Practicing Reponsible-Human-Independence in 2021

My comments on 13 essays in National Affairs, No. 48, Summer 2021

In my fourth quarter century, I diligently listen, in order to influence fellow-citizens to amend the First Amendment. The amendment should encourage&facilitate responsible-human-independence, which requires unwavering development of civic-humble-integrity rather than civil-religious-beliefs. The most obvious objection to government advocating a doctrinal God or religious institution such as factional-American-Protestantism, morphing to Judeo-Christianity, more recently Judeo-Catholicism, with late entry by ancient Ethiopian Tewahedo Christianity, is the human misery&loss civil religion causes.

National Affairs, since I started subscribing in 2010, opened my mind to a couple tyrannies by elected and appointed officials in the U.S. government. Foremost is the imposition of English legal precedent through the 1791 U.S. Bill of Rights and beyond. It mimics England’s 1689 version, which made constitutional a Protestant monarchy. Also, it’s common for the U.S. Supreme Court to cite centuries-obsolete English precedent to impose wrong-opinion regarding U.S. constitutional intentions.

Born into a Protestant family, my adolescent dicovered that my person trusts-in and is committted-to the-ineluctable-truth:  I am comfortable saying "I don't know" and never was a Christian. But I am a student and do not know that the best of reports about Jesus are guidance for the human-being's life of necessity&justice. 

Recently, in my quest to discover a defensible view of Jesus, I produced enough arguments to consider that Jesus authored the political philosophy that is abstractly proffered in Genesis 1:26-28. Taking advantage of discoveries humankind has accomplished in the last few millennia, I interpret that passage to say:  The species female&male-human-being can&must independently provide order&fruitfulness to the other living species and to the earth. In other words, neither the-God nor a government can usurp the human-individual’s responsibility to constrain chaos in their way of living. When someone prays to Jesus to take charge of their life, heal them, and provide them peace, they may be rebuking the one who reportedly said both “Before Abraham was born I AM” and "Be perfect". 

Accordingly, the 1776 Declaration of Independence seems literally correct: the colonists claimed authority on “Nature and Nature’s God” instead of England’s reformed-Catholic Trintiy. That is, nature is physics and its progeny, and the-source is unknown. Also, the founders took human-responsibility in 1778 when they negotiated with France for the military providence that helped defeat England.

Even more consistently, the framers created a representative republic with providence for the people to amend the constitution. Over future generations, “ourselves and our Posterity” can&must amend unjust laws, in order to approach the statutory justice that is required for order&fruitfulness. And only 5 days before 39 of 55 framers became signers, they added to the preamble the intentions for 5 public disciplines --- integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity, “in order to” encourage&facilitate responsible-human-independence “to ourselves and our Posterity”. Neither freedom, nor liberty, nor individualism, nor communitarianism can substitute for the human-being’s opportunity&duty-to self, to develop responsible-human-independence. Elected and appointed government officials are fellow-citizens who either share the opportunity&duty or choose to be aliens to female&male-human-being.

The above principles and more that emerge from them promise an achievable-better-future in the U.S. and beyond. I think the current issue of National Affairs provides a good forum to point to some of the benefits of a U.S. reform to independence from both English legal precedents and civilly imposed religious beliefs. The “ourselves and our Posterity” from today can comport to Genesis 1, the 1776 Declaration, the 1787 Constitution, and pursuit of statutory justice, leaving any spiritual pursuits to the psychologically-adult individual.

I hope my comments accelerate interest in responsible-human-independence to the 2021 “ourselves and our Posterity”. I think scholars have a responsibility to aid the entity We the People of the United States rather than comment on its problems wihout offereing viable solutions.

Jason Delisle and Preston Cooper assert that Senator Sanders and President Biden omit the subsidy-favors to the poor the U.S. already spends on college. The authors fail to provide clarity regarding the extremity of the lie: how many subsidy dollars contribute to college revenues? There’s some reporting in https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/10/26/what-does-a-year-of-college-really-cost/?sh=53de814c7bad for 2 year colleges and 4 year colleges, public and not-for-profit, of 22%, 27%, and 40% student-subsidy, respectively. By expressing so much they know, Delisle and Cooper obfuscate the facts.

Steven Camarota asserts that the U.S. citizens’ low birth rate is not a valid justification for immigration. The immigrants are adults, and many enter the U.S. on welfare benefits, exacerbating welfare and other budget problems. Camarota suggests that social services ought to be managed on the receiver’s civic-integrity. (U.S. birth rates are low because debt&chaos threatens posterity, and illegal immigration exacerbates citizen-woes.)

Stephen Eide reminds us that work fosters order&discipline in life. He abstractly reminds us that a civic neighbor aids a self-helping fellow-citizen’s needs. However, he leaves out of his formula a citizen’s accumulated contributions to social-service costs. The person who has helped bear the burden for 50 years ought to receive the best services when they need them. That is to say, social-services ought not counsel death to an ill civic-citizen, in order to help a habitually dependent person.

Current social services encourage&facilitate dependency beyond sustainability. Unfortunately, Eide seeks to remedy the financial imbalance by increasing the disciplined-citizen’s retirement age rather than discouraging dependency. Also, Eide overlooks that disciplined citizens pay Medicare tax their entire working life and maintain a supplement during retirement. When Medicare payers age, Medicare-providers eggregiously attempt to counsel the diligent-patient into Hospice --- unto death. Medicare payers are owed the best of care, in order to give them the chance to defeat their illness, and ought not be slighted for arbitrarily-dependent fellow-citizens and illegal aliens.

Some social service agents egocentrically punish people of responsible-human-independence. Such agents originate&encourage dependency. The 1787 U.S. Constitution proffered public-discipline rather than dependency. “The principle of justice-as-equality” --- even John Rawls’ justice-as-fairness --- enslaves the civic-citizen.

Mike Watson compared historical outcomes with Hamiltonian industrial subsidies (to the elites) vs Martin Van Buren tariff-protection to the American worker. His analysis seems to affirm Donald Trump “America First” policy. Daniel Stid (below) finds Trump’s allowance of COVID19 domestic-shutdowns lacking.  Watson top-down complaint compliments Eide’s point that work fosters order&discipline to the individual (above).

Keith Rothfus, a former U.S. Representative, suggested “substantive, procedural, and structural” reforms for the House of Representatives. Rothfus’s focus on detail prevents attention to Congress’s tyranny: promoting their freedom&liberty under the-God instead of practicing responsible-human-independence. I object to anything but cost reducing reforms to Congress and otherwise oppose the tyranny of civil religious-beliefs imposed by legislators. Metaphysics has no place in U.S. legislation.

Early in the essay, Rothfus expressed a Christian view in support of Anglo-American tradition. His idea of “founders” negates the 1787 Constitutional framers and signers. The signers proffered political independence from England with a representative republic founded in public discipline in integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity, leaving religion in privacy “to ourselves and our Posterity”.

It is not surprising that a Democrat unseated Rothfus. The era of Christian dominance in the U.S. is finished:  It is time for conservatism to reform to responsible-human-independence rather than attempting to cajole the-God into usurping humankind’s duty to establish peace. This principle is abstractly stated in Genesis 1:26-28.

Mark Strand and Timothy Lang describe the Supreme Court’s errors, now precedent, to defeat the legislative non-delegation principle, then label the reform “making legislators do their job”, as though justices have done theirs. They credit John Locke with the delegation principle and trash Locke’s “the law of [the-God] and nature” as reasonable rather than essential. They don’t notice that the founders improved Locke’s notion to “Nature and Nature’s God” to declare independence from the Englishman, Locke, yet avoid confronting the reformed-Catholic Trinity that was common to loyal colonists. Tory, Anglo-American loyalty suppresses U.S. political&legal independence in 2021.

Positively, the Strand&Lang sentence from “Excessive control of the legislative process . . . plague today’s Congress . . . “ collaborates with Rothfus’ reforms. But Strand&Lang neglect their opportunity to suggest a way to “preserve the people’s power, which is not Congress’s to give away”. My first suggestion is to restore the 1787 U.S. intentions, starting with amendment of the First Amendment so as to encourage&facilitate civic humble-integrity rather than promote civil religious-opinion. Next, replace rule of law under English precedent with necessity&justice grounded in the-ineluctable-evidence.

Phillip Wallach presents a brief history of England’s Parliament in order to express U.S. Congress’s history. However, such attribution to English tradition --- from “the mother country” --- does no service to U.S. independence. The U.S. culture cannot be healed before it is established; the constitution’s signers, intended civic-discipline “to ourselves and our Posterity”, leaving religious discipline or none to adult privacy.

 Between 1763, 1781, and 1787, the U.S. separated from England, morphed from colonies to dysunctional free&independent states, then to the disciplined people in their democratic states holding a republican union accountable. But in 1789 Congress diverted U.S. political independence by restoring or mimicking England’s church-state partnership.

It does no U.S. service to equate the loyal British subjects who became America’s 1763 “founding fathers” to either the 1787 representative-republic’s framers or the September 17 signers. And the First Congress was too adolescent --- had too many Tory members --- to uphold the 1787 republicanism against restoration and now preservation of Anglo-American tradition.

Wallach points out that founding concerns over taxation without representation influenced establishment of a republic but trashes Abraham Lincoln’s dream: [public discipline] of-by-&for the people. Discipline by the people is effected by constitutional amendment. But Lincoln did his own trashing by erroneously elevating the 1776 Declaration at the expense of the 1787 Constitution, which was written to accommodate the abolition of slavery.  Wallach cites a 1789 angst “is not the daily revenue escaping us?” without accepting that Congress has imposed $30 trillion debt “to us and our Posterity”: America’s children’s revenue is escaping them before they are born! Scholarly disregard for the preamble to the U.S. Constitution is appalling in the year 2021. The entity We the People of the United States must hold scholars as well as Congress accountable.

Conservative scholars can&must reform, with alacrity, from constructs that attempt to preserve national Christianity, and accept Genesis-1’s suggestion that the-God cannot (without self-contradiction) usurp responsible-human-independence. Otherwise, the current development of individual&common dependency will destroy the republic and democracy, without notice. Obviously, I don’t think it’s too late for reform to responsible-human-independence, the abstract-intention of the 1787 U.S. Constitution. The Constitution can be amended to conform to its preamble. And the preamble can be revised to replace bestowal of liberty with pursuit of independence.

Benjamin Zycher, after exacerbating popular attention to science, a method of research for discovery, makes a much needed point that fiscal conservatives can earn the label “global-warming realists” rather than “deniers”. But discovery, by researching the-ineluctable-evidence, is not the pseudo-reality of “scientific basics”.

Conservatives can&must encourage&facilitate responsible-human-independence, both individually and collectively, accepting the 2021 responsibility “ourselves and our Posterity”. Zycher starts a discussion he ought to expand. For example, the earth is overrun with people, and Steven Camarota’s point that low birth rate does not justify immigration is another global-warming reality. Low birth rate reflects concern for posterity. And accepting that the population overrun fractionally adds to historic planetary-atmosphere temperature-cycles does not come with viable options for control. It’s much like saying we’re going to cut all funds for hurricane relief in order to develop the technology to control hurricanes. Or cut funds for wildfire relief and dead-wood removal, in order to manage forests for maximum CO2 control.

Conservatives can&must let go of “Judeo-Christian” civil-imposition, in order to favor civic-disciplines for independent-responsibility --- the intentions of the 1787 framers when they assigned religion to privacy. Humankind works to discover the laws of physics and its progeny and how to responsibly employ them: religion’s metaphysics encourages dependency rather than responsibility. Zycher plays into the left’s popular strength: he unnecessarily publishes their propaganda, when he could independently assert that human-fiscal conservativism is the party of reliable research&development. Conservatives can&must focus on humankind rather than civil-religion. (Interpret Genesis 1:26-28, applying 5,000 years of research&delelopment rather than the ancient perspective regarding the-source-of-existence, leaving any cause for future discovery.)

James M. Patterson expresses “wokeness” in 2021 as “secular”, not admitting to himself that “secular” is in the mind of the religious-believer; not in the non-religious independent’s mind. Merriam-Webster online (MW) for “secular” has, in my modification: indifference-to or rejection-of or exclusion-of religion and spiritualism. To call the rejection of religion a faith is to deny the accelerating decline in Christian practice. (That’s not to imply that there are no independent-Jesus-essence-practitioners in their brief journey.) It’s to imagine that the politically-crafty Nancy Pelosi is not doomed by ignoring papal admonishment regarding the woman’s physical&psychological authority regarding being pregnant or not. Conservatives too, can focus on responsible-human-independence rather than civil-imposition of religious-opinion.

The 1787 U.S. Constitution proffered a culture of five public-disciplines, “in order to” encourage&promote” responsible-human-independence “to ourselves and our Posterity”, leaving religion/none as a private, adult choice.

In my birth-community, 1940s to 1960s wokeness was dictated as “the Christian thing to do”. I couldn’t articulate it then; I wondered where Jesus fit in Christianity. Christians can express their-Christianity, but no human-being can witness for Christ, a mystery to which Genesis 1:26-28’s political philosophy can be reasonably attributed. Youths such as young Phil Beaver, who were more influenced by physics and its progeny, did not understand that “Nature and Nature’s God” was enlightenment’s rebellion not only against England’s reformed-Catholic Trinity, but against the-ineluctable-truth. MW reports “ineluctable” means “not to be avoided, changed, or resisted”.

When Christian-leaders like Mike Pence cannot remain faithful to their own presidential ticket, conservatives need to realize they are failing the entity We the People of the United States. Some civic-citizens are arbitrarily, unconstitutionally ending Congress’s imposition of civil-religious-beliefs in order to practice civic-humble-integrity. (And some Democrats rebuke the Christianity they claimed.)  That does not imply that conservatives cannot reform to Gensesis-1’s responsible-human-independence, which neither the-God nor government can usurp.

To the citizen who is alert to Genesis-1s responsible-human-independence, ending political-dominance by U.S.-unconstitutional church-state partnership is welcome relief from errant, Christian-wokeness: and English tradition imposed on the U.S. by Congressional tyranny and errant justices.

Philip K. Howard typically places the responsibility for reform where it can&must happen: with the individual-citizen. But also typically, he offers the people no path for ending the chaos. He reports “A 2019 . . . poll found that [2/3] of Americans support ‘major structural changes’ to our government.” What changes? Howard’s solution conforms to Genesis 1: 26-28: the human-being can&must take responsibility for their job performance. The days of massive rule-making and licensing by government bureaucrats must end with alacrity. But Howard takes the scholarly tack of lamenting government-bestowed “freedom” rather than human authority: independence.

Howard opens the right topic but misdirects it with “But fear of human judgement has an almost theological power.” Based on sayings attributed to him, Jesus is the author of Genesis 1:26-28. For example, “before Abraham was born I AM”, “render unto Ceasar . . . “, “Be perfect as [the-God] is perfect”, and “Let your yes be yes . . .”.Consequently, fellow citizens who follow Congress’s civilly-imposed-religion: dependency on the-God, perhaps rebuke Jesus. Genesis 1 demands responsible-human-independence.

Howard exacerbates the chaos when he approves the left’s claim to “modern democracy” when the U.S. is a representative republic that proposes public discipline in order to establish responsible-human-independence “to ourselves and our Posterity”. So far, the entity We the People of the United States is letting the opportunity for responsible-independence dissipate.

The 2021 “ourselves and our Posterity” can&must reform all education departments so as to inculcate responsible-human-independence to both youth and adults. Without sacrificing individual-student acquisition of comprehension&intention to develop a complete human-person, educators can&must facilitate a culture of responsible-human-independence, rather than “training the workers we need”.

Thus, each child and adult must receive encouragement&facilitation to accept that they are a human-being; that each human-being has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) to develop humble-integrity rather than nourish the dependency they were born with; that self-interest demands responsible-human-independence rather than pursuit of a higher power. Neither an ideology, or government, or the-God can usurp the individual’s choice to neither initiate nor accommodate injury to or from their person at each decision point in life. Reliability in this intent leads to perfection of their unique person before death. With 2/3 of fellow-citizens developing their culture of responsible-human-independence, and achievable-better-future will become visible.

The people can&must demand education reform.

Daniel Stid asserts that global forces are defeating American statesmanship, then erroneously resorts to Anglo-American principles to define statesmanship. Stid writes “. . . elites of Virginia and Massachusetts . . . bore the cultural imprint of England’s aristocracy” and lost to populist Andrew Jackson, leaving “American statesmen unable “to educate the public on the virtues of the constitutional system or the responsibilities of self-governing” (an English distraction from self-discipline). Adding to the problems, Alexander Hamilton had favored what Stid or his source, Storing, calls “scientific management” (with favor to the wealthy). Jimmy Carter tried to combine populism and scientific management, with disaster, and Trump was no better at it, allowing the COVID19 shutdowns.

Stid’s essay is another scholarly focus on the past, for scholarly consideration. There’s no application for the people’s future. It is well known that errors of the past accumulate. Misery comes suddenly with no mercy.

The scholar can easily develop the metaphysics that Jesus is the author of Genesis 1:26-28. Genesis 1 assigns to female&male-human-being the responsibility for order&fruitfulness to the living species and to the earth. The male has no authority regarding the female’s decision to remain pregnant or not. And infidelity creates chaos rather than order.

Skipping 5,000 years of human discovery, the founders, in 1763 were alert to their English-enslavement for markets, taxes, and African-slave management. They rebelled, and in 1776 declared war, claiming authority of “Nature and Nature’s God” rather than the English, reformed-Catholic Trinity so many colonists worshipped. In 1778, they negotiated military-providence from France. The founders managed victory for independence but could not achieve domestic unity.

In 1787, framers met and without transparency developed a constitution predicated on public discipline and provisions for amendment to lessen injustice. Civic-citizens would manage their state constitutions as well as the national republic. In the last 5 days, the signers agreed to a preamble, revised to include a statement of intentions. The disciplines were integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity, “in order to” develop responsible-human-independence “to ourselves and our Posterity”. They intentionally left religious discipline or none to adult privacy.

The humble-integrity for responsible-human-independence the civic U.S. citizen needs is proffered in three documents: Genesis 1, the 1776 Declaration, and the 1787 Constitution. Humble-integrity is a cause that can inspire and motivate a statesperson.

Stid presents 5 objectives for future statesmanship, which I adapt as follows: 1) ground citizens in reality, 2) defend our political system, 3) restore “E Pluribus Unum” [and apply it to doctrinal-Gods&none], 4) appreciate history, and 5) be crafty statesmen. I think reality is discovered through the-ineluctable-evidence, which the rule of legal precedent obfuscates. Also, U.S. political intentions, proffered in the 1787 Constitution, has not begun to establish independence from Anglo-American tradition, especially church-dominance of state issues. Appreciating history means accepting that neither the-God nor government can usurp the individual&collective human-responsibility for order&fruitfulness to the living species and to the earth. And appreciating history means reading the documents it left rather than scholarly commentary on the documents plus applying recent discovery so that living citizens can avoid mistakes of “the founders”. The reform needed in 2021 is monumental, and the civic-citizens of the U.S. have the power, the energy, and the authority (HIPEA) to accomplish it.

M. Anthony Mills presents an egregious, baffling Anglo-American affirmation. That is to say, his essay extols English imposition on U.S. politics, by traditional domestic accommodation or “tolerance”. For example, freedom and liberty as American ideals obfuscates U.S. intentions: responsible-independence. Independence means neither individualism nor communitarianism; it means taking responsibility to constrain chaos during the development&perfection of a unique human person. Thus, Mills’ early sentence, “Central to liberalism is the notion of liberty as freedom from constraint” refutes the necessity of economic-independence, which he emphasizes later. In general, physics&progeny constrains female&male-human-being.

Like so many prestigious scholars, Mills is writing for the elites. It is past the appropriate time for “ourselves and our Posterity” to find a cause as vital as winning independence from England was in 1763 through 1781, when France delivered the military providence the Continental army needed. This time, the entity We the People of the United States has the opportunity to establish responsible-human-independence. The first step is to rid ourselves of the burden inherited from England:  church imposition accommodated by Congress. We can&must start by amending the First Amendment so as to encourage&facilitate civic-humble-integrity rather than civil-religious-opinion.

Republicanism cannot succeed as long as elected representatives seek to preserve tradition rather than to aid responsible-human-independence “to ourselves and our Posterity”. The citizen who cannot produce evidence of their aid to the state U.S. intentions ought not be licensed to vote, let alone run for election to local, state, or federal office. A scholarly essay ought to state what the author has done to aid responsible-human-intendance.

Andy Smarick would have us grow accustomed to some 25 forms of political lying. Interestingly, his essay does not include the words integrity, insinuation, equivocation, and insult. My guess is that Smarick honestly does not comprehend integrity, wherein a person claims “I don’t know” when that is so. Smarick seems to advocate public accommodation of “deception risk”: 16 ways from authoritative officials, 4 more from responsible parties like the media, 2 more from provocative citizens, leaving only 3 rejected risks, including the lie. Smarick seems to be writing for scholars; the public has trouble discerning science and research, misled by scholars in this issue. Where does that deception fit in Smarick’s chosen 25? Would we citizens be better off with Smarick’s selection of only 10 expressions to judge?

Smarick missed the opportunity to show interest in the entity We the People of the United States by suggesting clarity regarding “truth”. My suggestion is “the-ineluctable-truth”. The hyphens suggest that the scholar who dismisses one word from the phrase stonewalls the offered debate. For example, “ineluctable-truth” may or may not represent the research to discover “the-ineluctable-truth”. And Merriam-Webster informs us that “ineluctable” means “not to be avoided, changed, or resisted”. Therefore, another phrase is needed when the-ineluctable-evidence is not fully understood, perhaps because the necessary instruments of perception have not been invented. When that is so, it is prudent to express “the-objective-truth” so as to appreciate the unknown. For example, ancient seamen could observe curvature of the horizon and suspect the landlubber’s insistence that the earth is flat. Invention of the telescope confirmed that the planets are like globes.

Unfortunately, Smarick did not offer an equivalent to the-ineluctable-truth or better. He accommodates human reason with an array of “truth” modifiers:  literal, underlying, precise, absolute, their, more, the, general, poetic, specific, whole, and straightforward. The reader may wonder:  Is my truth cast aside?

Closing

I don’t know the ineluctable-truth, but write all the time and wish I had feedback from readers at their psychological moment in the pursuit of the responsible-happiness they currently perceive. I hope my frank opinion comes across as different although not new, rather than stonewalling condescension or such. If not, I apologize and would like to know an offense so that I can correct it.

I enjoyed my wife’s patience to read my writing before I published it. Sometimes, she said things like, “That’s typical of your views, but I would not publish it.”

I asked, “What’s the sentence that invoked that statement.”

She responded. I read and said, “I wouldn’t publish that either” and fixed it.

In commenting on these essays, I have expressed my views and affirm that I do not know the-ineluctable-truth. I read, write, speak, and LISTEN, in order to discover expressions that appeal to fellow-citizens’ experiences&observations and thereby seem reliable enough to be worthy of their consideration for improvement. I seek improvement in substance foremost and celebrate changes to my errant opinions. I appreciate suggestions --- negative comments to consider and positive ones to adopt or amend for more discussion. 

Copyright©2021 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. Edited on 8/10/2021.