Over here in the UK, George Monbiot is a prominent - even, dare I say, celebrated (in some circles; denigrated in others) - liberal, who writes excellent books (like 'Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain', presciently in 2000; and predecessing both John Perkins's 'Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man' (2004) and Naomi Klein's 'The Shock Doctrine' (2007))* and besides having a website (www.monbiot.com), also writes a weekly column in the Guardian daily national newspaper (the required reading in this country for all sandal wearers and tree huggers). In his column for this week he took on and roundly lambasted the subject, again in the headlines, of PFIs, or Private Finance Initiatives; the way that governments - both Labour and the Conservatives in this county - move construction costs off their books and onto private industries, who make a bundle on long-term building contracts that cost far more than it would have cost the government to borrow the money for the projects up-front. It has been a scam of eye-watering and blood pressure-increasing proportions, and has been a pet peeve of his for yonks (as they say in this country).** His closing lament, after trying to make a case for the public refusing to pay what he tried to deem an 'odious debt' (a term which has legal restrictions on its application) was: "Now I see corporations squatting like great cuckoos on our public services, while officials pour the money that should have been spent on nurses and teachers into their widening bills. Yes, I'm bitter. Yes, I'm clutching at straws. Have you got a better idea?"
My response to his column, and closing query:
"Indeed, George. And Seumas Milne's column of the 18th; and...and...
"What to do?
"Nothing but the total release of the money system as it has developed will do.
"Note that I didn't say anything about 'overthrow'.
"Just let it go. Having learned our lessons. And that's how we enter a new era, of life on Earth. Just waiting for us to wake up to it.
"Before too much more damage is done, by people who have lost sight of the real purpose of what we call money, and confused means with ends."
First, to clarify a reference: Seumas Milne, another chardonnay-drinking columnist in the Guardian, wrote a piece, published on the 18th inst., also bashing the corporate world's takeover of public institutions in the country. Headed 'The corporate grip on public life is a threat to democracy', it opened:
"The onward march of corporate power is a long established fact of British life. We've become familiar with the relentless privatisation of public assets and services, the creeping colonisation of Whitehall, [ie, government departments/ministries] and the revolving doors that see politicians, lobbyists, executives and civil servants swap places and exchange contracts with bewildering speed.***
"But the Guardian's revelation [that week] that fast food and drinks companies such as McDonald's, PepsiCo, Unilever and Diego have now been asked by ministers to draw up public health policy shows the corporate takeover of politics has reached a new level. This isn't an issue of government consulting business. We're talking about the same vested interests that have fuelled the obesity and alcohol abuse crises as good as dictating terms at the heart of government."
After pointing out that they will try to deregulate their industries as part of their takeover agenda, and how the health secretary had already signaled that he was "happy to oblige in what amounts to a surrender of the public realm,' he went on:
"It would be almost comical were it not so dangerously destructive. But so accustomed have we become to the advance of private profit-making into every sphere of society, it's easy to miss the acceleration of privatisation now being overseen by the Cameron administration. Across government, the crisis of the private sector is being used to launch a renewed assault on the public sector, covering everything from Royal Mail to vast expanses of public woodland..."
Ah yes; the 'crisis'. Which brings me to an earlier column by Monbiot, wherein he fingers precisely the strategy involved in this takeover programme, of democracy by corporatism, aka fat cats, aka fascism. Headed 'For the Tories, this is not a financial crisis, but a long-awaited opportunity' (the Guardian, 19 October), the column in print form highlighted one of his comments in particular: "In a classic example of 'disaster capitalism', the cuts are being used to reshape the economy in the interests of business". In the article, he points out the role of the "extreme neoliberals at the University of Chicago" - under free-market guru Milton Friedman - not only in applying their economic prescription in Chile after the military coup there in 1973, but how they were working hand in glove with the CIA in order to 'make it happen'.
A phrase which also brings to mind the 9/11 'crisis', which opened the door for the Bush administration to make legislative moves to destroy the people's rights under the nascent imposition of Martial Law, in putting America on a legalistically-opportune war footing. It comes from the 'conspiracy theory' discussion on what role, precisely, did the Bush administration play in the unfolding of that atrocity - that 'new Pearl Harbor' that the Neocons had already posited as being needed for Americans to be spooked into spending more on defense spending than they already were (as a key engine for the economy, doncha know). One school of thought has been identified by the acronym MIHOP - ie, 'Make it Happen On Purpose'; and another perspective is branded as LIHOP - ie, 'Let It Happen On Purpose'.
I won't go into the 9/11 affair in detail here; this is just to point out the role of Crisis in giving the PTB the Opportunity they need to further their ends. And that, rather than just waiting for a Crisis to give them that Opportunity, they can quite possibly be going out to Make It Happen.
The same as the subprime mortgage fiasco of the financial industry's doing. To set up a Crisis, in order to capitalize on it - figuratively and literally. (The latter, in getting the taxpayers to cover your risks. Sweet.)
Monbiot, on the Chilean affair, when Friedman visited and encouraged General Pinochet to go even further, and faster, than he was (because you have to strike while the iron is hot, or you lose the momentum of your objective and agenda):
"The result was a massive increase in unemployment and the near-eradication of the middle class. But the very rich became much richer, and the corporations, scarcely taxed, deregulated and fattened on privatised assets, became much more powerful."
- in the creation of the 20:80 society that the PTB want, and have envisioned for years; 20% of the populace being very well paid for their services to the system, and the 80% rest being 'useless eaters'. Not to eat up too much of the capital in welfare services; so those need to be cut back before the ordure hits the fan in earnest...
All of this, as if this were the whole point of an economy - of money itself: to enrich an elite. Not to share and provide goods and services. And why would you, if you don't do unto others as you would do to yourself - if you don't look at others AS yourself??
On the next page over from Monbiot's 19 October article there was a column by one Bethany McLean (co-author of 'The Smartest Guys in the Room: an Expose of the Enron Scandal') on the subject of the home repossession scam going in the States. Headed 'It's one law for murderers, another law for homebuyers', she details the disconnect between the legal standards applied to the lenders ("paperwork has been tossed into the garbage, affadavits have ben forged and the seizure and sale of homes hasn't been documented correctly. The mortgages themselves may even have been sold without proper transfer of the physical documents that show who actually owns the loans...") and those applied to the shmucks. Early on in the article she points out: "The importance of the letter of the law explains why corporations try to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' in their dealings with each other. if the transaction goes sour and the two parties end up in court, judges don't look kindly on missing or forged documentation, whatever the merits of the case. Even more, the importance of following the proper procedures under the law also explains why convicted murderers or apprehended felons go free because of tiny violations in the way their cases were handled, even when it's crystal clear that they're guilty. So why are homebuyers subject to a different standard?"
Because, Bethany, they were used as patsies, to achieve a desired outcome. And so are simply expendable, with no real rights. Do cattle have rights?...
This is all why I said, and say again: Let it go. Even if a critical mass of people 'got' that the system is corrupt, and about as near to being beyond redemption as it could possibly get, that's not enough of an answer at this point. At this historical point, we can see - for those who have eyes to see - that the system itself is fundamentally flawed, in proving how lost you can get, without a vision. Without the vision; of what life is all about. For if we got that, we would realise that we don't need the training wheels of interest-bearing money on the one hand and fractional-reserve banking on the other to provide each other with goods and services - the real point of the exercise (NOT for the very rich to become much richer). All you need is a motive. The profit motive is one; and it is proving to have deadly consequences. There is another. I submit that all we humans need, in order to provide each other with goods and services, and the best reflection of our individual ingenuity, is - as I have said, and shared, before - to do so out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning.
This, of course, requires us to awaken - truly awaken - to the fact that there is Plan in and Purpose to 'the universe' - to the life experience. And more. That the life experience itself is, essentially, an illusion.
A stage, on which we play parts. And keep swapping them around, In order to learn from the experience; in order, in turn, to grow. Evolve, spiritually.
I read people like Monbiot, and Milne, and others - on both sides of the economic-political aisle; the dialectic we are engaged in, to come out to a higher stage, of Synthesis - and I think:
People, people. You don't get it yet. With your nose too close to the scene, you're not seeing that: You are - we all are - playing parts. That's all that the life experience is: theatre. In order to play different parts at different times, and gain awareness in the process; from the experience. To grow in consciousness. And now it's time to enter the stage on another level; one more in keeping with our present enviro-spiritual evolution and circumstances.
It's time, in short, to wake up. We have major work to do, with a greater degree of awareness than we have engaged in - as a collective - heretofore.
Let's be about it.
And stop this role-playing that is hurting so many people.
That is hurting you. In essence. As part of the Whole.
---
* and David Cromwell's 'Private Planet: Corporate Plunder And the Fight Back' (2001); but not before 'The Global Trap: Globalization And the Assault on Prosperity and Democracy' by Hans-Peter Martin & Harald Schumann (1997) or Kenichi Ohmae's 'The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies' (1995). Not to mention David C. Korten's seminal 'When Corporations Rule the World' (also 1995). Just to name the good ones that I have personally come across.
** Have I made it abundantly clear yet where I am currently domiciled in my life? I really don't want the PTB to have to hunt for me with too much difficulty, when they start going around trying to silence the too-strident opposition to their best-laid plans for the planet. Yoo hoo. Over here. Up here, in Scotland. Keeping a weather eye on you from my cave. And that's 'weather' also as in whether to start calling you the names that you deserve to be called - like despicable, and so forth - but biting my tongue, because I know, as you, apparently, don't, that, on a fundamental level, I am you; and vice versa. And I really don't see the value of calling myself names. So I'll keep it clean. For as long as I can. Being human; at this stage of our mutual evolution, at least.
*** I almost typed 'swapped bodily fluids' there, wilh my mind caught up with the subject and level of intimacy that Milne was describing between the government and crony capitalism'. The reader will forgive me, I'm sure; and understand.
**** The article, incidentally, was not just about this move by the fast food and drinks industries to feather their beds in government; it also covered such other profit- and propaganda-promising fields as education. Milne went on:
"International takeover has also been the fate of John Bauer, the largest private free school provider in Sweden, which was bought out by a Danish venture capital firm. Whether many parents in Britain actually want their children's schools controlled by private equity or military service companies, over which they have no control and which might go bust or be taken over and run from abroad, seems pretty doubtful..."
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
A Rush to Judgment
My sense of fairness - my passion for fairness and justice - is being riled by a beast from Alaska slouching towards America to be born again, and again, and again. That is the brouhaha kicked up by the Republican candidate for the Senate, one Joe Miller, being a stickler for legal detail. And if we are not sticklers for legal details, we run the risk of being overwhelmed by people who do not want the rule of law, but the rule of the strongest. Thus the image of a beast from Alaska - from the wilds, where the 'survival of the fittest' reigns - is rather apt.
The situation has been occasioned by his being challenged, after his win in the primaries, by the losing Republican incumbent as a write-in candidate. It was reported that she ended up winning the election by some 10,000 votes. But hold on. There's some details here that need to be looked at.
One is a peculiar situation whereby votes in question were counted for her, but not for Joe. Quote from one of the posters on the thread of an article on CNN to this subject - all of whom otherwise were all over Miller, as a "sore loser":
"...there are only 8K ballots with questions leaving her a 2K lead, but one thing this article fails to report is that machine rejected ballots were only counted in her favor." Curious, that. Worth looking at. The power of the incumbent political machine to control such things, and all - from either side of the political aisle. So there's a legitimate question here, to be looked at more deeply. Besides the "questions" regarding the ballots in question.
This latter seems to be mostly a matter of write-in ballots with his write-in opponent's name on them, in different spelling - 'Merkowsky, Murcowskee" etc etc. Two things. (1) The state law says that such ballots - ballots not being precisely correct according to spelling - must not be counted. Sounds a little dogmatic; but that's the law there. However, the Election Procedures Committee (or whatever their correct name) said before the election that they would in fact allow the 'intent' of the voter to be honored. Curious, that. Not the idea itself; a number of states have such laws. But why the declaration contrary to their state law? Well, let's say that the incumbent political machine had an agenda to win the election for their candidate, but it might well entail that many of the people they rounded up to vote for their candidate could not spell his or her name correctly; how could they get around the state law on the matter? Well, one way would be to fudge a little, and hope they could get away with it. And that's where my fairness detector starts to sound, loudly. And I'll say more about that in a moment; but first, let me finish my thought as started above, in getting to: (2) There was another report that the incumbent political machine not only may well have rounded up voters for their candidate, but may well have 'stacked the deck' in stuffing the ballot boxes with phantom voters; and the suggestion was made that those write-in votes should be checked for the possible same handwriting. One way of which to smokescreen it would be to spell the write-in candidate's name in different ways, to make it look AS IF the ballots were from different voters.
I am saying that there is every reason to believe that there were voting shenanigans going on up there in Alaska, primarily from those incumbent political 'forces' who weren't going to go into the political wilderness without a fight.
I am also saying that there is a major principle here, which needs to be addressed, if the nation is going to continue to live under the rule of law, rather than under the rule of tyrants. And that is, the importance of deference TO the law. And to the fine point of the law. And I come now to my closing, fine point; which has to do with
the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency of the United States of America; and to the quite possible illegitimacy of that election process.
He is, in short, according to the understanding of the English language at the time of the setting of the Constitution of the United States of America, NOT a "natural born citizen". Which meant to the Founding Fathers something more than just a citizen, or a 'native born' citizen. It meant, according to material that I have researched in the matter - that others have researched for me, and for the American public in general - a person who was a citizen by both 'blood' and 'soil' - ie, born of citizen parents ('blood'), and on the soil, or equivalent thereof (as on a military base elsewhere).
It was a hurdle put in place by the Founders for that particular office for a particular purpose; which was to make sure that the person in that particular office did not have any conflicting loyalties - and especially not to the British empire, which the country had just fought a war to declare itself independent of.
Barack Hussein Obama's candidacy for that particular office fell at the first hurdle.
And why wasn't this picked up on?
Because some people with an agenda decided that it was just a 'mere detail', and could be gotten around, by a little playing fast and loose with the detail of the law.
Nothing to see here folks. Just keep moving on.
Well, I for one won't.
And neither should Joe Miller. Until both of these situations are dealt with. Honestly. And fairly.
The situation has been occasioned by his being challenged, after his win in the primaries, by the losing Republican incumbent as a write-in candidate. It was reported that she ended up winning the election by some 10,000 votes. But hold on. There's some details here that need to be looked at.
One is a peculiar situation whereby votes in question were counted for her, but not for Joe. Quote from one of the posters on the thread of an article on CNN to this subject - all of whom otherwise were all over Miller, as a "sore loser":
"...there are only 8K ballots with questions leaving her a 2K lead, but one thing this article fails to report is that machine rejected ballots were only counted in her favor." Curious, that. Worth looking at. The power of the incumbent political machine to control such things, and all - from either side of the political aisle. So there's a legitimate question here, to be looked at more deeply. Besides the "questions" regarding the ballots in question.
This latter seems to be mostly a matter of write-in ballots with his write-in opponent's name on them, in different spelling - 'Merkowsky, Murcowskee" etc etc. Two things. (1) The state law says that such ballots - ballots not being precisely correct according to spelling - must not be counted. Sounds a little dogmatic; but that's the law there. However, the Election Procedures Committee (or whatever their correct name) said before the election that they would in fact allow the 'intent' of the voter to be honored. Curious, that. Not the idea itself; a number of states have such laws. But why the declaration contrary to their state law? Well, let's say that the incumbent political machine had an agenda to win the election for their candidate, but it might well entail that many of the people they rounded up to vote for their candidate could not spell his or her name correctly; how could they get around the state law on the matter? Well, one way would be to fudge a little, and hope they could get away with it. And that's where my fairness detector starts to sound, loudly. And I'll say more about that in a moment; but first, let me finish my thought as started above, in getting to: (2) There was another report that the incumbent political machine not only may well have rounded up voters for their candidate, but may well have 'stacked the deck' in stuffing the ballot boxes with phantom voters; and the suggestion was made that those write-in votes should be checked for the possible same handwriting. One way of which to smokescreen it would be to spell the write-in candidate's name in different ways, to make it look AS IF the ballots were from different voters.
I am saying that there is every reason to believe that there were voting shenanigans going on up there in Alaska, primarily from those incumbent political 'forces' who weren't going to go into the political wilderness without a fight.
I am also saying that there is a major principle here, which needs to be addressed, if the nation is going to continue to live under the rule of law, rather than under the rule of tyrants. And that is, the importance of deference TO the law. And to the fine point of the law. And I come now to my closing, fine point; which has to do with
the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency of the United States of America; and to the quite possible illegitimacy of that election process.
He is, in short, according to the understanding of the English language at the time of the setting of the Constitution of the United States of America, NOT a "natural born citizen". Which meant to the Founding Fathers something more than just a citizen, or a 'native born' citizen. It meant, according to material that I have researched in the matter - that others have researched for me, and for the American public in general - a person who was a citizen by both 'blood' and 'soil' - ie, born of citizen parents ('blood'), and on the soil, or equivalent thereof (as on a military base elsewhere).
It was a hurdle put in place by the Founders for that particular office for a particular purpose; which was to make sure that the person in that particular office did not have any conflicting loyalties - and especially not to the British empire, which the country had just fought a war to declare itself independent of.
Barack Hussein Obama's candidacy for that particular office fell at the first hurdle.
And why wasn't this picked up on?
Because some people with an agenda decided that it was just a 'mere detail', and could be gotten around, by a little playing fast and loose with the detail of the law.
Nothing to see here folks. Just keep moving on.
Well, I for one won't.
And neither should Joe Miller. Until both of these situations are dealt with. Honestly. And fairly.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
2012: A Sign of the Times
A film played in our community last night, a premiere of a documentary by one Daniel Pinchbeck on the general subject of '2012'; a theme, or even meme, gaining a lot of notoriety these days. I didn't go to it, for basic practical, mundane reasons - living my life in a community, with various community chores to take part in; but I have read a little in the subject area, including the book by Pinchbeck that the docu is presumably based on ('2012: the Return of Quetzalcoatl'). Which all brings up various memories for me, and a sense of happenings in our time.
First, the memories. There was a time in my seeker's life (I consider myself a seeker of Truth) when I read a fair amount in the subject area of the 'religions' and histories of various cultures in Central and South America. Interesting things going on there, reaching way back in time. I even started planning at one point to travel down to Central America and do some research, and feeling, in situ; but life circumstances intervened and prevailed. Anyway, it's all interesting food for thought. I was, am, particularly intrigued by the Mayan concept of the cyclical nature of time; which ties in somehow with even the Sumerian's understanding of the precession of the equinoxes. There is, in short, a larger canvas that we are playing out the human life experience on. But I also have a sense of 'right time'. And my inner sense of 'right time' tells me that there is, indeed, something of a profound nature to happen in our time; and it is why I have chosen to incarnate at, and for, this particular time. And so have many (all? to varying degrees of awareness) of us.
I like something that one John Major Jenkins has said to this subject:
“Around the year 2012, a large chapter in human history will be coming to an end.
All the values and assumptions of the previous World Age will expire and a new phase
of human growth will commence.”
Jenkins is one of the key 'voices' in the '2012' subject area; along with the likes of Terence McKenna, Jose Arguelles, and Carl Johan Calleman. He has studied the Mayan philosophy and calendric 'code' for some 25 years, and leads tours to the original sites. Of course, that makes him a big 'suspect' in the eyes of skeptics, since he is making a living on his area of interest; can hardly be said to be objective, or above potential lily gilding. But the information itself is worth investigating; bringing up, as it does, questions about what all has taken place on this lovely planet in the past - and what that all may tell us about the future. If there even is such a thing fundamentally as 'past' and 'future' - as 'time'.
But I'm starting to get a bit afield. I want to back this blog up a bit, and share my sense of what's going on 'in the world'.
Besides a rather big Crisis emerging, of the western monetary and economic systems, there is also its concomitant Opportunity. An Opportunity of breakthrough, into a whole new level of human civilization, characterized by a higher level, in a critical mass of humanity, of consciousness. A readiness to take on new horizons of being; which also includes stellar travel.
To me, two things are converging on the - our- time line: Technology, and History. We, in short, have the wherewithal now in technology to attain to a higher level of 'history', of civilization, at the same time as our scientific processes have helped us gain insights into who we are, really. And one of those scientific processes has been the ability to bring people back 'from the dead', who have shared their experiences, in what we call Near Death Experiences, or also Out of Body Experiences. Plus other people's experiences of disincarnate entities, with provable pieces of the experiences. There is evidence, then, in our time, that something of 'us' exists outside of our material brain. That we are, there is, something 'more than Man' about us. That there is a larger reality than our conventional scientific instruments have allowed us to access in the past.
There is also a voluminous literature by now on the subject of reincarnation, which, together with this sense of a major Opportunity in Time being afforded us, can help us sense into our 'larger' reality.
That we are more than our current personalities.
And thus have been caught up in something of a play, in this theatre called Time.
Which brings up my summarizing point; that: We have been caught up in a drama. For learnings, and the gaining of wisdom, yes; but there is, has been, something of the artificial about it. It's time to stop playing parts, and get on with 'it'- get to the real thing. Which is living our lives as sparks of the One; transcending in consciousness our moment's (ie, in fundamentally unreal 'time') individuality, and belief that we are separate entities, strictly unto ourselves. We have more important things to do than any longer be mesmerized by, and caught up in, the illusion of life as we have known it. We have, in short, work to do.
Let's be about our real work:
of making of Earth an Eden; and recognizing it as if for the first time.*
It's time for transformation, and renewal. And that's what the Mayan calendar - and many other 'hints' in our history; including the curious 'coding' in the first five books of the Judeo-Christian Bible (the Pentateuch) - is really all about.
---
* 'We shall not cease from exploration; and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.' T. S. Eliot
First, the memories. There was a time in my seeker's life (I consider myself a seeker of Truth) when I read a fair amount in the subject area of the 'religions' and histories of various cultures in Central and South America. Interesting things going on there, reaching way back in time. I even started planning at one point to travel down to Central America and do some research, and feeling, in situ; but life circumstances intervened and prevailed. Anyway, it's all interesting food for thought. I was, am, particularly intrigued by the Mayan concept of the cyclical nature of time; which ties in somehow with even the Sumerian's understanding of the precession of the equinoxes. There is, in short, a larger canvas that we are playing out the human life experience on. But I also have a sense of 'right time'. And my inner sense of 'right time' tells me that there is, indeed, something of a profound nature to happen in our time; and it is why I have chosen to incarnate at, and for, this particular time. And so have many (all? to varying degrees of awareness) of us.
I like something that one John Major Jenkins has said to this subject:
“Around the year 2012, a large chapter in human history will be coming to an end.
All the values and assumptions of the previous World Age will expire and a new phase
of human growth will commence.”
Jenkins is one of the key 'voices' in the '2012' subject area; along with the likes of Terence McKenna, Jose Arguelles, and Carl Johan Calleman. He has studied the Mayan philosophy and calendric 'code' for some 25 years, and leads tours to the original sites. Of course, that makes him a big 'suspect' in the eyes of skeptics, since he is making a living on his area of interest; can hardly be said to be objective, or above potential lily gilding. But the information itself is worth investigating; bringing up, as it does, questions about what all has taken place on this lovely planet in the past - and what that all may tell us about the future. If there even is such a thing fundamentally as 'past' and 'future' - as 'time'.
But I'm starting to get a bit afield. I want to back this blog up a bit, and share my sense of what's going on 'in the world'.
Besides a rather big Crisis emerging, of the western monetary and economic systems, there is also its concomitant Opportunity. An Opportunity of breakthrough, into a whole new level of human civilization, characterized by a higher level, in a critical mass of humanity, of consciousness. A readiness to take on new horizons of being; which also includes stellar travel.
To me, two things are converging on the - our- time line: Technology, and History. We, in short, have the wherewithal now in technology to attain to a higher level of 'history', of civilization, at the same time as our scientific processes have helped us gain insights into who we are, really. And one of those scientific processes has been the ability to bring people back 'from the dead', who have shared their experiences, in what we call Near Death Experiences, or also Out of Body Experiences. Plus other people's experiences of disincarnate entities, with provable pieces of the experiences. There is evidence, then, in our time, that something of 'us' exists outside of our material brain. That we are, there is, something 'more than Man' about us. That there is a larger reality than our conventional scientific instruments have allowed us to access in the past.
There is also a voluminous literature by now on the subject of reincarnation, which, together with this sense of a major Opportunity in Time being afforded us, can help us sense into our 'larger' reality.
That we are more than our current personalities.
And thus have been caught up in something of a play, in this theatre called Time.
Which brings up my summarizing point; that: We have been caught up in a drama. For learnings, and the gaining of wisdom, yes; but there is, has been, something of the artificial about it. It's time to stop playing parts, and get on with 'it'- get to the real thing. Which is living our lives as sparks of the One; transcending in consciousness our moment's (ie, in fundamentally unreal 'time') individuality, and belief that we are separate entities, strictly unto ourselves. We have more important things to do than any longer be mesmerized by, and caught up in, the illusion of life as we have known it. We have, in short, work to do.
Let's be about our real work:
of making of Earth an Eden; and recognizing it as if for the first time.*
It's time for transformation, and renewal. And that's what the Mayan calendar - and many other 'hints' in our history; including the curious 'coding' in the first five books of the Judeo-Christian Bible (the Pentateuch) - is really all about.
---
* 'We shall not cease from exploration; and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.' T. S. Eliot
Friday, 12 November 2010
A Miracle? Yes, And...
Saw a film last night (on DVD) on A Course in Miracles, produced by the main holding group of that initiative. ACIM, to explain briefly for newcomers to this school of thought, is a set of material ( 'a self-study curriculum') dealing with life and its purpose(s), which came through a woman in the U.S. some 40 years ago, and is presented as coming from the entity known to history as Jesus.* The key aspects of it are: that life is an illusion; that nothing unreal exists in reality; and that the point of the life exercise - ie, life as we know it - is to release it and get back to Unity, with Source; where we actually already are, since Time is an illusion also; is part of the matrix that we are embedded in. Or some such wording of the concepts. I'm not a student of the material (tried to get into it years ago, but felt a block, for whatever reason(s)), but I have read in Gary Renard's 'Disappearance of the Universe', and much of his 'Your Immortal Reality', and so 'get the drift' of the material.
What do I think of it.
I think that, although it feels to me basically valuable, even 'correct', I sense an emphasis in it that doesn't sit quite right with me. It is very much about the Buddhist concept of releasing desire, getting off the wheel of rebirth that has us trapped in life after life. So far, so fair enough. But there's another element to life that is as important as that truism about it. And that is, that life - far from some sort of error, with such a negative connotation to it - is for a purpose. Not to mislead us, by some sort of evil daemon or whatever for nefarious purposes. But to give us an opportunity for growth.
So that, yes: Life, as we experience it here on this material plane, is 'a snare and a delusion' - is maya, the Buddhist concept of illusion. So ultimately it needs to be released. But it also needs to be appreciated, for what it more fully is: the vehicle for us individually to gain in consciousness, grow in awareness, and engage in evolution; what is, ultimately, spiritual evolution. And since we are part of a larger Whole, the Whole engages in evolution as well - through us; through ours. So 'God' - the Elohim; the Source; whatever Source is - benefits by our acting thus.**
And that's the ultimate lesson. Not just to understand that the way to get TO that goal is through release of guilt, and practice of forgiveness. Both, the qualities that will release us from the wheel of rebirth; dipping us, over and over, into life, into we get 'it'.
Enough for now. Have to go to attend to material things.
Except just to mention, that it is that quality, of appreciation for the experience and 'substance' of life, that should inform our treatment of that substance. (The environmental movement a part of that attitude.) It may, in essence, be illusion. But it is a reflection of our gratitude for the life experience - for the possibility of growth - how we treat 'nature'.
It is every bit as holy as we are.
Honour it. Your life - your immortal life - depends on it.
---
* There is considerable question whether there really was an individual by that name and history, as handed down to our day and (very interesting) age through the Christian tradition. But that's for another blog. (See the research especially of Tony Bushby and Ralph Ellis in this regard, according to my personal experience. There are others. It's no secret, to the seeker.)
** the Law of One material - also material channelled through an individual; but also through a group, holding a group energy field - speaks of coming from 'a social memory complex'. I can imagine that there is something else higher up the ladder of spiritual evolution than individual souls, sparks of divinity, making their way individually back to Source, from their sojourn in the learning wilderness of perceived separation.
At this point, let me clarify: Do I believe everything that comes through individuals as chanelled material? The answer is No, but: No, but I like to keep an open mind to any information that comes my way; process it, and see what I think of it. As one of the founders of the community where I have spent, off and on, nearly thirty years of my life liked to put it: 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating.'
A community founded, by the way, in part by a woman who also channelled material; from what she felt as a higher source, and which she felt was 'God'.
Who knows. Who cares. Read, reflect, digest, and see what comes out of your own inner process. That's all, really, any of us can do; in our attempts in the physical to resonate to & with our highest potential.
What do I think of it.
I think that, although it feels to me basically valuable, even 'correct', I sense an emphasis in it that doesn't sit quite right with me. It is very much about the Buddhist concept of releasing desire, getting off the wheel of rebirth that has us trapped in life after life. So far, so fair enough. But there's another element to life that is as important as that truism about it. And that is, that life - far from some sort of error, with such a negative connotation to it - is for a purpose. Not to mislead us, by some sort of evil daemon or whatever for nefarious purposes. But to give us an opportunity for growth.
So that, yes: Life, as we experience it here on this material plane, is 'a snare and a delusion' - is maya, the Buddhist concept of illusion. So ultimately it needs to be released. But it also needs to be appreciated, for what it more fully is: the vehicle for us individually to gain in consciousness, grow in awareness, and engage in evolution; what is, ultimately, spiritual evolution. And since we are part of a larger Whole, the Whole engages in evolution as well - through us; through ours. So 'God' - the Elohim; the Source; whatever Source is - benefits by our acting thus.**
And that's the ultimate lesson. Not just to understand that the way to get TO that goal is through release of guilt, and practice of forgiveness. Both, the qualities that will release us from the wheel of rebirth; dipping us, over and over, into life, into we get 'it'.
Enough for now. Have to go to attend to material things.
Except just to mention, that it is that quality, of appreciation for the experience and 'substance' of life, that should inform our treatment of that substance. (The environmental movement a part of that attitude.) It may, in essence, be illusion. But it is a reflection of our gratitude for the life experience - for the possibility of growth - how we treat 'nature'.
It is every bit as holy as we are.
Honour it. Your life - your immortal life - depends on it.
---
* There is considerable question whether there really was an individual by that name and history, as handed down to our day and (very interesting) age through the Christian tradition. But that's for another blog. (See the research especially of Tony Bushby and Ralph Ellis in this regard, according to my personal experience. There are others. It's no secret, to the seeker.)
** the Law of One material - also material channelled through an individual; but also through a group, holding a group energy field - speaks of coming from 'a social memory complex'. I can imagine that there is something else higher up the ladder of spiritual evolution than individual souls, sparks of divinity, making their way individually back to Source, from their sojourn in the learning wilderness of perceived separation.
At this point, let me clarify: Do I believe everything that comes through individuals as chanelled material? The answer is No, but: No, but I like to keep an open mind to any information that comes my way; process it, and see what I think of it. As one of the founders of the community where I have spent, off and on, nearly thirty years of my life liked to put it: 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating.'
A community founded, by the way, in part by a woman who also channelled material; from what she felt as a higher source, and which she felt was 'God'.
Who knows. Who cares. Read, reflect, digest, and see what comes out of your own inner process. That's all, really, any of us can do; in our attempts in the physical to resonate to & with our highest potential.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
On Appreciating the Detail of Things
I'm feeling the impulse to make a comment on the need and value of 'looking at the detail of things', in the many ways of that sentiment. I'll start with spelling.
Spelling seems to have become a lost art. Well; strike that: It's more than an art. It has to do with our daily lives, and how we live them. Let me start this 'essay' into this area with an observation. I keep track of a lot of e-newsletters and blogs and their Comments threads, originating both in the US and here in the UK. And I am appalled at the level of what at least used to be called illiteracy. There are a number of strands to that condition - how to express oneself in sentence structure, etc etc - but the main piece of the pitiful picture is incorrect spelling.
It's obvious that much of this comes from a lack, in the schooling of the last generation or so, of a commitment to proper spelling. It's too widespread to be just a local phenomenon. To confirm that impression, I would love to visit some elementary schools, and see how much classroom time is dedicated to this aspect of learning how to use one's language to express oneself. I suspect the worst. Other subjects have been deemed more important. 'Oh well; they'll pick it up as they go along. The important thing is to let them express themselves in a way that's comfortable for them.' Well, no and no. They WON'T just 'pick it up'. That's the attitude that has resulted in far too many kids just sent on in their classes without a basic education, in learning to read, eg, or do 'rithmetic. Because they'll 'pick it up as they go along'. Sorry. Doesn't happen much. Too many other things to take up their time. 'They' have been deprived of a decent education, because of this attitude. And as for being 'comfortable': That would be fine if they didn't have to make their way in life with others - with others involved in their being vetted for jobs, say.
We don't live isolated in our own little bubbles. We live in a society, with others; interact with others. That requires some communication skills.
But let me get on with the main point I want to make about this matter. And that is to claim that: To learn how to spell correctly is to honour the value of looking at the detail of things.* It trains the mind. What am I talking about. I'm talking about the likes of 'the fine print' to contracts: needs an eye for the details. I'm talking about the laws of physics, and such. Equations that don't balance are NOT 'good enough'. Medicines (organic chemistry), inventions, hinge on details. 'Close enough' is good enough in washing a car, but not in designing one. It's like Robert Frost said of free verse: It's like playing tennis with the net down. I hope I've made my point. Poor spelling is indicative of, symptomatic of, sloppy thinking. Now, yes: the spelling of words can change over the years, via usage. But the process needs to be conscious. Not just from sloppy thinking, that it's 'close enough'...'good enough'...**
We come now to the further point I want to make with this. And that is to bring up the subject of the contractual nature of the U.S. Constitution. I will refer here specifically to the 14th Amendment, the 16th Amendment, and to Barack Obama's apparent ineligibility for the office of the president of the United States - due to 'the detail' of things like words and their meanings.
First, the 14th Amendment. Most people -and, apparently, including some constitutional scholars - don't realise how it has been perverted into turning the Constitution on its head, and changing it from a contractual document applying from the States to the federal government, into a wet noodle applying from the federal government to the States. Coming in the wake of the Civil War, it had a number of features. One was that it established that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This made full citizens of the former slaves, who did not have such full citizenry before this. The amendment goes on to say: "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." I submit that any commonsense reading of this clause would take it as meaning (and the 'original intention' can be checked on this) that the States could not treat their citizens (now citizens of the U.S. as well) arbitrarily, had to abide by the rule of law. But lo and behold, this clause has been used by liberal law-school professors and other likeminded people to drive a coach and horses through the Constitution: to create a 'doctrine' of what is called 'incorporation' - that is, that the terms of the Bill of Rights were now to apply, as I said above, from the federal government to the States; that the Bill of Rights was all 'incorporated' into/by this statement, thereby making the States subject to the rulings of the (federal) Supreme Court.
This is a nonsense. This is a playing with words, to make them come out to mean what the beholder wants them to mean. This is known as the Humpty Dumpty argument; who said: 'Words mean what I say they mean - neither more nor less." And thus has been born the rule of activist judges, interpreting the Constitution according to their personal sociopolitical proclivities.
Two things. (1) The necessity of looking at the detail of things has been perverted here, in a major way; and (2) It turns out that the 14th Amendment was never properly ratified anyway. So it is, according to the detail of things, null and void.
its pronouncements can, of course, be legalised - ironically, by "due process of law", to put the matter in the 14th's own words. Not in its manufactured meanings.
Next, the 16th Amendment, aka the 'Income Tax' Amendment. Neither was it properly ratified. That little detail needs revisiting as well; again, if we're going to live by the rule of law, rather than by the rule of tyrants.
And finally, the question of Barack Obama's eligibility to hold the highest office in the land. This little matter hinges on the definition of "a natural born citizen", as understood by the Framers of the Constitution.
What did it mean to them, in their minds. There are several historical clues to this, all leading to the most logical understanding that it meant that such a person/candidate had to be a citizen by 'blood' and by 'soil' - had to born on the soil (or its equivalent) by parents who were both citizens. That the person to hold that special and specific office could not have dual loyalties - and especially not to the British Empire, from whom they had just declared their independence.
It doesn't matter where, precisely, Obama was born, if words are to have any real meaning. If his father was, indeed, Barack Obama Sr., his eligibility for that office fell at that first hurdle.
And I say, 'If" here, because there is some question about his parentage, as passed down to him in oral history form from his mother and maternal grandparents. This anomaly in the story of his birth would account for why the Hawaiian authorities have been so 'legalistic' in their statements regarding his original, long-form birth certificate on file. Yes, they may have seen it. And yes, he may indeed be a "natural born citizen" - but of different parentage than we have all been led to believe.
And was it this that his maternal grandmother might have talked to him about, on her deathbed, when he visited her during his campaign for the office? And is this why he has refused to let his original birth record be made public? And why he has refused to let any of his other official records be made public - because they may also bring up questions about his eligibility, which investigation might all lead ineluctably back to his original birth certificate, and a serious questioning of who he is really? And perhaps also answer why Speaker of the House and Chair of the Democratic National Convention, Nancy Pelosi, made some curious statements on the nominating forms to the States, about this matter of his eligibility??
Things get curiouser, and curiouser, and curiouser, the more one goes down this rabbit hole -
the rabbit hole in particular of Obama's eligibility and background, and in general of what has been going down in America for some time, regarding the rule of law, and attention - or not - to detail..
Which brings me back to the bedrock of the matter: the Constitution of the United States, and the honoring thereof, as a legal document.
To sum up: How it is interpreted now is to miss the point. If you want to change the meaning of a legal contract, you must come to an agreement of the parties to the contract.
So, in sum: Yes, spelling of words can change over the years.
But the meaning stays the same.
Unless or until it is changed.
Legally. Or, in certain words: according to "due process".
Which has not been accorded to changes in the Constitution.
And needs to be.
Or we are living under the rule of tyrants.
Who must not be allowed to stand on our necks, any longer.
For we have a higher destiny to fulfill, than being their minions.
We have a change of consciousness to be ushered into consciousness.
In order that our potential can be fulfilled.
Our potential, as 'spiritual beings having a human experience'.
Paying attention to the detail of things.
Not simply accepting things as they are; as 'good enough'.
Or, like, not understanding what primarily has caused the breakdown of the nuclear family. Which was not because of the rise of 'feminism' (except tangentially, as part of the same agenda; of people who wanted more people to be taxed, so they could make more money off them, via the 16th Amendment, and its partner in crime, the concomitant establishing of the Federal Reserve System). But because of inflation. Causing the value of the money to be surreptitiously lowered. Aka stolen. By people who knew precisely what they were doing, and why.
And who got away with it, to the current point of - almost - collapse of the system; of the current paradigm (that does not give them all the power they would like to have; especially with that damnable Constitution in the way).
Because the public was lulled, by the opiate of entertainment, into not noticing what was going on, all around them.
Because they weren't paying enough attention to the detail of things.
Got your attention now, didn't they.
When it's almost - almost - too late.
Except that they have a surprise in store for them.
The surprise that God moves in mysterious ways.
And has a different outcome in store, for us all.
If we will choose it.
Which we have had all along.
Choice.
The choice to look at the detail of things - like life itself - or not.
And learn from our experiences.
Of life as a school.
The purpose being to graduate.
To learn our lessons. And move on.
A minor detail to some.
Obviously; the way they are acting.
And note the word, 'acting'.
As we are all playing parts, in a drama, created to catch our consciences.
Ultimately.
All.
As One.
And then we won't need things like written words to communicate with ourselves.
We will just Be.
Having - again; to underscore the point - learned our lessons.
And the biggest lesson of all.
That We Are All One.
A heckuva detail, that one.
---
* And I used the word 'honour' here on purpose, to acknowledge that there is a difference in spelling in the English language between the British version and the American version. But at least it's consistent; is not all over the place, just what seems to be good enough to convey one's point. Read on.
** I'm also aware of the research that has found that the human eye can 'read' a word if only the first and last letters are correct, and the middle is even gobbledegook (or, equally, gobbledygook). But that's also why so many children can't read: because they never learned, via the 'whole word' method of reading, to decipher the code of the alphabet, 'get' that a particular letter stands for a particular sound. This has also been a bane to our educational existence for some time now; kids having to (learn to) read by memorizing the shape of the word, rather than being able to sound it out for themselves, get it for themselves. I remember, when researching this whole business of Why Johnny Can't Read, reading a 'whole word' reading primer whereby the children were taught, eg, to recognise the word 'monkey' by a picture alongside the word showing a monkey hanging by its tail on the 'y' at the end. This is Egyptian pictography stuff; not civilization since the invention of the Arabic alphabet.***
*** There's more to this story than this; having to do with brain damage, primarily via vaccines, since the late 1940s-50s, leaving many children with such as dyslexia (and dyspraxia, and ADD, and ADHD, and...and.....). But that's another blog.
Spelling seems to have become a lost art. Well; strike that: It's more than an art. It has to do with our daily lives, and how we live them. Let me start this 'essay' into this area with an observation. I keep track of a lot of e-newsletters and blogs and their Comments threads, originating both in the US and here in the UK. And I am appalled at the level of what at least used to be called illiteracy. There are a number of strands to that condition - how to express oneself in sentence structure, etc etc - but the main piece of the pitiful picture is incorrect spelling.
It's obvious that much of this comes from a lack, in the schooling of the last generation or so, of a commitment to proper spelling. It's too widespread to be just a local phenomenon. To confirm that impression, I would love to visit some elementary schools, and see how much classroom time is dedicated to this aspect of learning how to use one's language to express oneself. I suspect the worst. Other subjects have been deemed more important. 'Oh well; they'll pick it up as they go along. The important thing is to let them express themselves in a way that's comfortable for them.' Well, no and no. They WON'T just 'pick it up'. That's the attitude that has resulted in far too many kids just sent on in their classes without a basic education, in learning to read, eg, or do 'rithmetic. Because they'll 'pick it up as they go along'. Sorry. Doesn't happen much. Too many other things to take up their time. 'They' have been deprived of a decent education, because of this attitude. And as for being 'comfortable': That would be fine if they didn't have to make their way in life with others - with others involved in their being vetted for jobs, say.
We don't live isolated in our own little bubbles. We live in a society, with others; interact with others. That requires some communication skills.
But let me get on with the main point I want to make about this matter. And that is to claim that: To learn how to spell correctly is to honour the value of looking at the detail of things.* It trains the mind. What am I talking about. I'm talking about the likes of 'the fine print' to contracts: needs an eye for the details. I'm talking about the laws of physics, and such. Equations that don't balance are NOT 'good enough'. Medicines (organic chemistry), inventions, hinge on details. 'Close enough' is good enough in washing a car, but not in designing one. It's like Robert Frost said of free verse: It's like playing tennis with the net down. I hope I've made my point. Poor spelling is indicative of, symptomatic of, sloppy thinking. Now, yes: the spelling of words can change over the years, via usage. But the process needs to be conscious. Not just from sloppy thinking, that it's 'close enough'...'good enough'...**
We come now to the further point I want to make with this. And that is to bring up the subject of the contractual nature of the U.S. Constitution. I will refer here specifically to the 14th Amendment, the 16th Amendment, and to Barack Obama's apparent ineligibility for the office of the president of the United States - due to 'the detail' of things like words and their meanings.
First, the 14th Amendment. Most people -and, apparently, including some constitutional scholars - don't realise how it has been perverted into turning the Constitution on its head, and changing it from a contractual document applying from the States to the federal government, into a wet noodle applying from the federal government to the States. Coming in the wake of the Civil War, it had a number of features. One was that it established that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This made full citizens of the former slaves, who did not have such full citizenry before this. The amendment goes on to say: "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." I submit that any commonsense reading of this clause would take it as meaning (and the 'original intention' can be checked on this) that the States could not treat their citizens (now citizens of the U.S. as well) arbitrarily, had to abide by the rule of law. But lo and behold, this clause has been used by liberal law-school professors and other likeminded people to drive a coach and horses through the Constitution: to create a 'doctrine' of what is called 'incorporation' - that is, that the terms of the Bill of Rights were now to apply, as I said above, from the federal government to the States; that the Bill of Rights was all 'incorporated' into/by this statement, thereby making the States subject to the rulings of the (federal) Supreme Court.
This is a nonsense. This is a playing with words, to make them come out to mean what the beholder wants them to mean. This is known as the Humpty Dumpty argument; who said: 'Words mean what I say they mean - neither more nor less." And thus has been born the rule of activist judges, interpreting the Constitution according to their personal sociopolitical proclivities.
Two things. (1) The necessity of looking at the detail of things has been perverted here, in a major way; and (2) It turns out that the 14th Amendment was never properly ratified anyway. So it is, according to the detail of things, null and void.
its pronouncements can, of course, be legalised - ironically, by "due process of law", to put the matter in the 14th's own words. Not in its manufactured meanings.
Next, the 16th Amendment, aka the 'Income Tax' Amendment. Neither was it properly ratified. That little detail needs revisiting as well; again, if we're going to live by the rule of law, rather than by the rule of tyrants.
And finally, the question of Barack Obama's eligibility to hold the highest office in the land. This little matter hinges on the definition of "a natural born citizen", as understood by the Framers of the Constitution.
What did it mean to them, in their minds. There are several historical clues to this, all leading to the most logical understanding that it meant that such a person/candidate had to be a citizen by 'blood' and by 'soil' - had to born on the soil (or its equivalent) by parents who were both citizens. That the person to hold that special and specific office could not have dual loyalties - and especially not to the British Empire, from whom they had just declared their independence.
It doesn't matter where, precisely, Obama was born, if words are to have any real meaning. If his father was, indeed, Barack Obama Sr., his eligibility for that office fell at that first hurdle.
And I say, 'If" here, because there is some question about his parentage, as passed down to him in oral history form from his mother and maternal grandparents. This anomaly in the story of his birth would account for why the Hawaiian authorities have been so 'legalistic' in their statements regarding his original, long-form birth certificate on file. Yes, they may have seen it. And yes, he may indeed be a "natural born citizen" - but of different parentage than we have all been led to believe.
And was it this that his maternal grandmother might have talked to him about, on her deathbed, when he visited her during his campaign for the office? And is this why he has refused to let his original birth record be made public? And why he has refused to let any of his other official records be made public - because they may also bring up questions about his eligibility, which investigation might all lead ineluctably back to his original birth certificate, and a serious questioning of who he is really? And perhaps also answer why Speaker of the House and Chair of the Democratic National Convention, Nancy Pelosi, made some curious statements on the nominating forms to the States, about this matter of his eligibility??
Things get curiouser, and curiouser, and curiouser, the more one goes down this rabbit hole -
the rabbit hole in particular of Obama's eligibility and background, and in general of what has been going down in America for some time, regarding the rule of law, and attention - or not - to detail..
Which brings me back to the bedrock of the matter: the Constitution of the United States, and the honoring thereof, as a legal document.
To sum up: How it is interpreted now is to miss the point. If you want to change the meaning of a legal contract, you must come to an agreement of the parties to the contract.
So, in sum: Yes, spelling of words can change over the years.
But the meaning stays the same.
Unless or until it is changed.
Legally. Or, in certain words: according to "due process".
Which has not been accorded to changes in the Constitution.
And needs to be.
Or we are living under the rule of tyrants.
Who must not be allowed to stand on our necks, any longer.
For we have a higher destiny to fulfill, than being their minions.
We have a change of consciousness to be ushered into consciousness.
In order that our potential can be fulfilled.
Our potential, as 'spiritual beings having a human experience'.
Paying attention to the detail of things.
Not simply accepting things as they are; as 'good enough'.
Or, like, not understanding what primarily has caused the breakdown of the nuclear family. Which was not because of the rise of 'feminism' (except tangentially, as part of the same agenda; of people who wanted more people to be taxed, so they could make more money off them, via the 16th Amendment, and its partner in crime, the concomitant establishing of the Federal Reserve System). But because of inflation. Causing the value of the money to be surreptitiously lowered. Aka stolen. By people who knew precisely what they were doing, and why.
And who got away with it, to the current point of - almost - collapse of the system; of the current paradigm (that does not give them all the power they would like to have; especially with that damnable Constitution in the way).
Because the public was lulled, by the opiate of entertainment, into not noticing what was going on, all around them.
Because they weren't paying enough attention to the detail of things.
Got your attention now, didn't they.
When it's almost - almost - too late.
Except that they have a surprise in store for them.
The surprise that God moves in mysterious ways.
And has a different outcome in store, for us all.
If we will choose it.
Which we have had all along.
Choice.
The choice to look at the detail of things - like life itself - or not.
And learn from our experiences.
Of life as a school.
The purpose being to graduate.
To learn our lessons. And move on.
A minor detail to some.
Obviously; the way they are acting.
And note the word, 'acting'.
As we are all playing parts, in a drama, created to catch our consciences.
Ultimately.
All.
As One.
And then we won't need things like written words to communicate with ourselves.
We will just Be.
Having - again; to underscore the point - learned our lessons.
And the biggest lesson of all.
That We Are All One.
A heckuva detail, that one.
---
* And I used the word 'honour' here on purpose, to acknowledge that there is a difference in spelling in the English language between the British version and the American version. But at least it's consistent; is not all over the place, just what seems to be good enough to convey one's point. Read on.
** I'm also aware of the research that has found that the human eye can 'read' a word if only the first and last letters are correct, and the middle is even gobbledegook (or, equally, gobbledygook). But that's also why so many children can't read: because they never learned, via the 'whole word' method of reading, to decipher the code of the alphabet, 'get' that a particular letter stands for a particular sound. This has also been a bane to our educational existence for some time now; kids having to (learn to) read by memorizing the shape of the word, rather than being able to sound it out for themselves, get it for themselves. I remember, when researching this whole business of Why Johnny Can't Read, reading a 'whole word' reading primer whereby the children were taught, eg, to recognise the word 'monkey' by a picture alongside the word showing a monkey hanging by its tail on the 'y' at the end. This is Egyptian pictography stuff; not civilization since the invention of the Arabic alphabet.***
*** There's more to this story than this; having to do with brain damage, primarily via vaccines, since the late 1940s-50s, leaving many children with such as dyslexia (and dyspraxia, and ADD, and ADHD, and...and.....). But that's another blog.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Of 'Progressives' and Progression
There was an excellent blog on a website called American Thinker by one Paul Curtis on 4 November (linked at Vision to America on 5 November), entitled ‘”Progressive” is a Funny Name for Poverty’. In it he made a compelling case for the failure of socialism as an economic system, and extolled capitalism for its unparallelled success, which has bought us to the level of human satisfaction where we are today. Well, I overegg the ingredients there a little bit; as a subtle hint as to where I’m going with this blog; but that’s the general drift of the article. Now, it’s true that the more that people depend on the state for their living, the more they will support the state - regardless of what it does to its people, in terms of curtailing their autonomous rights; besides demonstrably affecting, in a perverse way (at least from Eastern Europe’s experience and perspective), their standard of living. But there’s a larger picture going on here. Mr. Curtis’s blog elicited this response from me:
"Some good thoughts here, in both the article itself and this thread. But I feel a false dichotomy is being created, with one side all 'bad', and the other side all 'good'. Life doesn't really work that way. (Do you REALLY think it was a good idea to put our lives in the hands of short-term-gain Masters of the Universe??)
"May we consider a What if: What if we truly were "spiritual beings having a human experience" - and started acting like we were, from that truth. We could reach a crowning Synthesis stage from the dialectical historical processes going on (each 'thesis' having generated an antithetical reaction: the excesses of capitalism generating communism; fundamentalist and intolerant religious belief generating 'scientific' rejection of any idea of a higher Power across the board; etc). Both the religious-oriented capitalist and the secular-humanist socialist systems function on the philosophy of power; the first on the power of the few (the individual and the owner class) over the many, the latter on the power of the many (the collective) over the individual. A spiritual system, instead, would function on Love - and would get the money changers out of the picture; so that an exchange of goods and services between individuals can happen based on love, ie, freely transpiring. Not based on the training-wheels motive of a 'profit' (and the humiliating 'incentive' of interest-bearing money, and its odious, perpetual debt-creating partner, fractional-reserve banking). Recognizing fundamentally who and what we are; and living our lives from that awareness - out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning. Reflecting that gratitude in giving of our best - giving, in a word, service - to one another, as mutual sparks of the Divine.
"And when we do, we solve the problems inherent in our current dilemmic situation, of, eg, needing continual growth (and its 'planned obsolescence') at a time when we need to conserve resources; can move to alternative sources of energy (including cosmic, 'Zero Point' energy) instead of continuing to base our civilization on a terribly environmentally-polluting reliance on fossil fuels; operating and living in a system where the economy is healthier the sicker we are as individuals; and so forth.
"In a word: an evolution.
"Won't work? Ah. But we're there.
"And in our (globalized) time.
"A time we have chosen to incarnate in, and help make it happen.
"Don't believe it?
"Keep listening, inside. You'll get there.
"Sooner. Or later.
"Your choice."
I can imagine some responses to my comment.
Q: I don’t get what you were getting at. The Left sounded pretty ‘bad’ to its core to me, in your presentation.
A: This was neither the time nor place to go into all this in detail. I admit I left the argument hanging a litle. The key piece I perhaps should have inserted into this ‘puzzle’ was how the classic Left champions cooperation over the Right’s classic ‘piece’ of competition. My point: It’s time to ‘bridge our differences’, and come together. The old Left-Right paradigm is a game of ping pong. But it’s just that: a game. An historical process; but a game nevertheless. It’s time to resolve the things that separate us, and come to unity. Because, in the words of the playwright: 'Affairs are now soul sized' - ie, we have come to globalisation.
Q: Speaking of a presumed ‘historical process’: you seem to be a Marxist, or at least buy into the idea of ‘dialectical materialism’, a dialectical process.
A: I am saying that there a definite element of truth in his analysis of the economic process. He just missed the capstone; the missing piece that creates the Synthesis to the process: that there is Plan in and Purpose to life, beyond just in and for itself. It is that missing piece that will bring both sides of the dynamic equation together. Because it addresses the matter of motive.
Q: Ah yes; motive. Why do you emphasize the ‘badness’ of money so much? We humans have always had money.
A: Because ‘money’ - that concept - is standing in the way of human progress, above and beyond the level of the problem.
You - we - don’t need money. All you need is a motive, to give of your best to one another, in the providing of goods and services, and your human ingenuity. And I submit that the highest motive is Love - is out of gratitude to your Creator for life with meaning, and love for one another as sparks off the same divine Being. In truth: We are one another. In further truth: We are One.
Q: It sounds...pretty; but getting back to reality: Human nature being what it is, some people are just lazy. Why should the productive carry the unproductive?
A: Because we are all in this together; for better or for worse. Because our level of technology allows us to produce abundance; and abundance in the midst of lack is obscene, indicates a malfunctioning system. (I think of the phenomenon of food mountains adjacent to starving peoples, eg.) Because example is the best teacher. Give of your best, and leave others to heaven. (Remember: there is a Plan in all this.)
Now, obviously, there is not enough of everything for everybody. Beyond a basic level of support, you can create a system of credits, whereby the more you contribute, put into the process, the more credit you receive. (This could be purely electronically calculated and recorded; like current LETS systems.) But don’t make the mistake of doing something FOR the goodies you get out of doing it. In my earlier years I came across a bit of what I perceived even then as good advice. Quote: ‘Do, not for the fruit but for the sake.’ Just as money transmogrified in human consciousness into an end in itself, rather than the means to an end that it started out as - as simply a medium of exchange, and easier to exchange, than either cattle or coins - so can the credit system take on a life of its own. There lie dragons.*
Q: Well. Sounds...nice...
A: But it’ll never happen?
Q: Yeah.
A: Don’t underestimate the power of Spirit in affecting human consciousness. We are phototropic beings: we are being constantly called up out of ourselves by the power of the Light.
Welcome to Emergence.
In our time.
* The same as in getting caught up in life itself. Life - as we know it; on this level, this material plane of existence -is properly a means to an end, not an end in itself.
I have summarized this somewhere else, in/with the words: Life is a school. The purpose is to graduate. To experience separation from Source, learn lessons, and move on.
There may well be a kernel of truth in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, wherein Eve ‘tempted’ Adam to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. ‘God’ may well have sighed and said, ‘Oh Man - are you in for it now.’ And waited patiently for the Prodigal Son to come back home from his explorations. This seems to be the essence of the philosophy of dualism - ie, that there is Good and there is Evil, and Life is the kingdom of Evil; essentially a snare and a delusion. But there is also the possibility that ‘God’ (Whomever/Whatever; maybe a composite Being, beyond our current capabiity of understanding) is continuing to grow in consciousness as we the Children of the process do. I like to think that the latter is closer to the full truth of the matter than the former - that we are growing God as we grow ourselves; for - altogether now: We are One. Are all of the same Essence.
"Some good thoughts here, in both the article itself and this thread. But I feel a false dichotomy is being created, with one side all 'bad', and the other side all 'good'. Life doesn't really work that way. (Do you REALLY think it was a good idea to put our lives in the hands of short-term-gain Masters of the Universe??)
"May we consider a What if: What if we truly were "spiritual beings having a human experience" - and started acting like we were, from that truth. We could reach a crowning Synthesis stage from the dialectical historical processes going on (each 'thesis' having generated an antithetical reaction: the excesses of capitalism generating communism; fundamentalist and intolerant religious belief generating 'scientific' rejection of any idea of a higher Power across the board; etc). Both the religious-oriented capitalist and the secular-humanist socialist systems function on the philosophy of power; the first on the power of the few (the individual and the owner class) over the many, the latter on the power of the many (the collective) over the individual. A spiritual system, instead, would function on Love - and would get the money changers out of the picture; so that an exchange of goods and services between individuals can happen based on love, ie, freely transpiring. Not based on the training-wheels motive of a 'profit' (and the humiliating 'incentive' of interest-bearing money, and its odious, perpetual debt-creating partner, fractional-reserve banking). Recognizing fundamentally who and what we are; and living our lives from that awareness - out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning. Reflecting that gratitude in giving of our best - giving, in a word, service - to one another, as mutual sparks of the Divine.
"And when we do, we solve the problems inherent in our current dilemmic situation, of, eg, needing continual growth (and its 'planned obsolescence') at a time when we need to conserve resources; can move to alternative sources of energy (including cosmic, 'Zero Point' energy) instead of continuing to base our civilization on a terribly environmentally-polluting reliance on fossil fuels; operating and living in a system where the economy is healthier the sicker we are as individuals; and so forth.
"In a word: an evolution.
"Won't work? Ah. But we're there.
"And in our (globalized) time.
"A time we have chosen to incarnate in, and help make it happen.
"Don't believe it?
"Keep listening, inside. You'll get there.
"Sooner. Or later.
"Your choice."
I can imagine some responses to my comment.
Q: I don’t get what you were getting at. The Left sounded pretty ‘bad’ to its core to me, in your presentation.
A: This was neither the time nor place to go into all this in detail. I admit I left the argument hanging a litle. The key piece I perhaps should have inserted into this ‘puzzle’ was how the classic Left champions cooperation over the Right’s classic ‘piece’ of competition. My point: It’s time to ‘bridge our differences’, and come together. The old Left-Right paradigm is a game of ping pong. But it’s just that: a game. An historical process; but a game nevertheless. It’s time to resolve the things that separate us, and come to unity. Because, in the words of the playwright: 'Affairs are now soul sized' - ie, we have come to globalisation.
Q: Speaking of a presumed ‘historical process’: you seem to be a Marxist, or at least buy into the idea of ‘dialectical materialism’, a dialectical process.
A: I am saying that there a definite element of truth in his analysis of the economic process. He just missed the capstone; the missing piece that creates the Synthesis to the process: that there is Plan in and Purpose to life, beyond just in and for itself. It is that missing piece that will bring both sides of the dynamic equation together. Because it addresses the matter of motive.
Q: Ah yes; motive. Why do you emphasize the ‘badness’ of money so much? We humans have always had money.
A: Because ‘money’ - that concept - is standing in the way of human progress, above and beyond the level of the problem.
You - we - don’t need money. All you need is a motive, to give of your best to one another, in the providing of goods and services, and your human ingenuity. And I submit that the highest motive is Love - is out of gratitude to your Creator for life with meaning, and love for one another as sparks off the same divine Being. In truth: We are one another. In further truth: We are One.
Q: It sounds...pretty; but getting back to reality: Human nature being what it is, some people are just lazy. Why should the productive carry the unproductive?
A: Because we are all in this together; for better or for worse. Because our level of technology allows us to produce abundance; and abundance in the midst of lack is obscene, indicates a malfunctioning system. (I think of the phenomenon of food mountains adjacent to starving peoples, eg.) Because example is the best teacher. Give of your best, and leave others to heaven. (Remember: there is a Plan in all this.)
Now, obviously, there is not enough of everything for everybody. Beyond a basic level of support, you can create a system of credits, whereby the more you contribute, put into the process, the more credit you receive. (This could be purely electronically calculated and recorded; like current LETS systems.) But don’t make the mistake of doing something FOR the goodies you get out of doing it. In my earlier years I came across a bit of what I perceived even then as good advice. Quote: ‘Do, not for the fruit but for the sake.’ Just as money transmogrified in human consciousness into an end in itself, rather than the means to an end that it started out as - as simply a medium of exchange, and easier to exchange, than either cattle or coins - so can the credit system take on a life of its own. There lie dragons.*
Q: Well. Sounds...nice...
A: But it’ll never happen?
Q: Yeah.
A: Don’t underestimate the power of Spirit in affecting human consciousness. We are phototropic beings: we are being constantly called up out of ourselves by the power of the Light.
Welcome to Emergence.
In our time.
* The same as in getting caught up in life itself. Life - as we know it; on this level, this material plane of existence -is properly a means to an end, not an end in itself.
I have summarized this somewhere else, in/with the words: Life is a school. The purpose is to graduate. To experience separation from Source, learn lessons, and move on.
There may well be a kernel of truth in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, wherein Eve ‘tempted’ Adam to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. ‘God’ may well have sighed and said, ‘Oh Man - are you in for it now.’ And waited patiently for the Prodigal Son to come back home from his explorations. This seems to be the essence of the philosophy of dualism - ie, that there is Good and there is Evil, and Life is the kingdom of Evil; essentially a snare and a delusion. But there is also the possibility that ‘God’ (Whomever/Whatever; maybe a composite Being, beyond our current capabiity of understanding) is continuing to grow in consciousness as we the Children of the process do. I like to think that the latter is closer to the full truth of the matter than the former - that we are growing God as we grow ourselves; for - altogether now: We are One. Are all of the same Essence.
Monday, 1 November 2010
Clarifying the U.S. Constitution
This morning during my shower I felt the need to write a Letter to the Editor of one of the magazines I take - The New American; a right-wing magazine produced by the John Birch Society, a staunch conservative organisation in the States - regarding a somewhat recent article of theirs (in the August 16 issue) that I have just gotten around to reading fully, occasioned by a letter to the Editor in the most recent issue that I have received (October 11). It has to do with a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the Second Amendment (the 'right to keep and bear arms' amendment). In my life, one of the main areas of interest that I had developed was the 'issue' of the U.S. Constitution, and the proper reading thereof. (I hesitate to use the word 'interpretation', as will become clear further in this blog.) With U.S. mid-term elections coming up tomorrow, and with things going on in the country since the Obama election what they are, it seems fitting to be dealing with this subject.+ My subsequent letter:
"November 1 2010
"Dear Editor:
"Although I found Dennis Behreandt's article on the McDonald Decision (August 16) a valuable read, I am still in a bit of a quandary over this constitutional matter. Maybe TNA and/or its readers can help me out. Let me first lay out my take on it.
"The due process clause of the 14th Amendment is just that, and that only: a straight-forward judicial statement. Quote: No State can deprive its citizenry (now, in terms of the 14th Amendment, also citizens of the United States) of life, liberty, or property, "without due process of law..." That is to say (according to my reading, and reasoning), the law cannot be arbitrary or capricious; the States must abide by the rule of law - and furthermore, must now treat the former slaves as full citizens, entitled now to the full protection of judicial due process (what they did not have before that; as per the Dred Scott decision). And furthermore, according to the terms of the 14th, the State laws could not be selective: "...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." That was, and is, to say, the law must be, in effect - taking the issue at the time - color blind (that determination was gotten around by the Southern States for some time, but that is another matter); all US citizens are equal before the law. Again, the rule of law is paramount in constitutional processes - and a good thing, too; given the human proclivity to fudge things according to personal socio-political taste.
"I go into [all] this to lay my case for the rightful application of the Bill of Rights. That was an addendum to the proposed Constitution, designed to 'tie the federal government down from mischief' as clearly as possible.* The people had their (bills of) rights secured by their state constitutions - or not. Example: the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment was only applied to the States themselves by the 14th Amendment ("..nor shall any State deprive..."). Yes, there were "natural rights pre-existing the Constitution" (Behreandt's words); but they needed to be secured in law.
"My point: There may well be an assumption that the terms of the Bill of Rights applied to the several States; but unless they were secured in law via the several States's constitutions, they were just that: assumptions. And if you start dealing with the world of assumptions, you start dealing with the world of activist judges - judges making decisions based on their 'assumptions' of the law, rather than the law itself. A dangerous business; as we have found out, in spades. So, my conclusion: the Second Amendment applies only to the federal government. If the people of Illinois, say, choose to have a different take on the matter of the right of their citizenry to bear ams, that is their business, as stated in their constitution and laws passed [pursuant] thereto.
"Now yes, there is the matter of the 14th Amendment's making them as well citizens of the United States. But (1) we've dealt with a couple of those ramification points above; and (2) the 14th Amendment, despite the sleight-of-hand business of the 'principle' of what has come to be known as 'incorporation',** does not turn the Constitution upside down wholesale. That is to say: Nowhere in it does it either say or imply such an amendment to the Constitution as, eg: 'The powers formerly reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, shall now reside in the federal government.'
"Try to get that one passed, liberals; and see how far you get without sophistry employed to attain your ends.***
"P.S. And of course there is also the little point made by your correspondent Pastor James Riddle, in the Letters column of your October 11 issue, whereby he makes an intriguing - compelling? - case for the 14th Amendment having been illegally enacted, "by Radicals in the Republican Party". So both sides of the political aisle have something to answer for, in the mess we find ourselves in in our day and time, regarding living by - trying our best to live by - the rule of law. Not of Men.
"Yours sincerely," [etc.]
+ As for those elections, and my attitude: A pox on both their houses. If the Republicans are justifiably concerned about the socialistic tendencies of the Obama administration and its Democratic Congress (with their ideological attitude of the state riding roughshod over the individual), the Democrats are justifiably concerned about the Republican tendencies to take advantage of lax regulation and think primarily of themselves and their well-being. 'Liberty' all too often seems to mean license to them. There's got to be a better way.
And there is. But that subject is not in the scope of this blog.
* As to that intent: The 'Father of the Constitution', James Madison, in The Federalist Papers presciently warned that adding a Bill of Rights could be dangerous in that it might lend to an illusion, make it appear that the federal government had the power to do anything it wanted except for the rights spelled out in such a Bill (which is in reality just an example of such undelegated rights and powers; the federal government being (or at least intended to be) one of limited and delegated powers - "few and defined", in Madison's unequivocal words). Hence the catch-all addition to those specifically enumerated rights and powers of the 9th and 10th Amendments. The 9th: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The 10th: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
** This is the 'principle' - merely a notion, really - that the statement in the 14th Amendment, that "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" somehow conferred on the federal government and its Supreme Court the power to turn the Constitution on its head and apply the Bill of Rights as issuing from the federal government to the States. Absurd, and shocking. But they got away with it...
*** Simply, to clarify, and underscore: The federal government does not have the power to order the States to do anything but in terms of its power derived from a reasonable reading of the Constitution and the intent of its terms.
In sum: This socio-political business that has grown up in the country, of declaring: "I know my rights"..."my/our constitutional rights" has been, and is, a bit misleading. It has helped lead to the unclarity that exists in the country today - the unclarity that could lead a liberal Supreme Court, in William O. Douglas's time there, to find a 'right to privacy' in the 'penumbras' 'implied' in the Bill of Rights, which led ineluctably to the Roe v. Wade decision, for example. The Supreme Court should have been kept out of the arena of determining such 'rights', full stop.
The ambiguity crept in slowly, slowly on Fabian paw prints over the years (mostly involving 'commerce clause' decisions), and then more blatantly in around 1941, when the Supreme Court ruled for federal jurisdiction in a First Amendment, freedom-of-speech case (regarding the burning of the U.S. flag as a political statement). And it has been downhill ever since, in the sense of departing from 'original intention', and entering Humpty Dumpty land, where 'A word means what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less'.++ Or as newly-installed Justice Elena Kagan's "judicial hero", Israeli Judge Aharon Barak, would say (and has): "A judge may give a statute new meaning, a dynamic meaning, that seeks to bridge the gap between the law and life's changing reality." So, away with the legislative branch of government! Not needed. Hello Plato's benevolent despots. Or not so...
The country needs to return to the rule of law, or it risks being taken over by either the Left or the Right; socialism or fascism. Arise, the spirit of the Founding Fathers of the American experiment in self-government. Kings need not apply; philosophers or otherwise, individuals or oligarchs.
As I say: A pox on both your houses.
And when we have cleaned up our act, and learnt our lessons as well as we can, we can enter a new era; and leave our training wheels behind. Or as the Judeo-Christian Bible puts it: "When I was a child..."
---
P.S. The Letter to the Editor referred to, regarding the 14th Amendment's enactment:
[headed: 'Fraudulent Basis in Law']
"Dennis Behreandt as usual wrote a fine article, this time on gun control in the August 16 issue of TNA ('The McDonald Decision & the Second Amendment'). However, he did not point out what very few constitutionalists dare to point out. The 14th Amendment was illegally enacted by Radicals in the Republican Party.
"Dr. Larry McDonald, the late leader of the John Birch Society, put it simply in his fine book We Hold These Truths:
'Two-thirds of both chambers did not vote for the resolution proposing the Fourteenth Amendment, as must be done under the Constitution for legal passage of such a resolution. The Radical Republican majority resolved that the resolution did pass, and submitted it to the states for ratification. Three-fourths of the states did not ratify the proposed amendment, as required by the Constitution; but the Radical Republican majority in Congress had the Secretary of State proclaim it ratified anyway on July 20, 1868.'
"McDonald further states: 'Even if legally proposed and legally adopted, the Fourteenth Amendment would have foredoomed freedom under constitutional law, because it conflicts so sharply with the rest of the Constitution.'..."
He was, perhaps, a little too pessimistic in that take on the matter. But it is true that the Fourteenth Amendment has caused a serious weakening of the American form of government, as a constitutional republic with a federal form of government.
It would be helpful to get that form back. Helpful, in the sense of keeping the nation free from being taken over from either the Left or the Right, as a de facto centralized form of government. The states, then, need to reclaim their power, that they allowed to leach away, into hands that cannot be trusted with such power, for not having a proper, spiritual take on what all is involved here. Primarily, the working out of human free will, to a point where humanity can ascend to a higher level of civilization on our beloved planet Earth.
If we so choose.
And that's the point of this whole exercise in living:
Choice.
Which is it to be, friend.
Your choice.
---
++ "The question is," said Alice, "whether your can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
"November 1 2010
"Dear Editor:
"Although I found Dennis Behreandt's article on the McDonald Decision (August 16) a valuable read, I am still in a bit of a quandary over this constitutional matter. Maybe TNA and/or its readers can help me out. Let me first lay out my take on it.
"The due process clause of the 14th Amendment is just that, and that only: a straight-forward judicial statement. Quote: No State can deprive its citizenry (now, in terms of the 14th Amendment, also citizens of the United States) of life, liberty, or property, "without due process of law..." That is to say (according to my reading, and reasoning), the law cannot be arbitrary or capricious; the States must abide by the rule of law - and furthermore, must now treat the former slaves as full citizens, entitled now to the full protection of judicial due process (what they did not have before that; as per the Dred Scott decision). And furthermore, according to the terms of the 14th, the State laws could not be selective: "...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." That was, and is, to say, the law must be, in effect - taking the issue at the time - color blind (that determination was gotten around by the Southern States for some time, but that is another matter); all US citizens are equal before the law. Again, the rule of law is paramount in constitutional processes - and a good thing, too; given the human proclivity to fudge things according to personal socio-political taste.
"I go into [all] this to lay my case for the rightful application of the Bill of Rights. That was an addendum to the proposed Constitution, designed to 'tie the federal government down from mischief' as clearly as possible.* The people had their (bills of) rights secured by their state constitutions - or not. Example: the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment was only applied to the States themselves by the 14th Amendment ("..nor shall any State deprive..."). Yes, there were "natural rights pre-existing the Constitution" (Behreandt's words); but they needed to be secured in law.
"My point: There may well be an assumption that the terms of the Bill of Rights applied to the several States; but unless they were secured in law via the several States's constitutions, they were just that: assumptions. And if you start dealing with the world of assumptions, you start dealing with the world of activist judges - judges making decisions based on their 'assumptions' of the law, rather than the law itself. A dangerous business; as we have found out, in spades. So, my conclusion: the Second Amendment applies only to the federal government. If the people of Illinois, say, choose to have a different take on the matter of the right of their citizenry to bear ams, that is their business, as stated in their constitution and laws passed [pursuant] thereto.
"Now yes, there is the matter of the 14th Amendment's making them as well citizens of the United States. But (1) we've dealt with a couple of those ramification points above; and (2) the 14th Amendment, despite the sleight-of-hand business of the 'principle' of what has come to be known as 'incorporation',** does not turn the Constitution upside down wholesale. That is to say: Nowhere in it does it either say or imply such an amendment to the Constitution as, eg: 'The powers formerly reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, shall now reside in the federal government.'
"Try to get that one passed, liberals; and see how far you get without sophistry employed to attain your ends.***
"P.S. And of course there is also the little point made by your correspondent Pastor James Riddle, in the Letters column of your October 11 issue, whereby he makes an intriguing - compelling? - case for the 14th Amendment having been illegally enacted, "by Radicals in the Republican Party". So both sides of the political aisle have something to answer for, in the mess we find ourselves in in our day and time, regarding living by - trying our best to live by - the rule of law. Not of Men.
"Yours sincerely," [etc.]
+ As for those elections, and my attitude: A pox on both their houses. If the Republicans are justifiably concerned about the socialistic tendencies of the Obama administration and its Democratic Congress (with their ideological attitude of the state riding roughshod over the individual), the Democrats are justifiably concerned about the Republican tendencies to take advantage of lax regulation and think primarily of themselves and their well-being. 'Liberty' all too often seems to mean license to them. There's got to be a better way.
And there is. But that subject is not in the scope of this blog.
* As to that intent: The 'Father of the Constitution', James Madison, in The Federalist Papers presciently warned that adding a Bill of Rights could be dangerous in that it might lend to an illusion, make it appear that the federal government had the power to do anything it wanted except for the rights spelled out in such a Bill (which is in reality just an example of such undelegated rights and powers; the federal government being (or at least intended to be) one of limited and delegated powers - "few and defined", in Madison's unequivocal words). Hence the catch-all addition to those specifically enumerated rights and powers of the 9th and 10th Amendments. The 9th: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The 10th: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
** This is the 'principle' - merely a notion, really - that the statement in the 14th Amendment, that "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" somehow conferred on the federal government and its Supreme Court the power to turn the Constitution on its head and apply the Bill of Rights as issuing from the federal government to the States. Absurd, and shocking. But they got away with it...
*** Simply, to clarify, and underscore: The federal government does not have the power to order the States to do anything but in terms of its power derived from a reasonable reading of the Constitution and the intent of its terms.
In sum: This socio-political business that has grown up in the country, of declaring: "I know my rights"..."my/our constitutional rights" has been, and is, a bit misleading. It has helped lead to the unclarity that exists in the country today - the unclarity that could lead a liberal Supreme Court, in William O. Douglas's time there, to find a 'right to privacy' in the 'penumbras' 'implied' in the Bill of Rights, which led ineluctably to the Roe v. Wade decision, for example. The Supreme Court should have been kept out of the arena of determining such 'rights', full stop.
The ambiguity crept in slowly, slowly on Fabian paw prints over the years (mostly involving 'commerce clause' decisions), and then more blatantly in around 1941, when the Supreme Court ruled for federal jurisdiction in a First Amendment, freedom-of-speech case (regarding the burning of the U.S. flag as a political statement). And it has been downhill ever since, in the sense of departing from 'original intention', and entering Humpty Dumpty land, where 'A word means what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less'.++ Or as newly-installed Justice Elena Kagan's "judicial hero", Israeli Judge Aharon Barak, would say (and has): "A judge may give a statute new meaning, a dynamic meaning, that seeks to bridge the gap between the law and life's changing reality." So, away with the legislative branch of government! Not needed. Hello Plato's benevolent despots. Or not so...
The country needs to return to the rule of law, or it risks being taken over by either the Left or the Right; socialism or fascism. Arise, the spirit of the Founding Fathers of the American experiment in self-government. Kings need not apply; philosophers or otherwise, individuals or oligarchs.
As I say: A pox on both your houses.
And when we have cleaned up our act, and learnt our lessons as well as we can, we can enter a new era; and leave our training wheels behind. Or as the Judeo-Christian Bible puts it: "When I was a child..."
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P.S. The Letter to the Editor referred to, regarding the 14th Amendment's enactment:
[headed: 'Fraudulent Basis in Law']
"Dennis Behreandt as usual wrote a fine article, this time on gun control in the August 16 issue of TNA ('The McDonald Decision & the Second Amendment'). However, he did not point out what very few constitutionalists dare to point out. The 14th Amendment was illegally enacted by Radicals in the Republican Party.
"Dr. Larry McDonald, the late leader of the John Birch Society, put it simply in his fine book We Hold These Truths:
'Two-thirds of both chambers did not vote for the resolution proposing the Fourteenth Amendment, as must be done under the Constitution for legal passage of such a resolution. The Radical Republican majority resolved that the resolution did pass, and submitted it to the states for ratification. Three-fourths of the states did not ratify the proposed amendment, as required by the Constitution; but the Radical Republican majority in Congress had the Secretary of State proclaim it ratified anyway on July 20, 1868.'
"McDonald further states: 'Even if legally proposed and legally adopted, the Fourteenth Amendment would have foredoomed freedom under constitutional law, because it conflicts so sharply with the rest of the Constitution.'..."
He was, perhaps, a little too pessimistic in that take on the matter. But it is true that the Fourteenth Amendment has caused a serious weakening of the American form of government, as a constitutional republic with a federal form of government.
It would be helpful to get that form back. Helpful, in the sense of keeping the nation free from being taken over from either the Left or the Right, as a de facto centralized form of government. The states, then, need to reclaim their power, that they allowed to leach away, into hands that cannot be trusted with such power, for not having a proper, spiritual take on what all is involved here. Primarily, the working out of human free will, to a point where humanity can ascend to a higher level of civilization on our beloved planet Earth.
If we so choose.
And that's the point of this whole exercise in living:
Choice.
Which is it to be, friend.
Your choice.
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++ "The question is," said Alice, "whether your can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
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