morning. Some things I write I wrote before but for different purposes and have records of them on my blogs.

To your question:  Unfortunately, past political regimes have taken advantage of the human characteristic of taking integral responsibility for their lives by misguiding people who do not accept being human. “Integral” implies complete integrity rather than mere honesty. Being human involves a nest of acceptances.

Here’s a list of acceptances that come to mind just now, and each one can be unpacked/refuted according to your experiences and observations. Accepting being human requires accepting:

1.    Human individual power, energy, and authority (HIPEA) to develop integrity rather than infidelity to the-literal-truth. When not knowing the-literal-truth, the person admits and claims, “I don’t know.”

2.    Beyond personal authority the human being reserves humility toward whatever-God-is rather than imposes evaluations such as “Nature’s God,” “The Almighty,” the good, love, “The Judge of the World,” and such.

3.    Human dignity and equity begins with the viable ova a fertile woman carries. She has the HIPEA to care for her viable ova, for example, selecting a reliable mate for monogamy for life. Her mate has the HIPEA to be reliable for life.

4.    Together, spouses nourish-family reliability to descendants---to their posterity.

5.    The human individual, by experience and observations, has the opportunity to enter a civic agreement to develop human independence with civic integrity; in other words, individual equity under statutory justice. Developing statutory justice involves encouraging fellow citizens who employ HIPEA to develop infidelity such as crime or tyranny to reform.

6.    In the U.S., a civic agreement that offers the above way of living is proposed in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. It is in the U.S. citizen’s self-interest to earn a personal interpretation of the preamble so as to develop it toward individual happiness with civic integrity among fellow citizens.

7.    Unfortunately, some people observe that life is so challenging that some fellow citizens treat civic integrity by neglect. After some 2-3 million years of evolution, cultures have evolved wherein the few who are willing to govern abuse fellow citizens who prefer being governed to doing the work to hold government agents accountable. Methods of abusing fellow citizens were enumerated by Nicolo Machiavelli in “The Prince,” 1213. The type of abuse conducted by tradition in the U.S. I refer to as Chapter XI Machiavellianism. See https://www.constitution.org/mac/prince11.htm for your own interpretation.

Principles equal or better than these may be developed by the 2020 generation of U.S. citizens. We have this privilege due to neglect by the generations since September 17, 1787. I write to learn, so please comment.

https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-describe-decolonization-in-your-own-words-How-would-you-characterize-it?

To decolonize, a people must each 1) accept being human, 2) agree to independence from the government that colonized them, 3) accept that whatever-God-is seems to have assigned civic integrity to humankind, and 4) propose a system of governance that encourages responsible human independence rather than liberty. Liberty is too often taken as license to damage fellow citizens’ property or kill them. When the masses are taking license I want the independence to effectively object.

Taking the U.S. for example, it seems possible that the land was colonized by the Catholic Church in competition with factional European Protestantism dominated by The Church of England, a reformed Catholic religion. The Christian Churches competed under the doctrine of discovery, ostensibly to benefit God and his son Jesus. Ecclesiastical domination is described in irony by Machiavelli in “The Prince,” and I refer to it as Chapter XI Machiavellianism: https://www.constitution.org/mac/prince11.htm. I work (dream) to change this U.S. practice.

The preamble to the U.S. Constitution proposes 5 public disciplines that do not include religion. When Congress imposed freedom of theism beginning March 4, 1789, they had no authority to do so according to the U.S. Preamble’s 5 public goals to encourage responsible human independence.

The framers and signers had rejected a proposal for daily prayer during the Philadelphia convention and published statutory law that made exclusion of Chapter XI Machiavellianism clear. However, states that ratified the 1787 constitution did so with the stipulation that the First Congress would amend it to include a Bill of Rights. The First Amendment egregiously protects religion, an institution, rather than integrity, a personal and public duty.

Fortunately, Congress did not amend the U.S. Preamble. The perhaps 12 generations since then have neglected the preamble, leaving our generation the privilege of holding U.S. governments---local, state, and national---accountable to whatever-God-is first and We the People of the United States second.

To decolonize the U.S. requires acceptance of the U.S. Preamble’s proposition as posterity’s posterity interprets it.

These are my ideas, and anyone who accuses me of plagiarism needs to present the evidence. Also, I am responding to Damien Webb’s creative question that he directed to me. Anyone who would interfere in that communication is welcome to do so at the expense of my participation in this forum.


https://www.quora.com/What-type-of-achievement-provided-you-the-longest-duration-of-happiness?

Choosing to accept that I am a human being has led to deeper human acceptances.


https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-resolve-a-conflict-when-both-sides-are-right?

Could you be asking a hypothetical question without the hypothesis?

What’s your hypothetical?

Here’s one:  A person with a gun threatens a man who seems vulnerable. The apparently vulnerable man says “One more move toward harming me, and you will die.” The aggressor says “OK, I surrender,” and offers the gun, because he or she is convinced of the man’s strength in defense. So the man was right to show his strength and the potential aggressor was right to accept it.

Here’s another:  A devout person says, “My God will defeat your God in battle.” The second devout person responds, “I doubt it, because both your God and my God conform to whatever-God-is. History shows that in war the side with military strength by numbers and strategy dominate.”

For example, the American Civil War was by white-Christian slave-state inhabitants who thought white-Christian slavery abolitionists were evil and attacked them. Both sides prayed to the same Christian God, but imposed their opinion on the God, with no humility toward whatever-God-is. At the time of the attack, the abolitionists could have discussed their military strength (27 states against 7 states) and cited the mutual commitment to the Union of states in perpetuity. Instead, they chose war. Both sides were wrong to count on their arrogance over whatever-God-is and both sides lost.

Please note, Sun Kim: I have applied many of my thoughts from the past to your creative question.


https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-institution-of-marriage-exist?

Marriage, in my view, is an attempt to resolve the dilemma of male heterophobia.

Through physical and psychological nature (derived from the same source according to my view of Albert Einstein’s obscure expressions about human nature), men and women are mutually attracted and have distinct obligations. The man who acts on physical instincts may fear life-time commitment to the woman who tentatively trusts him and un-civically pursue intimacy anyway. He may suffer heterophobia, the fear of the lifetime self-interest of marriage. The authentic man will not threaten a woman’s viable ovum, even if she is willing.

The fertile woman will produce a potential crowd: about 400 viable ova. Grammar and awareness inform most women and many accept that they have responsibilities to both themselves and their viable ova. Thus, a woman maintains her physical and psychological wellbeing with two motives: self-interest and care for her ova. In that regard, she seeks a mate who will trust-in and commit-to monogamy for life with three motives: self-interest, fidelity to his mate, and fidelity to their children and descendants. Yet, when in her judgement she has found an authentic man, she wants intimacy with him. The couple are reminded of monogamy for life through the marriage ceremony.

Unfortunately, traditional marriage ceremonies focus on sanctity, obscuring integrity. Both bride and groom express vows for reasons other than monogamy for life. Other entrepreneurs create worse immoralities, and I will leave them to the imagination.

My response to Lawson Shepherd’s inspiring question is mine and anyone who would question my sincerity or Shepherd’s intentions in selecting me ought to cite grounds for the aggression.


https://www.quora.com/Noam-Chomsky-stated-We-shouldnt-be-looking-for-heroes-we-should-be-looking-for-good-ideas-Is-Noam-Chomsky-correct?

I think so, and Chomsky should not be chastised for expressing an old idea and not documenting the references.

For example, Plato has Socrates asking if whatever-God-is is acclaimed for justice or if appreciation of justice is sufficient? Of course, that’s only my application of Plato’s claim about Socrates after I benefitted from Albert Einstein’s claim that physics with its family of research comes from the same source as justice. (I think that may be the most accurate way I have stated my application of “science” and “ethics” as I think Einstein used them, so far.)

In another example, few modern scholars consider Agathon to have the better argument in Plato’s “Sympoium.” In my application, again, benefitting from Einstein, I assert that Agathon suggested that a civic citizen neither initiates nor tolerates harm to or from any person or human association.

The civic citizen exercises human individual power, energy, and authority (HIPEA) commensurate with the aggression of the other party. Normally, yes/no is sufficient. I owe neither Plato nor Agathon nor Einstein for my application of their ideas, primarily because they are not obligated to my applications of their ideas.

Likewise, I am not obligated to you, Graham Lindsay for you sharing your question nor need I question its sources or prior presentation. Neither am I obligated to allow quora.com to discourage me from responding with my all in this moment to what I view as your worthy, provocative question.

Anyone who wants to stonewall my work is welcome to do so: A closed door is my opportunity to knock elsewhere. (That’s why I dropped out of religious practice, for example.)


Law professors

https://lawliberty.org/the-honesty-of-originalism/

Borrowing words from Stephen L. Carter, honesty is insufficient: what developers of statutory justice need is integrity.

At stake in civic, civil, and legal discipline is acceptance of both 1) words as they are written and 2) the-literal-truth that has been discovered since the words were written. In integrity, the position an uninformed civic citizen takes is “I don’t know” rather than an opinion with no supporting evidence let alone ineluctable evidence.

In a civic culture, questionable opinion is not defended as tradition. Precedence does not trump ineluctable evidence. For example, everyone knows what “God” means, and few accept that the perhaps humble phrase “whatever-God-is” offers integrity more than honesty.


The system said my comment was automatically approved and posted.

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.

Theists may reserve some humility toward whatever-God-is

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 interpretation of its proposal as follows: “We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living fellow citizens and future citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.” I want to improve my interpretation by listening to other citizens and their interpretations yet would preserve the original, 1787, text, unless it is amended by the people.

It seems the Supreme Court occasionally refers to it, and 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

Theists may reserve some humility toward whatever-God-is

For 4 decades I tried to indoctrinate myself in dear Mom and dear Dad’s Christian religions, unable to perceive that their doctrines were competitive. Initially, I thought my wife’s Christian faith was, after all, Christian, even though I could not adopt it for myself. Finally, I came to realize that the three doctrines were mutually exclusive. I then appreciated each of my 3 children’s faiths, my wife’s faith, discovered my faith in the-literal-truth grounded in the ineluctable evidence. It had been my faith from perhaps age 10, and it was obfuscated by my indoctrination that the Holy Bible is the word of whatever-God-is. Today, I am able to articulate that dilemma, which seems humble.

Now, I appreciate every fellow citizen who behaves for mutual, comprehensive safety and security, and do not question their religion/none. I stand with fellow citizens who consider the civil claim “under God” or “in God we trust” lacking a reserve of humility toward whatever-God-is. Yet I do not know the-literal-truth:  For all I know, my faith in whatever-God-is does not conform to whatever-God-is.


Columns

Discipline of by and for We the People of the United States (Walter Williams) (http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams012920.php3)

Williams has political ideas I support. However, like most scholar readers, he thinks in proprietary babel from 17^th and 18^th century British tradition, thereby helping to repress the American proposition that is expressed in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. The entity We the People of the United States will stay in civic chaos until we demand non-proprietary writing.

For example, Williams, typically, asserted that “the founders’” republic preserves rights granted by “the Great Legislator of the Universe”, then wrote that in both democracies and monarchies “Laws do not represent reason. They represent power.” That is, power to rescind rights granted by whatever-God-is according to a “founder”. The U.S. Constitution’s stated goals are unity, justice, tranquility, defense, and welfare and its purpose is to encourage the advantage of citizenship.

Scholars use “founders” to pretend 1776 constitutional authority. Founder is designated by the writer and could cite a politician who was active from 1763 through 1791. The U.S. Constitution’s May-September, 1787 framers specified a republican form of government. They represented only 12 of 13 former British colonies who self-styled themselves states in 1774. Of the 55 framers, only 39 wanted the Constitution enough to sign it. Congress, in 1791, deemed the 1787 Constitution “godless” and rendered the preamble “secular” with the Bill of Rights.

Whatever-God-is may appreciate neither the label “the Great Legislator of the Universe” nor the person with the hubris to express it. No government should impose theism on its people. The First Amendment needs reform so as to protect humble integrity rather than the hubris of civil theism.

Williams writes “Congress . . . poses the greatest threat to our liberties.” My interpretation of the preamble designates 5 public disciplines to encourage and empower living citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence. The phrase “responsible human liberty” seems tainted by the possibility to take liberty to act with license. Liberty is a 17^th and 18^th century obsession that inspired much bloodletting. When blood may run, I want the independence to reject wrongful liberty.

Nevertheless, I like Williams’ concern:  Each time someone expresses the American proposition as “our democracy” or the like, I try to learn the tyranny the speaker advocates or tolerates so as to object.

Posted at the above URL.

Lobbying for public compromise on mystery rather than ineluctable evidence (Kathryn Goppelt) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_2f27dac2-6165-11e9-bf80-cfcb0843cf8b.html)

The people who commit-to and trust-in mutual, comprehensive safety and security and encourage fellow citizens to join the practice can discourage proprietary language that preserves traditional misguidance.

A humble public expression may be "whatever-God-is" (or somebody's better suggestion). That way, Goppelt, and all other theists would be encouraged to reserve representative humility rather than demand the imposition of their personal God not only on fellow citizens but on whatever-God-is.

A chronological adult who has not considered such reserve has accepted neither being human nor being of We the People of the United States.

In my youth, I thought well of the prayer "under God" I learned at Staub School, Knoxville, TN. However, in my mid-seventies, I cringe every time I hear that phrase. Such hubris invites woe, which the expression "under whatever-God-is" or better might avoid. I stay silent on that and other public ceremony, and would like relief from the imposition.

We could start by amending the Bill of Rights so that it encourages fellow citizens to develop civic integrity, leaving religious pursuits to private choice rather than public imposition.

 Lobbying for public compromise on mystery rather than ineluctable evidence (The Advocate) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_2f27dac2-6165-11e9-bf80-cfcb0843cf8b.html)

The Advocate writes to bemuse the world with the mystery of Christ. Increasingly, because of the Internet, humankind comprehends the ineluctable evidence for the reliability of physics (the objects of research) rather than doctrine (human constructs).

Christianity may admit to physics as the law to which humans must conform for living, while believers develop their hopes for the afterdeath they personally favor. In other words, physics requires Christians to appreciate fellow citizens with non-Christian hopes, such as individually favored re-incarnation rather than everlasting spiritual life or other doctrine, whether afterdeath is involved or not.

The Advocate, intentionally or not, proposes a Christian versus secular dichotomy with non-Christians compromising to accept Christianity’s mystery-doctrine rather than physics’ concrete laws. Physics’ progeny includes human psychology. The Advocate overlooks Christianity’s option to appreciate physics’ ineluctable disciplines for life as well as the mystery of afterdeath; to connect with fellow citizens for life rather than try to impose a particular preference for afterdeath.

The Christians who do not accept, for example, “the difficult conditions of [physical] distancing” are dissidents to the U.S. goals for public disciplines; goals intended to take advantage of responsible human independence under physics’ laws.

The goals and purpose of what may be called The American Dream are stated in the U.S. Preamble, and its essence is infused into many citizens’ genes and memes. In my interpretation, the proposition is:  We the People of the United States encourage 5 public disciplines---unity, justice, tranquility, defense, and welfare---so as to take advantage of responsible human independence. Notably, the proposal features no standards, tacitly stating that “our Posterity” will discover required fidelity to the disciplines. I’d like to consider The Advocate’s interpretation of the people’s proposition for public living that accommodates private hopes.

The U.S. is the consequence of an era of bloodletting from the 1689 English revolution, to the 1774 American Revolution joined by France in their ongoing war against England, and to the 1789 French Revolution with attempted expulsion of Christianity.

In contrast, the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787 proposed three radical changes that only 2/3 of framers would sign. First, the 1774 Confederation of 13 free and independent states, so recognized globally by the 1783 Treaty of Paris, would be terminated by unity among 9 states whose people’s ratifying conventions were positive. Second, the customary eastern-seaboard allegiance to human specifications of whatever-God-is, whether it be “Nature’s God,” the Almighty, the Creator, the Trinity, the One, the Lord, God, love, or majority opinion vs collective opinion was discontinued in the people’s proposition. Each citizens could choose to develop the proposition, abide it, neglect it, or oppose the rule of law at statutory risk. Third, the U.S. would use the 5 disciplines to establish psychological independence from colonial British-American dominance.

The 1/3 of framers with dissidence to the 1787 U.S. Constitution influenced the First Congress to re-establish as many colonial-British traditions as possible. However, instead of The Church of England’s membership in Parliament, Congress would have factional-American-Protestant chaplains at the people’s expense. The 1787 U.S. Constitution became erroneously labeled “godless” and “secular.” It’s been that way since then, and it is the press’s job to journal the progression/regression in the development of the American proposition.

The time for We the People of the United States to establish an American dream under that U.S. Preamble’s proposition and the ineluctable evidence has been ushered in by the Internet’s empowerment of the individual. The value of mystery is beheld-by and used-for the believer who perceives advantage in believing yet encourages fellow citizenship that is inspired and motivated by other private spiritualisms or mysteries.

Readers who are accustomed to my work may note that “to take advantage of responsible human independence” is a recent development in my view of the U.S. Preamble; especially the expression “take advantage of.” Civic integrity is advantageous to the individual and justifies a press that encourages responsible human independence rather than attempts to impose mysteries.

Quora

https://www.quora.com/Is-negative-action-preferable-to-non-action?

As long as the negative action meets Agathon’s rule, negative response is good for many communications, collaborations, and connections toward integrity among fellow citizens. Being human requires civic integrity.

First, let me clarify that “Agathon’s rule” is a phrase I just now used for the first time, prompted by your question. Its use does not empower anyone to claim I am a plagiarist if I use it again without referencing dialogue with George Miller who chose to ask Phil Beaver and who chose to answer on April 18, 2020. In other words, anyone who would make that claim must prove the ineluctable evidence on which the claim is founded. To put it another way, no one can use my future writing about Agathon to require me to reference this first use of the phrase. (I just performed an ngram search, and “Agathon” was found, but not my phrase.) Please forgive the diversion. If you like, list this answer in your hopes to entrap me. Also, for any reason that appeals to them, readers may stonewall my answers. To make myself obvious, quora.com cannot use George Miller’s creative questions to position quora.com to claim Phil Beaver is a plagiarist when he chooses to answer. Public sharing is not that legalistic!

Returning to the topic, Agathon’s rule is my interpretation of Agathon’s speech from Plato’s “Symposium.” The rule is: a civic citizen neither initiates nor tolerates harm to or from any person or human institution. Read Agathon’s speech to see if you can discover bases for my interpretation. Scholars don’t agree with me. “We cannot get much out of this brilliant but empty speech” writes Luc Brisson in https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6266.part-iii-the-symposium-sex-and-gender-10-agathon-pausanias-and-diotima-in-plato-s-symposium-paiderastia-and-philosophia-luc-brisson. 

Agathon’s rule is quite demanding, and the human being who develops the practice is likely to develop civic integrity (justice among fellow citizens) as well as fidelity to the-literal-truth, which is approachable through the-objective-truth. Consider, for example, another Platonic reference, this time to Socrates and a question which I interpret as follows:  Do some people claim to know whatever-God-is because God is justice or is justice sufficient for acclaim?

Now, an institution could claim that anyone who suggests that their doctrinal God may not conform to whatever-God-is has harmed believers. However, the believer receives hope and comfort from his or her personal God and additionally reserving humility seems appreciative toward whatever-God-is. I perceive that whatever-God-is may not condone my trust-in and commitment-to the-literal-truth. Regardless, how the believer uses this psychology is up to the believer.

Addressing the physical, Agathon’s rule demands strength. Whatever physical attack may come, the person maintains the force needed for defense. Hopefully, notice to law enforcement responders will suffice. However, when attack is imminent, defender needs the power to fulfill the promise to the attacker: If you attempt to execute your attack, you will be defeated (perhaps killed). If the attacker is the military, the citizen is without hope.

Only with free expression may fellow citizens encourage each other to develop responsible human independence. People who, for their reasons, isolate themselves by stonewalling fellow citizens have not discovered let alone accepted being human.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-definition-of-happiness-and-does-it-include-having-other-s-in-your-life?

I view happiness as a nest of acceptances: I am a person in a society within a nation of people within humankind; humans have the awareness and grammar by which to develop individual power, individual energy, and individual authority (HIPEA); a human may choose to be a person who develops either integrity or infidelity; the standard of integrity is nested conformance to not knowing, the-objective-truth, or the-literal-truth, respectively; Integrity is the practice of discovering the-objective-truth and inventing new instruments to perceive it until the-literal-truth is discovered or approached; integrity is in the person’s self-interest; and fidelity to self provides happiness no matter what calamities come. Infidelity can lead to reform.

Humankind divides itself into 1) societies that pursue the above principles or better and 2) dissidents. The societies have in common mutual, comprehensive safety and security to members who accept the society. They hope that either their example or statutory justice will motivate dissident fellow citizens to reform.

I own the thoughts I share and the right to share them again and would be happy to address any evidence to the contrary with the party of contention.

https://www.quora.com/Why-would-anyone-think-that-not-all-people-deserve-a-place-in-society/

Thank you. You opened my mind to the validity of “society” as a subset of “humanity.” Society encourages fellow humans to pursue integrity.

It seems to me that people who develop civic integrity, both individually and collectively, have some sort of belief similar to: I can aid human equity under statutory justice. “Human equity” means civic intentions and consequences regardless of spiritual preferences. “Statutory justice” means perfection of written law by deliberate reform of discovered injustice—an approachable if not achievable goal.

Statutory justice cannot be negotiated by the present generation, because it has not yet discovered/accepted the unjust written laws. Therefore, only our descendants can be expected to approach statutory justice.

Perhaps people who do not care about the above principles, intentionally or not, are members of humankind but not of society.

https://www.quora.com/Where-does-the-majority-of-our-society-today-get-its-moral-belief-system?

For Western thinkers, theism fuels the mystery of integrity.

For example, about 90% of U.S. adults believe in God (4% atheists and 5% agnostics reported at Where does the majority of our society today get its moral belief system??) but only 54% attend church several times a year.

Obviously, from humankind’s status, theism does not inspire integrity. Competitors in theism rationalize diverse human doctrine with arrogance toward whatever-God-is. The consequence is babel that prevents human beings from being human.

The human being has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) to develop either integrity or infidelity to the-literal-truth, most of which is unknown. To practice integrity, the human being answers by saying I don’t know when he or she does not know. To the question What is the ineluctable evidence for whatever-God-is? a culture of integrity inculcates the response we don’t know.

The babel surrounding “God” is evidence that whatever-God-is leaves it to humankind to develop human equity under statutory justice. Since every human ovum is unique and every spermatozoon is unique, every single-cell embryo is unique. Gestation, delivery, infant care, rearing, and self-discipline do not reduce a person’s uniqueness: equality due to existence yields to equity based on accomplishments. And equity is discovered by amending statutory law whenever injustice is discovered, so that the perfection of statutory justice may be approached.

About 2,400 years ago, Greeks discussed humankind’s opportunity and suggested, in my interpretation, that humans may develop equity under statutory justice. In another discussion, Socrates asked, in my interpretation, whether whatever-God-is is called God because of justice or is justice erroneously called “God”? If the later, humankind needs a standard of justice, and Albert Einstein suggested, again in my interpretation, that every happening is controlled by the laws of physics and its progeny. If these principles hold, every culture needs a citizens’ proposal for equity under justice.

In the U.S., that agreement is offered to every citizen in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. It is in every citizens’ self-interest to own his or her interpretation of the preamble and share it with others so as to discover possible improvements. My interpretation today is: We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living fellow citizens and future citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.

There’s no theism in the U.S. Preamble. However, there is the suggestion, as I interpret the preamble, that “ourselves and our Posterity” may continually develop human equity under statutory justice, provided the continuum of fellow citizens accepts the preamble’s proposition.

Physics and its progeny are continually discovered as humankind improves instruments of perception. Each theism may either conform to physics, perish from lack of reliability, or continue as an art form much like classical music. In the arts, interest is a matter of private choice.

Revised on 4/15/2020 after reviewing grammar on when to use quotation marks, intending to eliminate any indication that I was using direct quotation of other writers rather than reference to past, un-referenced and controversial/unresolved thought.



Quora cut this answer. I responded:

I am confused by your objections. Writers and publishers in the era of the Internet cite a key origin of an idea the writer earned from many experiences and observations but perceives a general attribution is due. For example, my readers can Google [Greeks+equity under statutory justice] and get 4 million hits including Greek law | ancient Greece. In another example, readers can Google [Albert Einstein + the laws of physics] and get millions of hits and select What Is Relativity? and read “The universality of physics means that history is provincial. Different viewers will see the timing and spacing of events differently. “ I interpret the author’s view of Einstein’s thought to mean that imagination comes from individual perception of the laws physics.

Also, you seem to want me to refer to a previous publication of an idea I present with fresh thinking each day. For example, if you review my http://quora.com entries wherein I share my interpretation of the U.S. Preamble, you will see that it improves as time, even days, go by.

Please consider the fact that you send me individual questions, and I write an original response to that person. I do not cut and paste from other answers. In the past, I have referred some questioners to earlier, related responses, but found that I was not pleased with that response to the creative slant of the new questioner. In other words, part of your creative process is that the answer-er is stimulated to apply his work with color he did not imagine before the question.

I think that by not publishing my answer to this question as it is you are stonewalling the creative human conversation you attempt to facilitate. Let me know if you see my point, by reinstating my answer.

Thank you for allowing me to respond, and I hope you can grant my request.

Sincerely,

Phil Beaver



https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-daily-actions-that-can-influence-your-nations-politics?

Practice the people’s proposition that is offered in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution (the U.S. Preamble), an abstract, 52 word civic, civil, and legal sentence.

First, develop your individual interpretation of the U.S. Preamble. Some considerations follow. First, the phrase “ourselves and our Posterity” applies to the current generation. It is the latest “our Posterity” since 1787 and “ourselves” to the coming generation. Second, the 5 public goals are self-disciplines rather than governances of the wiling. Third, accepting the public disciplines secures advantageous independence. Fourth, no standards of accomplishment are cited, which implies that “our Posterity” will discover the integrity needed to achieve the goals. I hope these ideas will encourage you to explore the U.S. Preamble’s proposition.

I share my current interpretation of the U.S. Preamble hoping you will suggest improvements:  We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living fellow citizens and future citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.

Note that spirituality/religion is included in neither my interpretation nor the original U.S. Preamble. I think that is a tacit statement that these are private choices rather than civic, civil, or legal duties. In other words, it is a tacit expression of humility toward spirituality or whatever-God-is. Civic fellow citizens do not question each other’s motivations and inspirations. Believers do not present their personal Gods for public evaluation. Especially if the authors’ intended to assign religion to privacy, the U.S. Preamble is not a secular sentence.

It seems to me our posterity will conclude that accepting the laws of physics and its progeny including psychology measure human success for living regardless of privately chosen spirituality or religion.

Perhaps the spiritual message is that while it is understandable that responsible human independence may include hopes for favored personal afterdeath, a mystery, it is prudent to reserve humility toward other fellow citizens’ views of whatever-God-is.

I hope you will share your interpretation of the U.S. Preamble.

https://www.quora.com/To-be-a-leader-do-you-have-to-have-an-answer-for-everything?

Yes.

And the most prevalent answer when you don’t know is “I don’t know.”

If you have pondered the question, and need to answer further, it is alright follow with “I have given up knowing until I discover more evidence. My thoughts with what I know are . . . “

If action seems required without knowledge, you must have the strength to survive the consequences of your action. For example, if a hurricane-threat has caused an evacuation order, you must have a full tank of gas, some survival food and water, and a destination.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-conflicts-resist-resolution?

The customary posture in conflict is to maneuver the other party into compromise. Each human has individual power, energy, and authority (HIPEA) to develop integrity. However, most cultures influence citizens to seek higher authority---either whatever-God-is or government or the partnership of the two.

While the individual is in charge of his or her development of integrity, infidelities to the-literal-truth are human, and the quest for higher power exacerbates the internal conflicts the individual tolerates.

Only by accepting personal humanity, HIPEA, and the choice to develop integrity can an individual overcome his or her internal conflicts. No culture I know of teaches these principles and therefore, most humans suffer internal conflict.

Two parties who suffer internal conflict, as most humans now suffer, are not likely to resolve connective conflicts. The more people accept being human, HIPEA, and integrity, the more achievable our better future will be.

https://www.quora.com/As-a-country-we-should-listen-to-all-view-points-equally-doesnt-matter-what-opinion-Do-you-agree-or-not-and-why?

Civic listening is an iterative collaboration. One party expresses a civic concern with well-grounded remedy and the other 1) listens to the concern, 2) clarifies with speaker words and phrases that seem contrary to listener’s opinion, and 3) responds either with sincere agreement or a well-grounded alternative to the concern or the remedy or both. If the latter, the listener has become speaker and vice versa. The conversation may consider until both parties have established a concern and remedy that accommodates each of their lives.

Both party’s commit to human equity under statutory justice, and thus, injustices in statutory law are valid concerns. Since perhaps nobody’s personal God conforms to whatever-God-is, neither party asks the other to evaluate his or her personal God. If either party stonewall’s the conversation, the other party must graciously withdraw and wait for a better occasion.

I like a friend’s gracious withdrawal. For example, if someone says, “You are a racist.” My friend is likely to respond, “Are you certain?” Without well-grounded evidence, the other party retreats.

https://www.quora.com/How-important-is-it-for-people-in-your-society-to-retain-a-sense-of-tradition?

I don’t like the word “society,” because it represents a civilization that may be bad. In fact, I do not see a way to respond to your question and will answer a modification: How important is tradition in picking the people’s pockets in your country?

The citizens’ proposition for developing human equity under statutory justice in the U.S. is the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. It is a proposition to develop and maintain 5 public disciplines so as to encourage responsible human independence to living and future citizens.

However, the First Congress, authorized by an agreement to amend the 1787 Constitution, re-established many colonial British-American traditions that were developed in the 13 eastern-seaboard states of the 1774 Confederation. The most egregious tradition is The Church of England’s constitutional seats in Parliament, to which the colonists were loyal until 1763. Congress established their “piety” on par with Parliament’s “divinity” by hiring factional-Protestant American chaplains at the people’s expense. It’s been that way ever since, but reform can come any day now.

America speaks of “freedom of religion” but maintains Chapter XI Machiavellianism inherited from England, falsely labeling the U.S. Preamble “secular” when it assigns spiritualism/religion to privacy rather than to civic, civil, or legal imposition.

Once most Americans accept separation of church from state as responsible human independence, establishment of the U.S. Preamble’s proposition may prevail over British tradition dating from Magna Carta. This reform can happen overnight by revising the First Amendment to encourage civic integrity rather than religious mystery.

The cost of religious civil tradition in the U.S. is staggering, and the benefits accrue to judges, lawyers, and politicians far more than to ministers. Ministers less, because believers pay for their services under separation of church and state.

https://www.quora.com/How-far-should-countries-have-relations-with-others-whose-human-rights-record-is-poor?

An idea that the Greeks commented on 2,400 years ago is that, in my 2020 interpretation, humans may develop equity under statutory law. Statutory law is the perfection of written law enforcement, which may be approached by amending to comport to ineluctable evidence laws which are unjust. In a nation of people, most fellow citizens will behave for equity under statutory justice, but there will always be fellow citizens who, for their reasons, are dissidents.

Equitable citizens encourage dissidents to reform and, to do so, must consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect with them. Encouragement is by example, exhortation, coercion, or force, depending upon consequences of the dissidence. The dissident remains a fellow citizen unless force equates to termination.

Countries may also develop equity under statutory justice and may similarly encourage each other.

https://www.quora.com/To-what-extent-should-income-equality-be-a-goal-in-your-society?

Income equality should not be a goal, because every human being is unique and has the opportunity to develop either integrity or infidelity and to change preferences during his or her journey through life.

A civic culture (one that develops statutory justice) will establish and maintain an economic system that 1) encourages responsible human independence, 2) pays a human-living wage including saving for retirement for every wanted job function, and 3) provides for fellow citizens who would but cannot now be independent.

https://www.quora.com/Is-responsibility-taught-or-is-it-learned?

I think responsibility can be encouraged, coached, and exemplified but can only be affirmed by individual experience and observations.

A culture could coach and encourage their young in a nest of acceptances:  being a unique human being (thus, equality is not expected); having human individual power, energy, and authority (HIPEA); having the choice to use HIPEA to develop either integrity or infidelity; that the standard of integrity is the-literal-truth, which may be approached by continual improvement of instruments for perception of the ineluctable evidence; that regardless of the labels humans may assign it, no one represents whatever-God-is; that the present generation has no idea the challenges the coming generation will face and therefore cannot “train” them for it; and that neither whatever-God-is nor government can usurp the individual’s HIPEA.

If the young are trained in these principles and better, chances are good for their individual experiences and observations to lead them to the conclusion that responsible human independence is in their self-interest. If so, it is possible for more citizens to approach their individual perfection: developing human equity under statutory justice.

Law professors

ttps://lawliberty.org/book-review/natural-law-and-history/

McAleer illustrates that mountains of scholarship uses classical thinking to avoid acceptance of self-evident viewpoints if not the-literal-truth.

McAleer compares two premises of human responsibility.

Bringing Albert Einstein’s suggestions into the debate, the second premise is that humankind pursues comprehension of physics and its progeny based on discovery without speculation. In this regard, “science” is the research process and physics et.al. is the object.

But first, interpreting Carey, McAleer states, “The goods to be pursued are self-preservation, procreation, society, and knowledge of God.” With such a general statement, I interpret “God” as “whatever-God-is” to avoid my past hubris in thinking “god” to assert that appreciation but neither worship nor praise is wanted by whatever controls the unfolding of the universe.

McAleer seems to accept “The Christian God” but does not clarify whether that is The Trinity, The ONE, The Father, The Lord, Jesus, or what. Yet he asserts “The gods will have a say, too.” Doctrinal salvation of the soul seems a choice to hope for perceived afterdeath rather than a pursuit for civic, civil, and legal living.

When scholars ignore Einstein, a suggestion seems lost:  Ethics is the journal of discovering the-objective-truth if not the-literal-truth and how to take advantage for human living.

THIS COMMENT WAS IMMEDIATELY REJECTED. PERHAPS I AM BANNED W/O EXPLAINATION. I doubt it, but if so, that’s OK with me:  I’m busy.



https://lawliberty.org/book-review/who-polarized-us/

Phil’s new response after the one below was not published in 2 days:

I appreciate Professor Kaufmann’s excellent review of U.S. angst as Ezra Klein expressed it. After 231 years’ operation, latent polarization seems evident. I also appreciate Klein for motivating Kaufmann’s brilliance to shine. However, we need a proposal for mutual, comprehensive safety and security more than explanation of our angst.



Kaufmann’s conclusion hints at potential for resolution of the dilemma: “Klein . ..  failed to produce the self-examination of progressive sacred values that must occur before an accommodation with conservative America can emerge.” Both sides need to accommodate each other.



British tradition misses the American proposition that is abstractly stated in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution: sacred values are separate from civic, civil, and legal values. Civic citizens reserve religion and spirituality for private choices rather than as civil duties. The preamble proposes 5 public disciplines---Unity, Justice, Tranquility, defense, and Welfare---in order to secure benefits to living and future citizens.



The 1787 U.S. Constitution and its preamble propose separation of church and state by individual citizens rather than by the government. Thereby, Chapter XI Machiavellianism may be defeated; see https://www.constitution.org/mac/prince11.htm.



In my eighth decade, I have always voted as a fiscal conservative. Even in my youth, the preamble’s tacit purpose---responsible human independence---seemed to emerge from its 52 words. At last, I articulate that message and perceive that I live by it.

The rejected version.

This review motivates me to read more Kaufmann.

And, I suggest that the concluding thought can be restated to bring mutual accommodation into our achievable future:  “[T]he self-examination of . . . sacred values . . . must occur before [mutual] accommodation [by progressivism] with conservative America can emerge.”

What about America is worthy of conservation? I suggest that it is the U.S. Preamble’s tacit commitment to standards that only the continuum of “ourselves and our Posterity” can discover: theism does not offer reliable standards. After 232 under theism, it seems self-evident that the laws of justice are identical to the laws of physics and its progeny---mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and imagination about the unknowns.

I suggest that We the People of the United States tacitly maintains appreciation for the-literal-truth that developed during the debates in the 1787 constitutional convention in Philadelphia. For example, Benjamin Franklin’s June 28, 1787 motion for prayer did not receive a second, even though some delegates were ministers. For the first time, American representatives accepted the responsibility for political power:  The people’s representatives cannot consign civil power to either their personal God or whatever-God-is. “The founders” aside, the framers admitted that theism is a private matter rather than a civic, civil, or legal duty and created a constitution that so reflected the-objective-truth; that is, the ineluctable evidence which with improving instruments of perception approaches discovery of the-literal-truth.

Only 2/3 of framers signed the “godless” constitution. Some of the 1/3 dissenters and the 13^th, confederacy-favoring state would negotiate resistance to the 1787 Constitution.

Alas, as a condition to join ratification, representatives of at least 2 of 9 states required the commitment that the First Congress would amend the constitution, especially to include a Bill of Rights similar to the 1689 English Bill of Rights. We’ll never know if 2 of the 4 dissenting states might have rallied ratification of the un-amended 1787 Constitution. However, what we have is the 1791 politically corrected U.S. Constitution complete with restoration of England’s Chapter XI Machiavellianism. The U.S. has the partnership of church and state but by un-constitutional tradition. Yet the tradition is made law by English precedent that represses the goals and purpose stated in the U.S. Preamble.

The latest unfortunate affirmation of that English precedent is in Greece v Galloway, 2014, wherein my objections are labeled niggling. The goals and purpose of the U.S. Preamble infer integrity rather than religion. The dark cloud of “freedom of religion” rather than encouragement of integrity has plagued the U.S. since June 21, 1788. Reform can be accomplished quickly by amending the First Amendment so as to encourage civic, civil, and legal integrity, a public duty, rather than religious spirituality, a private choice.

The fallacies of progressivism can be resolved with the-objective-truth based on ineluctable evidence, which does not respond to either religion or reason. Conservatism cannot defy whatever-God-is. Responsible human independence is intolerant of either religion or fairness as substitute for justice.


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.

Taking advantage of responsible human independence

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 interpretation of its proposal as follows: “We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living fellow citizens and future citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.” I want to improve my interpretation by listening to other citizens and their interpretations yet would preserve the original, 1787, text, unless it is amended by the people.

It seems the Supreme Court occasionally refers to it, and 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

Taking advantage of responsible human independence

After 2 decades writing, speaking, meeting, and LISTENING, I am approaching an interpretation of the U.S. Preamble I want to share so that fellow citizens may kindly improve it:  We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines---integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity---so as to encourage both living fellow citizens and future citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.

I think taking advantage of public discipline so as to empower responsible human independence is the American dream that emerged from the 1787 Constitutional Convention. This American dream was abstractly captured in 52 words by the Committee of Style working from September 8 until September 12, 1787. The preamble’s civic, civil, and legal power is a wonder, and every citizens should own his or her individual interpretation by which to order his or her civic life while privately pursuing the spiritual afterdeath each prefers.

Once a supermajority of citizens own a personal interpretation of the U.S. Preamble, We the People of the United States will hold politicians accountable to their published interpretations.

News

Dissidence to equity under the literal truth (Sam Karlin) (https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/coronavirus/article_ec7691d8-7b5c-11ea-becd-132e7ab42c80.html)

While Jerome Adams, Surgeon General of the United States, is urging fellow citizens not to practice community habits he grew up with, because they invite serious illness if combined with COVID-19, Governor John Bel Edwards seems race-baiting again.

I bet the task force will overlook a key variable: frequency of Mardi Gras parade attendance in 2020.



Columns



Was this The Advocate’s last advertising under a religious column? (Christopher Simon) (https://issuu.com/richlandcentershoppingnews/docs/oo0726, Page 6)

Will the column “Love and Belonging” be the last The Advocate will publish? I hope not, because it provides a great opportunity to argue for responsible human independence rather than reliance on spiritual traditions.

The point is, a civic people require separation of church and state and cannot rely on either whatever-God-is or civil government to fulfill the need. Whatever-God-is assigns to humankind the responsibility for statutory justice---the perfection of written law and its enforcement---and government cannot usurp the individual citizen’s civic, civil, and legal opportunity to develop integrity.

Many citizens complain about “political correctness” and “identity politics” without appreciating the American challenge to overcome English traditions. It’s true that the U.S., in the revolutionary war, and with France adding Yorktown, 1781, to its ongoing war with England, established the N. American eastern seaboard physical independence as 13 free states. However, when it came time for the 13 free and independent states to form a nation, England’s constitutional church-state partnership was a dominant tradition.

Even though Benjamin Franklin’s motion to open each session of the secretive 1787 Constitutional Convention with prayer did not receive a second, and even though the preamble to the U.S. Constitution contains no goal or purpose for religion, the First Congress, like adolescent parents who can’t imagine that their children are humans who are owed dignity and equity, imposed the English tradition by hiring factional-American ministers as “Congressional Chaplains.”

We the People of the United States as defined in the preamble have suffered “the Christian thing to do” ever since. Even the Civil War was a slave-state, white-Protestant attack on free-state-white-Protestant abolitionists. See the sentence about religious opinion in the 1860 Declaration of Secession by South Carolina (and the CSA of February, 1861).

Maslow’s hierarchy as viewed from the U.S. Preamble’s proposition for public discipline of by and for the people so as to encourage each citizen to develop responsible human independence becomes a hierarchy of responsibilities: unity, justice, tranquility, defence, and welfare in order to secure the advantages of responsible human independence. Nowhere in the U.S. Preamble is religion or spirituality mentioned, so the proposition is to treat them as private pursuits for citizens who wish to develop other worldly expectations. Since the U.S. Preamble does not accommodate English tradition, the politically correct identity group of 1787-1791 imposed on the U.S. Preamble the false label “secular.” The preamble is neutral to religion as an individual citizen’s private pursuit.

The U.S. Preamble turns “Love and Belonging” to a doctrine into “Appreciating and Encouraging” responsible human independence. I will always be ready to consider opinions that are imposed by the free and irresponsible press but will not search for Simon’s misguided identity politics.

A writer expressing proprietary hubris in Western obsolescence (George Will) (https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/columnists/george-will-its-anchors-aweigh-for-tomorrows-marines/article_8d502ae2-fefb-5a55-9129-1aa1feb485af.html)

Will seems to support intelligent design by an “it”. Einstein might say "the it" is physics, the object of discovery.

Most readers don’t take the time to decode a writer’s bemusement, so the writer is obliged to avoid proprietary language. Ironically, the writer must write what he or she thinks in language the reader can understand, not knowing if the reader is steeped in, for example, Lockean proprietary language. If the writer avoids proprietary language, the reader has the best chance of getting the message. Alas, writers too often write for a proprietary audience. Western readers are accustomed to dismissively wondering “what does that mean?”

Englishman John Locke (d. 1704) is still influential. To him, “The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it": reason. That implies “nature’s God is reason.” Americans of 1774 composed the phrase “Nature and Nature’s God.” Albert Einstein, in 1941, suggested that physics and its progeny---chemistry, mathematics, biology, psychology, and fiction---are governed by the same laws. Humankind uses reason to comprehend discovery of physics-and-its-progeny. There is no ineluctable evidence that Physics’ God does not exist. I doubt Will made that point. I think Will respected whatever-God-is by not addressing that entity.

Will wrote, “When nature designed [a particular person] it had [fidelity] in mind.” He personified “nature” and credited it with intelligent design. Considering Einstein’s suggestion that everything emerges from physics, we can assume that God created physics and reserve the humility that whatever-God-is may not agree.

I beg Will to write with accuracy to his own message rather than cling to proprietary Western scholarship. I hope to continue learning from him. This experience has already reformed my tendency to not appreciate other people’s unique paths to responsible human independence, and I thank Will for his role in that personal improvement.

A writer who seems lost in his struggle to be a journalist (George Will) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/crises-and-the-collectivist-temptation/2020/04/02/751241b8-74fa-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html)

The function of U.S. journalism is to record first the achievements of We the People of the United States (defined in the U.S. Preamble). The preamble specifies the 5 public disciplines to encourage each citizen to accept the advantages of responsible human independence.

Twenty years ago, Will might have been my nominee for “journalist” if I had then owned my interpretation of the U.S. Preamble. Slowly, I began to see his use of big words as bemusement against the responsibility of “freedom of the press.” Today, I urge Will to retire from writing, because his reversal to support “a free and open society” opposes We the People of the United States, who are grounded in the-objective-truth if not the-literal-truth.

In this column, Will contorts the opportunity to write for public encouragement rather than personal amusement. In my next paragraph, I interpret a message Will hid from himself with cute presence.

Pandemic-motivated physical distancing ironically increased civic, civil, and legal appreciation and may forever be recalled with cheerful alternatives to handshaking and more. It may increase appreciation of the personal responsibility that human individualism demands.

Will notes “the American idea: the pursuit of happiness as each defines it” without appreciating the U.S. Preamble’s proposition: civic, civil, and legal mutuality.

After citing too many issues against and for President Trump’s administrative excellence, Will expresses his dream for “a permanent basis for a free and open society.” He doesn’t seem to consider or accept that the U.S. Preamble proposes five disciplines of by and for the people---integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity---in order to encourage living citizens to take advantage of responsible human liberty.

I regret five decades of loyalty to the writer George Will, bemused by word searches. In this column, “public bullying and minatory government” required me to learn that “minatory” means “menacing.” I once thought I was expanding my vocabulary but now realize I was a victim of Will’s bemusements. During all that time, Will’s responsibility under the First Amendment was to encourage and coach me to establish my interpretation of the U.S. Preamble so as to order my civic, civil, and legal life while pursuing the spiritualisms Mom and Dad wanted me to have in competition with my innate attraction to responsible human independence.

Alas, journalism fails the First Amendment’s expectations by turning abstract writers into wealthy distractions. Like the three branches of federal government, the press requires limitations by the rule of law.

Posted at the above URL, perhaps accepted.

Quora

https://www.quora.com/Does-a-government-owe-a-person-You-were-made-without-the-government?

This is a well stated principle: realize you are a human being in the world and among the fellow citizens of your locale. Choose to accept both humanity and citizenship without trying to consign your unique opportunity to live.

Having been born in the world rather than in space, what does it mean to be a human being, and do your accept that your species has the powerful combination of acute awareness and grammar? Have you even considered the human power, energy, and authority (HIPEA) to develop integrity rather than tolerate infidelity let alone accepted HIPEA? Do you expect whatever-God-is or a government to fulfill what is obviously a civic, civil, and legal obligation humankind has developed in some 3 million years of physical, psychological, and cultural evolution? After some 10 trillion man years of development, do you expect humankind to approach statutory justice during your perhaps 80 man-years? What is the standard by which humankind develops? Is it mystery, or reason, or physics and its progeny? Do you hold your government accountable to ineluctable evidence?

Has your nation of people accepted the proposition human equity under statutory justice? Is justice determined by physics, which is discovered by comprehending ineluctable evidence rather than by repeating erroneous law? Do you own your interpretation of your nation’s compact for pursuing statutory justice? Does the person who assumes rights without responsibilities qualify as a fellow citizen? Should the nation encourage every fellow citizen to earn his or her interpretation of the citizens’ agreement so as to order his or her civic, civil, and legal life while pursuing whatever spirituality or none appeals to the individual?

If a U.S. citizen, is the preamble to the U.S. Constitution the fellow-citizens’ civic, civil, and legal compact? Should the U.S. citizen try to preserve English tradition or amend injustices against the U.S. Preamble’s proposition? Should each citizen share his or her interpretation of the U.S. Preamble so that fellow citizens may offer improvements?

My current interpretation is:  We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines---integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity---so as to encourage both living fellow citizens and future citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.

I think this people’s proposition offers an achievable better future both in the U.S. and in the world. The people who accept their opportunity to live in responsible human independence are known by appreciation from fellow citizens, whether locally or globally.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-power-How-does-the-concept-of-power-related-to-the-concept-of-volition?

Merriam-Webster online controversially says “volition” means “the power of choosing or determining.” A person can choose a God but cannot determine the character of whatever-God-is.

Every human being has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) to choose between either developing integrity to the-objective-truth if not the-literal-truth or tolerating infidelities such as banality. Some people don’t accept being human let along having their unique HIPEA. And few understand that integrity is the process of admitting you don’t know until you comprehend discovered ineluctable evidence; in other words, the-objective-truth. Improved instruments of perception are employed to improve the-objective-truth perhaps to approach the-literal-truth.

Among the people who accept both being human and HIPEA, few practice integrity. People who practice integrity have various levels of power over persons who do not take the volition of developing their humanity, their HIPEA, and their integrity.

As an example, it seems Adam Schiff by his own volition seeded power to Patrick Philbin, who dispassionately stated facts.

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Is-justice-a-political-or-legal-conception?

I think it derives from human individual power, energy, and authority (HIPEA) to establish integrity rather than tolerate infidelity to the-literal-truth. Thus, it is human pursuit of mutual, comprehensive safety and security: neither political nor legal; maybe both.

A Greek suggested the human concept as I see it 2,400 years ago, and he was probably commenting on earlier thought: citizens my develop equity under statutory justice, where the ineluctable evidence is the standard for justice.

Statutory justice is the perfection of written law and its enforcement. When citizens live under statutory justice, each one receives according to publicly wanted achievements. Those who contribute more get more and those who are dissident to achievement get nothing. Those who are incapacitated are helped to become strong. Dissidents are encouraged to reform.

These principles are plain to most people. However, since no culture encourages or coaches its youth to accept their humanity, most citizens are in conflict with themselves for life. The few who accept their HIPEA are aware of the public deception, and only a dreamer would imagine reform.

https://www.quora.com/How-and-why-do-politics-impact-the-way-we-process-information-and-oftentimes-make-us-irrational?

The human individual is the most powerful of all the living entities. Also, humankind is exponentially progressing in physics and its progeny (mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and fiction). However, progress in comprehension is lagging. Let me explain.

While the fold stands in an hour and sucks its mom’s teat in perhaps 3 hours, the human being must be helped to nourishment and stands in about a year. If the unique newborn infant discovers he or she may become a person, he or she takes charge of his or her acquisition of the comprehension and intention to live a complete human life. Perhaps he or she will discover human, individual power, energy, and authority (HIPEA) to either develop integrity or tolerate infidelity to the-objective-truth (the discovered and understood ineluctable evidence).

However, most cultures inculcate their young to yearn for reliable higher power---whatever-God-is, government, or a church-government partnership. Thereby, the individual never discovers and accepts being human, having HIPEA, or the opportunity to develop integrity.

Human psychology is so powerful that the attachments built by age 3 can indoctrinate by age 7 and become a self-indoctrination by puberty. Therefore, sometime in the mid-teens, the individual must begin to establish self-reliance and respond to the evidence that whatever-God-is assigned to humans the responsibility for human independence; that is, the mutual pursuit of individual happiness with civic integrity. If the individual does not establish integrity as a self-interest, he or she will remain in conflict with the early inculcation imposed by care takers and community.

For this reason, departments of education must be reformed to departments to encourage responsible human independence.

These ideas are not mine alone. They are the consequence of public library meeting now in the 7^th year to encourage fellow citizens to own a personal interpretation of the U.S. Preamble so as to order their civic, civil, and legal living while pursuing the spirituality/religion of their choice (or none).

I share my interpretation hoping someone will improve it, as in the past. Today, it is:   We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living citizens and future citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.

My interpretation of the U.S. Preamble is among my prized possessions, and I encourage every citizen to own theirs.

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/How-will-it-help-and-ensure-the-poor-has-access-to-justice-as-the-equal-gender-with-equal-rights-and-respect-in-the-society-or-he-she-has-been-heard?

Every human person came from a unique ovum in a unique woman’s body and the ovum was fertilized by a unique spermatozoon from a unique man. The resulting conception follows a unique path so as to either accept or reject being human. If accepting, he or she may then accept or reject individual power, individual energy, and individual authority (HIPEA) to develop either integrity or appetites. Nourishing appetites leads to infidelity or an incomplete human person. Reform can happen anytime. None of these developments can possibly turn the unique human into an equal entity.

Every fellow citizen can be appreciated as a person who is subject to the constraints of physics and its progeny such as mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and fiction. The civic citizens pursues equity under statutory justice, and by young adulthood is aware of his culture’s civic proposition.

In the U.S., this proposition is stated in the U.S. Preamble, an abstract 52-word sentence each citizen may interpret for self-interest or not. The citizen’s interpretation is precious property by which he or she may order civic, civil, and legal living while privately pursuing spirituality/religion, or not.

A citizen who owns an interpretation of the U.S. Preamble is due civic appreciation, and if the interpretation accommodates fellow citizens’ pursuit of individual happiness with civic integrity, he or she is due human respect.

I hope to witness of majority of fellow citizens developing these principles during 2020 and beyond.



https://www.quora.com/What-is-freedom-What-is-the-difference-between-positive-and-negative-freedom?

The search https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=positive+freedom yields 1473 documents. The second URL covers your topic under “liberty” but citing “freedom.”

I try to use the two words with the distinction “freedom-from” (oppression or internal constrain) and “liberty-to” (pursue individual happiness and civic integrity). Perhaps my first hyphenated phrase represents the negative and the second the positive. I do so to avoid Lockean use of freedom and liberty perhaps interchangeably to any non-proprietary reader.

After accepting that each the 1689 English Revolution, the 1774 American Revolution, and the 1789 French Revolution motivated the shedding of blood, I acquired a preference for “independence” rather than “liberty,” especially with the modifier “responsible human . . . “ wherein “liberty” seems to create an oxymoron, in particular when it is taken as license.

Applying all these thoughts, my interpretation of the U.S. Preamble is: U.S. citizens may develop 5 public disciplines---integrity, justice, peace, strength and prosperity---in order to encourage individual fellow citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence. This is a proposition for freedom-from public license so as to encourage independence-to oppose private excess.

What do you think the difference is?

https://www.quora.com/Is-one-country-smarter-than-the-world?

I think so. However, that nation of people has not yet emerged.

https://www.quora.com/What-do-engineers-fear?

Too many fellow citizens don’t develop appreciation-for and humility-toward whatever-God-is.

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-United-States-lacking-leadership?

Yes. However, Donald Trump may establish U.S. psychology after 232 years of repression.

The goals and purpose of the U.S. are stated in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution: five public disciplines---unity, justice tranquility, defense, and welfare---in order to encourage living citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.

Every citizen is free to interpret the U.S. Preamble so as to order his or her civic, civil, and legal living while pursuing the motivation and inspiration of his or her individual choice.

While it is true that political regimes repress the U.S. Preamble’s civic, civil, and legal power, the civic citizen may discover that the preamble is not a secular sentence. And he or she cannot consign the personal self-interest in doing the work to interpret those abstract 52 words. Once a citizen owns his or her interpretation, it become precious personal property to be shared with fellow citizens to learn from them ways to improve personal civic life while developing appreciation-of and humility-toward whatever-God-is.

Neither whatever-God-is nor government leaders will usurp the citizen’s opportunity to take advantage of the U.S. Preamble’s proposition: responsible human independence.

https://www.quora.com/To-what-extent-do-you-agree-or-disagree-with-the-following-and-why-Learning-should-be-done-mostly-in-the-classroom?

Restricting learning to the classroom, especially if it is homeschooling, is a tyranny against the viable ova each woman produces. I am anxious to encourage students to take charge of their opportunity to develop integrity. (See my essay “Child Incentives Brief.”) Humans cannot be taught the experiences and observations they will have in the future.

In the first place, students are born to discover, develop, and practice responsible human independence, and the teacher has no idea the future the student faces. The teacher only struggles to understand what humankind has learned before the present and has no ability to predict the future. Also, under current political regimes it is unlikely that the teacher is aware of the U.S. Preamble’s proposal for responsible human independence. Negligence of the U.S. Preamble’s people’s proposition for discipline is especially dominant in European countries. Education departments need to be retitled and reformed to encourage students to comprehend, intend, and practice integrity. Integrity is not on the radar of the Education Department.

Education’s deficiency is evident in the half-century dominance of social-democracy professors at the college level. The consequence is an American faction that expects to be taken care of by either their God or their government and have never discovered the opportunity to develop responsible human independence. It seems self-evident that whatever-God-is assigned responsible human independence to humankind.

Students need to discover and accept that each person may be a human being. That is, a person with the awareness and grammar by which to develop human equity under statutory justice. It takes at least 2 to 3 decades for a newborn to acquire the comprehension and intention to live a complete human life. The human person has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) with which to choose between integrity to the-literal-truth (often admitting the-literal-truth is unknown) rather than infidelity. Consequently, the civic citizen reserves a humility toward whatever-God-is rather than civically, civilly, or legally imposing their personal God on fellow citizens. The Department of Human Encouragement coaches youth and adults to use HPEA to develop integrity rather than tolerate infidelity.

I encourage every human to consider the U.S. Preamble and interpret its proposition for public discipline so as to order his or her civic, civil, and legal life while pursuing the spirituality or religion he or she wants. The object, “ourselves and our Posterity” is the current generation.

I share my latest interpretation hoping a reader will either negatively or positively suggest an improvement. My interpretation, my precious property, is:  We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living citizens and future fellow citizens to practice responsible human independence.

I hope to observe this or better reforms happening so as to facilitate an achievable better future.



https://www.quora.com/Should-freedom-of-speech-include-allowing-teens-to-share-their-opinions-in-school-newspapers?

I think so.

Opinion has to be earned, and there’s no better enricher than contemporary fellow citizens’ reactions. Furthermore, teens are exploring the-objective-truth before their bodies have completed the wisdom parts of their brains yet are in the prime of ability to retain experiences and observations.

Expressing an opinion for peer consideration is like a mirror: your assumptions and errors reflect as your words are expressed. And the verity or falsity of a peer’s response is immediately obvious to you. If falsity, it is the peer’s opportunity to earn better opinion if not the-objective-truth he or she opposed.

What do you think?

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/What-is-your-favorite-quote-from-the-leader-of-your-country?

After a negotiation:  “We’ll see how it turns out.”

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-change-what-people-believe-aka-the-culture-especially-in-politics-voting?

I don’t know but think it is by writing what you think and appreciating any criticism you receive. I encounter stonewalling more than apathy.

I have been working for 2 decades to promote the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which I call the U.S. Preamble.

Seven years ago, I started public meetings at libraries and soon realized that I needed to present my concern and a proposed remedy, then listen to the participants. It’s an iterative exchange to clarify each other’s views. As a consequence my “appreciations page” lists about 70 people who influenced my latest interpretation of the U.S. Preamble’s civic, civil, and legal proposition: We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living citizens and future fellow citizens to practice responsible human independence.

I oppose the license, anarchy, and bloodletting some people associate with liberty. I also oppose any claim that I am not humble to whatever-God-is. However, I do want to improve my interpretation of the U.S. Preamble.

I plan to host the 7th annual June 21 celebration of the 9-states’ ratification of the U.S. Preamble and the Articles that support it in 1788. Two of four dissident states joined the USA before operations began on March 4, 1789. Congress began to re-establish colonial-British American tradition. Congress repressed the U.S. Preamble by falsely labeling it “secular,” and it’s been that way ever since. This years celebration is called “Responsible Human Independence Day,” and that may be a permanent title.

The U.S. Preamble prudently assigns spirituality and religion to individual privacy rather than public discipline. Civic citizens reserve humility toward whatever-God-is regarding civic concerns even though believers trust their personal Gods to fulfill their vision for afterdeath.

Everyday, I hope someone will join my preamble-promoting team. No one does. My Baton Rouge and Louisiana political representatives don’t even care to listen to the story. I wish each of them owned their personal interpretation of the U.S. Preamble and used it to guide their civic, civil, and legal votes. Perhaps they don’t like the public disciplines required to claim membership in We the People of the United States as proposed in their interpretations of the U.S. Preamble. By all means, some politicians like to pretend divinity through ceremonial prayer and then follow with unconstitutional votes.

It’s OK, though. My interpretation of the U.S. Preamble is precious personal property that has changed my past bemusement to well-grounded articulation of my life-style.

I now understand that the U.S. Preamble offers fellow citizens the opportunity to develop integrity rather than “freedom of religion,” and that articulation begs an audience.

https://www.quora.com/Can-equality-and-freedom-coexist/answer/Phil-Beaver-1

To Leland R. Beaumont:

I agree with your health-care concerns and think the education system needs reform before citizens can be held responsible for personal health.

Departments of Education can be renamed and reorganized to accept that this generation’s knowledge is obsolete for the next generation. Therefore, the student should be encouraged an coached in acceptances, perhaps including the following:

The human being is the only species with the awareness and grammar by which to develop integrity to the-literal-truth, most of which is unknown. Thus, the civic citizen’s position is often “I don’t know” but hope . . .

The human person has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) to develop either integrity to the_literal-truth or infidelity. Integrity is in the person’s self-interest.

Integrity is the practice of accepting “I don’t know” until the ineluctable evidence is discovered, comprehended, and its best use is understood and practiced.

Each citizen has personal hopes and comforts and a reserve of humility toward whatever-God-is.

During the first 2 to 3 decades, the human has not the completed brain with which to accumulate wisdom, so responsible human independence may not be expected until the mid 30s or beyond. A career of service to fellow citizens in some capacity serves the person in developing civic integrity that may be shared in retirement.

I hope we begin to see such reforms in our lifetimes.



https://www.quora.com/In-the-era-of-economic-sociopolitical-and-cultural-globalization-what-does-community-mean-to-you-and-how-does-it-contribute-to-your-own-development-as-a-world-citizen?

I’ve lived in the same community in Baton Rouge, LA, USA for over 50 years. Meanwhile, I traveled the country and parts of Europe, living in Greece for 16 months.

It was humbling for an East Tennessee Southern Baptist boy to explore paths Paul, the author of many erroneous opinions, walked. It helped me eventually treasure my Louisiana-Catholic wife’s faith for her, our children’s faiths for themselves, and my faith in the-literal-truth, most of which is unknown. I would not dare try to master anyone’s religion.

My experiences and observations suggest that most people want human equity under statutory justice and almost no one would articulate that want. Those with that want accept that the world is conflicted by people who have not considered equity let alone justice. Many people think crime pays; and worse.

However, that does not restrict me from developing my person. I have discovered that developing integrity is in my self-interest: if I think my actions can bring harm, I retreat for review and perhaps change. By reading and interpreting according to my experiences and observations, I discover that old ideas have new applications. For example, Agathon’s opinion about Eros’ character can be interpreted like this:  A civic citizen neither initiates nor tolerates harm to or from any person or association. After this interpretation, I started cautioning against racial slurs. In another example, Einstein’s claim that science and ethics come from the same place can be interpreted:  Psychology comes from physics.

I think citizens of the world have in common the need and desire for mutual, comprehensive safety and security (MCSS). That implies the opportunity to choose a career that pays enough for human living including saving 2/3 of income so as to accumulate the wealth to retire at 2/3 of the peak lifestyle, or the better statement an economist would make. Accommodating another citizen’s MCSS does not require me to disrespect the privacy of his or her life. I can develop integrity and let live.

Therefore, by work I earn the lifestyle I live and practice civic integrity. I expect other citizens to do the same and risk law enforcement if not. However, fellow citizens will not answer questions by me unless we agree to visit. I just love talking to people and appreciate each one no matter where they are on their unique paths to their psychological maturity. I do not need to know their customs.

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-feel-about-a-system-where-power-goes-to-the-people?

I think this is the way it must be with one constraint: the people must be in agreement that citizens pursue equity under statutory justice according to the-objective-truth if not the-literal-truth and hold their representative accountable to participation as a fellow citizen rather than as a dissident.

In my interpretation of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution the above proposition is offered fellow citizens. Each one is free to ignore/oppose the proposition and thereby risk subjugation to written law and its enforcement until statutory justice is discovered.

https://www.quora.com/Hey-political-junkies-on-Quora-what-ideas-do-you-hold-that-are-central-to-both-your-political-and-personal-views-about-life-To-what-degree-are-these-ideas-fixed-or-evolving?

I accept that I am a human being. Thus, I am among the individually unique beings with the awareness and grammar by which to develop integrity to the-literal-truth.

As a human, I have the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) by which to develop either integrity or infidelity. I choose integrity, low as I may be. Consequently, I pursue personal happiness with civic integrity rather than accept the conditions someone or an institution would impose.

I cannot consign my HIPEA yet reserve humility toward whatever-God-may be.

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Whats-worth-fighting-for-as-a-society?

Every U.S. citizen should own a personal interpretation of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and use it to order their civic integrity while pursing the spirituality or religion they choose. If so, they would consider their interpretation a precious personal property.

I share my interpretation so as to hear fellow citizens’ criticisms so as to improve my behavior if I agree.

Since 1787, political regimes have suppressed the U.S. Preamble’s proposition for public discipline so as to encourage responsible human liberty by labeling the preamble “secular.” The preamble is neutral to religion and thereby assigns it and spirituality to private discipline rather than fruitlessly attempt to consign them to public integrity.

A reserve of humility toward whatever-God-is may be appreciated by the individual.

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Under-what-stipulations-is-it-required-to-consider-anothers-speech-as-legally-equal-How-is-legally-equivalent-speech-defined?

About 2,400 years ago Pericles suggested that humans may develop equity under statutory justice. Fellow citizens who mutually argue for their individual, equitable self-interests under written law and its enforcement are behaving as responsible human beings, each of which is unique.

It is in the two parties self-interest to behave equitably, so the “requirement” is self-imposed to citizens who are attracted to justice.

I doubt there is a legal system based on this principle, but the preamble to the U.S. Constitution offers the civic, civil, and legal proposition.

https://www.quora.com/Is-being-patriotic-a-necessary-part-of-our-core-values?

I think so.

A Greek, 2,400 years ago suggested that each human, although unique, may develop equity under statutory justice. A culture may encourage and coach such trust and commitment. If not, fellow citizens in that culture may lobby for an equal or better public agreement.

The U.S. offers such an agreement in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution (the U.S. Preamble).

Fellow citizens are able to interpret the U.S. Preamble for their personal use. I share my interpretation hoping for criticism by which I may improve my civic, civil, or legal behavior. My interpretation is:  We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living citizens and future fellow citizens to practice responsible human independence.

I oppose license, anarchy, and bloodletting some people associate with liberty. I also oppose any claim that I am not humble to whatever-God-is.

I hope to improve the U.S. by persuading most citizens to practice the U.S. Preamble using the-objective-truth rather than dominant opinion. I’m fortunate to live in America, where fellow citizens can develop and encourage responsible human independence.

https://www.quora.com/When-did-you-lose-all-hope-in-your-country-s-leader?

In 2008 when Sen. Barack Obama would not reject Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “flag-burning” speech.

https://www.quora.com/How-will-you-bring-about-cultural-social-and-political-change-in-society?

May I change some of the language to answer?

I work daily to encourage U.S. citizens to understand the civic, civil, and legal power of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution (the U.S. Preamble). Each citizen should earn by study his or her interpretation of the U.S. Preamble so as to guide his or her public life while privately pursuing any spirituality or religion he or she chooses. A personal interpretation of the U.S. Preamble is precious, earned property.

I share my interpretation so as to learn from fellow citizens. Today, my interpretation is:  We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living citizens and future fellow citizens to practice responsible human independence.

I oppose license, anarchy, and bloodletting some people associate with liberty. I also oppose any claim that I am not humble to whatever-God-is.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-liberal-administrators-and-students-no-longer-believe-in-freedom-of-speech-And-how-does-this-threaten-our-civil-rights?

Most human beings eventually understand that they are unique and would not want to be equal and that equity under statutory justice is in their self-interest. They develop responsible human independence. They accept that as a human being, they can pursue the happiness they want rather than submit to the happiness a fellow citizen or association would impose on them. Therefore, they observe written law and its enforcement and pay for the system of mutual safety and security.

Some fellow citizens have not psychologically matured enough to accept being human. The past 50 years’ public disruptions by Alinsky-Marxist organizations have unfortunately enslaved dependent, adolescent people, and some of them have become college professors. They abuse students by demanding allegiance for grades, friendship, and solidarity.

Consequently, many students never consider, much less accept, that they are human beings, a member of the most aware species due to the power of grammar. That power can be extinguished by not listening to fellow citizens.  A human may discover that he or she has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) to develop integrity rather than belong to an AMO organization.

https://www.quora.com/How-do-we-not-let-money-define-us?

After completing formal education, whether that is high school or college, create a budget that pays all your bills and leaves 20% before tax for saving to invest for life.

Decide how diverse your investments should be by looking at various purchases---stock index funds, mutual funds, gold, silver, land, rental property, etc.---consider 25, 50 and 100 year periods and choose a distribution of your savings in your preferences. Learn how to manage your investments yourself. Do this in 5% of your free-time for life.

This is an old technique called “saving to invest.” It turns out 80% of your income will always be enough, and your growth in wealth will enable you to live freely for lifetime, and that’s all you need. Not caring what you can’t take with you is a good attitude.





https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-no-such-thing-as-a-classless-society?

I think human beings divide themselves on either acceptance or doubt of being human. A culture that encourages responsible human independence under the-literal-truth might gradually increase acceptance. Let me explain.

First, a newborn is not informed. First, he or she is a human being, the most aware and developed of the 55 million years’ evolutionary species called primates; https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9989-timeline-human-evolution/. Second, the child is unaware of the cultural dominance into which he or she was born; http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~cpd/history.html. Third, he or she is unaware of the family genes and memes represented by his or her four grandparents and that they were influenced by multiple cultures, perhaps not including the currently dominant culture.

A dominant consequence of cultural evolutions is that, so far, no civilization has encouraged and coached the human youth that he or she has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) to develop integrity to the-literal-truth, unknown as it may be, rather than tolerate infidelity.

Integrity is the practice of accepting ineluctable evidence so as to discover if a concern is grounded in the-literal-truth or not. Often, the evidence is only partially perceived and must be reviewed when better instruments are available. For example, from ground view the earth may seem flat, but from outer space it seems like a globe. With perseverance, discovery of the-objective-truth may comprehend the-literal-truth. It is in the individual’s self-interest to accept “I do not know,” when that is so.

For example, the question, “Is there an entity that controls all events in the universe?” it is prudent to accept “I do not know.” On the other hand, there is no harm in believing in an entity as long as there is a reserve of appreciation for whatever may be in control. Thus, “whatever-God-is” may accept acceptance more than human construct and doctrine.

Persons who accept being human often discover that they pursue equity under statutory justice. Statutory justice is the perfection of written law and its enforcement, and it may be more approachable than achievable. Equity takes into account that no two human ova are equal and next stages are contingent on care taken: neither conception, gestation, delivery, rearing, institutional education, nor acceptance of HIPEA reduces the uniqueness of the human person.

Lastly, humans divide themselves on acceptance or rejection of responsible human independence. The person who accepts being human observes that lifestyles are earned and responds by taking charge of his or her responsibilities. Importantly, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs may be re-thought as a hierarchy of responsibilities. The moment the individual senses developing dependence, he or she increases the effort to re-establish independence with civic integrity. By “civic integrity” I mean without decreasing a fellow citizen’s independence. On this principle, fellow citizens who think crime pays don’t recognize that they are dependent on weak fellow citizens. If most fellow citizens have the strength to resist crime, the criminal starves.

We live with an achievable better future any time a supermajority of fellow citizens, say 2/3, accept that responsible human independence is in their self-interest. As I view it, this is the purpose of the public disciplines that are listed in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

It is in every fellow citizen’s best interest to earn (by study) an individual interpretation of the preamble. Once done, he or she will consider it among his or her most prized properties. I frequently share my interpretation so as to learn from a fellow citizen who offers criticism. The version with cautionary public goals seems interesting: We the People of the United States avoid and discourage 5 public offenses so as to encourage responsible human independence. The 5 offenses are deceit, injustice, disruption, weakness, and poverty. Fellow citizens who purport to please “the founders” or “framers” or “signers” or “ratifiers” are deceiving themselves: the preamble’s object is “ourselves and our Posterity.”

Under the U.S. Preamble and the-literal-truth, citizens may establish a culture of civic citizens with some fellow citizens who don’t accept the culture’s goals and purpose. That culture might hope that super-majority participation would gradually approach 100%.

Law professors

https://lawliberty.org/the-state-of-originalism

I appreciate this review of a historic year and earlier times.

Re-evaluation of American precedents is much needed, and like any other the reform must be bold.

Not only should the talents of originalism be applied; the scope should be broadened in two ways that are called for in this nation’s stated disciplines and purpose: unity, justice, tranquility, defense, and welfare to encourage living citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.

First. The controversial U.S. Preamble proposes psychological separation from both 1) global reform for the 13 free and independent states, established with England in the 1783 Treaty of Paris and 2) legal termination of the 1774 Confederation of States, formerly eastern-seaboard, British-American colonies. American precedents prior to September 17, 1787 ought to be reconsidered for conformity to the U.S. Preamble’s proposition. That is, on September 17, 1787, the world’s first proposition for public discipline so as to hold a republic accountable to the law was recorded and is yet to be established.

Even the preamble’s word “liberty” is questionable in appreciation the integrity that is proposed therein. Liberty from an oppressor was key to the 1689 English Revolution, the 1774 American Revolution, and the 1789 French Revolution, all representing partial “equality”, solidarity, and license to shed blood. Threats and realities of domestic bloodletting in Shays’ rebellion urgently motivated formation of a nation of people. The passions of the declaration of independence from England became an urgent need for discipline of for and by the people of the U.S who would choose the U.S. Preamble’s proposition. Instead of Lockean self-governance and the common good, the preamble proposes public discipline to encourage responsible independence.

Second, the U.S. may appreciate the framers for setting aside the so-called “founders’” passions of the Declaration of Independence, especially the American-deists’ “Nature’s God” to compete with England’s reformed-Catholic God and “equality” for humans, each one of whom is unique. The U.S. Preamble reserves a prudent humility toward whatever-God-is by tacitly assigning spiritual considerations to the individual citizen. The fellow citizen who insists that whatever-God-is answers to his or her personal God is a dissident to the U.S. Preamble’s proposition; that is, he or she is not a member of We the People of the United States. While expressing spiritual hopes is innocent, the individual who prays to instruct whatever-God-is may discover that arrogance invites woe.

We know this from prayers during the Civil War. Neither the U.S. Constitution’s articles nor its preamble anticipated anything but the abolition of slavery by the next generation or whenever economic and political viability was evident. Abolition of slavery was an urgent topic, and Fredrick Douglass expressed confidence in the U.S. Preamble and its articles during 1852s July 4 celebration in Rochester, NY.

Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were 1775 members of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Massachusetts abolitionists founded 1856s Lawrence, Kansas to influence a free state. The reaction of slave-state “liberty” became Bleeding Kansas. R. E. Lee, in a letter to his wife claimed abolitionists were evil in defying his Christian God’s plan to redeem blacks. Mimicking Lee’s Christianity, the Confederate States of America, in their declaration of session, claimed politics in the north was unresolvable because “of more erroneous religious belief”. If Lee had been of We the People of the United States, his letter might have announced to his wife that they were going to sell everything and move to a non-slave state of her choice. Almost no one in the U.S. regards the Civil War as a white on white Christian battle, and European thinkers can’t imagine what the documents teach.

As a human being Lee had the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) to hold Christianity accountable rather than lead his family and fellow citizens into misery and loss. With his un-consignable HIPEA, he could have interpreted the U.S. Preamble to guide his civic life (including vows to family) while privately pursuing everlasting life in his afterdeath.

Every citizen ought to establish his or her interpretation of the U.S. Preamble so as to accept their self-interests therein. The U.S. Preamble proposes individual happiness with civic integrity. By accepting the U.S. Preamble’s proposition, citizens may know they are acting for equity under statutory justice for themselves and their descendants.

I share my interpretation hoping someone will improve it:  We the People of the United States consider, communicate, collaborate, and connect to practice 5 public disciplines: integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity so as to encourage both living citizens and future fellow citizens to take advantage of responsible human independence.

The U.S. needs to reform the First Amendment’s religion clauses so as to encourage integrity rather than attempt to constrain whatever-God-is to God. Never again should we witness the U.S. Senate members taking an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution for any reason beyond its existence. Never again should their sessions be opened with two prayers: one by a minister and the other in a coercive pledge. Instead, sessions should be opened with unison recitation of the U.S. Preamble verbatim with each senator mentally committed to his or her interpretation. These reforms are the tip of an iceberg, and they should get underway in 2020 with your acceleration.

I cannot imagine the reforms to 1) encourage citizens to accept America’s proposition for civic integrity stated in the U.S. Preamble and 2) to individually separate church from state by relying on the-objective-truth if not the-literal-truth being accelerated by any group faster than the writers in this forum, especially those who would take originalism from physics rather than precedence. Social democrats cannot brook precedence, but they pay attention when their actions against physics or its progeny cause misery and loss.


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.