Yeah. I’ve been sitting here doing nothing. Nothing at all. Why he’ll see the big board! Or so they thought . . .
. . . anyway, hello to you all once again. All 4 of you. Devin. Adam. Yianni. Judy. It’s Judy on my mind nowadays. I’m gonna stop now. I’m crying.
Judy suggested that I use the leader of the band as a character in blog posts or whatever.
She thought that I was being maudlin bemoaning being the leader of the band. And having to do everything.
She thinks it’s funny. And so do I.
Me. The Leader of the Band..
I hate typing on my Pixel.
Even using swype, typing on my Pixel is a pain.
And I can’t use voice recognition unless I’m alone.
So the other day I was talking to Devin.
I mentioned thinking about considering moving toward creating something.
He suggested that be my working title.
Acid Pro 8 had just come out.
I was reminiscing about the soundtracks to Yianni’s AMC Diary I used to bust out using Acid Pro 7.
Yeah. It’s been 7 for a long time.
But Magix came through in the clutch.
Acid Pro 8 is here!!
So now I’m thinking about considering moving toward creating something.
Again..
Well. What better time to start up again?
My friend and mentor Max Richie died in January of 2012. I couldn’t post here after that. Except for John Lennon’s birthday I guess. Once.
Don’t know. Have no opinion.
Anyway, Happy Fall Equinox!!
I learned from Max Richie a wonderful habit and practice, to read out loud the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America on the fourth of July each year.
This document is thought provoking and principled.
The text follows, from the National Archives at http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
I really dug Walter Mosley’s comments at the Liberty Hill Upton Sinclair award dinner to wit:
My friend, I’ll call him Jack, is getting older. He has a strong mind and a powerful writer’s voice but time is moving on and various parts of his body, especially his lungs, have weakened. In the cold and damp New York winters he was suffering bout after bout of bronchitis; sometimes spending the better part of the season in bed.
Jack’s well-educated, very expensive doctor, in brief half hour visits, prescribed for this recurring ailment ever stronger doses of steroids. Jack asked about the negative effects of the drug and the doctor said, in as many words, this is the lesser of two evils.
Two hundred and twenty-five dollars per half hour plus the cost of travel, drugs, and future ailments due to this radical cure and the healer talks about two evils, becoming a metaphysician rather than a pedestrian GP.
We, Jack and I, have a third friend – Tina. Tina told Jack that there is a man named Tan down in China Town who charges forty dollars a visit and who only prescribes herbs that are to be brewed into bitter tasting teas.
“Dr. Tan will take your pulse and then prescribe the proper herbs,” Tina said.
This was a third position, something outside of the Pandora’s Box containing the two evils. Dr. Tan represented the grass roots, literally. Five thousand years of herbal medicine that comes down to one case of 21st century bronchitis in SoHo.
The notion of two evils is broadly accepted in American culture. Most working people are well aware of the rock and the hard place, damned if you do and damned if you don’t. We accept the inevitability of a losing trade off on the long, declining, slippery slope of working class American life.
Poverty and charity are two evils. The former grinds our bones and souls and children into rubble while the latter weakens and ultimately eliminates our ability to live lives for ourselves – leaving us dependent upon the kindness of bureaucrats. You know the ones – those people who have your life in a manila folder hanging from wires in a green filing cabinet that sits behind a locked door that you don’t have the key for.
The arbiters of philanthropy and good will organizations never prepare us for liberation or revolution; they never question their superior position of humility and selflessness or the rightness of their charity.
Charity is the lesser evil but it is still evil.
The overpaid, over blown doctor kills your kidneys along with the bronchitis while Dr. Tan only seeks to strengthen your natural defense systems and organic immunities. He may fail sometimes, and so might his patients, but in this case he stopped my friend’s bouts with lung disease.
There is almost always a third and fourth and fifth approach to the solution of any predicament – and any one of these methodologies might not be evil. When you find a leader, an activist, a member of the people who are suffering – a woman or a man that is a part of this world and who demands dignity along with relief – then you have left the realms of poverty and its only slightly less evil sibling – charity.
The Liberty Hill Foundation echoes these opinions of mine in its decision to support activists, organizers, and resistors of all kinds. You are here to strengthen the immunity systems of those that are straining under the weight of rampant capitalism and its tax free big named charitable foundations; its misguided acolytes who aggrandize themselves by throwing money at people who are ultimately transformed into bondsmen under the domination of this lesser evil.
I thank you for giving me this Upton Sinclair Award and for the opportunity to chastise the false hierarchy of most charitable organizations while being able to laud the proponents of liberation and, possibly, even revolution.
Thank you.
In 1935, Amos Pinchot wrote that, “Today the nations in the world may be divided into two classes. The nations in which the government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government.”
Have you seen the film V for Vendetta?
Despite the appalling state of the US Government and its penchant for reckless and irresponsible management, its inability to concede to the will of the people in its wholesale derogation of the people’s authority to concentrated selfish profit seeking powers, including transgressions against the autonomy of other peoples, acts not unlike those of King George’s Britain, one can derive great benefit from revisiting the founding principles of the United States of America.
Looking back, we can find a way forward in affirmation of that which can make us whole, the unalienable rights of all peoples.
Presented by the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
For additional information about the Declaration of Independence, see these sites:
For those of you not in the know, can ya hear me!?, are you out there?!, this web site is actually named after a song I did in the early aughts, found this recording of one guitar from 2002, posted it here now…
[audio:Nothing-07-30-02.mp3]
This is probably not groundbreaking, but rule one of philosophy is zoom out.
Of course, that is if you accept that philosophy is more than whining about the way things are as is put forth by Devin. He told me that is the essence of philosophy. Having no formal training other than being a human being using the English language, I wouldn’t know, but I do know what philosophy is to me.
Philosophy is zooming out, seeing the whole picture, stripping away context and dealing only with principle, values, concepts. Then one can zoom back in and apply philosophy to daily life if desired.
So zoom out. Look at yourself, and the world, from afar. Get outside yourself. Visualize your self and the world as if you were looking at it from a great distance.
Earth from the moon is a classic example of zooming out. How the earth is really only little a blue planet out in the middle of nowhere.
But practically speaking zooming out can be great in releasing one from getting caught up, getting sucked into the Henny Penny world view of panic and fear.
For in reality, this reality, our reality, our next breath is going to happen with our without panic and fear.
I don’t know about you, really I don’t, but I prefer to be fearless.
Thanks to all US Veterans who’ve defended freedom and justice for all, and to all those here and across the world who actively oppose tyranny, injustice, oppression & corruption…
Happy Veterans Day!
Little known fact, literally ignored.
The #1 human cause of co2 in the atmosphere is degradation of soil, converting it to dirt, little rocks.
Why is this little known?
Stay tuned…
Remember, Remember
The Fifth of November
The Gunpowder Treason & Plot
I know of No Reason
The Gunpowder Treason
Should Ever Be Forgot
Ideas are bulletproof…
Adam, I know your birthday is today, but I posted yesterday because it was your birthday in Japan.
So, Happy Birthday over here too now! Time is an illusion…
Happy Birthday Quaker Boy!
Today is tomorrow, your birthday!
Keep on jonezing…
Happy Birthday to John Lennon, my idol.
What more can I say? Happy Birthday John!
Les Paul died today.
I’m crying…
Perry Marshall’s Renaissance Club recently did a piece on, tired of losing the game? Change the game, sort of like if you don’t like the rules of the game, change the game. Which got me thinking, there is no game, no just kidding, well, there isn’t, but I think that is not quite a practical reality that bears discussion here at this point in time.
So I was thinking about rules, and I’ve talked about law a little already, but here I mean rules of the game in the context Perry was using it, rules of the arena in which one operates. For example, being polite in social situations is required by the rules. Perry was using the metaphor to refer to business, or a niche market, here I want to expand on the idea of rules of the game into the restrictions we place upon ourselves individually and as a group.
Backing up a bit, freedom is complete release from responsiblity and complete autonomy to do anything. Animals are truly free. They do what they want, whatever, whatever. Rules reign in and restrict freedom to the norms established by society. This is called law in many cases, and in many cases is not enforced, but just having the rules seems to give one a sense of security.
So the rules of the game, restrict and reduce freedom. This is what lawmakers do, reduce freedom. Usually they do this in a “big brother” “I know what’s best for the little people beneath me” attitude, here in the US anyway. So the desire to be a politician has its roots in a desire to restrict the freedom of others, the desire to dictate to others, and the desire to benefit society as a whole by doing thus. Problem is, it rarely works out that way.
I toyed with the idea of a politician who is the anti-politician, entering the realm of reducing freedom but instead making his or her platform one of “I am cleaning out all the old bad rules”. In other words, promising not to make any more rules, but instead, to get rid of the junk. Interesting thought that.
The rules of the game create the framework of operation within which we all operate, if we choose to participate, and even if we choose not to participate. Can we really change the rules of the game? The answer is a resounding yes, we can make them better, we can rid ourselves of bad rules, and we can make game changing modifications to our societies.
Will we? No…
Happy Birthday Kai!
Remember this?
And here’s a shot of you, Asako and Judy’s in the background, at Yosemite, when you were 2 years old.
Kai’s Birthday is July 20 exactly 7 days after mine!
Happy birthday to Cheech Marin, and of course Harrison Ford.
You say it’s your birthday?
Well, it’s my birthday too yeah…
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. 
Sound familiar? Did I mention my middle name is Aristotle?
Ok, admittedly I’m not as eloquent, but I do talk about we are what we do.
I’ve talked a lot about perspective here. This is what creates the “without point of view” half of Nothing Has Meaning.
I wanted to put the Declaration of Independence in just a little more perspective.
These 56 signers were elected officials of the English Colonies. The signing of the Declaration of Independence was an act of treason against the English Government punishable by death.
We do well to remember that. These men were each and every one of them extraordinary. I’m reading more about each of them, and it’s inspiring. We aren’t talking about “great” achievers necessarily, but their lives included one of the greatest acts of righteousness and bravery, which makes them extraordinary in and of itself.
The story behind the Declaration of Independence, and the events leading to the Declaration of Independence are also very interesting.
Would but that we as a People could all evince such extraordinary behavior…
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett , William Whipple , Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock , Samuel Adams , John Adams , Robert Treat Paine , Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins , William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman , Samuel Huntington , William Williams , Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd , Philip Livingston , Francis Lewis , Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton , John Witherspoon , Francis Hopkinson , John Hart , Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris , Benjamin Rush , Benjamin Franklin , John Morton , George Clymer , James Smith , George Taylor , James Wilson , George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney , George Read , Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase , William Paca , Thomas Stone , Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe , Richard Henry Lee , Thomas Jefferson , Benjamin Harrison , Thomas Nelson, Jr. , Francis Lightfoot Lee , Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper , Joseph Hewes , John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge , Thomas Heyward, Jr. , Thomas Lynch, Jr. , Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett , Lyman Hall , George Walton
Have you ever noticed that the rules we make, whatever the motive, are rarely followed, or enforced at random to benefit a few?
Take for example, micro-corporations, in the State of California. I’m using micro-corporations for discussion because I have found that they are a microcosm of bigger entities, such as "democracies" like the United States of America. Let’s discuss a fictitious membership nonprofit membership corporation model because this article is about participatory governing bodies, not profit businesses.
I’ve seen a few, and I’m always flabbergasted at how apathetic the Directors are (meet 6 to 12 times a year, do nothing in between meetings, say aye, go home…), how small the membership (also apathetic) and how disingenuous most of the "corporate activities" are, or how few members the activities benefit. And a serious number of these types of organizations are way past their prime and dying on the vine.
In essence, some are shill fronts for a few people’s efforts to get free money, jobs, leftover useless corps, or simply power over others for the thrill that gives some evidently.
Let’s say our discussion corp was formed to protect and serve the rights and privileges of a group of people, administer CCRs (covenants, conditions and restrictions) and it has a charter thus written and a set of bylaws.
Here’s what one would assume this corporation would do: protect the rights and privileges of its members and enforce the CCRs. What will typically happen in actuality is….nothing, or very little. What if the CCRs then expire? Wouldn’t that surely spell the end of the corp? Not necessarily. If someone benefits from the carcass of the dying corp, yep, it lingers on, and the apathy of the membership likely means there is no end in sight.
As is typical of membership corporations, the bylaws are usually made to protect the members, giving them control of the corporation they own. One way they do that is to require that at least a majority of the members (half plus one) be present at any membership meeting that conducts business, holds elections and etc. This prevents one or two people from controlling the corporation. However, as stated above, apathy kills that from actually being prevented, it happens anyway.
Now what if the membership grows and meetings are regularly held without a half plus one quorum present due to apathy? Only a handful of people now control the corporation, because they will not follow the rules.
Doesn’t it then stand to reason the corporation’s reason to be is over? That in essence the corporation is not serving the interests of the members as they are non-participants? Probably. And maybe not depending on the controlling few.
But what if they keep on going anyway? What if a couple people gain from this? What if it is in their interests to just keep on perpetuating this no longer needed corporation? What if they hold elections without a quorum take nominations from the floor and elect Directors not lawfully elected therefore? Rules mean nothing, proving my point.
And yes, the corp never dies, and never really is effective, though may manage to "serve" the members in some manner.
Apathy causes this to happen, and the members of this fictitious corporation would have only themselves to blame. The reality is that in all likelihood it’s more trouble than it’s worth to end it, depending on the size of the corp, the damage to the members, the loss. If the cost of status quo perpetuation is low, apathy wins, principle loses. However, simply following the rules would end it rather painlessly as no elections could ever take place due to a lack of a quorum.
I sometimes wonder what there is to combat apathy other than pain, and I realize the answer is again…nothing. Enough pain, and action is inevitable.
The micro-corporate microcosm of "democracy" is but a symptom of a greater ill, the apathetic masses.
Bring on the pain…and hopefully spur action.
Have you ever noticed how some people are simply brokers of ill will? They always manipulate and polarize those around them. They do this for their own benefit, and typically polarize, manipulate and pit against one another the people from whom they directly benefit.
Reminds me of the killer in Agatha Christie’s Curtain, Hercule Poirot’s final appearance.
The killer in Curtain didn’t actually kill anyone. In fact, Poirot wound up killing the killer and then killing himself leaving behind an explanation because he saw no other way to stop this killer lawfully, as there was no crime under the law in the story, and under most laws.
This killer was a broker of ill will. He would psychologically manipulate others into committing murder, even against the dear and near. He would do this maliciously for no apparent reason other than satisfaction of creating and spreading his malice.
Brokers of, and in, ill will seem to be mean spirited people, not entirely without merit as is common among human beings, but simply bent on achieving what I can only assume is the satisfaction of creating and preserving chasms between people, factions pitted against one another, usually so the broker feels benefited in some way.
There are varying degrees of this affliction as well. In some cases, it’s more of a bad character trait, a part of the whole, than it is their entire identity. In these cases you’ll only see the manifestation of the affliction intermittently while some are just constant downers. The really evil ones do it without you even knowing it’s happening, then suddenly, we see people behaving in unprecedented ways.
Brokering ill will has its roots in pure malice, and some appear to do it to preserve a perceived self interest on their part, to prevent what they think would be a catastrophic change from the status quo.
Brokering ill will stems from fear. Fear of the truth being known and thus causing some sort of damage to the fearful party. The truth is so feared in some quarters that life is a pitiful and painful existence.
In fact, most evil comes from fear. Fear is probably the real root of all bizarre and uniquely human evil behavior. It’s that ill juxtaposition of animal behavior and higher human intelligence.
So what can we do about these brokers of ill will? You can only change you so all you have to do is not allow these brokers to manipulate your thinking, your feeling, your understanding.
The bottom line is that our minds are windows, the window we look through, and any time you allow another person to influence your mind, without careful consideration and self referral on your part, you’ve given away a part of yourself and made that part of yourself something foreign, essentially into what the manipulator wanted.
Really, your mind is your universe, and the content of your mind is yours to mold. Why let others make you into something you are not?
Seize your mind and think for yourself.
When the going gets tough the tough get going. You have probably heard this saying before, and on the face of it is quite humorous, however, also quite telling.
The point here is that being "tough" implies a certain set of, yes, principles and values. (I have a category for principle now…)
So the tough, implicitly then, adhere to a set of principles along the lines of standing up for principle, not backing down, fighting for truth and justice, keeping on keeping on, not meekly fading in the face of adversity, carrying on when the chips are down, persistence, trebuchet, hammering the point, persistence…and did I mention persistence?
Of course tough could have other meanings depending on your point of view, something as mundane as "hard to kill". But I think we all can agree that collectively we refer to "tough" as being someone with backbone, and that means adherence to a set of principles and values. Of course a lot of tough people may be evil and wrongdoers, and still adhere to a set of principles.
Have you ever noticed, then, that this saying is essentially true?
On the flip side, the meek and the flaccid lay down when the going gets tough. Those without principle, or principle without opposition , lay down. Those "fair weather" types who talk big and walk small lay down. In fact, when the going gets tough, you learn what people are really made of. Fair weather is easy, bad weather can be hard, challenging, and require taking on a lot of demonizing and criticism, usually from those without backbone.
So we learn much from the actions of people in tough circumstances. And reveal the truth.
Only the tough keep on keeping on in the face of adversity. Are you tough?
In our ongoing discussion of principles and values occasionally we end up addressing the topic of adherence to one’s principles and values.
This is of great interest to me because here in the United States of America one finds that principles of convenience are rife. This is revealed through action, or lack of action. The actions one takes tells the true story of principle and value.
When one trumpets adhering to a principle, but then fails to uphold that principle through action, then one is practicing principle of convenience. That is to say that this is not principle at all but a fawning of value upon concepts one has no intent to uphold. Worthless really, pointless, and in some circumstances damaging.
Which brings me to this post, principle without opposition. These core values built on shared principles are tested at times, and our choice is to uphold or fold. The USA chose to uphold in the face of tyranny at its birth. This was not convenient, unlawful, certainly was heavily opposed, and punishable by death. Yet they carried on…
Principle without opposition is easy, and not principle at all.
Since nothing has meaning then how can meaning be erratic and whimsical? Set that aside…
Meaning is evidently highly personal, and uniquely human. With the advent of intelligence, human beings have gone from one bizarre and inexplicable vagary to the next. A seeming dichotomy of actions and outcomes. A reckless abandon toward oblivion taking every living thing with ’em.
Leaving us only with perception and the personal import of that perception.
A specific example is exemplified by the saying “there’s no accounting for taste”, amazingly true. I like rock and roll, others don’t. I make rock and roll I like, and don’t like. Some like the music I make that I don’t like. My favorite line is a mystery to others. Their favorite line is a mystery to me. We try to communicate these different perceptions and wind up crucifying the opposition minority. Or in my case being correct, while everybody else is wrong. Everybody…yee everybody.
The wonderful thing about the vagaries of meaning is that there is always some other human out there with a unique and specific outlook that will fit with or share common attributes with others’ perceptions. So in other words, we are not 100% different to the point of finding no shared values. We form niches. Good thing too, because if there are enough shared values communities spring up with all the incumbent marketing possibilities for the entrepreneurs.
Bad thing too because if there are enough shared values religions spring up and begin to repress, attack and kill every other viewpoint, literally.
But still, what an inconsistent mess from the local street to the chambers of “power”. The truth of the matter, the facts of the matter are entirely lost on humans and their meanings are all they see. Humans have little or no perspective.
Perspective? Didn’t I just say we all have different perspectives? Yeah, but having perspective is a different context. Learn English! Having no perspective is a reference to the inability to take the holistic view of any given context, or outside the bounds of the context to a universal holistic view.
And that is why nothing has meaning.
Strip away the vagaries of meaning and you are left with nothing but the facts, truth.
Yes, philosophers like to think truth is a concept whereas facts are solid information or events, but the truth is, the fact is, (puns intended) that there is the IS and it is true. Depending on what your definition of is is. (I can’t believe the Bill Clinton’s crazy rationalizing has made the fabric of metaphor.)
Strip away your vagaries and all that is left is peace…
A little known fact of the higher human order, living the voodoo lives of economics.
Everyone is in sales.
Yes, life is one big pitch.
This is one of the larger ironies of human kind, that they get jobs and work and think that they are not selling anything but are respectably “working” and “making a living”.
Sure that happens for real sometimes, subsistence farming is probably pretty close to survival like the animals, you grow or hunt what you eat or you don’t eat. Much like indigenous populations did and do.
But I’m talking about so called enlightened Westerners here. Us folks who somehow think that working at a job isn’t sales and we degrade those actually in sales. Those of us completely blindsided and unable to cope when said job is lost. Those of us with the entitlement attitude that seems to say “I showed up, where’s my money” with no real comprehension of what running a business is all about.
Bottom line, everyone is selling themselves, either pretty well or not so well.
Life’s a Pitch.
I had to finish the Do It Now, Do It Fast slogan.
Yes, Do It Now, Do It Fast, You’ll be Glad You Did!
The meaning of life? Meaningless, without a perspective. Much like the universe.
Nothing really exists without the apparatus that defines it.
A buddy of mine, Jerry Howe, once said to me something along the lines that if I could do something I said I could do, and did not do it, then that amounts to the same thing as not being able to do it. Now, that was not meant literally, but rather philosophically.
So, we are not talking about martial artists who can kill with one blow not having that ability because they don’t kill with one blow. No, we are talking about the self imposed limitations of the human spirit, the downer attitudes that keep us from doing, whatever, whatever, we want.
The kind of thinking that states, I would if I could but I can’t, when in reality we could but we just don’t.
See, Do It Now.
Philosophy tends to be somewhat dry and prone to inaction.
Not that philosophy isn’t the actual seat of all action, for values spring from philosophy consciously and subconsciously, however we typically think of philosophers as cerebral people who don’t really do much.
Philosophers deal with such concepts as truth, not facts. To paraphrase Indiana Jones “we deal in facts, if you want to debate the truth head down the hall to the philosophy department”. Or as Dad said to Young Einstein of scientists “what do they grow son?”
Sitting here in North Fork and thinking, constantly thinking (if only you’d been a man of action!) I had a revelation today. Or any day really.
Philosophy gets old because our brains seem unlimited in the thought process but really simply rehash the thoughts of those who have thought before, if not numbed into oblivion.
Do it now. I was thinking about how almost constantly we put things off, the smallest things even, and they pile up. Much like the junk we pile up.
Do it now. So if you have something to file file it. If you have some great idea write it down, then execute. Keep the crap from piling up.
Do it now, for now is truly the only time it will get done.
Is that all there is? That’s all there is. What is? Whatever is, is. But anyway. . . .
Nothing that is except for wanting to move this web philosophy blog to a domain more relevant to the stories told here, the thoughts told here, the truths observed here.
We only control ourselves.
Diverging from meaning, and looking at control, again, yes, again is an interesting study.
There will always be victims, and perpetrators, however in the course of our pampered meaningless American lives we generally are not faced with such vagaries. So taking this to luxurious philosophical discourse I am talking about manipulation and control of our decisions.
We make all of our decisions, no matter how contrived or rationalized, no matter what external forces may affect us. This is also literally true, physically and biologically in terms of the origins of physical action only occurring within each of us, but we’ll leave out true violence and persecution for the moment.
I am always struck by the alacrity for blaming in this country, or in this modernized meaningless western life style. Excuses. Everyone makes excuses. No decision seems to be made based on inner desire or motivation but rather is blamed on circumstance beyond our control.
The truth underneath everything is my relentless mantra, that our actions reveal values, values motivated into action, and that a choice has occurred underpinning the motivation for the action. Blah, blah, blah. Not recognizing this truth and making excuses is tantamount to preaching tolerance and non-violence while murdering innocent living beings. That is an extreme used here only as a metaphor. Like a government persecuting other autonomous nations through death and violence in the name of freedom or some other wonderful value or concept purporting to honor and value life.
Peeling away the layers of external forces and turning inward to ourselves, frees us from the abdication of responsibility and the bearing of a burden of guilt for other’s actions, while in fact making letting it all go possible.
Let go of having control over anyone other than yourself, deeply considering one’s choices, always asking yourself for advice, being completely true to yourself, standing up for your values, relentlessly, is true freedom, and responsibility.
And don’t think this applies to the helpless in the sense that those in need, still need help and possibly cannot, literally, take action. Like small children. Take great care of your children and all children, teach them the same responsibility for themselves, and maybe someday we will have an enlightened society that can watch the earth cease to support life as we value it, together in harmony.