Thursday, April 21, 2016

Theory of a civic people 11/5/17




Note: we are grateful for copy-editing on May 22, 2016 by Kate Gladstone.[1]


Preface


            Anyone who reads with purpose he or she has not yet defined, as I do, struggles to express the findings such that people can understand the work in progress. I appreciate people and perceive that most persons strive to be appreciated rather than attract hatred. In this expression, "civic" means a citizen who behaves for the people more than for the city. In other words, a civic person collaborates for mutual, responsible living during every decade of his or her life. I am not alone. Nelson Mandela said, “People must learn to hate . . . for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” In Mandela's thought, I prefer "appreciation" to "love," which is sometimes overboard or uninvited.

            I ask: with such a promising world and nation, why do Americans vie for dominant political opinion rather than collaborate for civic morality? I do not like to pose a question without offering an answer for iterative collaboration, so I propose for discussion: Establishing civic morality has never before been promoted. I think what people want is voluntary public integrity. In other words, comprehensive safety and security for willing people. In other words, civic justice.

           In making these statements, I am aware that some people will not understand. Unfortunately for me, many take the view that my language is not their language---that I am arrogant to demand my words and phrases and therefore, they decline the work to understand my message. My message is to humankind, and I beg readers to understand that I have taken many courses outside my field, chemical engineering, to improve my expressions. Courses like non-fiction writing (three), mass communications, social sciences, classical liberalism, science and religion, and others. Many professors recommend expression for the audience. I regard this as one of the many mistakes nourished by scholars, such as Adam Smith, who asserted the requirement of propriety in order to influence his narrow view. Perhaps Smith had not tried to communicate with Greeks; thereby, I learned that perhaps 13 million of Earth's 7 billion people have no equivalent for "balance." I want Greeks to understand my messages that require the word "balance," but I cannot involve the rest of the 7 billion in that work. In the same way, many people have or make trouble with my phrase "a civic people." I go to great length to explain it, but I can neither require people to comprehend nor express myself with any other phrase. There are some useful accompanying phrases, like "civic citizens," "human citizens," "willing people," and more, but so far, I have not discovered a synonym for "a civic people." I request the reader to grant the consideration to either understand my words and phrases or communicate with me to collaborate and perhaps improve them. (I added this paragraph on 11/5/2017.) The opportunity to establish a civic people is uniquely neglected in the USA.


           Before the American Revolution,  many people who would choose to stay in the United States were both 99% factional Protestants and loyal English colonials who employed Blackstone—common law for civic order. Some colonists were from other countries with competitive mores, such as Catholicism. Many colonists experienced freedom from their nation's oppression and liberty to pursue their own thoughts and preferences, a combination they could not have imagined anywhere else---only in this land. Some learned to survive on their own within their community or countryside but could not articulate a dream we call voluntary public integrity: Personal liberty with civic morality.
            Some British colonists, about 40% of free citizens, realized they were being enslaved by England, changed their style from colonies to states, and declared independence. After the thirteen states won independence, about 2/3 of patriotic representatives to the constitutional convention perceived that a new form of governance was needed. They stated, in the preamble to the constitution for the USA, in 1787, the organization and laws of a new, tripartite nation that would serve the goals of the people in their states. The limitations of the USA were stated in the articles that follow the preamble.

            The preamble's subject proposes a totality, We the People of the United States, then claims a civic contract with seven to nine goals, depending upon interpretation. People who do not consider the preamble are dissidents by default, and people who understand it and neglect or oppose it are dissidents by choice. Some are criminals. Thus, the USA is divided: A civic people on the one hand and dissidents on the other. The signers of the preamble were 2/3 of 1787 delegates, leaving 1/3 dissidents to the preamble or other provision of the draft constitution for the USA.
            Each state's particular goals would be left to the people in their states, and both private rights and states' rights were preserved. (Note that the right of private integrity is inalienable, regardless of how liberal a Supreme Court majority may be. In other words, for example, the Supreme Court may outlaw human thought but cannot stop it.) Some of the 1/3 who dissented objected to the preamble itself, preferring to advance their views of Blackstone and/or the confederation of States or for reasons only they perceived. Blackstone included factional Protestant views. Only 6% of citizens could vote, but the 99% of factional Protestants provided popular opinion that empowered both 1) neglect of the preamble and 2) a popular civic morality based on Bible interpretation of accepted error---call it American theism. If anything, the preamble was repressed as secular or areligious rather than both neutral to religion and civic.

            Western thinkers then and since then debated for social order a duality: nature and nature’s God, favoring nature’s God for two reasons. First, nature was thought of as “science,” which they "knew" was changing (even though laws of nature are unchanging), more from human metaphysics than from discovery and understanding. On the other hand, nature’s God seemed dependable, because it was specified by men who used reason. Second, and perhaps more importantly, most people were focused on living, often only surviving, and either could not afford or did not pursue the education required to comprehend and understand human psychology. As a result, political regimes found it advantageous to partner with religion and control the people using constructed beliefs and emotions--personal hopes and dreams for how to cope with human life’s unknowns. Regimes neglected the preservation and use of each person’s life so that each person might have the lifespan to discover himself or herself. In other words, life is so short a person who is not coached to discover his or her preferences may not do so. The people still allow this abuse by not attending to education throughout life. Many persons cannot even understand what I am expressing, not because I am a poor writer, but because they refuse to consider the words and phrases I am using. My use of "civic" is particularly unusual: a civic person acts with good behavior for mutual, human, comprehensive safety and security with fellow citizens more than for the city. Civic citizens behave in the woods and at sea as well as at home.

            However, these 230 years since the preamble was created, the 229 years since it was established, and the 228 years since it was repressed as "secular," advanced humankind's understanding of nature. Many persons understand that science is a study and physics, with its progeny such as chemistry and biology, is the object of study. Physics is mass, energy, and space-time, from which the-indisputable-facts-of-reality, hereafter the-objective-truth, unfolds as time progresses and humankind works to discover physics and what emerges from it. We know this not only from the big bang, 13.8 billion years ago, but from Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, 1915. Einstein’s theory became a discovered-objective-truth in 2015 at LIGO facilities right here in Louisiana. It is only one in an exponential explosion of discoveries since 1787. For example, humankind discovered that people who lie can't communicate. That is, liars isolate themselves from a civic people. Liars isolate themselves from liars.
            Also, during operation, America became a bread-basket of both real no-harm cultures and harmful cultures. There are cultures and businesses based on crime pays; time.com/3446372/criminal-justice-prisoners-profit/. Among the religions, in 2017 only 14.7% are original, factional Protestants. (I use the word "factional" rather than the conventional "sectarian" to appreciate civic morality.) Yet today 100% of non-criminals may vote. A growing 23% of the population are not religious at all; the non-religious is the largest minority that is repressed by traditional regimes in the USA; thus, it is the majority faction in America. Whereas the USA was founded on a religious culture, the people now need a civic culture. But what could replace factional Protestantism as the basis for civic morality in the USA? We think voluntary public integrity would serve a civic culture. In other words, people want a culture of mutual, human, comprehensive safety and security.
            We assert that civic citizens may use the-objective-truth in iterative collaboration to establish and preserve public integrity and morality. Within a civic culture, real no-harm religious beliefs and religious institutions may flourish according to the private needs of believers; that is, without imposition on other people. Religious doctrine that conflicts with civic morality may either reform or be constrained by statutory law that remains limited and supervised by a civic people.
            An institution's reform of religious doctrine is a continual necessity as each discovery of the-objective-truth occurs. For example, as soon as the earth's globe shape is discovered, the doctrine of flatness is discarded without revising the scripture.  However, it is prudent to develop a theory that interconnects the-discovered-objective-truth.
            It is my hope that this introduction earns each reader’s interest so that he or she will do the work necessary to understand and collaborate on the text that follows: My purpose is not to teach but to learn, yet I have carefully chosen words and phrases to express the ideas, and the reader who rejects them cannot help discover better expressions. I hope your improvements will produce ideas neither of us could have created on our own. When there are questions or objections, please use the comment box at the end of this essay to express your experience and observations: I will respond.

The theory

Our[2] mission is to motivate most American people to develop an overarching[3] civic culture with a stated and practiced agreement: the agreement in the literal preamble to the constitution for the USA. We think a civic agreement is essential for empowering each willing person's long life so that private hopes and dreams may be possible. The constitution has provisions for amendment as a civic people (ACP) may require in the future.
The volunteer entity, ACP may candidly collaborate for the achievable civic combination: real no-harm private liberty with civic morality or voluntary public-integrity.[4] Voluntary public-integrity entails both 1) serenity in precious, private real no-harm hopes --- such as salvation of the soul or reincarnation or conformity to the-objective-truth[5] or other ideal, as well as fine arts, sports and other personal interests and 2) civic collaboration, so that people living the same times in the same places — connected both directly and indirectly --- may choose voluntary public integrity rather than compete for opinion based civil/social dominance. For example, democracy keeps a people in a fixed state of competition for dominance. A civic person chooses real no-harm private behavior and is intolerant toward real-harm public conduct — as demonstrated, for example, when he or she calls authorized law-enforcement to constrain suspected harmful public behavior[6] rather than attempt vigilantism. Private integrity is also what restrains a policeman from being a vigilante despite seemingly poor support from the judicial system above the police, investigators and DAs.
Civic collaboration rather than coercion/force accommodates people who both directly and indirectly connect to any extent they mutually prefer: 1) working to discover and eliminate civic injustice, misery, and loss; 2) collaborating for justice; or 3) privately living according to the real no-harm principle. We think 2/3 of the people would like a civic culture. Harmful actors play out their deviant social roles in the opposing 1/3 faction, whether either unaware of or evil towards the private morality needed for civic liberty. For comprehensive safety and security,[7] a civic people nourish voluntary public integrity while cultivating the super majority that supervises legislation and enforcement of statutory law. ACP supports the police and other constitutional institutions and is alert to correct any vigilantism therein.
Within this voluntary collaboration, ACP is first a real no-harm society, or a civic culture. Yet, the heterogeneous nature of a real no-harm "melting-pot" is not compromised: factional cultures, ethnic groups, or other associations flourish under the real no-harm principle. Nevertheless, it seems there will always be people who, for reasons they may understand, oppose ACP. Dissidents insist on or tolerate or accept being disconnected, arrogant, or criminal. Some of them behave harmfully. Therefore, the need for laws will persist into the foreseeable future; the rule of statutory law fails to anarchy. Democracy, or dominant political opinion must yield to the civic culture. The civic culture is a super-majority that collaborates for comprehensive safety and security.[8]
We think that iterative collaboration to mutually discover the-objective-truth rather than coerce or force dominant opinion is a key to our proposal. In iterative collaboration, a speaker expresses a civic concern and well-grounded solution; listener clarifies speaker's words and phrases so as to comprehend then understand. Listener may now become speaker, to address the issue or an alternate according to his or her experiences and observations while former speaker becomes listener. This role-swapping process iterates until speaker and listener either reach agreement with no need for action or have created an action proposal that may establish a better future. In some cases, speaker had Proposal A; listener had Proposal B; and together, they created Proposal C. It's not that someone else decides a civic person's opinion: civic persons collaborate with voluntary public integrity and achieve more than any one person alone could achieve. We perceive a future with the prevailing civic attitude: Privately flourish and cultivate comprehensive safety and security so other willing persons may also flourish in precious privacy. The traditional coercion for social happiness gives way to private liberty, in other words, responsible pursuit of personal preferences. 
In our meetings, we invite newcomers to know they may introduce private pursuits as background toward the work and then fully participate in the civic collaboration. For example, a Baptist may say, "I am Baptist and want civic morality, so I came to the meeting." Or a movie goer may say, "I spend my leisure resources for movies and want civic morality, so I came to the meeting." Or "I think Phil Beaver is a hypocrite, but think a civic people can establish civic moraltiy anyway."

We offer the following theory for iterative collaboration to establish ACP. This theory has been developed since June 21, 2014, in public meetings and private discussions in Baton Rouge, LA, USA, with contributions by sixty people to date, so it does not belong to the author. Based on the record of progress, the march toward the ultimate theory may be asymptotic, so your contributions are important, not only for future generations, but for our lifetimes. Classical liberal thought has sought personal liberty within civil/social order for a society, whereas civic morality seeks safety and security for private liberty. The urge for social happiness gives way to personal discovery and unique, personal fidelity if not perfection.[9] 
By definition, A Civic People of the United States (ACP-US) is comprised of the inhabitants who use the literal preamble[10] to the draft constitution for the USA[11] to coordinate civic morality. They continually, collaboratively update the ACP-US statement of the preamble for current living. Although the 1787 preamble remains official for the USA, ACP-US publishes[12] and promotes updates.
    
a)      Keeping the constraints of the 1787 preamble, each willing person expresses updated goals according to their private practices for civic living. Especially stated are private rights and states rights, preserved upon authorizing and by limiting the federal government. Each person may have his or her personal paraphrase of the preamble.
b)      Consent beyond commitment to real no-harm is not required, and cultivating a possible better idea for collaboration is always welcomed. Private integrity for perfecting the unique person may be difficult without a civic culture, especially when safety and security are not established. Also, if many people are convinced that humans are basically evil, imagining voluntary public integrity is difficult. Thus, a first principle is that people will behave unless they prove otherwise.
c)      The purpose of a consensus statement is for ACP to have overarching integrity: both wholeness and incorruptibility. It seems a challenge to persuade the adults, adolescents and children among over three-hundred million people to consider some nine goals for civic morality. However, compare the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with its thirty articles, some with three and four additional considerations [13] seems designed for imposition by the tyranny of power. We want civic goals that become routine practice. We would be happy to collaborate using fewer than nine items: collaborate and suggest them. (George Washington, on June 4, 1783, expressed four pillars of necessity for a nation to survive; loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/amrev/peace/circular.html.)
 
2.      In the work of civic collaboration, each individual keeps her/his real-no-harm precious personal pursuits private, e.g. avocation, spectator sports, fine arts, church, political party, safe sex, etc. Known risks are pondered in private rather than imposed on other people. Thus, for example, a person who wants to fly to the moon does not attempt to impose the flight costs or risks on the public and negotiates the contract with a willing provider.
 
a)      A real-no-harm person's precious private practices are not subjects for civic collaboration. Thus, for example, a civic people accept that no believer collaborates the omniscience and omnipotence of his or her personal God or none.
b)      With deepest appreciation for whatever may control reality, a believer's God is a private entity, which the believer neither offers for discussion nor subjects to public collaboration. Thus, civic justice is the responsibility of the people rather than their Gods: real-no-harm comes from the people rather than their Gods.[14]
c)      The quest for “the common good” applies only to the overall culture of ACP:  Beyond cultivating civic morality and comprehensive safety and security, personal pursuits are private. But a culture that promotes either real harm or evil is not of ACP. In other words, religion and such are not considered for "the common good."
3.      Recognizing that, often, some people hold a religious, philosophical, or other opinion that conflicts with the-objective-truth,[15] a civic people determines civic morality based on physics, as defined below, or the-objective-truth rather than opinion.
a)      Physics is mass, energy, and space-time: from which everything emerges. The-objective-truth is discovered through physics and its progeny. for examples, cosmic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biology, and psychology on Earth.[16]
1)      Space-time is four-dimensional: height, width, depth and time (x, y, z, t). 
2)      Humankind knows neither how physics emerged nor that it originated. For example, before physics kinetic energy may have existed during the big bank minus eternity.
b)      Reality is, and humankind discovers both the reality and how to benefit: Humankind discovers the ethics of the-objective-truth. 
1)      Reality is the-objective-truth, of which most is undiscovered and some is understood. 
2)      Humans decide some facts, such as the names of places—but often the-objective-truth seems temporally elusive, such as the fact that Earth is like a globe rather than flat, or it seems lies may help the liar.
3)      Science, the study of physics and its progeny, such as biology, psychology and sociology, continually improves in both process and discovery.
4)      In the past, science was thought of as natural law.
                                                  i.      Natural law was deemed fungible or changing.
                                                ii.      Human reason was thought to be more dependable, because it could be fixed.
                                              iii.      Recognizing that science is a study and physics its object enables humankind to accept the-objective-truth as it is discovered and understood rather than centuries later, when traditional dogma has been rationalized into obsolescent. Thereby, a people may live on the leading edge of civic morality.
                                              iv.      This recognition does not negate the God hypothesis but empowers each person to divide his or spiritual needs from civic essentials for living. In other words, civic morality is for living and religious morality is for dying or afterdeath. Civic morality is for what may be known and religious morality is for what may be hoped. Justice Antonin Scalia said civic "responsibility is the here, not the hereafter."
                                                v.      At the same time, the-objective-truth empowers each person to appreciate the other person’s beliefs and hopes that do not inspire real harm.
                                              vi.      The-objective-truth empowers a civic people to reject religions, religious doctrine, and religious beliefs that conflict with civic morality and the statutory civil laws they support: e.g.;
1.      Religions and believers who perpetrate human sacrifice or murder and other atrocities must reform.
2.      Religions that keep the poor in poverty must reform.
3.      Religions that protect perpetrators of crime must reform.
c)      The interrelated discoveries, each with related ethics, comprise the-objective-truth, and their interconnectedness comprises civic morality. (Much of the-objective-truth is essential yet beyond the scope of civic collaboration. For example, efficacy of a medical treatment is essential to patients but not a matter of civic collaboration: efficacy is a matter of repeatable data.)
d)     When opinion conflicts with reality—for example, contrary US Supreme Court opinion in general and certain "decisions" in particular—opinion actually fails and must be revised.[17] The reform of opinion comes through conforming to civic morality or the-objective-truth.
1)      For example, some interpretations of the Bible support civil slavery, but the-objective-truth—chains, whips, guns, brutality and rape to slaves with physical and psychological burdens to masters and guilt to owners—demands opposition to slavery. There are no excuses for slavery; even voluntary slavery diminishes civic morality. A more subtle form of slavery comes with some systems of civilization (verb) and such enslavement conflicts with civic morality. For example, free-enterprise wherein one class is encouraged to consume but not encouraged to save and invest opposes civic morality. In other words, consumption often benefits entrepreneurs but keeps the poor poor. This is the evil of the welfare system or socialism or communism.
2)      When an opinion defies reality, collaborators must insist on the-objective-truth in order for civic morality to emerge.
3)      Religious dogma that conflicts with the-objective-truth must eventually reform (or lose believers). Religious canon cannot conflict statutory law.
4)      This principle—reality overrules opinion--distinguishes civic morality from social morality. "Civic" is willing connection for public transactions so that humans may life the same years in the same place, whereas "social" represents association by preference, class, or imposition.
5)      Persons living are obligated to neither past generations nor posterity beyond the personal--children and grandchildren and perhaps one more generation. In other words, civic morality is for persons and generations living now. Bad ideas from the past drop out of the iterative collaboration so people may discover civic morality.
e)      The-objective-truth does not negate the God hypothesis, but lessens or negates some God theories. For example, human sacrifice neither appeases Gods nor can survive humankind's laws against murder and brutality. Humankind constrains brutality. Among humankind some believers oppose other-God believers routinely, never admitting that, since their beliefs differ, their Gods differ. In other words, diverse believers babble about God, never realizing they are talking about different subjects of belief.  Some believers take for granted turning their backs on the-objective-truth to pray to their personal God and attempt to impose their God on other believers as well as non-theists. Poisonous-snake handlers take such risks. Labeling a God with a name, whether it is an act of religious defiance or not, is taken for granted by some believers.[18]
f)       ACP uses the-objective-truth rather than opinion based law to collaborate for civic morality, reserving opinion for private pursuits and responsibilities, limited by voluntary public integrity.
g)      A civic person whose religion or none strengthens him or her in real no-harm hopes against uncertainty such as death is never challenged (on the grounds of religious belief), in civic collaboration and likewise does not propose collaboration on those beliefs. Also, ACP has no desire to alter private pursuit of a favorable afterdeath. However, real harm speaks for itself in public council; that is, it inevitably becomes known and is constrained.

4.      ACP anticipates and appreciates each newborn person, and creates—decades in advance of the conception, implantation, gestation, birth and survival[19]—the systems that support the infant's potential real no-harm personal development unto young adulthood. ACP's purpose is not to impose on a child but to assure his or her access to the-objective-truth on both the ultimate civic basis and for the child's personal development toward mature adult. ACP does not impede a child's path to private integrity. In other words, ACP's consideration of human development is comprehensive from the viable ovum and spermatozoon to the mature adult's last breath.

a)      ACP’s obligation to the newborn person is an education system that facilitates his or her preparation for possible full life with lessened pain, suffering and ruin, yet without trying to limit real-no-harm pursuit of personal fidelity and possible perfection.
1)      We refer to the personal maturing as the Overstreet transition.[20] A typical person is in collaborative association with ACP before age thirty or so.
2)      ACP accepts that each human is capable of developing comprehensive fidelity (see below) if not perfecting his or her person
3)      Over the course of his/her lifetime, ACP does not call for conformity beyond the real-no-harm convention. ACP would neither limit fidelity nor prevent personal perfection.
4)      ACP suggests that psychological perfection is obtained through fidelity to physics, to self, to immediate family, to extended family and friends, to the people (nation), to the world, and to the universe, respectively and collectively. Call it comprehensive fidelity.
5)      We perceive that the false attitude, "humans tend to be evil," or emerge from "original sin," persists because the principles herein have never been proposed, much less practiced.We assert that private integrity is an idea that may help each human perfect his or her person---a perfection that is unique to that person yet grounded in public integrity.
6)      The fact that providing a real no-harm environment for each maturing person is a civic duty is plain every time an abused child is taken from his or her parents. (A people who do not perceive that children deserve justice do not rescue neglected or abused children.) However, returning the child to the abusing home may involve coaching the child through the Overstreet transition---helping the child acquire personal autonomy.
b)      Parental appreciation of the newborn person continues unto grandchildren, great-grandchildren and beyond—unto personal posterity.
c)      Family interrelations require gender role modeling from generation to generation: mom exemplifying the mom role and dad exemplifying the dad role to fulfill each child's needs. That is, gender is not a matter of opinion.
d)     Humankind is the most powerful species at nourishing and fulfilling personal appetites, such as sex, but the person has the genotype most capable of fidelity: Gender fidelity is not chosen.
e)      ACP encourages appreciative bonding by heterosexual couples in monogamy for life. Promiscuity lessens and usually terminates appreciative bonds, forgiving as a spouse may be. It also leads to violence and non-productive lifestyles.
1)      ACP celebrates adult partners who choose other appreciative pairings for the real no harm bond, but does not encourage non-heterogeneous, monogamous pairs to involve children, grandchildren and beyond in the partnership.
2)      ACP does not encourage single parenthood.
f)       The morality of these considerations is made plain by the--objective-truth, which is not subject to imposition of opinion. Denying the-objective-truth must be a private practice with private consequences unless harm becomes known, for example, when sexually transmitted disease emerges, in which case there may be civil interest---statutory law may apply. Again, humankind is the most powerful species at nourishing and fulfilling appetites, but it is also the most capable of fidelity.
g)      Deviation from the-objective-truth cannot be imposed on children by ACP.
1)      A child is a person, and ACP appreciates each person’s equality and dignity.[21]
2)      People who subjugate children do so without the support of ACP.
5.      In addition to daily cultivating the overarching civic culture, members of ACP routinely communicate: both on the Internet and in person. However, ACP is preserved as voluntary public integrity rather than being made a non-profit, religious or other institutional entity or tax-free business.
a)      The communication includes facts about civic issues, news with opposing views and delineating pure opinion, historical perspectives, supervising elected and appointed officials, accomplishments, education, latest discoveries, and a journal of settled issues. Issues settled according to the-objective-truth are fixed pending future discovery. Some examples:
1)      Members of ACP don’t run red lights, so they can trust green ones.
2)      They don't lie, so that iterative collaboration does not stem from a lie. In other words, so that civic citizens do not have to respond to a lie. 
3)      ACP spends time identifying and appreciating needs. For example, ACP promotes weight control, exercise for health, non-smoking and such.
4)      Most people understand the physics of slavery--chains, whips, guns, abuse and rape to slaves with burdens to slave-masters and owners--and collaborate to defeat slavery.
5)      The wisdom of honoring real no-harm religions/none yet keeping them private and not pertinent to civic morality (beyond inspiring real no-harm civics) is suggested.
b)      Some civic issues are in current civil debate (absent civic collaboration) without basis on the-objective-truth. In other words, current debate is in competition for dominant opinion. Persons who defy the-objective-truth acquire the personal risk. A people who defy reality beg woe, as humankind observes with slavery. Recent practices that seem to create personal risk are listed below:
1)      Subjecting ova, spermatozoon, and conceptions to either gestational or genetic surrogacy.
2)      Denial of privacy, for instance when a man who sincerely perceives that he is a woman chooses to go where women do not welcome men, disregarding the women’s wishes. That problem can be reduced with privacy toilets everywhere they are needed.[22]
3)      Making vows to a spouse and family and later deciding to change gender.  
                                            i.            A person may both 1) be faithful to vows to self and 2) not compete with a souse regarding gender. 
                                          ii.            A person who is considering such infidelity to the-objective-truth should seek the help of a civic practitioner (heretofore called "social worker"). 
                                        iii.            An alternative beforehand is for spouses to negotiate appreciative bonding with the possibility for gender changes but with agreement not to procreate.
4)      Hounding a woman about her reality-based duty to terminate her pregnancy.
5)      Hounding families for mom to be paid equal to dad. Moms cannot and do not serve careers with the duration and consistency of dads.
                                            i.            A woman without children may negotiate the value of her commitment to the job and share the cost of maintaining the population of ACP just as single men without children do.
6)      Using religious symbols and promotions to cause harm in public.[23]
c)      ACP collaborates with each willing person in every decade of that real no-harm person’s life, encourages dissidents to reform, and works to control crime and evil.
d)     Real-no-harm persons are appreciated, along with, for their sake, the private interests they pursue. For example, there is no objection to a real-no-harm person’s, private space-flight.
1)      There are no arbitrary limits on the real no-harm person’s fidelity to and perfection of his or her person.
2)      Promiscuous appreciation and intimacy without jealousy or with a collective fidelity might be noble, but the possibility is doubtful. Polyamory, polyfidelity and group marriage may seem possible yet be impracticable. Impracticality may reflect the-objective-truth.
e)      Harmful persons are constrained: both civically according to the-objective-truth and civilly--according to law.
f)       Iterative candid conversations---collaborations---produce better ideas for the future than a thinker/speaker could have created alone. Collaboration does not imply that either party gives in, rather that the parties create a better idea for living, according to the-objective-truth. ACP neither imposes nor brooks force/coercion.
6.     Fellow citizens and inhabitants cultivate and celebrate collaborative real no-harm civic morality on three holidays: Personal Independence Day, June 21,celebrating real no-harm private liberty as a requisite to national liberty; Constitution Day, September 17[24]; and to a lesser extent, National Independence Day, July 4. The traditional idea of "the common good" beyond broadly-defined-civic-safety-and-security, becomes obsolete. 
7.      In elections, each person votes her/his political preferences, yet ACP promotes independent, informed voting as the means of supervising civil governance with precious personal privacy by the people in their cities, states, and nation. Just as earning a living empowers private liberty, private morality cultivates civic liberty.
8.      With established success, ACP proposes, through elected representatives, amendments to the constitution for their state or for the USA so as to reform from opinion based law to civic morality based on the-objective-truth. When the-objective-truth of a civic issue has not been discovered and understood, collaboration stays within current theory.
9.      The consequence of establishing A Civic People of the United States is a way of living that is inviting to children, prepares a civic culture for children yet to be born, and thus is inviting to the people. “We the People of the United States” becomes openly divided: an exemplary, civic super-majority, initially at least 2/3, which acts for private integrity versus dissidents. Choice of which group to join---a civic people or dissidents---is personal, but with discovered harm, such as disease through careless sexual promiscuity, behaviors become civic matters to be addressed by statutory law. We hope A Civic People of the United States could influence the gradual approach to the totality: We the People of the United States.

Conclusion
We think at least 2/3 of inhabitants want civic morality. So much has transpired since the 1780's historical precedence for 2/3 participation. (That is, 71% of delegates to the Philadelphia convention, representing 92% of states, or 2/3 of the people's delegates signed the 1787 draft constitution for the USA.) The preamble offered separation from England's influences: such as that country’s opinion based law, codified by British legal writers, especially Blackstone[25], with governance under a factional-Protestant God. Inhabitants in 1774 were colonial subjects, but as of June 21, 1788, some became and others would become citizens of the USA. Yet most people just wanted to resume the lives they lived before the revolutionary war---the life expectations they were accustomed to. They established American theism. Yet Americans of 2017 know more about the-objective-truth and do not tolerate 1789 legislative goals.
The voting population in 1787—only 6% of free citizens—was only men who owned property. Most people were not informed and diverse enough (99% traditional, factional Protestants) to imagine voluntary public integrity. The people today benefit from 230 years of discovery and are religiously diverse—only 14% are traditional, factional-Protestant,[26] and 100% of non-criminal citizens may vote. America is known as a cultural and ethnic bread basket, yet many inhabitants are concerned that some immigrants do not assimilate. Hypocritically, many born citizens, especially Christians, a factional majority, do not assimilate. This is not a rant: it is an easily observable Chapter XI Machiavellianism.[27] However, 2017 citizens may establish the preamble at last.
       It is a shocking thought, but it seems evident that the most urgent civic need is for factional Christians—a sectarian, divided majority—to assimilate, 2/3 of all factions and 2/3 of each faction's believers, as ACP, in order to collaborate for public integrity.  The Christian majority, 70% of inhabitants, can share an over-arching culture defined by a 230-year-old civic statement: the preamble to the constitution for the USA.
And black church must also confront the fact that the preamble is and always was intended for every citizen: slogans like "black lives matter" must give way to black behavior matters, with 2/3 wanting to create ACP. The notion of blacks making slaves of whites according to a new interpretation of the Bible, defies the-objective-truth, as mentioned above: slavery was always immoral, just as human sacrifice to bargain with Gods was always immoral. No one should compromise his or her real no-harm hopes and comfort against heartfelt, unproven unknowns. For example, what happens in the afterdeath may be either heaven/hell or nothing--dust---but such precious, private pursuits are not a civic concern beyond comprehensive safety and security and should not cause misery and loss in life. Every real no-harm religion or culture should flourish. Yet black church must appreciate the fact that white church, in 1765, realized they were being enslaved and, having tasted freedom from oppression embarked on the liberty to pursue personal happiness and imagine voluntary public integrity. Blacks are involved in that integrity.
Both the negotiated 1791 Constitution and today's body of law need amending, yet our constitution and our law potentially offer the greatest organization for government on earth, primarily in the literal preamble. Likewise, free-market economy—free enterprise—is the best economic system, but it needs to be reformed by ACP in order to provide comprehensive safety and security. (See, for example our essay, "Child incentives brief.") Also, the people must reform opinion based law to civic morality based on the-objective-truth, with laws only when civic morality does not freely prevail. For example, there is no need for a law on presenting tickets for entry to a sporting event or concert: civic morality orders the process.
A Civic People of the United States, Baton Rouge, is cultivating a promising theory for solving American dysfunction. We would like to learn from you, and to have your help—your collaboration—in developing and starting the practice. Please attend our next scheduled discussion, planned to celebrate Personal Independence Day (June 21) to be announced.

Copyright©2016 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 on November 5, 2017.

[2] A Civic People of the United States is an education corporation in Louisiana, Charter No. 41953304N.
[3] We aim for an interrelated super-majority with at least 2/3 of each family; 2/3 of members of each no-real-harm domestic group; 2/3 of inhabitants of each street, community, city, and state; 2/3 of members of political parties; and so on, collaborating for civic morality. This goal was 70% until a dialogue on May 12, 2016 wherein it was revised to 2/3 based on the people’s representation upon the 1787 signing of the draft constitution for the USA, which contains the preamble. See quora.com/How-did-Greek-and-Romans-influence-the-foundation-of-our-modern-society/answer/Phil-Beaver-1 .
[4] Voluntary public-integrity incorporates a companion practice, personal-morality-with-civic-liberty, noted by Jim Callender in April, 2016.
[5] The-objective-truth is mostly undiscovered, but some is understood. For examples, humankind does not know if there is extraterrestrial intelligence but understands that Earth is like a globe.
[6] This does not preclude safely executed restraint of a neighbor. For example, I once persuaded a neighbor to replace a street sign he had stolen for fun. We know of passersby who stopped fights without harm.
[7] Readers may be interested in discovering how the phrase “safety and security” is used four times by John Locke in 1689. See Two Treatises of Government. However, we seek justice through civics (willing connections) rather than society (preferential or coerced association). “Willing” refers to connections both parties choose so as to meet mutual civic needs or commercial transactions.
[8] “Comprehensive” is used to open the question to all forms of safety and security, for example, best advice respecting natural disasters such as hurricanes and flooding. No one can guarantee safety and security but ACP mutually works for its achievement.
[9] The assertion that each human may perfect his or her person was first attributed to Jesus (Matthew 6:48), and Ralph Waldo Emerson promoted and empowered Jesus’ claim in “Divinity School Address,” 1838. Perfection implies private integrity or private-liberty-with-civic-morality.
[10] Created in summer 1787, and signed on September 17, 1787 by 65% of representatives for the people, where “the people” is the same entity referenced in the preamble. The 65% is computed from 39 of 55 delegates to the constitutional convention and 12 of 13 states represented.
[11] The draft constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788 by the required nine states provided the first Congress would negotiate a bill of rights, which the colonial British citizens were accustomed to and many wanted to re-institute as they formed a new nation with customary practices. When the negotiated constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791, there were fourteen states, so that ratification required ten states.
[12] So far, only this writer’s framework for an updated preamble is published, because collaboration has not been scheduled. Perhaps collaboration is not necessary, since making the preamble a personal practice is an object of ACP. Regardless, the original preamble should stand.
[13] See ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf .
[14] After May, 2016 discussion with Henry Soniat, Brusly, LA, USA.
[15] "Indisputable," suggested by Gordon on June 30, 2016, is essential to make the-indisputable-facts-of-reality explicit to physics, discovered or not, rather than the latest theory in scientific discovery.
[16] Reality on Earth derives from physics. In the human quest for the facts of reality, physics must be discovered and understood. The process for understanding is the scientific process, with branches that emerge from physics. Even mathematics emerges from physics. Biology on Earth emerges from physics. Opinion is needed only when the physics of an issue is not comprehended, and when the physics is discovered and understood, opinion is no longer needed. Traditionally, science has been disparaged, because its product, understanding, changes with discovery. However, physics, the object of scientific work controls the unfolding of reality. The god hypothesis has not been disproved.
[17] For example, the Dred Scott opinion did not stand. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford .
[18] For example, Exodus 7:20 seems to assert that the god’s name is “the Lord.” I cannot understand why a man would defy that statement. How can defiance of the unknown be justified?
[19] Some people assert that life begins at conception, but the idea does not hold up to the facts of reality. First, the blastocyst may either not develop or not implant in the mother’s womb. A few cells pass out of mom’s body in an event that some call “natural abortion.” Additionally, during gestation, statistical errors from biology (a progeny of physics) are corrected by any of natural abortion, still birth, or infant death. The woman’s decision not to remain pregnant is part of this natural process--the ultimate part: Physics assigned to the mom the responsibility to remain pregnant or not. In summary, it seems life begins when the cared-for infant lives, let's say for six months.
[20] H. A. Overstreet. The Mature Mind. 1949. Or better if it exists.
[21] In this regard, the US Supreme Court seems in conflict with a child’s dignity and equality to be reared by a man and a woman, preferably his or her mother and father.
[22] See online at www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2016/05/01/voices-gender-neutral-restrooms-could-answer/83722292/ .
[23] For example, when the reality of safe employment or public passage requires removal of the religious symbol. A civic people do not arbitrarily collaborate about a person’s religious symbols but are interested in and require public safety and security.
[24] Enacted in 2005 but neglected by the people.
[26] The largest faction, Methodists represent 27% of the 14.7% or 3.9% of inhabitants. See pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/18/mainline-protestants-make-up-shrinking-number-of-u-s-adults/ . A shocking fact is that the 23% of military personnel who do not claim a religion cannot obtain spiritual counseling. Since they don't claim a religion, the USA does not provide counseling. See http://www.newsmax.com/US/atheist-military-chaplains-bill/2013/07/24/id/516781/ .
[27] See http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince11.htm . A paraphrase of the text is: The believing people pay priests, and politicians partner with the priests to pick the people’s pockets; only a dreamer would object.
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