Seven Key American Principles; Or, a Culture of Breaking Culture
Gregg Zegarelli Esq.
Managing Shareholder at Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC
There are a lot of American Principles espoused throughout America's history. Following are seven for your consideration. I chose these seven because they expose broader concepts; that is, principles that are not limited to a particular event, but disclose a general philosophy. These statements are abridged, and at times contain emphasis, appropriate for this forum and context. The complete works, as published, are cited for your reference.
1. The Law Regards Man as Man. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a person of color is equal, but yet may still be segregated by force of law to the "back of the bus." A sublime example of rationalization. [1]
Justice Harlan, the sole dissenter, the one man, the one Justice all alone, stood against the other unanimous voting "justices" and the clamoring self-righteous emotional voting social majority, many of whom claimed authority by god.
Behold it. Persons of color were not going to accomplish anything to overcome their deplorable oppression by a social vote of the congressional majority. The prophesy self-fulfilled by statistics. It required the power of court. But, alas, not yet. Harlan predicted that justice would prevail, in time, and justice did prevail, a half-century later with Brown v. Board of Education.
But here as we are for this moment, let us not only ride the horse, but also let us care enough to understand the horse that we ride. [2] In other words, let us ask ourselves first a basic question, perhaps that every eighth-grader should answer:
With written law absolute in principle, why does it take such writhing social contortions to achieve a correct application?
Mark it: Bias, prejudice, rationalization. Culture as indoctrination. Culture itself is a form of brain-washing—tribal norms and mores—from birth. Culture is an oft-incalcitrant imprint on the mind, for man is an imitative animal.
History proves that a child is indoctrinated with tribal culture—much tradition— and often entwined with concepts of religion and god. Beliefs, faiths and opinions that are indoctrinated to become irrational as-if facts. [*2] If we watch it closely, we will shake our heads and say to ourselves, "How could they do that, back in those days?" And, we will forget that they said the same thing back in those days, and the future will say the same thing about us. [3]
Now, let us first step back for a moment in context. The United States of America is not a pure democracy—that is, not absolutely ruled by a majority vote. The American system is a modified democracy that contradicts pure democracy by application of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights—that is, the Bill of [Individual] Rights—overrides the majority vote in certain contexts making the majority legally immaterial. "Don't tread on me," says the Bill of Rights. [4]
And, as we are not dolts, to dig further to understand our horse that we ride, we ask ourselves another question that perhaps every eighth-grade should answer:
Why is the Bill of Rights necessary, in the first place?
So we go back to England, "Well," said the King's god-fearing Anglicans, "We don't want those bad Puritans outside in the streets influencing our good Anglican children! Those Puritans are unorthodox non-conformists. Don't look, my dear child, don't look. Close your eyes on these evil sinners! They are different and wrong and they should not influence anyone! For God's sake, down with Puritans! Get them out of England, now, lest loving God burn us all!"
Sound familiar? Ancient ignorance and fear. Thusly, such as it was for the Puritans, who escaped England to be free in a new America, by the blood of revolution, new wineskins for new American wine. Wycliffe's "unorthodox" views and biblical translation for the people at c.1400, with the printing press, started the destruction of ignorance, contradicting the absolute power of the priest. [5.1] So frantically angry was Pope Martin V and the Council of Constance that they declared Wycliffe a heretic, banned and burned his books, posthumously, exhumed his dead body, burned his remains, and, for good measure, threw his ashes into the Swift River, all in the name of God.
No. The Founding Fathers did not want anything like this system. Religion, and religion entwined with social civil administration, are not the same thing.
So, the Bill of Rights resolves exactly the conundrum of self-rule by the majority; to wit: For a person who yearns to breathe and to think freely, slavery by king or congress is immaterial, different causation to the same effect. Different politico-social systems effecting the same slavery in humanity. The Bill of Rights says, "Sure, majority rules generally, but not for these exceptions." Indeed, the Bill of Rights protects non-conformity against the slavery of majority rule.
Can we imagine the absurdity, without the Bill of Rights, of the congressional majority flip-flopping around with freedom of religion and speech, one year to the next. Individual freedoms turning on a majority whip's acquisition of a single majority vote. Yessiree, indeed, America would be just like the England from which America revolted: this year, King Henry VIII's Anglicans cruelly if not unusually burning these citizens, then, the next year, Bloody Mary's Catholics heretical burnings of these other citizens, all depending upon the king or congress orthodoxy at the moment. The Bill of Rights is supposed to solve that issue, because the individual right overrides the systemic social legislative majority.
Back to Plessy. Some cultural indoctrinations are not free-thinking, diverse, or free, of course. Some indoctrinations—passed from parent to children since birth—are ancient, incalcitrant, and are unforgiving. [5.2]
When you read the Harlan Dissent, I will suggest for you to consider that, in a free-thinking diverse free culture, such as the United States of America, a person's skin color is only one of many individual attributes. I will suggest for you to consider skin color as a placeholder for race, color, creed, sexual orientation, LBG++, and all sorts of other individual unorthodox minority non-conformities to the majority statistical orthodox normalcy. England's Puritan is today's LGB++, statistically unorthodox, non-conforming, socially unique.
The issue is not whether we like it, the issue is whether they like it.
"Libera cogitans societas dimittit conformitatem socialem ad servandam systemicam singularem libertatem." ("A free-thinking society waives social conformity to preserve systemic individual freedom.") [6] But, it takes social discipline, if not forgiveness, which is why it is so difficult for a people to preserve freedom. [7] Tribes naturally assert the orthodox normalcy of self-righteous validated power of the majority group. [8] Insecurity and fear drives the band-wagon tribe, as "Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god," said Aristotle. [9]
Moreover, I will suggest that you stick on Harlan's use of "the real meaning," which demonstrates his accusation of bigotry rationalization, so often under the irrational guise of the perennial chant, "God and Country."
Harlan's sole dissent is a sublime statement of American principles. If you really have it in you, it might make you cry, or at least give you goose bumps, just like the Gettysburg Address. Here it is, the sublime, "The law regards man as man":
[T]he Fourteenth Amendment, [added after the Civil War] greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship...? If a State can prescribe, as a rule of civil conduct, that whites and blacks shall not travel as passengers in the same railroad coach, why may it not so regulate the use of the streets of its cities and towns as to compel white citizens to keep on one side of a street and black citizens to keep on the other?...? [Or, then,] why may not the State require the separation ...? of Protestants and Roman Catholics? ...
But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens.? There is no caste here.? Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.? In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.?
The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.?
The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.? ...?
In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.
The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law.
What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens. That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana. [10]
2. Duality of Humanity.
“To live alone one must be either a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both―a philosopher,” quipped Nietzsche about human duality.
In 1865, Abraham Lincoln had been re-elected and the American Civil War was effectively won by the North. Half of a bloody scorched southern nation hated Lincoln. The other northern half almost did not re-elect him, but for the recent battlefield success. Moreover, Lincoln, not having social pedigree, was often personally ridiculed in a manner that might bait his retribution. But majestic Lincoln, perhaps like Harlan above, had a clear view of the better objective. A true leader can be alone, or even dead alone. "Tempus ducem eius invenies." ("Time discovers its leader.") [11]
Following is the closing of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln starts the closing by stating that the horrors of war are the necessary unwinding years of knotting, and the nature of it will not occur but by force, as it must needs be.
I will suggest that when you read it, watch for the word "Yet," which is the fulcrum for Lincoln's duality to fight with a "bulldog grip" and then, having completed the Primary Objective [12], to apply forgiveness if it be such, and mercy, but not retribution. Love without weakness. Humility with confidence.
And, I'll further suggest that, if you really have it in you, you will also notice Lincoln's incredibly subtle two Socratically wise uses of the humble deferential "if" condition in his reference to the will of god, as Abraham Lincoln is not arrogant to assert that he actually knows the will of god [13]; to wit:
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him.
Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. [*13]
3. A Free-Thinking Diverse Free People. Slavery of Body and Mind.
Thomas Jefferson's 1785 Notes on the State of Virginia, Question 17 is a bastion of intellectual political thought reflecting upon "why" America and the American states should separate "god" itself, and the religion that naturally follows god, from the civil administration of a free-thinking diverse free people. [14]
To remember our American history, the passage of the U.S. Constitution only governed the Federal Government. The several states continued to practice entwined religious civil atrocities until the 14th Amendment following the Civil War, which then effectively made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. Jefferson was a respected Virginian, and his Notes is his case pleading for Virginia, as a several state, to follow the principles of the new federal government.
Jefferson provides some present and past history, and then he starts his brilliant majestic roll on American political philosophy, and what it really means to be American, being a free-thinking, diverse and free People.
Jefferson shows the proven human natural tendency is go back to the safe place. [15] And, indeed, he goes through the irony that people in power ("the reigning sect") do the exact horrors to others that they detested for themselves. [5.3-5.5]. Behold, yesterday's Puritan is today's green hair, nose rings, and transgenders. [16, 17, 18, *4] Freedom of thought cannot sustain with conformity of thought.
I will suggest a few thoughts for when you read Jefferson's masterpiece. First, watch how he traverses slavery of mind and slavery of body, both being contradictions to freedom. Second, watch how he exposes the historical horrors of entwining god (and religion) into civil government, by tribal human nature conjoined with power and abstract delusion, people escaping from it, and then becoming it. [*15] Only brainwashed deluded fools do not see the danger that is historically proven by the evidence that is so clear and obvious. Third, perceive that Jefferson says what he says, as a theist. Jefferson's humble belief in his god does not bleed onto the civil freedom of others. Jefferson loves his neighbor that much, to restrain and to discipline himself, to allow freedom of others. [*5.2]
The bright line for Jefferson is whether one person's pursuit of happiness has a tangible material negative civil temporal impact on another person's pursuit of happiness, which does occur by "picking a pocket or breaking a leg," but by the silent hidden contained single-cell zygote, well, perhaps not so much. [*1]
Please read Jefferson's masterpiece slowly. Jefferson was no intellectual slouch, but he was a brilliant political philosopher. Mark it: Socrates separated out the Christian Virtues from the Cardinal Virtues for a very good reason [19a], and Jefferson separated god and religion from civil government for a very good reason. Take in Jefferson's rational genius, slowly. So says Jefferson; to wit:
The first settlers in Virginia were emigrants from England, of the Church of England, just at a point of time when the Church of England was flushed with complete victory over the religious of all other persuasions.
Possessed, as the Church of England became, of the powers of making, administering and executing the laws, they showed equal refusal of tolerance here in Virginia with their Presbyterian brethren.
The poor Quakers were flying from persecution in England.?They cast their eyes on these new countries as asylums of civil and religious freedom; but they found civil and religious freedom only for the reigning sect.
Virginia legislation made it illegal for parents to refuse to have their children baptized; Virginia had prohibited the unlawful assembling of Quakers; Virginia had made it illegal for common carrier to bring a Quaker into the state; Virginia had ordered the Quakers already in Virginia and coming here to be imprisoned till they should renounce Virginia with death for their third return; Virginia had inhibited all persons from allowing Quaker meetings in or near their houses, or entertaining them individually, or disposing of books which supported Quaker beliefs. If no execution of Quakers took place in Virginia, as was occurring in New England, it was not owing to the moderation of the church, or spirit of the legislature, as may be inferred from the law itself.
The present state of our laws on the subject of religion is this:
The Virginia convention of May 1776 [declaring American independence to authorize Virginia's vote at the "Federal" Continental Congress to follow in July at Philadelphia], in their declaration of rights, declared it to be a truth, and a natural right, that the exercise of religion should be free.??
However, when they proceeded to form the actual legislation, instead of taking up every principle declared in the bill of rights, and guarding it by legislative sanction, they passed over that which asserted our religious rights, leaving them as they found them.
At the common law, heresy was punishable by burning at the stake.?Its definition was left to the ecclesiastical judges, before whom the conviction was rendered.?It was standardized by declaring that nothing should be deemed heresy but what had been so determined by authority of the canonical scriptures, or by some other council having for the grounds of their declaration the express and plain words of the scriptures.?Then, our own act of assembly in 1777 gave cognizance to heresy. The execution is by the writ De h?retico comburendo for burning at the stake.
By our own act of assembly 1705, if a person brought up in the christian religion denies the being of a God, or the trinity, or asserts there are more Gods than one, or denies the christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or military; on the second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor or administrator, and by three years imprisonment, without bail.
A father’s right to the custody of his own children being founded in law on his right of guardianship, this being taken away, the father's right to custody of his children may of course be severed from him and put, by the authority of a court, and the child transferred into more orthodox hands.
This is a summary view of that religious slavery under which a people have been willing to remain who have lavished their lives and fortunes for the establishment of their civil freedom.?
The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws.
But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them.?The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit.?We are answerable for them to our God.
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god.?It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
If it be said his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man.? It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. [19b, 22.1]
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.?Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation.
Reason and inquiry are the natural enemies of error, and of error only.?Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, christianity could never have been introduced.?Had not free inquiry been indulged, at the moral revolution of the reformation, the corruptions of christianity could not have been purged away.
If reason and inquiry be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.
Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.?Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an article of food. Government becomes just as infallible, too, when it fixes systems in physics.?
Galileo was sent to the inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere.? And, Newtonian principles of gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government to step in and to make it an article of necessary faith. [*2]
Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them.?It is error alone which needs the support of government.?
Truth can stand by itself.
Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors??Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons.?And why subject it to coercion? [19c]
To produce uniformity.
But is uniformity of opinion desirable??No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of molds then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter.
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.?The several sects perform the office of censor of the morals over each other. ?Is uniformity attainable?
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned: yet we have not advanced one inch the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit.
There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us.?The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.?
Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal.
This quality is the germ of all education in him.?From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.
If a parent could find no motive either in his love of others or his self-love, for restraining anger towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present.? But generally it is not sufficient.? The parent storms, the child looks on at the wrath of the master, learns to do the same, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a growth to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny.
The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by observing such behavior.
For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him.
With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed.?For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him.?This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor.
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God??That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!
The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.—But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil.
We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one’s mind.?I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution.
The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation. [20, 21]
4. The Primary Objective. Sustain America, First.
The following is a letter from Abraham Lincoln. This letter should be studied by children, adults, business persons, leaders, politicians and pretty much everyone. [*12] It is a sublime statement on focus and priorities. [*22.2] It might even be a prequel to the Second Inaugural Address, which has the same effect of one thing first, then next, in due course. It is easy to spin around on objectives without understanding the primary objective ("paramount object"). [23, 24]
Lincoln solved two problems by taking the hit in solving only one problem, first. A sage understands that every correct decision will have consequences, but the sage does what must be done, because the sage has determined what must be done. [25] Lincoln understood his role, his mission, and his objective.
When you read the following, I will suggest that you should recognize how the media will crucify a leader into backing off of a clear decision because it has hard consequences, as it always does, for someone. Leadership pandering is a disease, but Lincoln did not do it. He knew what needed to be done, and what must be done first; that is, the order and priority of things. Understanding the sequence of problem-solving, and the priorities of what must logically come first, is a skill, if not a gift, addressed in The Lincoln Dilemma, to wit:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save [the Union] the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was."
If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.
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My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free. [*12]
5. Human Nature. Men are not Angels.
When the Founding Fathers were trying to convince the pre-American public to adopt the new U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers wrote a series of publications called The Federalist Papers. In Federalist Paper No. 51, James Madison ("Father of the U.S. Constitution"), expressed his thoughts about "checks and balances" in government. But...
But, this expression by Madison was really as a statement about human nature in a civil society, with the goal of building a framework of government that will sustain within its environment of humanity.
Behold it. The Founding Fathers were building something. That thing—being a government By the People, For the People—such as any structure, must sustain within its operational environment. Indeed, the American Government must sustain through time and, by construction, must withstand the "huffs and puffs" of humanity itself, being the wolf that will test the structure. Madison, on the Virginian tag-team with Jefferson, expressed why not to trust in a government that is controlled by human beings, as human self-interest and weakness must be systemically "checked and balanced." The system itself must prevent the onslaught of humanity such as the physics of a weight-bearing bridge; to wit:
But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.
It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public.
We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.
These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State. But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense.
In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified. . . .
...It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.
There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable.
The first method prevails in all governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties.
The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. . . .
Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.
In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature [*8], where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves [31, *8]; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. [*8, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, *31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, *15, *22.3]
6. Ancient Incalcitrant Cultural Delusion. Plight of the Woman.
Make no mistake about it. Women have endured a tough gig as a matter of civil administration. [*16]
Now, truth be told, perhaps ancient society was necessarily framed around physical human power, as a practical matter of survival, comfort, and prosperity. But, what the specie required in the state of nature, and what the specie requires by artificial civil construct are not the same thing. [*8] The condition of DNA physicality by potential and statistical averages places a necessary advantage to the male only by ancient context. But the time for that context, as a civil necessity, has now clearly passed, and it had passed in 1872. [37] Perhaps forgiveness for the fact that increments of evolution are difficult to perceive in then-current real-time, but time only goes forward, at least so far as we understand it.
Ancient cultural norms, indoctrinations, traditions, and the ancient systemic biases and prejudices therefrom, must be cast aside in conjunction with rational policy for the civil administration for legally categorically equal human beings, of different genders, beliefs, faiths, and opinions. [*21] But, such as it is for these things, as suggested by the above, it is not easy to let go of the status quo, at least not for everyone in this case, probably most of all for XY-males.
Women have been beaten, raped, prevented from voting, unable to sign legal documents, enslaved as mere chattel, prejudiced by physiology in trying to achieve fair jobs and wages, and now forced to endure the zygote cell by application of continued ancient creationism theisms that the U.S. Constitution expressly rejects as a proper civil temporal basis of analysis. Ancient Catholic priests refuse even now, two thousand years later, to allow equal love of women proven by application of roles.
When you read the following, I will suggest again to perceive the source and cause of the resultant context, not necessarily by DNA, and not by civil framework construct, but by ancient delusive, irrational, bias, prejudice, and the rationalization in the courts and congress that result. Watch for the regression of church into the civil administration of free-thinking, diverse free society. In the U.S. Constitution, theism has no advantage over atheism, and the brilliant Jefferson made it more than clear, for a very good reason. [*15]
This speech was given by Susan B. Anthony after her civil arrest for casting an illegal vote in the presidential election of 1872. She was tried and then fined $100, but refused to pay; to wit:?
Friends and Fellow Citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny.
The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:
“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people–women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government–the ballot.
For any State to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people is to pass a bill of attainder, or an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land.
By it the blessings of liberty are for ever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the right govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household–which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord and rebellion into every home of the nation.
Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.
The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no State has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several States is today null and void, precisely as in every one against Negroes.
But wait, further, in 1873, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Myra Bradwell, Bradwell v. State of Illinois, who claimed that her Fourteenth Amendment rights were abridged by Illinois' law prohibiting women from the practice of law. The Court found that her rights had not been violated since "the right of females to pursue any lawful employment for a livelihood [the practice of law included]" was not "one of the privileges and immunities of women as citizens."
U.S. "Justice" Bradley, concurring, explained his thought-process: "The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator. And the rules of civil society must be adapted to the general constitution of things." His thinking, or perhaps his self-fulfilling prophecy, is more fully stated; to wit:
It certainly cannot be affirmed, as an historical fact, that [the practice of law by women] has ever been established as one of the fundamental privileges and immunities of the sex. On the contrary, the civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.
The Constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interest and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband.
The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator. And the rules of civil society must be adapted to the general constitution of things, and cannot be based upon exceptional cases.
The humane movements of modern society, which have for their object the multiplication of avenues for woman's advancement, and of occupations adapted to her condition and sex, have my heartiest concurrence. But I am not prepared to say that it is one of her fundamental rights and privileges to be admitted into every office and position, including those which require highly special qualifications and demanding special responsibilities.
In the nature of things, it is not every citizen of every age, sex, and condition that is qualified for every calling and position. It is the prerogative of the legislator to prescribe regulations founded on nature, reason, and experience for the due admission of qualified persons to professions and callings demanding special skill and confidence. This fairly belongs to the police power of the state, and, in my opinion, in view of the peculiar characteristics, destiny, and mission of woman, it is within the province of the legislature to ordain what offices, positions, and callings shall be filled and discharged by men, and shall receive the benefit of those energies and responsibilities, and that decision and firmness which are presumed to predominate in the sterner sex.
When Harrison Butker says something about his opinion on socially applied theism, it is a protected right and he is entitled to influence where his conscience demands his expression, by the protection of the U.S. Constitutional construct. [*16]
But, when the U.S. Supreme Court endorses anything by theism, directly or indirectly, it is an American social catastrophe in a free-thinking, diverse, and free society. Certainly, we must concede to our fallibility that one god, or 20 different gods if that is all that "exist," may have different sets of rules, and who is so arrogant to know the will of any or all such gods "who may exist"? [*3] Not Socrates, not Lincoln, but England's King Henry VIII or Bloody Mary, perhaps. [38]
Theism and atheism are analytical equals by U.S. Constitutional constraint. One has no advantage over the other, by U.S. Constitutional constraint. [39]
7. All In. Everything for One Thing.
Following is the closing for the Declaration of Independence. This short paragraph sets the stage for creating a new nation. Everything, all in.
When you read it, I might suggest that you ponder that, contrary to popular belief and perhaps contrary to the systemically nuevo-rich congressman, true leadership is pain, not pleasure; to wit:
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. [40, *21, *23, *24, *25, *21]
[5] ONE?: The LinkedIn Reference Set [#GRZ_183] 5.1 ONE: 799 [T9:17, R2:22, L5:37] ("New Wineskins"); 5.2 ONE: 582 [T6:24] ("Serve Two Masters"); 5.3 ONE: 621 [T7:13] ("Narrow Gate"); 5.4 ONE: 612 [T7:3, L6:41] ("Beam Eye"); 5.5 ONE: 609 [L6:38] ("The Measure")
[7] In Memoriam: Benjamin Franklin Speaking of the Builders of Babel - Abridgement Series [#GRZ_135]
[22] Kicking Around Big Ideas; Or, NFL Lessons in Human Nature and Political Philosophy [#GRZ_192]; 22.1 No. 5; 22.2 No. 4; 22.3 No. 1
[35] The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Hegemony—Chapter 6 Excerpt—Responsibility [#GRZ_180]
"Libera cogitans societas dimittit conformitatem socialem ad servandam systemicam singularem libertatem." ("A free-thinking society waives social conformity to preserve systemic individual freedom."); "Tempus ducem eius invenies." ("Time discovers its leader.") ~grz
* Gregg Zegarelli, Esq., earned both his Bachelor of Arts Degree and his Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dual major areas of study were History from the College of Liberal Arts and Accounting from the Business School (qualified to sit for the CPA examination), with dual minors in Philosophy and Political Science. He has enjoyed Adjunct Professorships in the Duquesne University Graduate Leadership Master Degree Program (The Leader as Entrepreneur; Developing Leadership Character Through Adversity) and the University of Pittsburgh Law School (The Anatomy of a Deal). He is admitted to various courts throughout the United States of America.
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.,?is Managing Shareholder of Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC.?Gregg is nationally rated as "superb" and has more than 35 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes, including startups,?INC. 500, and publicly traded companies.?He is author of One: The Unified Gospel of Jesus, and The Business of Aesop? article series, and co-author with his father, Arnold Zegarelli, of The Essential Aesop: For Business, Managers, Writers and Professional Speakers. Gregg is a frequent lecturer, speaker and faculty for a variety of educational and other institutions.
? 2024 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.
The statements or opinions made in this article are solely the author's own and not representative of any institution regarding which the author is affiliated.
#GreggZegarelli #Plessy #Harlan #HarlanDissent #Sufferage #WomenRights #Creationism #BillOfRights #SeparationChurchState #Socrates #Slavery #MindSlavery #NFL #NationalFootballLeague #HarrisonButker #Butker #BodySlavery #ZygoteGestation #Abortion #Prochoice #Prolife #USConstitution #14thAmendment #SusanBAnthony #AbrahamLincoln #ThomasJefferson #Jefferson #Lincoln #Zegarelli #GRZ_197
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3 个月Back to 8th grade for me! This from the first section seems to be a challenge for many: "A free-thinking society waives social conformity to preserve systemic individual freedom." Is it antithetical to human nature?