Theory of collaboration by a civic people ed 4/21/16

A Civic People of the United States is a corporation in Louisiana, Charter No. 41953304N. Our mission is to inspire at least 70% of family; 70% of members of no-harm domestic factions and cultures; 70% of inhabitants of each street, community, city, and state to candidly collaborate for the achievable combination: no-real-harm personal liberty with civic morality (PLwCM). This entails 1) serenity in private, no-real-harm pursuits and 2) collaboration so that people living the same moments in the same places have the opportunity to choose PLwCM. Collaboration implies people who are connected in ways they choose: people working to discover and eliminate injustice, misery, and waste; people who stay abreast of a civic people's progress and behave in support; and people who merely live according to the no-real-harm principle. Currently proposed elements of the practice are listed below.

We seek your improvements and collaboration to establish an overarching, connected culture: a civic people--a no-real-harm society--wherein cultures, ethnic group, or other no-harm association may flourish. We recognize that there will always be people who, for reasons only they understand or not, oppose a civic people--insist on being disconnected. Some of them will behave harmfully, so the need for laws will persist into the foreseeable future. We think relinquishing past notions that opinion can determine civic morality is a key to this proposal. We imagine a future with the prevailing attitude, "flourish and provide safety and security for other persons to flourish."

1.      A Civic People of the United States is comprised of the inhabitants who use the literal preamble to the constitution for the USA to coordinate civic issues. Civic refers to connections due to inhabiting the same space-time rather than no-harm preferences, which are private matters--factional social issues. No-harm privacy is central to domestic goodwill on one hand and well-being on the other. The concept of managing personal pursuits so as to really not harm others is not novel, but the super-majority practice would be new.

2.      Keeping the constraints of the 1787 preamble, a civic people update the preamble's goals to be consistent with private, personal 2016 living. For example, "more perfect union" referred to the thirteen original states and now there are fifty states and six territories with a federal government; formation has been done, but maintenance is neglected. For personal freedom, candid diversity is preferred rather than uniform opinion (democracy or mobocracy), so personal "integrity" might be preferred to "unity," where "integrity" implies both connectedness and complete understanding. Also, the USA professes to be a democratic-republic but factions vie for their "democracy." 
         Until there is civic collaboration, I won't know effective word choices, and collaboration does not have to start with my statements anyway. Lastly, after all consideration, a civic people is not forced to reach a consensus or conclusions about the literal preamble. Consent is not required beyond no-harm.

3.      Respecting the civic debate, each individual keeps her/his pursuits of no-harm personal liberty private, e.g.,avocation, sports, fine arts, church. Part of civic connectedness is appreciating and honoring privacy respecting personal choices. For example, the person with the means for no-harm flight to the moon should be free to fly to the moon--on time; in budget; with no civic interference. A person should be free to try to better his/her aferdeath or not. In the same way, a person's private practices are private.

4.      Recognizing that often there is a religious moral or other opinion that conflicts reality, a civic people determine civic morality based on physics. The interrelated system of civic moralities that humankind discovers we dub "physics-based ethics." To be explicit, physics is and humankind does the humble work to discover both the physics and how to benefit; the system of interrelated benefits comprises the ethics. In a psychological example, persons do not lie to each other so that they can 1) clearly express perceived civic needs and 2) expect responses that address the need rather than a lie. Also, in this way, a civic people is not encumbered with the inevitable discovery of the lie. In another example, there is 1) personal well-being in prayer at a believer's wedding or funeral or after a tragedy but 2) civic conflict in "legislative prayer," theistic civic oaths, and similar confusions of civic responsibility with divine authority. Personal prayer is an act of humility but public prayer is an act of pride in the wisdom of choosing the personal god being invoked. To impose religious entreaties on a civic people is immoral. For example, in the Civil War, Christian legislators in the South erroneously felt their Christian god would defeat the North's Christian god. That is not to say that the privacy of prayer should be threatened.
          In a physical example of physics-based ethics, people do not attempt to place their vehicle in another vehicle's space-time, in other words, where a vehicle is already parked. Space-time is the four dimensional height, width, depth and time.  
          Such axioms respecting humanly discovered benefits work together to establish physics-based ethics. Thus, a people use physics-based ethics rather than opinion-based ethics to determine civic morality. Opinion-based ethics cannot offer the bedrock a people can commit to based on their own experiences plus observations of their neighbors' successes and failures. Personal hopes cannot be imposed on civic morality.
         Once a civic issue is explicitly stated in terms of physics and the benefits of conformity to physics are understood, the ethics is established, and deviation from the ethics, is a matter of personal choice. However, the deviant is expected to bear the cost of the apparently unethical behavior: Private practices are private. If the deviation causes no civic harm or any harm remains unknown, there is no consequence to the deviant. However, if civic harm becomes known, the deviant may suffer the law, as now.
       By discovering civic morality as physics-based ethics, innovators understand the bedrock on which to responsibly explore new frontiers of morality, unburdened by obsolete opinion.
       Physics-based ethics has its roots in the ideas of Francis Bacon, d. 1626, but relieves empiricism's tension that imagination cannot facilitate understanding: the god hypothesis is not excluded. Also, Albert Einstein claimed that science and ethics come from the same source, but we recognize that science is only a study and physics is the subject of the study. So far, we think the idea of slowly, cautiously moving from opinion-based ethics to physics-based ethics is promising. 
       Physics exists as it is, but humankind is not near discovery of all that emerged or will emerge from physics. When understood physics is not available, there remains the need for laws to provide safety and security to assure pursuit of personal privacy based on reason, often settled by majority opinion within the physics system, such as five votes to four. However, there is no place for religion in these determinations.

5.   A civic people anticipate and appreciate each newborn person, and create, decades in advance of the conceived person, the systems that support the infant's no-harm personal development unto young adulthood prepared for a full life with lessened pain and suffering. We refer to this maturing as the Overstreet Transition to draw attention to the book The Mature Mind, 1949. Thus, adults maintain a way of living that is inviting to children to be born for a full life. This appreciation is continued unto grandchildren and beyond (unto personal posterity). The cumulative personal posterities determines the people's posterity, good or bad.

6.     In addition to daily practical cultivation of the overarching culture--a civic people, members regularly communicate on the Internet or in person--important issues; news with opposing views; historical perspectives; supervision of officials; accomplishments; education; whatever emerges in the future from both physics and cultures; and a catalog of settled issues, such as use of traffic signals and guidance on never lying. A civic people serves each person in every decade of each life; that is, no-harm persons are appreciated with the private interests they pursue and harmful persons are constrained by physics-based or negotiated law. Conversations produce better ideas for the future the parties could not have created alone.

7.   Additionally, inhabitants cultivate and celebrate collaborative PLwCM on one new holiday and two official ones: Ratification Day, June 21; Constitution Day, September 17 (enacted in 2005 but neglected); and Independence Day, July 4, with personal liberty as an adjunct to national liberty. I am inclined to think of the 4th as to celebrate private liberty with civic collaboration.

8.   In elections, each person votes her/his preferences, but a civic people promote independent, informed voting as the means of supervising civic governance by the people in their cities, states, and country. Just as earning money empowers private liberty, collaborating on civic morality preserves PLwCM. Persons who leave it to someone to control their life unavoidably forfeit liberty, so a civic people encourages each person to become personally collaborative. A civic people collaborate for reliability in personal actions for the future possibility: PLwCM.

9.   With established, demonstrated success, a civic people propose, through their representatives, amendments to the constitution for their state or for the USA as needed. Thomas Jefferson wanted each generation to scrap and re-write the constitution for the USA so that the current adult generation would not be burdened with obsolete law. Re-writing was not done by the past twelve generations, and in 2016, the Administration is out of control; the Congress is dysfunctional; and the Supreme Court is lost in Supreme Court opinion. States are dismayed and some states dismay the federal government. People blame the governments, but the responsibility rests with "We the People of the United States," whether their consent is active or passive. Without real change, it seems the people will always be divided: the left wants to be left, the right wants to be right and some people want alienation. However, a civic people can establish collaboration for PLwCM. This generation can accomplish what other generations have neglected. Once the culture of a civic people is evident, it will spread to the globe excepting those countries that want alienation, which, as always, must be contained.

10. The consequence of establishing A Civic People of the United States is: a way of living that is inviting to children, children to be born, and thus to the people. “We the People of the United States” becomes clearly divided: an exemplary super-majority which acts for PLwCM versus an ever declining minority that still wants domestic alienation or is yet unaware of the personal need to collaborate for the culture of a civic people. Choice of which group to join is purely voluntary. However, it is possible that A Civic People of the United States could influence the gradual approach to the totality, We the People of the United States.

We think 70% of inhabitants want civic morality. There's historical precedence for 70% participation: 70% of delegates to the Philadelphia convention signed the draft constitution for the USA on September 17, 1787. It was a document that offered a break from England's influences, both Blackstone, opinion-based law and governance under theism--a factional-protestant god. However, the voting population in 1787, 6% of free citizens, was not ready for PLwCM, whereas the people today is diverse, and 100% of free-citizens may vote. It is a shocking thought, but it seems evident that the most urgent need is for Christians, a factional majority of Americans (a sectarian, divided majority), to assimilate for PLwCM,  sharing a culture defined by a civic statement: the preamble to the constitution for the USA. The 1787 draft constitution needed amendment and today's constitution needs amendment, yet it offers the greatest organization for government on earth, primarily in its literal preamble. Governance must conform to the literal preamble, and that is the most essential provision by the 1787 signers. Opinion-based law must reform to physics-based ethics with laws only wherein civic morality does not naturally prevail.

A Civic People of the United States, Baton Rouge, is cultivating a promising theory for solving American dysfunction, and we would like to learn from you and have your help in starting the practice. Please attend our next discussion, planned for Ratification Day, June 21, 2016. Please schedule a chosen--custom--discussion with your group. 

Also, please use the comment box below to ask a question or express a concern.

Copyright©2015 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised April 21, 2016.