Human authority 053118

May 31, 2018

Glossary

·         Afterdeath: that vast time after the body, mind, and person stop functioning

·         Authenticity: accepting the individual power, energy, and authority (IPEA) to develop integrity.

·         Civic: mutual collaboration to develop human justice. Civic citizens collaborate during their lifetime and in their locales---in cities, woods, privacy and outer-space.

o   Civic culture: most citizens, perhaps 2/3, collaborate for individual liberty with human justice; mutual, comprehensive safety and security.

o   Civic morality: developing individual happiness yet conforming to the-objective-truth.

·         Civilization: a monopoly on coercion. See society.

·         Collaborate: neither cooperate nor subjugate nor compromise, but conform personal preferences to the-objective-truth. Often, collaboration must be iterative as each party informs the other in mutual discovery.

·         Common good: freedom-from oppression with the liberty-to responsibly pursue personal preferences rather than the happiness specified by someone else.

·         Comprehensive fidelity: extending fidelity to the-objective-truth to self, to immediate family, to extended family and friends, to the people (nation), to humankind (the world), and to the universe, both respectively and collectively.

·         Dissident: a citizen who does not collaborate to achieve human justice. In the USA, a citizen who has not considered, trusted in and committed to, the agreement that is stated in the preamble to the constitution for the USA. The U.S. dissident rebukes civic morality yet wants the fruits of statutory justice.

·         Dominant beliefs: precepts of an intellectual construct to which members of a society, culture or civilization are expected to comport.

·         Emotions: in civic collaboration, emotions are unlikely, because the parties are collaborating to discover the-objective-truth. Once discovered, both individuals intend fidelity to the-objective-truth for their person.

·         Fidelity: some individuals who accept their human authority develop comprehensive fidelity to the-objective-truth. It extends to self, to immediate family, to extended family and friends, to the people, to humankind, to the world, and to the universe, both respectively and collectively.

·         Government: a monopoly on force.

·         Honesty: failing integrity, frequently by not doing the work to understand. See integrity.

·         Individual: body and mind generically determine a person. The individual may develop integrity and fidelity like a god except facing death.

·         I do not know: that statement is the author’s mantra. It means that when the-objective-truth has not been discovered by humankind, the author prefers to admit not knowing rather than to self-pretend.

·         Integrity is a practice: doing the work to comprehend the-objective-truth then understand how to benefit; behaving according to the understanding; publically expressing the understanding; listening to public response so as to increase understanding; remaining open minded to future discovery that changes understanding. Honesty may omit understanding and thus fail integrity.

·         Iterative collaboration: civic people agree to discover the-objective-truth and each apply individual authority to develop personal happiness that utilizes the discovery.

·         Listening: in agreement to discover the-objective-truth, clarifying a fellow citizen’s heartfelt civic concern and suggestion for improvement so as to relate it to personal preferences, consider verifying the concern, and either agree with the solution or offer an idea that better accommodates your lifestyle, the other’s lifestyle, and the-objective-truth.

·         Objective culture: any people who collaborate to discover and utilize the-objective-truth no matter where they are on their chronological path and psychological progress toward shared goals.

·         Perfection: this refers not to an absolute for the individual or for a people, but indicates continuously developing integrity and fidelity.

·         Preamble to the constitution for the USA: a civic agreement which political regimes have falsely labeled “secular.” Citizens divide themselves civic vs dissident on the preamble’s offered agreement. It is a legal statement, which changed the authority in this land from a confederation of states to the people in their states who are willing to take responsibility for the USA.

·         Psychological maturity: freedom-from internal and external constraints; achieving fidelity to the-objective-truth.

·         Public morality: the totality of civic morality and dissidence.

·         Society: an association based on consensual coercion. See civilization. In a civic culture, societies assure that at least 2/3 of members use IPEA for integrity. Dissident societies suffer statutory constraint.

·         Statutory collaboration: the journal of a civic culture’s journey toward human justice. Probably, the press/media is not trusted with this journal.

·         Statutory justice: law and law enforcement that conforms to the-objective-truth.

·         Tradition: moral principles that were imagined by ancestors. Ancestors can never imagine civic morality for their descendants, yet descents may maintain awareness of the path toward human morality so as not to repeat woe.

·         The-objective-truth can only be discovered. It exists and does not respond to human constructs such as objective truth, reason, imagination, or spiritualism---tools humans may use to consider the unknowns. Synonymous for the-objective-truth: actual reality, indisputable facts of reality, discovered-objective-truth, the unknowns.

o   Natural law: the intentional imposition of reason to obfuscate the-objective-truth

·         United States: originally, the people in the nine free and independent states whose constitutional ratification conventions voted “yes,” establishing the USA on June 21, 1788. Operations began with ten states in 1789 and increased to fifty.

·         Voluntary:  A civic culture happens when a majority of citizens view collaboration for human justice as essential to freedom like earning a living so as not to have to express gratitude to bureaucrats.

·         Voluntary public integrity: most fellow citizens accept individual authority to develop integrity rather than tolerate dissidence to justice.

·         Willing people: citizens who trust-in and commit to the preamble for civic justice; the civic people in the USA.

Individual Power, Energy, and Authority:

Accepting personal responsibility for freedom and liberty

Introduction

Through our marriage journey, now in the 49^th year and by listening to collaborators in meetings at libraries and elsewhere, I came to articulate: Each person may accept their individual power, energy, and authority (IPEA) to develop integrity. In other words, every human has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority to develop integrity. If this expression rings true and instills hope, the author intends this book for you.

With IPEA, each person may manage the lesser authorities that he or she encounters in life. Social morality, civilization, religion, civility, “the common good”, and knowledge (which may be obsolete) obfuscate individual human authority. Consequently, fellow-citizens’ possibility for an achievable, better future, through individual liberty with civic morality, seems possible. For example, much as been written to debate if virtuous living is based on reason or on faith, leaving integrity out of the discussion; I add integrity to the discussion. Concerning every issue, I try to resolve mysteries by adapting easy to understand words and phrases without attacking common usage. Semantic failure begets either deceit or misunderstanding, neither of which I intend. Once the phrases are understood, they may be translated to foreign languages, perhaps to discover shortcomings. An overall theory for a civic culture emerges.

This book proposes the public goal: civic morality rather than social morality, where “civic” refers to citizens who behave with human justice more than to be “civic-minded citizens”. Understanding the distinction and how civic morality has been obfuscated, so far, requires new use of old words and phrases so as to eradicate the confusion. This book is for the reader who is willing to learn and improve a glossary in order to collaborate for a mutually understood message. In other words, when you perceive flaws in usage, consider contacting the author and collaborate to improve the glossary and text.

Preface

People may observe that the human species is so powerful that each individual is challenged, during the first three decades, to acquire budding adulthood: basic understanding and intent so as to live a full human life. Young adults may develop human authenticity: the authority and power to spend his or her energy in pursuit of personal happiness rather than the dictates of another---a god, a government, a philosophy, a dictator. In other words, develop responsible liberty rather than submit to coercion or force; fidelity rather than particular civilization or arbitrary legislation; civic morality more than social morality; human justice; civic integrity; individual integrity.

During humankind’s evolution as we perceive it---some 3 million years of physics and its progeny, biology---there has been psychological evolution, and in the last thousands of years, cultural evolution. Most cultures inculcate that the human has both good and bad tendencies. To favor the good, the person needs a higher power. However, the usual higher powers, a god, a government, or a partnership of the two, seemingly hurt, even abuse, the individual. Therefore, sufferers continually seek a better higher power, never recognizing their individual authority. Few persons accept that individual authority may be developed unto their highest power, even when other powers oppress individual freedom. In other words, few individuals accept their human authority to manage the lesser powers that influence the world.

Personal authority and power may be developed according to personal preference: the good or the bad. For example, every person has the authority and power to offer goodwill, in other words, civic morality. Each also has the authority and power to instead take advantage of the people who offer goodwill. Thus, a person may choose to be a criminal or worse. The people are divided: the civic citizens and dissidents to civic morality. Being human, both civic citizens and dissidents have individual authority and power: neither side will accept arbitrary constraints. Neither side will submit to dominant opinion. Only statutory justice serves civic morality.

An opportunity for a people to develop a culture with statutory justice exists but is neglected if not repressed. On June 21, 1788, the people’s representatives in nine free and independent American states established the USA. The people in their states offered a civic agreement that is stated in the preamble to the constitution for the USA. So far, most people---the people---have neglected the agreement and seem blameworthy. However, political regimes continually repress the civic agreement. The purpose of this book is to create the words and phrases to motivate most citizens in the USA to collaborate for a civic culture. The objective is individual liberty with civic justice, made possible by statutory collaboration. In other words, civic people collaborate for written laws and law enforcement based on justice rather than opinion. Justice is based on the-objective-truth[1] rather than opinion. Today, opinion comes in disguises: empathy and passion; political correctness; social-science’s policy-based evidence making; democracy; civility; sociability. The valid civic association is collaboration for mutual, comprehensive safety and security.

In 2017, use of the Internet has exacerbated ideological conflict in a world that seems divergent, void of self-discipline. Perhaps the threat of annihilation has kept world wars from being waged, yet domination rather than civic connection seems the goal of some nations and some peoples; some governments and some gods. Of particular concern, at least internally, is evidence that the USA’s positive direction has waned if not turned negative. It’s on an erroneous fork in America’s journey. There is potential for renewed national leadership through individual American independence more than national exceptionalism. That is, Americans acting responsibly has more promise than citizens expecting national favor. Yet there must be a commonality. What we suggest is comprehensive safety and security; personal integrity rather than national unity; statutory justice rather than dominant opinion; accepting the responsibility for freedom; accepting individual, human authority; adopting self-discipline. Only the human individual has the physical capability and psychological power to accept the authority for mutual justice. Collectively, citizens who accept individual authority may create a culture of justice, wherein dissidents are inspired and motivated to reform rather than live a life of misery and loss.

Voluntary public integrity expresses a way of living wherein most people mutually discover public morality[2] using the-objective-truth rather than submit to dominant opinion, religious ideology, or political power. Thus, most people discover civic integrity not by force or coercion but by personal experience, observations, and by practicing fidelity. Willing people mutually nurture fidelity according to the-objective-truth. Among all the species, only the human individual has the authority and power to control his or her energy---individual energy. He or she may either pursue a mystery or discover the-objective-truth.

The-objective-truth expresses what-is---that which exists and may be discovered, rather than what-could-be---which may be imagined; actual reality rather than constructed doctrine. For example, humankind explores the universe yet does not talk with extraterrestrials. (A few people send messages but are not in conversation.) In other words, the-objective-truth is the actual reality to which humankind responds or conforms. Most of the-objective-truth is undiscovered but some is both understood and beneficially used by willing persons. For example, in a civic culture if the CDC reports evidence that smoking reduces life-span and secondary smoke kills innocent people, most smokers stop smoking. But not everyone stops, and entrepreneurs invent means to profit from dissident appetites.

Most people iteratively collaborate to discover the-objective-truth, without articulating the noble work. Thereby, people practice mutual, comprehensive safety and security for themselves, for their children and grandchildren, and for the beyond---for posterity. Not only for their family but for all people. It seems almost everyone, perhaps 2/3 of the population, seeks such a way of living---such a culture. Perhaps voluntary public integrity expresses the political morality humankind has been discovering but at a cruel pace---too slow for many newborns in each age. Perhaps political evolution is occurring geographically, ethnically, religiously, and culturally---comprehensively, but at differing paces. Perhaps most people pursue a personally preferential mixture of what-is and what-may-be. Perhaps most people, knowingly or not, seek to perfect[3] their fidelity, even their unique person, independent of their community. Regardless of perfection, the authority to willingly collaborate or not rests with each human person.

The potential for personal perfection is not an isolated experience. Fidelity is a mutual practice that connects people. Therefore, fidelity is not particular to a private preference such as a political party. Willing people responsibly accommodate each other’s quest for personal perfection, regardless of the individual progress in time, space, or choices.  In other words, in psychological maturity[4] more than in chronological maturity, the willing person rises above community---civilizations, social moralities, civil convention, and religious doctrine---to collaborate with people for mutual, comprehensive safety and security. The connection is mutual appreciation. The two parties must each find accommodation for his or her respective preference that conforms to the-objective-truth. In other words, both parties accept the authority to discover and use the-objective-truth. One party neither challenges the other to declare something he or she does not believe nor to jump off a cliff to prove the law of gravity on earth.[i] One party enjoys and expresses the un-hiding of the sun by earth’s rotation on its axis each morning with neither apology nor objection to the perception that the sun rises or comes out. The sun is 93 million miles away and relatively passive to both the earth’s rotation on its axis and its rotation around the sun.

Comprehensive safety and security seem essential to freedom-from oppression so that a person may responsibly develop the liberty-to pursue private happiness rather than accept the dictates of another person, institution, or doctrine. Because the human individual has the authority over his or her personal energy, he or she has the duty to self to collaborate for freedom so that liberty may be practiced. The purpose of this book is to also propose private happiness with public morality through voluntary public integrity. Peaceful pursuit of private dreams and hopes such as arts, sports, or religion seem not a matter for public deliberation, yet private pursuits must either conform to civic morality or risk constraint. Constraint seems needed when a private practice causes actual harm. For example, a religious practice that routinely threatens killings may be constrained, perhaps annihilated. The proposal for public justice so as to empower private happiness can start the process, but the practice requires maintenance and continual improvement by the people who choose to collaborate and/or at least cooperate in the civic culture---a willing people, where “willing” refers to human justice in living more than conformance to civilization or socialization (coercion) or government (force). It’s more self-discipline than governance.

Public morality is established and maintained in voluntary iterative collaboration by most persons so that each life may flourish in place and time rather than for the sake of either the community, tradition, an ideology, or a doctrine. Again, in public morality, persons collaborate for mutual, comprehensive safety and security rather than to conform for the city or state or other institution. Rather than persons civilizing “for the greater good” or “the common good” the culture of personal authority provides comprehensive safety and security so that each person may earn the liberty-to responsibly pursue private preferences, or individual happiness. Freedom requires responsibility for mutual, comprehensive safety and security. The culture of comprehensive safety and security constrains societies and manages government. This overarching culture is established by daily living and maintained by iterative collaboration to discover public justice. In other words, when injustice is discovered, the people collaborate to establish justice.

In iterative collaboration, willing persons candidly discuss public issues until a practice is discovered that provides mutual, individual justice. In other words, neither party either subjugates or cooperates so as to either yield-to or gain arbitrary advantage. By pursuing the-objective-truth the culture avoids errors from obsolete opinion, tradition, or tyranny. The consequence is freedom-from arbitrary constraint so that each person has the liberty-to responsibly pursue personal preferences during their lifetime. Instead of serving government, willing people collaborate to make certain government does not make impossible the liberty-to responsibly develop private happiness. That is government does not hinder the individual who is developing personal integrity. Clearly, government, the monopoly on force, hinders development of personal integrity.

Individual liberty with civic morality empowers an objective culture rather than arrogates competition for dominant beliefs. Thus, individuals in a civic culture deliberately evolve so as to flourish in their time. An individual’s time is perhaps eighty years, during which civic citizens neither tolerate a cause they did not choose nor submit to coercion or force. An objective culture records discovery of the-objective-truth so that future generations---each newborn---may benefit from past discovery and efficiently correct errors upon new understanding or future discovery. This is the neglected role of journalism: The purpose of records is not to impose subjective ideologies or rules but rather to empower infants to become young adults at the leading edge of objective progress. For example, people once thought the earth is flat but it is like a globe,[5] and no infant should be forced to rediscover such facts: No infant should suffer erroneous instruction that claims the earth is flat! Also, people don’t lie so that they can communicate.[6] No infant need struggle to learn Einstein’s first civic principle: Never lie. In a civic culture, an infant is reared at the leading edge of civic morality and may acquire the understanding and intent to increase the moral envelope during his or her adulthood.

But not every person or civilization chooses to develop integrity: some are dissidents for reasons they may or may not understand. For example, a liar does not understand that he or she does not communicate ---that liars cannot communicate. In a civic culture liars stand out like an aching tooth. Citizens hope cleansing rather than extraction will stop the pain. A common source of dissidence is personal discovery that care-takers neglected, betrayed, or abused one’s person in childhood or later:  The child suffered lies. If so, the individual may employ either personal autonomy[7] or coaching to overcome the wounds and restore the path to self-discovery; but the chances for psychological maturity remain diminished.

Among first principles of voluntary public integrity is personal comprehensive fidelity. Both respectively and collectively, the person develops fidelity to these entities: to the-objective-truth; to self; to immediate family; to extended family and friends; to neighbors; to the people; and as a collaborator for statutory justice, to the state, to the nation, to the world, and to the universe. Inevitable human errors may be confronted, corrected and not repeated. Achieving comprehensive fidelity seems possible for each unique human---each person. An objective culture invites each person to undertake the private journey from what-is to what-may emerge; from feral infant to psychologically mature adult; from abject ignorance to fidelity in a unique journey. This is vastly different from the common practice of using reason to extrapolate from integrity in this world to speculation about another world, for example, a spirit world.[ii] [After a paragraph like, some readers may be turned off with the claim that I am condescending; however, I am writing an offer to collaborate rather than an edict. I write to learn rather than teach. I do not know the-objective-truth about much. My enjoyment of the earth’s rotation un-hiding the sun each morning is embarrassingly among my few understandings.]

The consequence of the journey may be unique personal perfection within a lifetime, a possibility expressed by Emerson (Divinity School Address). The person develops integrity and fidelity rather than pretense. The journey to psychological maturity cannot be entered if the person is attempting to conform to someone else’s quest, ideals, or doctrine. Dissidents may prevent perfecting a nation, yet that nation may facilitate most person’s opportunities to perfect themselves during their lifetime. That is, comprehending these principles, an individual may apply themselves personally, even in a nation that has not discovered civic integrity. Wonderfully, there has transpired perhaps 7 trillion man-years of human experience, and it may be possible for a newborn to live some 80 years at the leading edge of exponentially growing knowledge. If voluntary public integrity develops, advancement during the next 80 years may be astonishing.

An objective culture is established by willing persons, but some people prefer egocentric fidelity rather than public fidelity. For example, some persons commit to exceptional wealth, power, expertise, or a doctrine, and therefore compromise civic integrity. Some dissidents perceive civic people are vulnerable and therefore choose crime or evil, or live to satisfy banal appetites. Some people are gullible to a social cause and have not the humility---the acceptance-of and responsibility-for individual authority---have not the humility to protect themselves from false influence, such as grace for arrogant living, or antinomianism. Thus, “we, the people” is divided: We the People of the United States who embrace the agreement among dissidents. The willing person, in very thought, word, and action, nether imposes nor tolerates coercion or force to or from anyone.[iii] That seems like an un-attainable way of living, but perhaps merely because it has never been tried.

Dissidents are publicly discovered only by the harm they do. In a civic culture, constraints are invoked by statutory law which is continually maintained by discovery of human injustice and appropriate reform. In other words, a civic people collaborate for statutory justice: law and law enforcement based on the-objective-truth.

Willing citizens collaborate for living more than for city, country, or other government; more than for a special-interest society or for civilization. In public connections or transactions no matter where the parties are situated, willing persons collaborate for civic integrity and fidelity. In other words, individuals pursue personal happiness in conformity to the-objective-truth. The author, alone, neither knows nor can discover the-objective-truth. That is, I must collaborate with people. A greater problem is that the-discovered-objective-truth is both immense and dynamic, so no entity knows it all at any moment.

People in civic collaboration do not yield to public opinion, current or ancient, even though some societies preserve ideologies that do not conflict with justice. If a civic person does not subscribe to a no-harm society, its special-interest mores, nevertheless are of no interest---do not apply to civic justice. For example, it makes no civic difference if one person hopes for favorable afterdeath and another hopes for favorable reincarnation. Civic rules for either everlasting life or favorable reincarnation must conform to civic integrity. The willing people’s culture rises above societies, civilizations, laws, opinion, pure reason, regulation, imagination, pride, resentment, doctrine, compassion, empathy, etc. A civic culture conforms only to the-objective-truth. Humankind is in a continual process of discovering the-objective-truth, and each person who enjoys freedom-from oppression may benefit from the leading edge throughout his or her lifetime rather than being bound to past opinion, tradition, conflicting movements, or promises for the afterdeath.

Statutory justice continually improves the law as the people discover injustice, yet public integrity does not expect to eliminate either criminal law enforcement or civil law enforcement, because there are always dissidents. A willing people does not expect utopia. An objective culture seems achievable, because voluntary public integrity by a super-majority, unfortunately, never has been attempted, and because the articulation of individual power, energy, and authority (IPEA) to develop integrity is promising. The positive side of that point is that this generation has the opportunity to establish a civic culture.

In summary, so far, people establish an objective culture by voluntarily, iteratively collaborating to discover the-objective-truth, both the undiscovered actual reality and the understood and used facts, like how the earth fits in its solar system. The-objective-truth exists and humankind works to discover both its elements and its interconnecting theories. Humankind continually explores universal theories.[8] While theories based on data aid discovery, the-objective-truth does not respond to human constructs, hopes, dreams, emotions, and ambitions. In other words, study may start with a data-based idea, but the researcher knows that the-objective-truth may not conform to the idea. Human action modifies future events, but the events unfold according to the-objective-truth. Human achievement is built on studies to discover the-objective-truth. Human enterprise that rebukes the-objective-truth begs woe. For example, people who manipulate reason so as to justify slavery beg woe. But individuals have the IPEA to reject injustice.

In iterative collaboration, a willing speaker perceives civic injustice and develops a grounded plan for reform. He or she presents the concern and proposed remedy to a willing listener, who is mutually committed to discover the-objective-truth. The listener clarifies the words and phrases the speaker used to describe both the concern and the proposed solution. If listener agrees, they discuss the need for action, and perhaps a plan for implementing change. If listener’s experiences and observations differ from speaker’s, he or she becomes speaker and offers new listener an explicit alternative statement of the issue and a grounded solution. Each party seeks both 1) justice according to individual fidelity to the-objective-truth and 2) accommodation of his or her preference. For example, heterosexuals and homosexuals collaborate for justice. They may discover they do not know the-objective-truth yet find mutual public fidelity within the theory of the-objective-truth. Each is guided by the indisputable facts of reality rather than personal opinion. For example, candor is invited, and emotions are discouraged. Emotions invite distraction from the-objective-truth.

In iterative collaboration, both parties exercise their IPEA to pursue responsible, mutual freedom. Neither party discusses “equality,” because each party pursues personal happiness rather than someone else’s idea for them: neither party is responsible for the other’s happiness. Neither party evades the other’s IPEA. They collaborate to discover the-objective-truth that accommodates both of their pursuits of happiness. Humankind and each individual is constrained by the-objective-truth, but no one needs additional, arbitrary constraints. For example, it is immoral to kill someone who has not attacked you intending murder. But it would be arbitrary to claim you cannot glance at someone to learn if he or she would like to communicate. Let me repeat that: IPEA cannot overcome the-objective-truth, the actual reality everyone either conforms-to or begs woe. For example, when the hurricane center orders an evacuation, fellow citizens who are prepared safely evacuate while dissidents may face hardship either on the road or left behind to face the storm. A man who wants to procreate may either legally bond with a woman for life or beg woe:  The-objective-truth yields not to religion, even LGBTQ religion.

Regarding public morality, civil opinion may have two bases:  social convention and/or statutory law. Social convention is based on temporal civilization more than the-objective-truth. To say “I am civilized,” or “I am socialized,” seems like subjugation, whereas “I am civic,” seems powerful; energetic; authentic. “I am an activist” smacks of street politics; disruption; violence; damage; woe. More than in most paragraphs, “civic” as in the glossary is essential here.

Typically, cultures divide the people according to wealth. Struggles between “classes of people” are commonly accepted. Classism erroneously seems consistent with the division civic citizen and dissident; individuals who accept human authority versus those who defer authority or avoid responsibility. Adam Smith wrote of propriety in free enterprise, and Karl Marx predicted capitalism would not survive economic evolution. Cultural evolution has not overcome the quest for either dominant civil opinion or raw power---police and military power. Many civilizations do not admit that things go better with conformity to the-objective-truth rather than dominant opinion. Whereas humankind cannot rebuke the-objective-truth without inviting woe, most civilizations are based on dominant opinion, often that people behave only under force or coercion. Tradition holds that the USA is intended to protect life, liberty and property (or pursuit of happiness). While “life” seems explicit, each “liberty” and “property” are controversial. Tradition is weak yet powerful enough to repress the leading edge of civic morality. The most damaging tradition is that the citizen does not have IPEA to develop integrity: the individual needs a higher power. However, so far, there is nothing beyond the-objective-truth that is worthy of individual subjugation.

American propaganda refutes the facts of history. “Life, liberty and property” seems a western European principle, first expressed in 1689 by John Locke and revered by formerly loyal British colonists, some of whom, after farmers liberated Worcester,[iv] turned statesmen in 1774. American rebels concluded that England was intentionally enslaving the loyal subjects who were living in the colonies. Some leading colonists began to imagine revolution. Some leaders pointed out that if they established independence they’d be free and in charge and would justly emancipate the slaves as well.

Revolutionary thought in America developed from 1720 through 1774 and led to war for independence.  Rebels changed their style from colonists to statesmen, rebuked English principles, and declared independence in 1776. The non-military American farmers fought with tactics they’d learned from the indigenous peoples and invited France’s help. (France could make no claim to the colonies under the 1763 Treaty of Paris.) The French led in strategy and military power the victory battle at Yorktown, VA in 1781. A superior French navy was essential. Retiring General George Washington humbly suggested four pillars for a nation that might survive. The 1783 treaty with England names thirteen independent states rather than a nation, and the states ratified the treaty in 1784. Three years later, Shays rebellion, ironically in the state whose farmer-militia started the Revolutionary War by kicking the English out of Worcester,  Massachusetts and other towns, motivated statesmen to draft a constitution for the USA. It specified explicit breaks from Blackstone common law with Canterbury Protestantism. The 1787 Constitution stated the aims and purpose in the preamble that offers a legal agreement for public integrity: citizens may take it or leave it. Moreover, the preamble proclaims the world’s first nation predicated on willing people establishing mutual, comprehensive safety and security, or, mimicking 1863 words from Abraham Lincoln, discipline of, by, and for free people. So far, the generations have neglected the preamble’s promises, not wholly by their indolence: the political regimes falsely label the preamble “secular” so as to promote god and country.

The preamble offers a civic agreement by the people in their states, and thereby the people in the nation. It is neutral to religion, race, and gender. The articles that followed the preamble in 1787, addressed the “propertied” population but did not schedule emancipation of the slaves. Social pressures to maintain the existing states’ particular civilizations prevented adoption of the draft constitution. Ratification in 1788 required that the First Congress negotiate an English custom: a bill of rights. It was a Trojan horse for American minister-politician partnership or Chapter XI Machiavellianism. The 1789 Congress instituted factional, factional Christian Protestantism and restored common law, or Blackstone. Congressional divinity would offset Parliament’s divinity. The divine regime labeled the preamble “secular.” The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, did not advance emancipation of the slaves. Even Frederick Douglass’s civic integrity of 1852, being a slave is alright for everyone but you, could not stop domestic slave trade.

Temporal morality overthrew the opportunity for statutory law that offers voluntary public integrity. Temporal state civilizations unconstitutionally regressed a civil republic that proposes civic integrity. A consequence of neglect since 1788, is that many Americans now talk of social democracy (which can only lead to chaos) rather than republicanism. Republicanism is representative rule according to statutory justice; in other words, written law and law enforcement according to the-objective-truth rather than majority opinion. The typical impression of American history is a myth.

As a consequence of all that has happened, some slave-descendants talk of separation within a divided nation. Those who talk of separation ascertain if a white person supports the separation. If not, they stone-wall the white person. Some call the practice African-American Christianity.[v] I do not know what that means, but its words are divisive. I wonder if the U.S. Supreme Court would deem it a religion on which the USA may be divided, much as Judeo-Christianity. As stated in the preamble, civic justice may be provided by willing people. This generation lives in 2018, but our chance to establish mutual, comprehensive safety and security, like all the people’s opportunities before, is passing. Every faction and perhaps every person is missing “freedom-from and liberty-to” for the sake of an ideology, personal or corporate. The faction holds a bias they may not understand.

There are many political ideas that seem to approach voluntary public integrity. The USA’s republicanism values civic virtue, political participation, containing corruption, a constitution, individual independence[vi], and local statutory law. Liberalism yields to civic freedom: both freedom-from domination and “independence from arbitrary power.” With freedom-from collaboration for the-objective-truth, individuals may accept the liberty-to irresponsibly pursue personal preferences. The possible outcome is egocentricic fidelity, even perfection of their unique person. Voluntary public integrity is not to be confused with civic republicanism, civic humanism, communitarianism, liberalism, libertarianism and other political theories. Closest to voluntary public integrity may be civic republicanism. However, there are many laws and popular trends that are civically immoral, as most people know from the present civic chaos.

The USA, uniquely, is positioned for an achievable, better future, because of three provisions: 1) the civic agreement offered in the preamble, the first legal sentence in the constitution, 2) a majority civic citizens, perhaps 2/3, who seem to have the preamble’s self-discipline in their genes and memes if not their articulations, and 3) the potential for establishing statutory law under the existing constitution by collaborating to discover the-objective-truth rather than conflicting for dominant opinion. These principles may empower the civic citizens to appreciate each other and the dissident citizens to reform according to the-objective-truth rather than using their IPEA to rebuke arbitrary laws. Let me repeat that tacit statement: criminals use their IPEA to rebuke unjust laws.

In the chapters that follow, after tracing the history of omission and developing the theory of a civic culture, some examples are offered for civic collaboration so that the journey to a better future may begin with some concrete proposals.

Chapter 1. Neglected civic purpose & aims here1

Humankind’s collective quest for the liberty-to live in peace is stifled by classical writing’s failure to promote freedom-from arbitrary, dominant opinion. In other words, the liberty-to exercise humankind’s psychological power. Perhaps for a person to reach human maturity requires freedom-from psychological tyranny. Societies are reluctant to admit that individuals may conform to the-objective-truth, both the understood and the undiscovered objective-truth. When the-objective-truth is undiscovered, voluntary public integrity requires responses like, “I do not know,” or “I think so and don’t have to know.” For example, extraterrestrial life is statistically probable, but undiscovered; humankind doesn’t know yet searches for evidence---facts and data. However, beyond the motivations for life---achieving and serving, identifying preferences, and discovering self---many people are inspired by spiritual hopes. Willing persons live in the what-is yet hope for the what-may-be. Many people pray, humbly, often in silence, endurance, fidelity, and more. Their prayers seem valid for their person, as long as the prayers are directed to their personal inspiration and motivation, perhaps their god.

Humans are so psychologically powerful that some tend to take as much responsibility as possible. In an emergency, many people stretch capabilities and understanding. For example, a frightened homeowner shoots and kills someone entering an open window and discovers a family-adolescent had sneaked out for nighttime liberty-to explore or to visit a friend. The well-coached person avoids such tragedies. Yet most persons do not accept the human authority to neither initiate nor tolerate harm.

Often, a popular person takes charge of a community, and most people happily subjugate themselves to the hero. Sometimes they discover that the person who took charge was either ill-prepared or evil. Human tendency to claim communal responsibility is beneficial in many particular circumstances, but cannot serve as the overall directive for cultural evolution and political power. Just as individual success requires public fidelity, a successful government employs voluntary public integrity. Perhaps the Achilles heel is that many people abrogate personal human authority and thereby prevent public integrity.

Most people want to earn a living and would not volunteer for subjugation, yet they leave public morality to government or perhaps the mystery of God. However, freedom-from tyranny requires willing citizens who collaborate for voluntary public integrity, leaving God to God. Dissidents either tolerate or contribute to tyranny. Criminals among the dissidents may be constrained, and apathy toward public corruption begs woe.

The human quest to live is prioritized, traditionally, by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.[9] Saul McLeod covers the issue very well including newer models with eight stages rather than five. In perhaps a ninth stage, not only does a person need to work to maintain the liberty-to pursue personal preferences, he or she must either collaborate for or cooperate with voluntary public integrity. For collaboration, persons help each other achieve self-actualization by suggesting alternative views without coercing or forcing agreement. For example, a person who resists theism as a topic for public debate might suggest: “The reality of God seems neither proven nor disproven by human discovery so far, so debating theism is not productive.” For civic morality, the-objective-truth may be: We do not know. Neutral statements create the possibility for both parties to appreciate each other’s heartfelt thinking. On the other hand, diminishing another person’s personal trust and commitment to God or not does not seem civic.[vii]

Appreciation of other people as they are and where they are in their psychological development was suggested by Plato 2400 years ago in Symposium. My paraphrase of Agathon’s great idea,[viii] a detail in his speech, is that appreciation neither imposes nor tolerates coercion/force. For example, if someone does not want to talk, they do not appreciate a lecture. Following Agathon’s thought, a civic person would not submit to dissidence. Yet in not tolerating coercion or force, a civic person would not employ violence or harm. Symposium, an open-minded discussion by eleven philosophers, is an example of the human practice of sharing views about being a civic person.

A willing super-majority

Most people in the USA acquiesce to civil-opinion, in other words, yield to a social or legal mores rather than practice the individual independence that is possible. Reform is achievable by accepting the benefits of USA citizenship.

So far, many people who want comprehensive safety and security have not adopted the preamble[10] to the constitution for the USA as the civic purpose and aims for the citizen: a civic citizen of a state in the USA. The preamble proposes agreement by willing people to share a civic purpose and aims to participate in justice for both their state and the nation. My paraphrase is: willing people in our states, in order to live in the culture described by this sentence, specify and cultivate a nation called the United States of America. The cultural goals I perceive, as nouns rather than predicates, include continuity, integrity, justice, fidelity, defense, prosperity, privacy, and lawfulness. Collaboration with willing people would 1) establish each person’s particular interpretations of the preamble, 2) record a modern list of goals that may need revision by future generations, yet 3) never forsake the cultural intentions of the original preamble. For example, I would not argue “form a more perfect Union” for 1787, but I prefer independence to unity and thus recommend “establish integrity,” where both understanding and wholeness are intended by “integrity.” Perhaps most people would prefer “integrity” to “unity,” in which case a temporal version of the preamble might incorporate that change. I envision an evolving public use of the preamble without diminishing the original essence.

The articles that follow the preamble specify a representative republic. Therein, the people’s representatives may manage the USA according to statutory law grounded in the constitution. (Many people don’t understand that the nation is a representative-republic rather than a democracy. For example, a resident of California is one of 40 million people represented by 2 senators whereas for Wyoming 0.6 million people have 2 senators. Within each state, Senators are elected by majority vote or democracy. In Congress, each senator has only one vote.)  The people in their states authorized and limited the USA, so any authority that is not specified in the constitution remains with the state, whose authority is managed by the people through a state constitution. Authority assigned to neither the state nor the nation remain with the individual. Unfortunately, many citizens do not accept their individual authority. Today the federal government becomes more powerful as regimes take power and the people in their states allow it. As a consequence, it is difficult to tell who is controlling the country: the press, the court, the president, or the congress. Voluntary public integrity is essential to each person and to the people.

Most state constitutions specify pure democracies regarding election of some representatives. Elected representatives may nominate some state officers. The people protect some long-term services, such as police, under the Civil Service Commissions[ix] which cover both the nation and the states. State constitutions manage local governments---counties and towns. Thus, civil governance of the states in the USA is a complexity of civic collaboration by the people: statutory democracy in most states, and weak statutory republicanism in the nation.

Some people think America is a democracy because citizens may vote. However, for example, in presidential elections, victory is determined by the Electoral College, which nearly mirrors representation in Congress, rather than popular vote. In other words, a citizen’s vote for president counts less in California than in Wyoming. Others claim that the USA is a democracy in order to conflict with the representative republic---in order to change America. At stake is civil power. With voluntary public integrity, the civic people may take that power as a super-majority without amending the constitution for the USA.

Representative republicanism is imperfectly effected in the USA. First, representatives cannot express, let alone fulfill, every constituent’s competitive wishes. James Madison wanted representatives “whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”[11] Secondly, the constitution allows[x] factions to vie for power, and many persons submit their authority to the will of a faction they choose. A two-party system has prevailed with press antagonisms, and as a consequence, many presidential elections are decided by small margins. For example, in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump won 57.2% of the 98.7% of Electoral College votes the two major candidates split.[xi] However, Hillary Clinton won 51.1% of the 94.3% of popular vote they split.[xii] The above split does not reflect the people’s wishes, because they did not choose the candidates: We think citizens are divided perhaps 1/3 collaborating for public integrity, 1/3 political pacifists, and 1/3 dissidents.[12] We want to make the case for 2/3 of citizens either collaborating for or contributing to public integrity. We think that is possible if people strive for individual independence[xiii] along with national independence, and that use of the civic agreement in the preamble is necessary.

Alienating the non-dissidents; alienating a civic people

The political incentive for denying freedom---in other words oppressing the people---is civil power, in other words law and law enforcement. Many individuals seek civic peace and demand freedom-from arbitrary power. However, regimes persuade people to voluntarily submit to power. In other words, the people perceive that they are civil when they authorize the power that tyrannizes them. With success, the regime may control as tyrants. A particularly strong power obtains when the people think the tyranny they suffer is beneficial or morally good. However, power is established on force, and that principle is commonly referred to as “Machiavellianism.”[xiv]

 Of particular interest to voluntary public integrity is Chapter XI Machiavellianism, which posits that religious believers authorize and maintain tyranny from the church.[xv] Thus, the clergy partners with the politician and believing people submit to whatever comes from the religion-government-partnership, because it is “God’s will.” Preventing this religion-government-partnership is required in voluntary public integrity. In other words, the individual who abrogates his or her citizenship to the church cannot collaborate for public integrity. The freedom to establish government without the religion-government-partnership is what gives America its potential to fulfill the hope of the world: freedom-from oppression plus the comprehensive safety and security so as to earn the liberty-to live according to personal preference. “Freedom-from” and “liberty-to” cannot happen without separation of church from state. A citizen cannot choose his or her religion if he or she collaborates for the American religion.

America’s emergence is unique in the world from many aspects. Most continents were peopled by global evolution and tribal migration, often motivated by survival during separation of land masses or changes in sea levels. Trade for goods and services fostered communications and the evolution of political power. Military might and religion/none influenced politics. Most people wanted political order. In Asia, philosophies developed, and elsewhere religion or a combination emerged. In Europe, monarchies and feudal states ruled, often in partnership with religion, dominantly the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church after the Bible was canonized during 300-400 AD. Factional-Protestantism competed after Luther’s reformation beginning 1517. In England, after the Magna Carta, 1213, a mixed constitutional monarchy developed with royalty, nobility, and commons representation in partnership with Rome initially, followed by Protestant competition then Protestant dominance. On the church-state principles they developed, England became a global empire; the doctrine of discovery to expand the kingdom of God is key. Thus, English principles after Magna Carta are reflected in many continents today, including the Americas.

In North America, with native populations, politics evolved by the will of colonists who arrived after “discovery” by European sailors. “Discovery” was the sailor’s view: the natives’ political cultures were not politically informed enough to object to invasion as “discovery.” Invasions and enslavement of natives under the concept of “discovery for God” were commissioned to Portugal by the Catholic Church on January 8, 1454[xvi] and later to Spain. Eventually, the Church rescinded enslavement of natives but maintained the African slave trade. Factional-Protestant countries competed in the doctrine of discovery, and five major European countries colonized America. They traded for the African commodity---slaves---so as to empower colonial agricultural productivity. By 1765, loyal European colonists realized they were being enslaved to oversee slaves and conduct colonial business to be taxed for England’s benefit. When political innovation entered their discussions, the colonial leaders saw the opportunity to create the world’s first designed system of government.  By 1774, the thirteen eastern seaboard colonies (north of Louisiana and Florida and east of the Mississippi), changed their style from “colonies” to “states,” began to create state constitutions, and declared independence from England.

The revolutionary war began in 1765 Boston, and by 1774 the people had kicked the English out.

[It] became quite clear in August or September of 1774 that the people out in the rural parts of Massachusetts were even more militant at this point then the people in Boston. The trouble started in mid-August as the farmers in the most western part of the province forced the local courts not to hold sessions, forced the local magistrates to promise that they would not open the courts, they would not have any rulings, they would not fine anybody, they would not make any decisions under the new Massachusetts Government Act.[xvii]

The actions by tens of thousands of citizens in the Massachusetts Bay expanse of towns is inspiring.

Meanwhile, the other twelve eastern seaboard colonies joined, formed a confederation of states, and commended states to create constitutions. “The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts . . . became effective on October 25, 1780, and remains the oldest functioning written constitution in continuous effect in the world.”

Many authors use “liberty” and “freedom” either interchangeably or “liberty” when I think they mean “freedom” and vice versa. Thereby, they cannot grasp the moral discovery that occurred in America between the First Virginia Colony in 1606 and the First Continental Congress in 1774. Colonists, during about 170 years, experienced yet could not articulate: freedom-from oppression that empowered the liberty-to pursue the life they perceived as happiness. Countrymen who stayed in the European homeland did not experience “freedom-from” and “liberty-to.” The English were still subjected to England’s political superiority and did not comprehend that English common law could not be imposed on the colonies. Yet, America’s quest for freedom and liberty is still retarded by the church-state partnership.

Individual independence is suppressed by the world’s misdirected quest for a socio-political regime that fosters freedom according to the “common good.” Unfortunately, much of the thought is dominated by theism, a mystery, rather than the-objective-truth, a certainty. Regimes do not function for the individual; even the overall progress of humankind does not directly help a person’s brief sojourn, as it should. The quest for the common good rather than freedom-from and liberty-to alienates a civic people---the non-dissidents.

Short introduction of selected political thought---paternalism, democratic socialism, and progressivism---may illustrate the point. The N. American colonial experience may be reflected in Herbert Hoover’s “rugged individualism,” or the idea that government should not oppress a person’s pursuit of happiness. In 1928, one decade after World War I, Hoover said that America was challenged with the choice of the American system “rugged individualism” or the choice of a European system of diametrically opposed doctrines — doctrines of paternalism and state socialism. The acceptance of these ideas meant the destruction of self-government through centralization of government; it meant the undermining of initiative and enterprise upon which our people have grown to unparalleled greatness.[xviii] [13]

“Self-government” is another alienating concept: Humans are both daily and ultimately governed by the-objective-truth. In other words, humans either both discover and conform to the-objective-truth or risk woe. John Dewey advocated individuality as a human trait involving self-reflection, sociability, and practice for fulfillment.[xix] The “sociability” element reflects Dewey’s Christianity in his first decades; he later changed to democratic socialist.[xx] Charles Murray analyzed[xxi] Robert Nisbet’s five "crucial premises" of human progress: They were

. . . belief in the value of the past; conviction of the nobility, even superiority, of Western civilization; acceptance of the worth of economic and technological growth; faith in reason[14] and in the kind of scientific and scholarly knowledge that can come from reason alone; and finally, belief in the intrinsic importance, the ineffaceable worth of life on this earth.

I assert that all these premises are valid—objectively[15] true, perhaps excepting one. The wording can be misleading. Western civilization cannot be stagnant, and it seems to have regressed. Reason rather than assumption is a tool of scientific study, but the object is discovery of the-objective-truth; reason is not the end.

All of the scholarly thought on humankind is controversial and fills libraries with detail. The child being educated now and in the future needs freedom-from the scholarly fray. As a consequence, education, from infancy to young adulthood, may be redesigned to coach each person to take responsibility for his or her person so as to acquire the understanding and intent to live a rewarding lifetime. A culture with voluntary public integrity empowers the newborn with three principles: 1) ignoring the-objective-truth invites woe, 2) collaboration for comprehensive safety and security is essential to civic persons, and 3) the human being may, through comprehensive fidelity, perfect his or her unique journey. Success may be empowered by public integrity in individual independence.

Individual independence may lead a person to self-discovery. By self-discovery, I mean learning private preferences in living. I prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate and dislike white chocolate. I have not discovered the desert for which I would choose white chocolate over dark. That does not mean that desert does not exist but that I do not know about it. I could start a quest of discovery of either that desert or that it does not exist, but it is such a minor consideration among my preferences for living, I am satisfied to stay at my level of understanding. A person with broader experiences than mine may be on the quest for the best white chocolate desert as I write. If so, he or she has the authority and power to conduct that search.

In more serious matters, I would rather read & write than sleep-some-more. I’d rather tend flower beds than mow grass; wash dishes than hope someone else will; walk than run; stretch and exercise without added weights; exercise without extra pain; exercise in a park rather than a gym; watch people in sports activities than in conversation; study places rather than visit them; visit people in their native land rather than in mine; entertain people in my native land rather than theirs; learn their language rather than try to teach mine. In more serious matters, I want to read a document more than people’s opinions about the document; understand Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writing than climb a mountain. I prefer to study a good reference encyclopedia than take a course. I prefer non-fiction to fiction. In public connections and transaction, I prefer appreciation to love; privacy rather than attention; willing conversation; collaborative talk; establishing goodwill; confident open-mindedness. For motivation and inspiration I look to the-objective-truth which exists and may be discovered; some is understood. If the other person actually causes no harm, I appreciate their motivation and inspiration for them and do not feel I need to know about it; I would not attempt to understand another person’s religion or none, unless they asked me to, and then I might. However, I think it takes practice to know a religion, and I cannot fake it. Approaching age 75, I discovered why I stopped being a Christian at about age 50: It’s not that I dislike civic Christians, rather I do not tolerate Christian teachings on “hate” and “hates.”[xxii] All of these so-what-preferences merely illustrate what I mean by self-discovery:  I know I like dark chocolate and civic individuals. When a person is a dissident to self-discovery, it is neither my business nor my duty to offer ideas, but I will be glad to share my ideas in inviting conversation.

I think the journey to self-discovery is made easier by voluntary public integrity. Imposing a religion-government-partnership impedes the discovery of civic morality and thus alienates the non-dissidents. Recall, though that “civic” refers to citizens who collaborate to live more that to cooperate with city government.

Civic republicanism, a modern idea

            I would like to examine a modern political theory so as to spring to a theory that might accommodate voluntary public integrity. Perhaps civic republicanism will suffice. I will change to municipal republicanism instead of “civic republicanism” to distinguish civic morality as I use it.

Municipal republicanism emerges from debates about political liberty as either positive or negative.[xxiii] In negative liberty, the person has free will within interferences, preferably none. No interferences is possible only in a population of identically-like-minded-persons. Bernard Bailyn wrote, “Everyone knew that democracy---direct rule by all the people---required such a Spartan, self-denying virtue on the part of all the people that it was likely to survive only where poverty made upright behavior necessary for the perpetuation of the race.”[xxiv] In this context, the American colonies could not foster negative liberty: Citizens were mostly factional Protestants with economic class ranging from indentured slave to American aristocrat.

In positive liberty the person controls free-will for personal benefit. For example, a conservative controls diet so as not to gain weight yet provide the necessary nutrients. The liberal may not want to control appetite. At stake in this debate is how people may enjoy public freedom so that each person may practice the liberty-to live according to personal preference. The possibility that society may impose dietary control makes positive liberty unattractive to many liberals.

What people need is a way of living that prevents one person from imposing opinion on another. First, neither party enslaves the other. Second, statutory law is not arbitrary and therefore threatens neither party. From birth until early adulthood, citizens have access to quality education. From early adulthood on, a person determines his or her status according to collaboration for public morality or not. Citizens are either civic or dissident according to whether they observe statutory law or not. Whether their dissidence causes harm or not is another question; overt harm may call for statutory constraint.

These two provisions meet Pettit’s requirement[xxv] that no person is subjected to arbitrary interference or domination by another group. Just as no person may enslave another, the state cannot legislate arbitrary statutory law. Statutory law must be derived by iterative collaboration by the civic people, and we call the process and practice public integrity. It is not municipal republicanism.

Public integrity differs from municipal republicanism

In public integrity, a willing people admit that human existence has identifiable limitations that are determined by the indisputable facts of reality or the-objective-truth. These are not arbitrary limitations and may be recognized by every person. For example, a person must eat food and drink water to live. People cannot communicate by telling lies; liars cannot communicate. These two examples, one physical and the other psychological, represent a way of living that civic people may consider as supporting freedom. To enjoy freedom, each person provides his or her personal needs, both physical and psychological. But how may public integrity be determined without arbitrary statutory laws, in other words dominant opinion?

The-objective-truth exists, and humankind discovers the facts and does the work to understand and make best use of each discovery. Best use may involve new practices, technology, or avoidance of risk. An-objective-culture continually improves statutory justice as discovery progresses, improving lives of the people in the process. In an-objective-culture, each generation lives better than the previous generation. Each individual lives at the leading edge of both discovery and morality, within personal capabilities, or limited only by either the power to pay the cost of participation in the new technology or by preference. During the process, the civic culture requires enforcement of statutory justice. In other words, a myriad of social moralities either conform to the civic culture or suffer constraint.

Because it springs from the-objective-truth, the civic culture seeks neither mystery nor dominant opinion nor democracy. Each person is in charge of personal preferences that do not conflict the-objective-truth yet also may privately test the edge or take personal risk. For example, some people thought, “I can fly like a bird,” and took winged-risk before people learned it takes aerodynamics or jet propulsion to fly. The freedom made possible by a culture that conforms to the-objective-truth facilitates personal liberty-to pursue private interests. Thus, the traditional “common good” becomes conformity to the-objective-truth rather than conflict over mystery. People accept interference only from the indisputable facts of reality.

The person

So far, we have been considering humankind as an evolving species. However, we now consider the individual life. The human is born feral and may undergo a transition to civic adulthood by trying and learning. After learning to articulate, he or she may acquire understanding the necessities for joining the civic culture. The young adult may participate so as to approach enjoying the leading edge of human discovery. Coaching the infant through this transition, some two to three decades, is normally left to the parents or other care-givers. Although the newborn child is a person, he or she is indisputably unable to independently transition to psychologically mature adult. The-objective-truth is that he or she may remain in a state of subjugation to the care givers until the child emerges unto human authenticity and performs as a civic person. That is, until the person understands what is required, has the ability, and intends to live a full, civic life. In this process, every individual has the possibility of discovering the authority and power to use their personal energy during every moment of life. Perhaps individual authority and power is a well-perceived yet unarticulated fact of the human condition.

History shows that some people are dissident to the culture they are born into. Public integrity requires the civic culture to grant the dissident the freedom to explore the culture’s limitations as long as no real-harm is caused by the dissidence. When real-harm is discovered, the dissident must be constrained, and for this reason, statutory law and the obligation to learn the law must be part of early education. The dissident has individual authority and power and will not yield to arbitrary law, tradition, or opinion. Some people think crime pays and will not tolerate any other life.

Personal interests such as fine arts, sports, and philanthropy may flourish in the-objective-culture, depending on private preferences. However, the goals of the private enthusiast, such as the philanthropist, may not be morally imposed on a nation. Likewise, theism may not be imposed. The obligation of a civic person is to collaborate-for or at least practice civic morality throughout life; to develop integrity. This may seem a challenging requirement, because it has never been attempted, but it has never been expressed as voluntary public integrity based on the-objective-truth. A few decades experience may show that voluntary public integrity is the people’s desire, but without articulation it was not possible.

Historical perspective—need references

Political liberty is a traditional goal with differing classical approaches. In positive liberty, inhabitants pursue civic virtue.

In Athens Greece, 500 BC, democracy rested with land owning, non-slave, adult males, about 10% to 17% of inhabitants; the rest were subjects.[xxvi] Previously, inhabitants had been arbitrarily ruled by feuding monarchies. Thus, in Athens’ all inhabitants had individual authority to be civic, but a minority were politically active.

Standard liberalism involves constitutionalism and the rule of law. Yet liberalism resists public law as interference. Republicans think law is necessary for freedom. However, “the classical republican writings often express views that are decidedly elitist, patriarchal, and militaristic.”[xxvii] The USA demands “under God.” How can political liberty emerge from such writing?

The negative views may derive from the values held at the time of the writing, and those values may mature in time. The good lies in civic activity and civic virtue. But performance varies from person to person, and only those experienced in civic activity should lead. However, there is nothing special about recognizing arbitrary power and expressing opposition or demanding freedom. Every human may develop the authority and power to civically demand freedom-from oppression and the liberty-to pursue the happiness he or she perceives rather than the image someone else has for him or her.

Voluntary public integrity in personal practice

Voluntary public integrity depends on establishing and maintaining education respecting public morality so as to minimize both coercion and force in practice; in other words, to maintain freedom-from oppression for most people. With variations in age demographics, immigration, personal values, and other human conditions, perhaps 1/6 to 1/3 of inhabitants may be civically collaborative and cooperative with 1/3 only civically cooperative. This would leave 1/3 who are dissident to civic morality, not all of whom would be politically active; in other words, some dissidents are passively immoral. Dissidents who perpetrate real-harm must be constrained by both statutory criminal law and statutory civic influences. Statutory means not only written, but developed according to the-objective-truth rather than opinion.

Foremost to a civic culture is assurance of each civic person’s potential to earn a living and accumulate wealth for future, personal financial stability. That is, the person’s job may pay enough for the person to both live and save & invest. Each citizen may be treated as a person, regardless of sex or age, yet contributions of each gender in family politics may be appreciated during all ages. The objective is for no person to be subjugated to another, or for each person to work to enjoy individual liberty-to pursue real-no-harm private preferences. In other words, the family is not a democracy with individual egocentrics or a society under some doctrine, but is an association that collaborates to conform to the-objective-truth. Individual independence requires comprehensive fidelity.

Persons who cannot earn a living must be cared for, in subjugation to providers, until the individual who needs can achieve independence. The world abounds with examples of persons overcoming disadvantage, yet some people may be dependent during their entire life. Care for individuals in need cannot exceed the people’s ability to provide, as England’s universal health system is learning.[xxviii]

Statutory law may conform to the-objective-truth rather than dominant opinion. The objectives of law enforcement may include influencing dissidents to consider and adopt civic morality. If constraint is necessary, teach civic morality rather than social morality during confinement. In all activities, the aim is to facilitate private liberty with public morality. That is, “independence from arbitrary power”.[xxix]

Yet willing people must evaluate cases of physical or psychological disability or dissidence. To the extent of discovery, decisions are made with iterative collaboration to discover the-objective-truth. The discoveries are interrelated and comprise an overall theory. Without discovery, representatives decide based on well-grounded, rational considerations that comport to the theory. In every case, the willing, affected parties are included in a transparent process. Dissidents often avoid the process but are invited.

Civic morality is a voluntary activity. Collaboration is civic virtue and dissidence may involve corruption or failure to contribute to or uphold comprehensive safety and security. Preference for risk rather than comprehensive safety and security may result in real-harm, in which case the perpetrator may suffer statutory law enforcement. In public relations, it is assumed that the parties will exercise civic virtue because they want to, until an individual proves they are corrupt. As stated above, liars cannot communicate; in an-objective-culture, liars are easily identified. When the assumption of good intentions is widespread, identification of bad intentions may be readily detected, confirmed and remedied.

With the process based on the-objective-truth, civic interference by either arbitrary opinion or mystery is lessened. With widespread practice, civic virtue promotes civic laws and institutions, and the rule of law approaches fact-based rather than opinion-based. But who or what sets the standards and how has the world’s most promising nation become dysfunctional?

Chapter 2. Existing Standards

            The USA emerged from world history, in particular European history’s impact on a people-occupied land, such that a set of unique standards came to be, and in this chapter we will examine the good and the bad of those standards. This section is heavily footnoted, because many points deserve more detail. However, I want the reader to initially overlook the details so as to get the flow of events and acquire background for my claim that America offers an unimagined better future: I cannot imagine the achievable better future under civic morality.

            Of course, the background starts with the fact that things exist and humankind has for some 2.8 million years sought to understand. Without the benefit of all that has been discovered as of 2018, humans perceived that natural phenomena they could observe was divided and controlled in a supernatural realm in the sky---God’s realm. There were many Gods, but the Jews perceived one God and developed the belief that Jews were chosen to connect humankind to God and reign upon the appearance of a messiah. Some Jews who emerged early Christians perceived Jesus was the messiah, but that all people who accepted Jesus would be included in salvation. The writings of the early Christians that were canonized as the New Testament constitute a first principle to the unique character of the originally negotiated United States of America.

The USA would believe the Bible; it was canonized[16] by the Catholic Church during 300 AD to 400 AD but interpreted by competitive factions ever since. There are some 6 or perhaps as many as 21,000 Christianities in the world.[xxx] From my perspective, there are as many Christianities as believers. Also, some blacks claim African-American Christianity.[xxxi]

It is important to note that many humans were not and are not believers in Bible interpretation. For example, Native Americans believe in a spirit in the sky that pervades everything, including rocks. In the opinion-competition over man made in God’s image, their God may have red skin or none.[xxxii]

            Colonization of America was initiated by competition between Catholic kingdoms vs Protestant kingdoms under the Catholic doctrine of discovery with African slave trade for agricultural power. The doctrine claims a land is “discovered” if it is not already claimed by a Christian prince. In other words, European law was applied to indigenous peoples of the “discovered” lands. Often the doctrine was not observed, as one nation vied to take lands “discovered” by another. For example, Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1584 charter[xxxiii] assigned him to resist Spanish exploration.

Dominant English influence

            A second principle, balanced government, is represented by Magna Carta, signed in 1215. It created a class system in England: Magna Carta corrected King John's abuses of power against the barons, Catholic Church officials, merchants and other "free men" who together made up about 25% of England's population. Magna Carta virtually ignored the remaining 75% of the population.^[17] A subtle feature of Magna Carta was the king’s submission to statutory law issued by the priest-baron-partnership. Some rights of the people were specified, especially habeas corpus.

Luther created Protestantism in 1517[xxxiv] and in 1533 Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church.[18] After civil wars[xxxv] between Parliamentarians and Monarchists, in the 1689 Bill of Rights[19], England codified a mixed constitution, a concept as old as Aristotelian[20] politics. The king, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons comprised monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, creating a balance of powers. The house of Lords has memberships assigned by each the clergy and by secular leaders with an aim toward party balance. Although the national church was Protestant, Jews were accepted in commerce and politics[21] in Britain more than in other European countries.

Early colonization of North America was by Spain, France, Holland, Russia,[xxxvi] and Portugal in Canada[xxxvii] in the 16^th century and beyond. Colonization by England involved mostly the eastern seaboard, from 1607 in Jamestown, VA through 1733 in Georgia.[xxxviii] English colonists were loyal subjects, and their religious movements followed the homeland, where Catholicism was shunned and traditional Anglicans had suffered civil war with Puritans, who produced the Congregational Church. “In communities where one existing faith was dominant, new congregations were often seen as unfaithful troublemakers who were upsetting the social order.”[xxxix] Protestant sects continued to emerge, including Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, and Unitarians. “Slavery—which was also firmly established and institutionalized between the 1680s and the 1780s—was also shaped by religion.” The possibility that “Christian” implied friend never got established among free citizens, other than a distinction from atheist.

Government in New England was nearly Puritan theocracy, with leaders and officials asserting divine guidance and laws enforcing religious conformity. Other sects dominated in other colonies. Religious persecutions were frequent and severe, especially by Anglicans in Virginia. But an awakening to mutual appreciation occurred in 1730-1740. The collaboration helped colonists discuss dissatisfaction with England’s political and religious oppression. They considered separation of church and state. Also, rationalists like Sir Isaac Newton[xl] influenced colonial leaders like Benjamin Franklin, and by 1760 the colonists were discussing religious freedom and rejection of divine authority of the king.

During the period 1763-1775, England tried to tax the colonies and keep a standing British army.[xli] People in Massachusetts Bay Colony, a large territory extending to Nova Scotia rebelled against colonial British officials.

When the British troops finally reached Boston, around 20,000 American militiamen blockaded the troops in the city in what is now known as the Siege of Boston. The siege lasted for 11 long months . . . When the British realized they were outgunned and outnumbered, they evacuated the city on March 17, 1776, thus bringing the Revolutionary War in Boston to an end.[xlii]

Thus, the people of Massachusetts were the primary motivators for the revolutionary war.

Nevertheless the people of the other twelve colonies were incensed and motivated to rebel, so they agreed to form a federation of states. All but Georgia met on September 5 – October 26, 1774 for the First Continental Congress. The delegates took the following steps:

1.    Rejected radical proposals such as forming an American legislative body.

2.    Requested cooperation to resolve the disputes with England.

3.    Agreed to boycott British goods and enforce the agreement.

4.    Scheduled a second congress for May, 1775.

They issued the Articles of Association on October 20, 1774. Three important ideas are expressed: they 1) refer to themselves as “most loyal subjects”, 2) assert English administration “evidently calculated for enslaving these colonies,” and 3) would “wholly discontinue the slave trade” as of December 1. The colonists seemed to want to reform rather than end the relationship with England. Diplomacy was interrupted when “the shot hot heard round the world” occurred on April 19, 1975.[xliii] The Revolutionary War was under way.

Repeating, the citizens’ revolt was countrymen in Massachusetts defending the cities. The effect was to incite civic people of the other twelve colonies that English oppression could be overcome. If the American dream is individual liberty with civic morality, its achievability may have emerged from the September 6, 1774 liberation of Worcester, Massachusetts.

. . . 4,622 militiamen . . . the military embodiment of the people . . . forced two dozen [British] court officials to walk the gauntlet, hats in hand, reciting their recantations more than thirty times each so everyone could hear. The wording was strong: the officials would cede to the will of the people and promise never to execute “the unconstitutional act of the British parliament” (the Massachusetts Government Act) that would “reduce the inhabitants … to mere arbitrary power.” With this humiliating submission, all British authority vanished from Worcester County, never to return.[xliv]

A day earlier, delegates from all but Georgia met in Philadelphia to discuss what the thirteen colonies might do to resist Parliament’s tyranny.

Some colonists become Americans

Georgia joined the Second Continental Congress. With war underway strong cooperation was necessary. The delegates stated the situation and declared the following:

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.[xlv]

Willing citizens had become not colonists but statesmen in their independent states yet united as a confederation. One report[xlvi] shows 2.8 million people, 576,000 of them black in 1780. About 500,000 were loyalists.[xlvii] Of the remaining 1.7 million, about half were pacifists, who opposed the war[xlviii]. Perhaps the initial statesmen numbered 900,000 people. If so, approximately 1 million statesmen would need help to succeed against the world’s greatest empire of the time, perhaps 6.5 million people.[xlix] (The percentage demographic in the 1780 colonies seems to be 20% blacks, 18% loyalists, 30% pacifists and 32% statesmen.)

            The “French and Indian War,” fought in North America during 1756 and 1763, was won by England over France[l] (with help from British colonist George Washington). It was part of the England vs France Second Hundred Years’ War, a series starting in 1689.[li] The French led America in the battle of Yorktown, Virginia, and England surrendered to both the thirteen independent states and France.[lii] The battle involved perhaps 8,800 French military and 8,000 Continental soldiers vs 9,000 English with German mercenaries[liii] as well as the French naval fleet vs the British fleet.[liv] In other words, the British military was overwhelmed by the French and American forces.

            The consequence of the Yorktown surrender was the Peace of Paris, 1783[lv]---treaties between England and each of Spain, Holland, France and the thirteen colonies. The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783,[lvi] declared and named all thirteen states free and independent. The provisions were so comprehensive that the thirteen states were empowered for future negotiations and battles to control beyond the thirteen eastern seaboard state from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico. But first, the free and independent states were destined to establish a nation.

            On June 8, 1783, General George Washington bid farewell to the Continental Army and also spoke to the citizens.[lvii] His words seem to renew humility:

When we consider the magnitude of the prize we contended for, the doubtful nature of the contest, and the favorable manner in which it has terminated, we shall find the greatest possible reason for gratitude and rejoicing. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be intirely their own.

He appealed to the people to collaborate:

There are four things, which I humbly conceive, are essential to the well being, I may even venture to say, to the existence of the United States as an Independent Power:

1st. An indissoluble Union of the States under one Federal Head.

2dly. A Sacred regard to Public Justice.

3dly. The adoption of a proper Peace Establishment, and

4thly. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly Disposition, among the People of the United States, which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the Community.

These are the pillars on which the glorious Fabrick of our Independency and National Character must be supported; Liberty is the Basis, and whoever would dare to sap the foundation, or overturn the Structure, under whatever specious pretexts he may attempt it, will merit the bitterest execration, and the severest punishment which can be inflicted by his injured Country.

Also, he pleaded for fairness to the soldiers, who were sorely neglected during the war and after the victory. His pleas for them continued. As noted above, the Treaty of Paris recognized thirteen independent states rather than the USA as a nation. Washington urged-for and came from retirement to preside-over the constitutional convention, four years later.

            Thus, for four years, thirteen independent states negotiated with each other under the Congress authorized by the Articles of Confederation, ratified March 1, 1781. “Since the member states of a confederation retain their sovereignty, they have an implicit right of secession.”[lviii] With such a provision, congress could not even collect war debts from some states. Thomas Jefferson proposed to ban slavery in new states. George Clinton of New York asked Congress to declare war against Vermont. Congress issued land ordinances. Virginia and Maryland delegates met to dispute use of rivers and that led to the Annapolis Convention, September 11, 1786, attended by only 12 delegates from only 5 states.[lix] Shays’ Rebellion in 1786-7, involved 4,000 Massachusetts militiamen in an attempt to overthrow the government over injustices. The rebellion drew George Washington out of retirement and instigated the constitutional convention in Philadelphia.[lx]

The constitutional convention in Philadelphia

Congress had authorized the convention in order to strengthen the Articles of Confederation.[lxi] Only twelve states sent delegates. Rhode Island suspected the consequence would be empowerment of a central government, even a monarchy. “In 1778 the state had quickly ratified the Articles of Confederation, with its weak central government, but when the movement to strengthen that government developed in the mid-1780's, Rhode Island was not in agreement.”[lxii] The Virginia delegation had an extensive plan.[lxiii] South Carolina defended states’ rights, and New Jersey wanted to strengthen the Continental Congress. Including the slaves in freedom-from oppression was proposed. Compromises were reached. Some of the major contentions were resolved as follows:

1.    Slavery was not mentioned in the document, paving the way for emancipation

a.    Slaves neither citizens nor voters in slave states.

b.    Slave trade to end twenty years after ratification

c.    Proportioning representatives in the house and for the Electoral College to include 3/5 person/slave.

2.    States’ representation in Congress

a.    Two senators per state

b.    Representatives in proportion to the state population as noted above

c.    President elected by electoral college[lxiv] rather than majority vote, assuring a republic rather than a democracy (Article II, Section 1)

3.    Religion[lxv]

a.    Prohibited religious tests as a condition for holding federal office

b.    Left matters of religion to the individuals in their states

4.    The preamble

a.    The purpose and aims of willing citizens are stated in the preamble.

b.    The unwilling citizens are dissidents by default (1/3 of delegates did not sign the 1787 Constitution).

c.    Some delegates wanted the preamble’s subject to read “We the States” rather than “We the People of the United States.”

d.    Some delegates objected to not acknowledging either God or His Son, Jesus.

5.    Other

a.    Provisions for amendment were specified.

b.    Ratification by 2/3 of states, or 9 states, would establish the USA.

The required 2/3 of delegates signed the proposed constitution for the USA, adding three to the dissidents along with the state of Rhode Island. Virginia quickly ratified, leaving only three remaining free and independent states.

Nine states established the USA and ten began operations

            The convention had created a draft constitution for a nation, without authorization by Congress. After the convention, Congress granted retroactive approval. With publication of the draft, letters of objection started issuing, and three key authors responded in essays collected as the Federalist Papers. Meanwhile, supportive states started conducting planned ratification conventions. In at least one state, Massachusetts, ratification was approved contingent on adding a bill of rights,[lxvi] similar to the 1689 English bill of rights. With Rhode Island already opposed to a federal government, it became critical for states to accept the plan for the first Congress to negotiate a bill of rights. This meant that rather than private negotiations to create a new government, as in the Philadelphia convention, the completion of the negotiated constitution would be carried out by a politically empowered body, Congress, rather than a convention of state delegates. With non-slave states italicized, [lxvii] the chronological sequence of ratifications[lxviii] is Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. With the ninth state ratification, the nation, the USA, was established on June 21, 1788. Virginia joined before the seating of the 1st Congress on March 4, 1789. New York joined the USA and seated a Senator on July 25, 1789; North Carolina on January 13, 1790; and Rhode Island on June 25, 1790.[lxix] There were 4 non-slave states at ratification, 5 after USA operations began, and 6 when Vermont was admitted to the USA on March 4, 1791. (As states joined the USA, the slave-states majority continually declined.) Completion of the negotiated constitution for the USA required ten of fourteen states to ratify the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791.

            Many writers use the phrase “founders” to ground an opinion, much as people use “god” to represent personal opinion as divinely authoritative. The signers of the Declaration of Independence wrote to justify their proposal to separate from their colonizer and practical enslaver, England. But they were neither focused on organizing and authorizing a perfect nation, nor on devising a government with sudden justice. They were merely trying to declare freedom-from oppression in order to acquire the liberty-to discover a journey unto justice.

The Treaty of Paris, ratified on January 14, 1784,[lxx] recognized thirteen independent states. The delegates to the convention in Philadelphia arrived with the authority to strengthen the Articles of Confederation, but negotiated formation of a nation they perceived could economically and politically survive, with provisions for amendment when injustices were discovered and corrections were feasible. Delegates were split, 2/3 signing and 1/3 dissenting. It seems reasonable to recognize the signers and avoid the controversial term “founders.” The states’ delegates who ratified the constitution are well known. Also, the ten of fourteen states that ratified the Bill of Rights are only the first of many states, now fifty, who would be involved in amendments, now twenty-seven.

An amendable standard

Reviewing the facts, the USA was originally occupied by non-Christian indigenous peoples, for at least 15,000 years.[lxxi] European countries imposed on the land the doctrine of discovery for God and his son Jesus with African slaves to enhance colonization.[lxxii] The doctrine authorized purchase of an African commodity for agricultural labor: slaves.[lxxiii] During the early decades the colonists experienced freedom-from oppression, and perceived upon 1863 taxation that England was enslaving them. When England would not respond to the colonies’ plea for relief, some colonists changed their style to statesmen and began to write state constitutions. When England balked, statesmen declared independence. On request, France made the American war part of their long-standing war with England, and the American victory soon happened. Four years after negotiating the Treaty of Paris, the thirteen independent states realized they could not survive as a confederation, so they authorized a convention that proposed an alternative: ordaining and establishing a nation.

The standards for radical reform from English common law and religion that were specified in that convention and defended in the Federalist Papers did not hold. Some states demanded a Bill of Rights, assuring the power of politics. Congress would negotiate the completed standard. The USA began operating with ten states on March 4, 1789. Four states joined successively after 4 months, 10 months, 16 months, and 19 months. The negotiated US Constitution and Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791. An amendable, political standard, the constitution for the USA has, after 227 years (2018), been used to render the USA practically dysfunctional.

This book proposes a new standard for public integrity: collaboration to discover and utilize the-objective-truth more than compete for dominant-opinion. We imagine amending the First Amendment of the constitution for the USA in order to establish national awareness that each human individual has the authority and the power to spend his or her life’s energy to develop and establish integrity. The religion clauses may be changed to protect integrity, an individual authority, rather than religion, an institution. The freedom of expression clauses may be changed to hold the speaker responsible for consequences that harmfully breach the agreement offered in the preamble, and the preamble itself may be changed to offer integrity beyond unity. With these changes, we perceive that fellow citizens would appreciate that as much as they may earn their bread, the people may discover justice.

Chapter 3. Physics: discovering the-objective-truth

Public integrity is an emerging political practice derived by considering the laws of physics, where physics is energy, mass and space-time rather than the study that is called “physics”. Everything on earth and perhaps beyond derives from physics, and therefore, public integrity may be developed according to the branches of physics: mathematics, biology,[22] psychology,[23] fiction possible due to the unknowns[24] and so on.

This wonderful development is barely recognized, because of a semantic focus on “science.” Science is a philosophy of study, and the study object is physics with its branches. A confusion arises because the study of physics is labeled “physics,” unlike the science of numbers being labeled “mathematics”.[25]

Considering studies that evolve from evolution, original simplicity became infinite complexity in a single moment. Events were set into action that produced primary objects of study then secondary objects and so on. The big bang produced mass, kinetic energy, and space-time, perhaps from potential energy. Then came cosmic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, all derived from physics and subsidiary to the study of physics. Biology is an advanced, complex object of study that involves confluence of some branches of physics. More than the student of biology, a researcher in biology must understand bio-chemistry, and therefore must understand physical-chemistry. “Neuroscience” expresses a family of studies “of the life sciences that deals with the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, or molecular biology of nerves and nervous tissue and especially with their relation to behavior and learning.”[lxxiv] Thus, in neuroscience, the object of study is a collection of objects of study, all derived from the study of physics, the object we understand as mass, energy and space-time. Thus, science, a study, is not its object: physics. A student may spend his or her entire lifetime on an erroneous study, and labeling the work “science” does not lend reliability.

Objects of study that have been proven to exist based on evidence are often accepted as the-objective-truth or facts and the study that discovered the object may be named to reflect the object. For example, mathematics, “the science of numbers and their operations, interrelations, combinations, generalizations, and abstractions and of space configurations and their structure, measurement, transformations, and generalizations” (Merriam-Webster), is an object of study that is evident in all aspects of existence. On the other hand, extraterrestrial beings are not objects of study. “Astrobiology makes use of physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, molecular biology, ecology, planetary science, geography, and geology to investigate the possibility of life on other worlds.”[lxxv] “Investigate the possibility” may be taken as “speculate” about an imaginary object of study. The object, extraterrestrial life, is not known to exist, statistically likely as the object may be; there are so many planets in so many galaxies within super-galaxies (perhaps in so many universes) that non-existence of extraterrestrial life seems statistically impossible. However, statistics neither determines nor establishes the-objective-truth. Some students conduct studies on ideas that occur to them. Astrobiology students cannot be regarded as researchers, because there is no known object. I hope mathematics is understood as a scientific study while astrobiology, absent an object of study, is comprehended as mere speculation.

What is not intuitive is that religion is a study that also derives from physics, but from the unknowns in physics. So far, religion persists regardless of discovery. Religion differs from astrobiology in that it operates without any evidence at all, even statistical probability. Religion is an intellectual construct. Believers perceive a universal truth and build doctrine. Perhaps some prehistoric people perceived the sun is a god. Since overexposure can kill humans, some perceived the sun consumes humans. Some imagined that human sacrifice could be used to bargain with the sun. Humankind now understands the sun is a natural nuclear reactor, not a god. Human sacrifice to bargain with the sun is no longer practiced. However, bargaining with gods persists.

The religious beliefs that persist on earth have not been disproven. However, the fact that they are not disproven on earth does not mean that they persist in the universe. There does not seem to be a religious equivalent of astrobiology. Humankind seems to accept that religious beliefs are imagined by men rather than based on evidence. By recognizing that religion exists the absence of discovered physics, we may accept it as imagination and not object to anyone’s imaginary practice that does not cause harm yet confidently prevent harm such as human sacrifice. A civic person’s hopes and comforts based on religious beliefs are neither diminishing nor questionable: They are private pursuits. I derive comfort and hope from commitment to the-objective-truth but would not impose my inspiration and motivation on other civic people. In reciprocity, I expect other civic people to appreciate my trust and commitment for me.

Beyond harm there remains the question of good. Why should a human being maintain a belief that is often challenged by discovery? My thought is that human life progresses on inspiration and motivation and if a person volunteers public integrity because of his or her religion, no one should object. Practicing religion or not seems part of freedom-from oppression with the liberty-to pursue private happiness. The-objective-truth is that religious beliefs that survive discovery have not been disproven and should not be disparaged.

However, religious beliefs, being unproven have no standing in collaboration for civic justice, a public endeavor. For example, on negotiating driving regulations according to traffic signals, a public proposal for prayerful red light running would be reprehensible as a bishop protecting a pedophile priest. Verifiable civic justice may be discovered as physics based ethics, and a few illustrations may explain the practice, but a deeper explanation of the-objective-truth is needed.

The-objective-truth

The-objective-truth exists. For example, the earth has been like a globe ever since humankind existed. Humans work to discover the-objective-truth and make best use of it. (For example, most people don’t know if there is extraterrestrial life and would not act on belief there is extraterrestrial life, for example, spend money to send messages in arbitrary language(s) into unknown space.) The goal of discovery is mutual, human, comprehensive safety and security. Discovery works both in physics and in psychology.

Aware of humankind's ineluctable march to discovery, it is not necessary to "believe", for example, believe in extraterrestrial life. We trust and commit to the existing statistics about extraterrestrial life, even though we have not yet discovered the-objective-truth about extraterrestrial life. However, there seems no harm in someone privately or publicly considering extraterrestrial life. If so, it is alright to conclude, "I do not know whether or not there is extraterrestrial life," and assert that no one knows, since there has been no discovery---neither proof nor disproof, yet work to discover extraterrestrial life. In other words, it is not necessary to believe a future discovery in order to work on the discovery. In fact, work that will not lead to discovery often facilitates actual discovery.

Civic citizens, while responsibly pursuing personal preferences or happiness, appreciate the-objective-truth and therefore do not support opinion that may be doubted or action on dubious opinion. For example, it is immoral to tax the people so as to create and stream messages to extraterrestrial beings; such endeavor may be conducted in private. The civic citizen conforms to the-objective-truth while not yielding to opinion, even his own. He or she admits to self “I do not know,” when there has been no discovery.

Civic citizens mutually discover public morality using the-objective-truth rather than submit to mysticism, dominant opinion, emotions, or political power. Humankind progresses not by force or coercion but by personal experience, by observations, and by practicing fidelity. Willing citizens respond to what-is rather than what-may-be. Unwilling citizens are dissidents, whether innocently, passively, or intentionally. For example, in a civic culture, if the CDC reports evidence that smoking reduces life-span and secondary smoke kills innocent people, civic citizens stop smoking. Also, some personal dissidents stop so as not to risk harming other people. But some dissidents keep smoking.

When the-objective-truth is undiscovered but an idea is proposed, voluntary public integrity requires responses like, “I do not know,” or “I think so and don’t have to know in order to hold responsible hopes.” Smoking despite risks is irresponsible. Regarding religion, both the believer and the non-believer collaborate for civic justice yet privately pursue differing personal preferences. Borrowing from Justice Antonin Scalia, civic “responsibility is the here, not the hereafter.” See homespunvine.com/lecture-justice-antonin-scalia-on-capitalism-socialism-and-christian-virtue/. Thus, it is alright for an individual to pursue religious beliefs, but it not alright for him or her to attempt to impose those beliefs on others. Explaining a religion to someone who has enquired is civic, but claiming that a civic citizen’s personal motivation and inspiration are inadequate is both un-civic and immoral---immoral because an individual’s religion might harm a non-believer, both psychologically and physically. I make this assertion from experience more than observation.

An objective culture records discovered-objective-truth so that future generations may benefit from past discovery and efficiently correct errors upon new understanding or new discovery. A free and responsible press establishes and maintains an objective journal. Thereby, the individual, both young and old, may acquire first knowledge then understanding so as to make personal choices at the leading edge of moral discovery.

Key to civic morality is fidelity. I neither know nor can alone discover the-objective-truth, yet I can cultivate personal, comprehensive fidelity. Both respectively and collectively, the civic person develops fidelity to these entities: to the-objective-truth, to self, to family, to extended family and friends, to the people (nation), to humankind, and to the world. With independence from dominant opinion about the-objective-truth, individuals may acquire the liberty-to pursue personal preferences: Personal, comprehensive fidelity is made possible. The individual who practices fidelity may accept his or her authority and power to manage his or her energy for integrity throughout life. Let me restate that. The human individual has the authority and the power to manage his or her energy for integrity. Many individuals do not accept their personal authority.

Press personnel---writers, editors, and owners---who do not journal humankind's path to the-objective-truth are irresponsible. Elected and appointed officials who are not civic individuals are reprehensible.

Civility can be un-civic. Humanity can be un-civic. Social convention is based on temporal civilization more than the-objective-truth. Statutory law can be unjust, especially if it is derived by coercion/force, arrogance, or dominant opinion. Some societies think crime pays. Most civilizations are based on dominant opinion, often that people behave only under force or coercion, a self-fulfilling tradition.

Humankind’s collective quest for the liberty-to live in peace is stifled by failure to promote freedom-from arbitrary dominant opinion. In other words, civic citizens promote personal liberty so each person may exercise human psychological power. Human maturity requires freedom-from psychological tyranny. Some societies don’t admit that individuals may achieve comprehensive fidelity.

Personal independence is suppressed by the world’s misdirected quest for a socio-political regime that fosters freedom according to the “common good.” Unfortunately, much of the thought is dominated by theism---mysticism---rather than the-objective-truth---discoverable certainty. “Self-government” is possible through fidelity to the-objective-truth. The individual has the unalienable authority to behave according to the-objective-truth, even though government may, by force or coercion, constrain the individual. Each human individual has the authority and the power to spend his or her energy developing integrity.

These statements address civic morality. They reserve private concerns and hopes for personal pursuit. In a civic culture, no one is coerced to negotiate personal, heartfelt concerns and hopes. For example, no one can impose on another person concern for a “soul” or spiritualism. Only by denying civic morality, in other words public integrity, can a person believe that crime pays. I appreciate my person (life) more than my soul (afterdeath), but do not regret other people's opinions for them. However, anyone who attempts to excite me to fear for my soul is un-civic. Repetitive attempts to instill fear abuse the privilege of public discourse.

A culture with voluntary public integrity coaches the newborn in three principles: 1) ignoring the-objective-truth invites woe, 2) collaborating for comprehensive safety and security is essential to each person's liberty, and 3) the human being may, through comprehensive fidelity, conform to the-objective-truth while privately developing personal hopes, arts, sports, hobbies, and other personal interests---in other words, responsibly develop private preferences or pursue private happiness.

Because it springs from the-objective-truth, the civic culture seeks neither dominant opinion nor democracy nor mystery. Each willing person is in charge of personal preferences that do not conflict the-objective-truth. Yet each person may privately, responsibly test the universal unknowns. For example, be the first person to fly using aerodynamic principles. The freedom made possible by a culture that conforms to the-objective-truth facilitates the personal liberty-to pursue private interests. Thus, the traditional “common good” becomes conformity to the-objective-truth rather than public conflict over mysticism. Civic people accept public interference --- force and coercion --- only on the indisputable facts of actual reality or the-objective-truth. For example, no one accepts someone’s assertion that they spontaneously contacted extraterrestrial life; such reports must be confirmed by personal experience. That is, I cannot accept someone else’s claim but must experience it on my own as a first step toward appreciating it as the-objective-truth.

The-objective-truth differs from objective reality in that there is no constraint respecting intellectual discernment: objective reality may be false. 

The-objective-truth may be purely psychological. Einstein's example that civic individuals do not lie is both an intellectual/psychological discovery and an element of the-objective-truth. The-objective-truth exists, and humankind's noble work is to discover, understand and benefit.

There will always be dissidents, some of whom cause harm. Lies are often erroneously/intentionally asserted as the-objective-truth or facts. Justice may be achieved with iterative collaboration to discover the-objective-truth. Thereby, law enforcement by either arbitrary opinion or mystery is lessened; the liar cannot communicate; and the rule of statutory justice in republican governance is continually improved.

Mysteries, such as harmless religious beliefs that have not been disproved, should not be disparaged for the believer. However, mysticism has no standing in the collaboration for civic justice.

“Faith in reason” seems unwise. Science is a process for study and the student may reason based on false perceptions --- like a mirage. The object of study is discovery, and the product is the-objective-truth, which does not respond to reason. However, rational thought is essential to the acceptance that repeatable evidence represents a discovery rather than a subject of imagination and for further understanding, for example how to benefit from the discovery. People may trust-in and commit-to the-objective-truth.

A civic culture may seem impossible, because it has never been attempted. But it has never been expressed as voluntary public integrity by civic citizens using the-objective-truth rather than competition for dominant-opinion.

Fidelity to the-objective-truth empowers self-discovery.

In this discussion, we have expressed “understanding” many times, and it is important to consider humankind’s process. Unfortunately, it is often called “the scientific process,” but it works in the psychological realm as well the physical domain.

Process for understanding

People need knowledge, but understanding seems the personally advantageous human goal. Comprehending knowledge leads to understanding. Only when knowledge is received, considered, and challenged respecting the-objective-truth can understanding come. I want to start by emphasizing that the student/research needs fidelity regarding the-objective-truth

The-objective-truth is unyielding, and what could be or imagination can be distracting. Pretense as a substitute for the-objective-truth seems ignoble and willful. In other words, a person is better served by the pursuit of understanding than by the pretense to master the-objective-truth. In short, the researcher does not know and must admit not knowing in order to keep an open mind. An open mind is a personal duty rather than an invitation to cooperate or subjugate to opinion, especially personal opinion.

To be open-minded, a person must also admit what is known. There are facts, such as: my name is Phil; the earth is globe-like; the sun is a natural nuclear reactor; most growing grasses are green; some people are radical skeptics; Plato only imagined immortality through the “soul”[lxxvi]—itself an intellectual construct. Despite anyone’s speculation, imagination or reasoning, existence or actual reality may be discovered but cannot be intellectually constructed. A person cannot think something into being.[26] Yet events can be changed by beliefs. For example, President George W. Bush believed he was influenced by his personal God to invade Iraq.[lxxvii] (He would assure us that his personal God is everyone's God, as almost every theist does.)
          On the other hand, future events may be influenced by pretense, as in the Bush-Iraq case. For example, anyone who pretends another person is about to attack him or her and, on that pretense, harms the other person may risk subjugation to the law. The-objective-truth yields to neither faith nor reason nor revelation nor force nor war nor understanding nor hope nor words nor personal truth.

The student/researcher trusts and commits to the-objective-truth, not necessarily expecting to reach it. He or she is humble. Collectively humble, humankind has developed a process for understanding, and the process marches forward in near silence, yet with exponential success in physics and growing success in ethics. Laws of physics and laws of ethics are identical in origin.
 

The process for understanding

Humankind has developed a continuing and seemingly infinite[lxxviii] process for understanding. Steps are varied, successive, additive, and often repeatable. Here’s my expression of the process. A person may: perceive there is evidence of a phenomenon or principle, aware the perception could be wrong—a mirage; propose viable explanations for the perceived evidence, using  information and imagination, preferably based on prior understanding; develop theories that accommodate the perceived evidences and some of the proposed explanations within the constraints of existing discovery; consider tests for each of the plausible explanations; prioritize the explanations by both testing feasibility and fit with interrelated laws and theories; assume the most likely, testable explanation; design economical, feasible tests of the selected explanations; review the plans respecting practicality and consider cycling to an earlier step; eventually conduct the tests; gather, analyze, and evaluate the data; identify confirming or denying evidences within the data; draw conclusions; and perhaps make recommendations.

Right away, there may be plans for repetition of the test: Reality is repeatable. Adhering to such a process, Einstein could have accepted his own mathematical evidence that the universe is dynamic. His mistake was not accepting the evidence that showed that his perception of a static universe was wrong. I explain Einstein’s “religious” blunder, below. 

In the process for understanding, conclusions vary. Sometimes there was no phenomenon—only perception—the mirage. For example, Einstein’s static universe[lxxix] was only a paradigm. Sometimes a proposed explanation is disproved but evidence or discovery helps guide further research. Sometimes a proposed explanation seems correct, and thus, understanding apparently increases. Often, seemingly correct explanations require revision when attempts to reproduce the test shows variation from test to test or when new viewpoints or new ways of measuring are discovered and applied. For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity showed incompleteness in Newton’s law of gravity.[lxxx] 

Thus, the process continually improves understanding yet often seems to merely approach the-objective-truth. When proposed explanations don’t prove out, they are not discarded: they are retained for new discovery or new viewpoint. For example, the idea that there is a creator (lower case to detach the question of worship and praise) is, so far, not fruitful but is retained, waiting for evidence. Furthermore, the idea that there should be worship and praise of a creator is speculation that assumes human-like psychology. Trade and bargaining emerged from human cultural thought, but so far does not seem to work with a creator. The idea that there is a creator may arise by asking the wrong question, for example: Why? Why isn’t there nothing instead of something?[lxxxi] The why? combines physics and ethics, perhaps erroneously.

Psychological or ethical discovery

Physics, the object, is energy, mass and space-time, from which everything emerges. Awareness of each emergence from physics, or its discovery, often leads to innovation so as to benefit from that discovery. The benefit may be technological or psychological. Understanding how to benefit and acting accordingly is ethical/moral. Thereby, humankind may be guided by physics based ethics and create an interrelated system of physics based morality that serves civic morality. "Civic" refers to justice in human connections and transactions more than cooperation for the city. If all persons collaborate to achieve civic morality, there is no need for laws about behavior. With this analysis, we have answered the question, "Why behave according to civic morality?" without asking why physics exists. We have answered Hume's question as to why a person ought to behave. Perhaps using the indisputable facts of reality as the basis for civic morality--taking the word "physics" out of the expression--is clearer for most people. Hopefully, phrases like the indisputable facts of reality, actual reality, and physics based ethics draw people to collaborate on the-objective-truth as the basis for civic morality.

Ethics or morality

The Einstein example of religious blunder (his "cosmological" factor) is in the domain of physics, but the process for understanding serves ethical studies as well. For example, researchers have systematically studied how persons develop to govern their own behavior.[lxxxii] In the US, discipline may begin with fear of parents' reactions or care-takers’ reactions; advance to the desire to conform to avoid the fear of ostracism or subjugation, for example, to the law or to a civilization or society; and for a few people, progress to personal autonomy and on to collaborative association to achieve justice, humility, and authenticity. 

In this regard, autonomy may be influenced by male-like drive to take responsibility as well as female-like drive to care for self, viable ova, and others. Further, culture may influence behavior: Western drive for autonomy and achievement is a culture that may be balanced by Eastern drive to accommodate everyone in society or to enlighten the self rather than learn the doctrine.

Beyond personal autonomy a person may discover collaborative association--iterative conversation that seeks to preserve each party's personal autonomy rather than establish a dominant opinion. In other words, both parties collaborate rather than one party cooperate or subjugate. Conclusions about ethics are based on evidence from real living and may be studied using the process for understanding. With well founded ethical principles, humankind may establish a system of civic morality. Again, "civic" refers to necessary and unavoidable--ineluctable--human connections for living in justice on the same land during the same years. The individual still chooses harmless social associations and social activities such as arts, sports, politics, and religion. Failure to distinguish civic goals from social goals leads to confusion and conflict. The consequence is widespread misery and loss.

The confusion has been exacerbated by thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, who claimed the human condition is an “anarchic condition . . . a war of all against all.”[lxxxiii]

Imagination and speculation

The process for understanding works in all aspects of existence, including the imagination, provided that what is discovered is allowed as evidence respecting the unknown. Otherwise defensive speculation might persist. For example, consider human sacrifice. Ancient people imagined that natural phenomena were actions of gods. The Sun was a god: the Sun often killed over-exposed persons. Some tribes assumed both that the Sun wanted to consume people and that by consecrating people for sacrificial death the tribe could satisfy the Sun’s wants--bargain with the Sun. However, the Sun never seemed to respond to human bargaining—shone on both sides in war and peace; there was no evidence that human sacrifice is beneficial or has power over existence. With its work for understanding, humanity discovered that the Sun is a natural, nuclear reactor, and that human sacrifice is not beneficial. However, so far, most humans have not recognized this conclusion as evidence that there is no god at all. Each time a god-construct fails, there is new evidence that there is no god. Theism survived both understanding the physics of the Sun and consistent failure of human attempts to bargain with the Sun—the assumed ethic. I do not know if there is a god or not, but failure of the Sun bargains does not support the idea that a god exists.

Theism

     The discovery that the Sun is not a god put in question theism, the art of intellectually constructing gods. But traditions, rather than die, linger as an influence on humankind. “Once a civilization has existed on earth, its effects [seem] permanent.”[lxxxiv] Thus, some tribes sacrificed humans to bargain with hypothetical beings not related to the Sun. Often perpetrators sought advantage; for example, in the Mayan supernatural world, some priests ate the flesh from human sacrifices during meat shortages.[lxxxv] 

Phantasms similar to human-sacrifice persist with no evidence of benefits beyond emotional satisfaction to believers. Theism persists merely because some people want the personal benefits--comfort or the sense/hope that they are enhancing their afterdeath. They perceive using the art of belief. As long as there is no actual harm, objecting to someone’s theism or whatever religion they pursue would be as sensible as objecting to their favorite symphony or opera or rock group. No-harm religions are a matter of taste and culture, and are naturally contradictory to each other yet may conform to civic morality. See snake-handling, below.

 Among some religions, contradictions accompany the concept of souls, for example, whether souls are destined for everlasting life or reincarnation. Either way, the doctrine relieves believers of the finality of death of the body, mind and person.  Believers hope they may obtain promising future for their souls. Personal tendency to try to take responsibility for the soul is characteristic of the noble human urge to behave responsibly. However, since soul is an intellectual construct—an entity that is not derived from evidence, no one has incentive to encourage focus on the soul. It may be left to the individual to discover and evaluate whether to believe in souls or not. Dedicating life to assumed afterdeath seems harmless for some believers and helps them guide their lives by a well-established perhaps continually improved doctrinal plan. However, institutional doctrinal plans adjust to reality at a very slow pace, for example, covering five or more generations.[lxxxvi] Living to fulfill the soul should not be imposed on people who either do not think souls or gods exist or think that a particular doctrinal plan is harmfully obsolete. I care more for my person (life) than my “soul” (afterdeath).

Beliefs versus discovery

Unfortunately, many people consider understanding as having two competitive justifications:  evidence/discovery versus beliefs. By adopting beliefs, people may be using reason or faith to reject the-objective-truth. For example, some people believe that because the earth is some 6,000 years old the evidence that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago is false.[lxxxvii]

Based on extensive studies, some people become satisfied with “my truth” or just adopt their mom and dad’s truth.” Some, like radical skeptics, may question the existence of the-objective-truth. I do not object to their question but do not study or attempt to respond to radical skeptics; you might say I am willful in this regard. I prefer that willfulness. With evidence, there is hope for understanding, and understanding often leads to technology, innovation, goodwill, cooperation, collaboration and other discernible benefits. However, maintenance of misunderstanding leads to ruin. For example, by understanding germs, humanity learned not to gather for prayer against epidemics. Researchers developed antiseptics and antibiotics. Yet, some people who hold religious misunderstandings may resist evidence for millennia. For example, Biblical geography, which nourished fear of falling off the edge of the earth, limited major exploration for nearly 1000 years.[lxxxviii] Yet during that time, ocean travelers perceived from the curvature of the horizon that they could travel as far as the eye could see and therefore overcame the bad advice—became explorers. On a cruise, I tried to recapture that ancient fear--falling off the earth--but could not. My mind could not take me to that fear.

Error

When a student/researcher rejects evidence because it does not comport to his expectations or paradigm, he subjects himself to error or failure. Albert Einstein, working toward his general theory of relativity modeled a static universe. When his brilliant mathematics informed him that the universe is expanding, he mistakenly rejected the evidence and perhaps arrogantly added a “cosmological factor” to accommodate his static paradigm. He could have yielded to the evidence (trusted his own mathematics) and approached the-objective-truth in his field. Meanwhile, contemporary mathematicians[lxxxix] reported a dynamic universe. Some have reported that Einstein ironically called them “religious,” for advancing the dynamic idea. About a decade later, Einstein thanked Edwin Hubble for proving the universe is dynamic, correcting, as Einstein called it, “the biggest blunder of my life.” Students may learn from Einstein’s religious experience--or repeat the mistake in their own way for their own lives. It is better to know and learn from the past but not dwell in it.

Religion

          I cite Einstein’s blunder to illustrate my definition of religion: the practice of making an assumption about a personally heartfelt concern and trying to live according to the assumption, ignoring growing evidence that the assumption is wrong and sometimes perhaps even that the concern is unfounded. For example, some people who become concerned about the phantasm called “soul,” dedicate their lives so that they can sense comfort that they will have a good afterdeath; they forego what may be understood for what is unknown; for some, promoting their afterdeath preference is all there is to life. 

           Asked to list the twelve worst assumptions in my life, I cite first the childhood notion that if I mastered Bible interpretation I would succeed in life. I can’t think of the other eleven bad assumptions. But, unfortunately for me, for five decades, I nourished my indoctrination into the Holy Bible. All that time I could have been exploring the rest of the world’s classic literature, which shows that the Bible is part of a subset of religion: theism. Some people contend with the Bible dilemma better than me, I suppose by not taking the words and phrases literally. Perhaps it takes a god to discern the worthy ideas from the bad.

Atheism

As art forms, theism and atheism seem equal opposites. That is, "I believe there is a god," is as arrogant or erroneous respecting the-objective-truth as "I believe there is no god." As a way of living, “I don’t know if there is a creator” seems better for the individual. Admitting that you do not know seems better than either atheism or theism. Happy is the person who admits early in life, “The fact that things exist instead of nothing could be singular evidence for a creator, but I do not know if there is a creator or not, and if there is, I don’t know if worship and praise are appropriate.” Taking this position enables the individual to maintain appreciation for any creator, whereas commitment to either theism or atheism dissuades a person from respect for the-objective-truth, which may involve a creator but not a god or none. Maybe there is God. Perceptions we do not use or dimensions we have not explored may prove a creator and that worship and praise are required, so it's a Creator. In simple terms, each believer, to believe a defined creator, must turn his/her back on the-objective-truth. The believer assumes he or she knows enough to make a choice. Hubris begs woe.

Beyond false pride or subjugation, there seems no justification for rejecting the-objective-truth. If, in fact, the Sun controls the universe, why would anyone turn his back on the Sun? I hope that is not too abstract; my point is, I understand the Sun is only a nuclear reactor, but I could be wrong: Theism could be the correct art and the Sun its object. For all we know, we must use "LORD" to designate the controller and avoid the threat of Exodus 20:7: "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." Thus, “Jesus is Lord is defiant. And God as the name rather than the characterization is defiant.” I do not know.

Governance

All over the world most people struggle for civic governance. Governance has two important roles: self-control by individuals and collaboration among inhabitants. It seems to me most persons want comprehensive safety and security, so that he or she can pursue the real-no-harm life he or she wants. So far, humankind has attempted to use monopolies to force people to conform to a society or a civilization---to be civil. However, the human species is too aware to yield to social norms. The human must have private liberty and must exercise self-control willingly; in other words, for selfish reasons. Conformance to society is insufficient. Therefore, willing people must reform government to civic morality based on the-objective-truth. Each person pursues private liberty as he or she perceives it, while controlling civic activities such that other persons may pursue the private liberty they perceive. With freedom-from oppression, each person may work to acquire the liberty-to pursue personal preferences rather than someone else’s idea for the person.

Thus, there is domestic goodwill or mutual appreciation, which requires civic morality. Civic morality requires private morality.[xc] It’s much like queuing to enter a symphony hall or rock concert; people happily avoid trying to occupy the same place at the same time. The same physical practicality applies in traffic control. In fact, physical constraints decide all civic issues: who eats and who starves; birth and abortion; appreciative bonding or having sex; homosexual sex or heterosexual sex; seclusion or travel; cleanliness or filth; fidelity to your sex or confounded preference. In religion, people who would handle poisonous snakes to demonstrate fidelity to erroneous scripture should be constrained from exposing loved ones and the public from the practice. Thus, when religious morals conflict civic morality, religion must be constrained by statutory law. A civic people provide Security so that each person may pursue actual no harm private living while encouraging dissidents to reform.

           Similarly, based on the-objective-truth, same-sex partners cannot independently conceive and therefore, for civic purposes, each person in the partnership is equal to single people, but the partnership, according to physics, is not equal to a heterosexual couple: Partners cannot independently procreate. Yet a heterosexual couple who are without a child should not have tax advantage over either single people or same-sex partners. This illustrates the principle that the laws of physics and the laws of ethics come from the same source.

An injustice

In just governance, the duty and opportunity to develop integrity, a human responsibility, would be defended instead of religion, an institution. Also, “conscience" is a religiously-correct substitute for "fidelity to personal authority" or authenticity. The US Supreme Court does not define “religion” even though religion is defended in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Defense without definition is an injustice in itself! The Court’s position is that the plaintiff will define “religion” and the Court will render its opinion on the issue, giving the court the latitude to treat people in arbitrary ways. The accepted definition in 1788 when the draft constitution for the USA was ratified to be amended with a Bill of Rights came from the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776). It remains, verbatim in today’s Virginia Constitution, with emphasis by me:

That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other. No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. And the General Assembly shall not prescribe any religious test whatever, or confer any peculiar privileges or advantages on any sect or denomination, or pass any law requiring or authorizing any religious society, or the people of any district within this Commonwealth, to levy on themselves or others, any tax for the erection or repair of any house of public worship, or for the support of any church or ministry; but it shall be left free to every person to select his religious instructor, and to make for his support such private contract as he shall please.

About one month after the required nine states ratified the Constitution, Virginia joined the nation, with its due right to ratify as one of the original thirteen states. It did so with the provision that the Constitution be amended to accommodate the above provisions with the additional thought, "that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by Law in preference to others."[xci]

Thus, religion is defined by “duty to Creator,” restricting religion to theism or Creationism, and every idea that follows is based on that exclusive, unjust definition. For example, Buddhists do not believe in a Creator. They account for only a fraction of non-theists. Non-theists comprise the largest oppressed minority in the USA. There are other non-believers. Today, there may be 75 million Americans (23%) suffering this injustice. The injustice was among those anticipated in Federalist 84, which I paraphrase: the preamble to the US Constitution leaves all unspecified rights with the people and a Bill of Rights might conflict with those rights. 

An important distinction here is that the Virginia Declaration of Rights vainly attempts to separate religious morals from civic morality yet specifies theism as a requirement for civic propriety. A consequence of this failure is that the Bill of Rights protects religion, an institution, instead of integrity, a personal duty; a religious moral overrides civic morality and human justice. The First Amendment should be revised to address “integrity” instead of “religion,” to correct the existing injustice. But the preamble has even more importance that the 1787 signers of the US Constitution did not seem to recognize or defend when the agreement to ratify the constitution happened in 1788.

"Secular" rather than civic agreement

Heretofore, I had mistakenly taken for granted that the preamble is a secular document. “Secular” means, “of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred.” Thus, “secular” is an antonym of “religious.” There are many variations on the meaning of "secular," and perhaps the softest usage is "areligious." However, since collaborating in library meetins, I have recognized that the preamble is a civic document. It enumerates civic relationships between citizens who want to live in safety and security as each pursues liberty, allowing other citizens to do the same. Notice that "want to" is like "volunteer" and neither implies collaboration. But collaboration is required, and the mediator is the-objective-truth. Also, note that Security provides freedom-from oppression so that each person may acquire the liberty-to live according to personal preference, within the constraint of mutual safety and security.

Much as a traffic signal empowers drivers to cooperate for expedient, safe passage through intersections, the preamble empowers willing citizens to iteratively-collaborate for just, civic governance. Each citizen who practices the art of religion has a unique religion, and when one attempts to impose religious doctrine into civic governance, he or she acts unjustly—divisively with respect to the civic association citizens are born into. People who would impose their religion on others separate from We the [Civic] People of the United States and place themselves among "we, the people," who alienate themselves.

About 77% of citizens are factional believers, including 70% factional Christians.[xcii] Among the believers are a smaller percentage who would impose theism into civic governance. They are often called “fundamentalists” of diverse religious associations. Most of the believers I know want to live in peace according to their opinion and allow other citizens the same privilege. I have no idea what the demography is, but I doubt they belong with the group of unjust citizens who want to impose theism on other people. Yet today, the majority takes for granted arbitrary theism--factional Protestantism--that has persisted in this country. 

I do not think just citizens are responsible for the 229 years of neglect of the preamble that has transpired. However, I could be wrong:  it is possible that most believers think that if any citizen’s religion is not the same as theirs the other should be excluded from no-harm individual liberty with civic morality. If I am wrong--in fact, most inhabitants think you have to be a Christian to be a citizen---most Americans are not of “We the People of the United States” as defined in the preamble. I want to persuade at least 2/3 of adults to iteratively collaborate for civic morality according to the preamble and physics-based ethics so that each person has the opportunity to responsibly pursue private liberty as he or she sees it during every decade of his or her full life; if so, few die early. A civic people collaborate for private liberty with civic-morality or public integrity or comprehensive safety and security.

Einstein’s views on grounded understanding

Humankind employs a process for understanding, which applies in both physics and ethics.[xciii] For example, extraterrestrial life either exists or not, regardless of humankind’s apprehensions. Also, behaving so as to attract appreciation is more productive than hate, regardless of the culture. Humankind's understanding exponentially progresses, whereas each newborn is ignorant. Therefore, future newborns face more of the-objective-truth.[xciv] If they develop fidelity to the-objective-truth, they may live their lives at the leading edge of both technology and civic morality.

          In physics, statements of comprehension may be cosmic discoveries, for example, that the universe is expanding. Also, there are factual equations, as in elementary mathematics:  2+2 = 4, as 2 apples plus 2 oranges equals 4 fruit. Contrary statements, like 2+2 = 5,[xcv] (or 2 = 3), occur in games and art, for example, to metaphorically express the illusion that team effort exceeds the sum of members’ contributions.

          Comprehension is not expected to apply in the intellectual world or civic world, such as ethics.  Cultures have developed religions to attempt to appropriate the benefits of human experience as morality, but some religious morals seem dysfunctional in civic connections and transactions. Note: civic citizens are moral when in the woods, or at sea, or in space, just as certainly as when in the city. Physics-based ethics seems a better option for civic morality, because it applies to every person, without regard for personal religious hopes. For example, a typhoon knows no favorite persons. 

          Benefiting from physics seems the basis of civic morality. For example, consider the conflicting 1+1 = 1; as in my god[xcvi] plus your god = your god or my part of the summation is zero: my 1 = our 0. Together we consider: Is your god our god? But we enjoy that we each have unique views of our differing experiences and hopes yet learned to appreciate each other as each of us is: civically collaborative. We agree that 1+1 = 2 or 1 = 1. Each of our gods differs but we don’t question each other’s motivations and inspirations in private liberty.

But humans may cause civic justice. The Dali Lama said, I think erroneously, “The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics. It is also of human relations. If I act with goodness, I will receive goodness. If I act with evil, I will get evil.”[xcvii] In human relations, reciprocity often fails; the Dali himself is a forced exile, because a forceful people took land he occupied. I doubt the Dali perceives he has experienced civic justice. Perhaps he is appealing to people's nobler motives without appreciating the human capacity to collaborate for the-objective-truth.

Comprehensions have a common characteristic: each is either true, or false, or undiscovered; in other words, we don't know.[xcviii] Thus, each understanding may be valued: true or false or unknown. Because we appreciate each other despite our differing opinions about gods or none, we are able to collaborate to understand the-objective-truth. 

Yet, even as we admit that some things neither of us knows, we each maintain personal hopes. With candid attitudes, two people may happily discuss whether supernatural “soul” is real or imaginary. I prefer to think my body and mind constitute my person, and there is no associated supernatural being. But I readily admit I don’t know: in other words, my focus on person rather than soul could be wrong. But such considerations are private and do not impact civic needs. My person (life) is more important to me than my soul (afterdeath), but I would not impose that commitment on even one other person. Individuals have the authority and power to decide for themselves.

The noble work toward comprehension does not express emotions. Einstein: “For the [researcher], there is only ‘being,’ but no wishing”; no praising; no believing[xcix]; no agendum; no competitiveness; no ideology; no religion; no hoping; no pride; no contradiction; no goal beyond comprehension. Each individual who seeks understanding perseveringly rejects coercion from anyone, ancient or contemporary, yet also behaves so as to not coerce anyone or indoctrinate himself or herself. When we recognize self-persuasion, we stop; we strive to discover self-contradiction and eliminate it. I've muddied so much it is worth repeating Einstein’s simple statement, “there is only ‘being’ but no wishing.”
          Guided by understanding, we need not respond to doctrine, like, “’Thou shalt not lie.’”

Yet, Einstein wrote,

[We] do not feel at all that it is meaningless to ask such questions as: ‘Why should we not lie?’ We feel that such questions are meaningful because in all [ethics] some . . . premises are tacitly taken for granted.  We then feel satisfied when we succeed in tracing back the ethical directive in question to these basic premises. In the case of lying this might perhaps be done like this: Lying destroys confidence in the statements of other people. Without such confidence, social cooperation is made impossible or at least difficult.

For example, after a lie, the liar may fear future dialogue with the deceived party, who, in turn, may sense the liar’s apprehension. Or, judging from his own behavior, the liar may suspect the deceived party is also a liar. “Cooperation, however, is essential to make human life possible”, even worthy of appreciation. Thus, our commitment, “‘[We shall] not lie,’ has been traced back to the demands: ‘Human life shall be preserved’ and ‘Pain and sorrow shall be lessened as much as possible.’” The just person gravitates toward collaborative autonomy which implies complete integrity; rejects fear and embraces empathy for other persons and self; has too much humility to lie; is authentic.

Thus, it seems the process for understanding can apply to ethics.

Ethical directives can be made rational and coherent by logical thinking and empirical knowledge. If we can agree on some fundamental ethical propositions, then other propositions can be derived from them, provided that the original premises are stated with sufficient precision.

For example, persons expect behavior that warrants appreciation to overcome hatred. People are civically connected and therefore may expect each other to positively communicate.

Such ethical premises play a similar role in ethics, to that played by axioms in mathematics.

But what is the origin of such ethical axioms? Are they arbitrary? Are they based on mere authority? Do they stem from [humankind’s experiences], and are they conditioned by such experiences.

For pure logic all axioms seem arbitrary, including the axioms of ethics. But they are by no means arbitrary from a psychological and genetic point of view. They are derived from our inborn tendencies to avoid pain and annihilation and from the accumulated . . . reaction[s] of individuals to the behavior[s] of their neighbors.

Just as physics exists and can only be discovered, ethics exists and can only be discovered. Just as physics may be vainly denied, ethics may be unjustly and unprofitably rejected. “It is the privilege of [humankind’s] ethical genius . . . to advance ethical axioms which are so comprehensive and so well founded that [individuals accept] them as grounded in the vast mass of their individual . . . experiences.” Humankind has accumulated experiences from more than 100 billion lives during perhaps two million years, even though mitochondrial-DNA connectivity extends back only 0.2 million years. The leading edge of ethics marches today on the minds of 7.6 billion people, faster than ever before in history.

For an individual to learn ethics is a daunting quest, because humans are born totally uninformed and there is so much to learn. Nevertheless, each person, after becoming basically informed (typically in about twenty to thirty years) has the potential to enjoy some sixty years to psychologically mature and to help fulfill and expand the ethical axioms of humankind. The gift of life presents the opportunity and potentials for joy. Anyone who squanders their life for either personal appetite (perhaps dying young) or an ideology (perhaps dying immature) usually misses the chance for self-discovery. Whether missing self-discovery is good or bad I do not know but doubt it is good.

Einstein: “Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from” the physical axioms. [Understanding] is what stands the test of experience” and approaches the-objective-truth.[c]
           These principles expressed by Albert Einstein can be used by a people to establish civic morality, whereas religious morals are based on opinion and can never be resolved without physics-based ethics.

Einstein’s discussion perhaps was for the cooperatively autonomous audience, for most of whom even “white lies” merely prolong the inevitable submission to the-objective-truth. Even the cancer patient’s question, “Am I going to die,” may be answerable, for example: "We’re going to do everything we can to prevent it,” or, “In time, yes, but we are going to work toward keeping you alive and comfortable.” A child’s innocence can be transitioned without mendacity. For example, a child who has the personal autonomy to ask if Santa is real gains confidence to hear something like: Yes: Santa is a metaphor--an annual reminder for each person to offer authentic good will toward all civic people all the time.[ci]

The need to deceive the enemy is obvious. However, the deceit must be carefully crafted and executed; obvious deviations from established principles will be accepted by only the most uninformed or gullible person. Usually, an enemy has ample personal authority and power to crush falsehood. Gullibility is a deadly error left out of the seven deadly sins, for self-evident reasons. It takes understanding and humility for a person to overcome personal gullibility---hubris. A dangerous gullibility is to reveal your understanding to a suspected enemy.[cii]

Applications of Einstein’s grounded ethics

I have not had the pleasure of discussing applications of Einstein’s theory beyond his example respecting lying. Most people readily agree that civic people do not lie to each other, because they collaborate for solutions to civic problems.

I wish to establish physics-based ethics for negotiating civic morality, keeping private the opportunity for each person to pursue comfort in the face of the unknowns like the gods---whether their personal liberty is served by religion or not. In other words, to develop personal integrity. Physics-based ethics is a part of a theory for justice of by and for a civic people. So, when my opinion seems to conflict with your wishes, realize 1) there has been no candid discussion toward compromise, 2) the object of negotiation is endorsement by a civic people, not necessarily restriction of individuals (people behave as they wish), and 3) I write my opinion, not knowing the-objective-truth. A mutually satisfactory process for collaboration is needed.

Process for understanding

First, a process by which humans may establish physics-based ethics needs to be known and cultivated. A rudimentary process has the following five steps:

          •      Understand the physics of a civic issue

          •      Personally act according to the understanding

          •      Civically and civilly endorse the understanding (by agreement and by socialization or legislation)

          •      Remain alert for change in the understanding

          •      With new understanding amend any civic order.

For example, many children experienced spitting into the wind and 1) would never try it again, 2) would not encourage another person to try it and 3) would imagine that throwing sand into the wind would be worse. The physics of this ethic is so obvious no one analyses it: it is tacitly understood, and no laws are required for general adoption of the ethic: don’t spit into the wind. However, if the CDC announced a study, with evidence that some patients’ Ebola-infected spit, upon exposure to outside air, may instantaneously, autogenously vaccinate the patient, Ebola patients might spit into the wind. In other words, the laws of physics control rational thought.

This example seems far-fetched but illustrates the essential elements for beneficial living in a world in which physics is both continuously emerging, continually discovered, and may be used beneficially. A people may 1) candidly understand the physics of each civic issue, 2) use Einstein’s “‘being’ but no wishing”, 3) publicly share trust and commitment, and 4) be alert to new information that demands change.

Chapter 4. Discovering Physics-based Ethics

Discovering physics-based ethics is a function of collaboration by a civic people, so I cannot alone specify civic morality. But I can present an issue, suggest the-objective-truth, and wait for collaboration for the civic culture. If collaborative iterations achieve discovery of the-objective-truth, then a civic people may collaborate to discover how to benefit. The first example follows with explanation.

Racism

            A people of the United States is attempting to recover from nearly four-hundred years’ involvement in slavery and consequential injustices. Slavery is still practiced in some countries.[ciii] Imposition of slavery in this country was carried out by five European countries cooperating with Africans who sold Africans in the Atlantic slave trade.[civ] Abolitionism was alive in America with Philadelphia’s Quakers in 1758.[cv] In 1775, Thomas Paine, an immigrant from England, wrote a scathing letter in opposition to Christianity’s involvement in slavery[cvi] and, with Benjamin Franklin, founded the Philadelphia Abolition society. Benjamin Franklin argued for abolition in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The South Carolina declaration of secession[cvii] cited erroneous religious opinion in the North to conclude a list of reasons for the legislature's decision. Toward the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suggested[cviii] that regardless of the outcome, both the South’s god and the North’s god will still be held as just and good (my paraphrase and irony if Lincoln would disagree). People who can brook self-contradiction may to this day cite Bible verses that seem to justify slavery, we may assume based on a white god. In opposition is “Black theology and the Black church,”[cix] which imply if not express a black god. It seems reasonable that each person’s god should be in that person’s image--it's a matter of culture. However, a civic people do not base civic morality on religious beliefs.

Consider human physics. Thomas Paine, in 1775, wrote what everybody knew, based on what humankind understood then:

Our Traders in MEN (an unnatural commodity!) must know the wickedness of the SLAVE-TRADE, if they attend to reasoning, or the dictates of their own hearts: and such as shun and stiffle all these, wilfully sacrifice Conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden idol.

Paine claims that only by self-contradiction can a person slave-trade. Physics dictates that any economic system that takes from one person the product of her or his labor and gives it to another is not feasible, be it slavery, communism, or socialism: one person cannot subjugate another. Today, the study of mitochondrial DNA, mtDNA, informs us that we are kin—all living people evolved from a woman who lived perhaps 200,000 years ago.[cx] Lines of descent from each of her contemporaries died off. Also, skin-color relates to evolution at globally lateral location of a population and respective receipt of the Sun’s radiation, more than other factors.[cxi]  Today, there is no excuse for racism, and continuing the black v white divide at the expense of humankind, for example, based on the Holy Bible is a travesty that can be resolved by a people with civic morality based on physics-based ethics. In summary:

Inhabitants of the United States are willfully alienated on skin-color

     •      mtDNA shows that living humans are kin

     •      skin color is an evolutionary adaptation

     •      despite some good, the Holy Bible contains harmful ideas

     •      People may collaborate for civic morality

     •      People ought not use religion to divide[cxii]

Thirteen more examples

We list some more currently interesting examples and show some features of our proposals for collaboration. However, we cannot collaborate alone, and do not perceive value in more than raising the topics.

Faith: personal trust and commitment by an individual

•      Most humans find comfort against the unknowns

•      Some people find comfort in religious belief and religious morality

•      Others find comfort in faith in the-objective-truth, a myth to some

•      Still others wait for discovery, simply accepting the unknowns

•      When religious morals conflict, people may discover civic morality

•      Religious institutions support may conform to civic morality

Vehicular traffic necessarily risks property and health

•      Two vehicles must cross paths but cannot occupy the same space-time

•      Experts continually update regulations, accommodating new technologies

•      Ethical persons know and observe the regulations

•      In a collision, no one questions travel purpose: were you going to church?

Discussions among people are candid; no one lies

•      Born or naturalized, a person is physically here

•      Without candidness, citizens hide their perceived civic needs

•      Without candid deliberation, a people cannot collaborate

•      Alibis, evasion, and lies prevent civic morality

•      Special-interest groups or factions need responsible collaboration

•      A people transcends and protects all civically responsible groups

•      For civic governance, a super-majority of each faction is of a civic people

An adult and a child playing with shape-blocks

•      Delight when the child initially matches shapes

•      The child may try a square peg in a round hole

•      To insist on a mismatch may frustrate the family

•      The ethical adult encourages and coaches shape matching 

Medical use of beneficial components from marijuana

•      Some components from marijuana, cannibanoids, seem curative

•      These components may be covered by FDA like any other drug

•      The infrastructure for supply may be set up without breaking drug laws

•      A civic people approve medicines and their supplies as soon as possible

A child is conceived when an ovum from a woman is fertilized by a spermatozoon from a man, whether by nature or by technology.

•      Thus, the child’s genealogical and psychological heritage is determined.

•      The child has the inalienable right to the equality and dignity of her or his heritage, unto posterity (to grandchildren of the parents and beyond).

•      Adult contracts that deny a child’s equality and dignity conflict the ethics of physics, e.g., consensual sex without regard for progeny, divorce, surrogacy, single parenthood

•      Same sex partners cannot parent a girl and a boy in equality and dignity

A fertile woman has continual collaboration with her viable ova

•      Ethical men protect the woman’s obligations to her ova

•      The woman has privacy in the decision to remain pregnant

Ethical couples empower their conceptions’ opportunity to develop integrity

•      Ethical couples respect their child as a person

•      Monogamist couples offer equality and dignity to their progeny

•      Ethical parents are not promiscuous

Same-sex monogamy

•      Same-sex partners cannot be a child’s couple

•      Opposing arguments aggress against the child

     •      Don’t object to a father and a father: We tolerate you

     •      Don’t question our partnership: Fidelity to physics is obsolete

     •      Neither partner would fall in love with a contracted child

•      Same-sex monogamy is ethical for a family of two

A people need children for progress, not abuse or subjugation

•      A civic culture ethically gains children and provides

     •      Secure, ethical connection to child care

     •      Education at the leading edge of understanding

     •      Freedom to pursue personal integrity

     •      Invitation to autonomy, collaborative association, and psychological maturity

•      When parents forfeit, a civic people lamely surrogate

•      In human physics, the body develops procreation ability a decade before the person is psychologically prepared to parent

•      A civic people license procreation to protect the child

No one knows if a god influences physics or not

•      No one knows how limited human perceptions are

•      No one knows the limits[cxiii] of the universe

•      The god may yet be discovered

•      In ethical civic negotiation, spirituality is private

•      Some people privately pursue the supernatural or mysteries

•      No person should limit a person's civic pursuit of psychological liberty

Infants protected by a managed free-market economy

•      In 3 decades an infant may acquire understanding and intent for a full life

•      A civic culture efficiently educates its children

•      Autonomy, collaboration, maturity

•      Develop integrity and fidelity

•      The civic culture’s economy accommodates every young adult

•      Inflation rate is balanced by interest rate

•      Employment rate is balanced by population rate

•      Each wanted job offers sufficient income

•      For current living at reasonable lifestyle

•      For savings for

•      Future emergencies

•      Expected family events

•      Retirement

•      Upward mobility is the person’s responsibility

•      Child safety and security takes precedence over adult satisfactions

Governance with the ethics of physics, recap

•      Racism can become obsolete under the ethics of physics

•      Faith: personal comfort against the unknown

•      Vehicular travel risks property and health

•      Discussions among civic people are candid

•      An adult and a child playing with shape-blocks 

•      Medical components from marijuana

•      A child is conceived in equality and dignity

•      The fertile woman has continuing collaboration with her viable ova

•      Ethical couples appreciate their child’s personhood

•      Same-sex monogamy may be celebrated

•      A people need children for progress, not abuse

•      No one knows if/not a god influences physics

•      A civic culture is not barbaric toward children

Our interest in physics-based ethics is not unique. Bristol University has a physics and ethics education program, PEEP.[cxiv] Its issues are more commercial and less socially bold than some of the above issues. They assert that lying is sometimes justified; we oppose that advice.

My wonderful wife, Cynthia, a retired school teacher said, “Physics-based ethics is common sense with a mediator when people disagree.” Civic morality is based on physics. [cxv]

For a people to not use physics-based ethics, or the-objective-truth, concerns me, because conflict for dominant opinion increases misery and loss. So how can the achievable transition from conflict for dominant opinion to collaboration to discover the-objective-truth occur?

Chapter 5. National reform by We the People of the United States

If it seems clear that the agreement offered in the preamble divides citizens into two conflicting groups---civic citizens versus dissidents, we need to understand the compositions of those two groups in order to suggest a path for reform. The task would seem intractable if history to this point did not inform a simple yet encompassing idea:  each human individual has the power, energy, and authority to spend his or her energy developing integrity for living. As a person begins to deconstruct this statement, a theory of individual liberty with civic morality unfolds. Some individuals choose practices and behavior that responsibly liberates their person and some don’t. Our purpose in this chapter is to explore reasons some people do not develop integrity.

A myriad of sociopolitical theories exist. Thousands of cultures have disappeared, and the oldest verifiable civilizations date from 5500 years ago.[cxvi] Many ancient inventions are still in use.[cxvii] One list has the United States as the sixth greatest civilization of all time. Therein, only the British Empire and the USA still exist; their durations are 3600 years and 240 years, respectively. Adding the Roman and Greek civilizations may represent Western Civilization, distinguished by Christianity. It began in Mesopotamia, where human culture was first organized.[cxviii]

Today, England is a constitutional monarchy, with Parliament wielding the political power. The USA is a constitutional republic that is presently divided by plutocracy versus democracy.[cxix] More importantly, as a nation that defined itself, America feels it is exceptional,[cxx] while other nations consider it the competition, and social democrats want a new USA government.[cxxi]

American watchwords have been life, liberty, pursuing happiness, manifest destiny, freedom, and greatness, but the past five decades have brought domestic division that seems divergent. What has happened to retard, even regress progress toward the American dream? Perhaps only after 2016, the first time elected officials of the other political party demanded impeachment immediately after a president’s election,[cxxii] may fellow-citizens collaborate to understand what the American dream may be. If we can clarify the dream, we may then examine the distractions and how to minimize them so that we can discover a path to an achievable, better future.

Four timelines of American history

It seems evident that humankind has attempted to contend with the human condition so as to survive if not flourish. Within humankind, the paths different civilizations took created disparity. Untold civilizations no longer exist, because the citizens did not cope with actual reality: appreciation is better than hate; collaboration is better than conflict; order is better than chaos; equity is better than war; integrity is more challenging than honesty. How has America, so far, failed these challenges, and what can We the People of the United States do to reverse the American decline that has emerged as chaos? We view these questions through four timelines.

Religion

Some of the extinct civilizations practiced human sacrifice,[cxxiii] which developed on human reasoning to bargain with imagined gods.[cxxiv] Human sacrifice is almost extinct, except under particular circumstances in some places.[cxxv] However, the imagination of bargaining with reasonable gods is at the heart of religious institutions.

Chapter 6. The Evolution of Ignorance

The timelines of history show that while humankind develops intelligence in its literature and technology, ignorance is unfortunately shared from generation to generation among the people. Cultures preserve dogma at the expense of both facts and the-objective-truth. For example, in the USA, the 1692 Salem atrocity is dubbed “witch trials” to obfuscate the Christian-execution of innocent people. “More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil’s magic—and 20 were executed.”[cxxvi] The subjugation of children so as to preserve dogma is among humankind’s greatest injustices. A civic culture encourages and coaches children to discover their unique persons by understanding the-objective-truth and developing integrity.

The possibility to transition from feral infant to mature person is a provocative, wondrous dilemma. The child knows not that he or she does not know his unique person, and therefore knows not the goal for his her lifetime. If all his or her capabilities were focused on attaining his or her unique personhood, what path would life take? No parent, no teacher, no preacher, no god can help the child decide how to embark on the journey from feral infant to young adult with understanding and intent to live a full human life; and who would tell him or her that the purpose is to discover his or her individual preferences before dying? I think I am the product of the decisions I have made during my life but would not impose that thought on another person.

However, I assert that the well-coached path to young adulthood positions the individual for a rewarding journey to psychological maturity. Only the human individual has the power, energy, and authority to discover his or her preferences. Explicitly, each human has the IPEA---the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority[cxxvii]---to discover his or her person. Stated theologically, the human individual is a god facing death.[cxxviii] Death may come early or late. It seems tragic for humankind when a young person meets death.

Unlike newborns of some species, human infants have not the instincts for survival on their own. For example, a foal stands in about one hour and walks in about three hours.[cxxix] An encouraged, perhaps coached, human walks in nine to fifteen months.[cxxx] The male body completes construction of the brain in about a quarter century.[cxxxi] Cognitive speed peaks in the mid-twenties, but wisdom grows with experience and observations, as indicated by vocabulary.[cxxxii]

Merriam-Webster online defines wisdom “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment.” If reported to be the wisest person, Socrates might have responded, “I know that I know nothing.”[cxxxiii] Wisdom became a focus of research in the 1970s; “Commonly cited subcomponents . . . included knowledge of life, prosocial values, self-understanding, acknowledgement of uncertainty, emotional homeostasis [stability], tolerance, openness, spirituality, and sense of humor.”[cxxxiv] Taking psychological maturing as slower than chronological maturing, at what psychological stage should wisdom be observable? More critically, why is spirituality included in the study while integrity is not among the subcomponents?

I assert that political science, philosophy, history, and the popular “social sciences” are enslaved by the coercions that political regimes, especially the clergy-politician-partnerships [ibid] have maintained in order to suppress individual integrity. Theism and the soul have been involved in reasoning about the human will for good behavior since ancient times---before Aristotle and Plato. But Emanuel Kant considered human will without either of these hypothetical, metaphysical elements.[cxxxv]

According to Kant, we have a morally good will only if we choose to perform morally right actions because they are morally right. There are three grades of [increasing] corruption in the will. First there is frailty . . . a weakness of will. The next stage of corruption is impurity. A person with an impure will . . . performs morally right actions partly . . . because of some other incentive, e.g., self-interest. The final stage of corruption is perversity, or wickedness.

Much has been written about degrees of evil, but our purpose is a practical system of education that lessens the frequency of humans choosing to use IPEA for evil. Kant left the problem of how to discover morality. We propose not an ideal model, but an achievable path to a better way of living. Let fidelity to the-objective-truth lessen evil according to the journey. Kant’s model of the moral good seems sufficient, if not excessive, with four grades of human will: fidelity to the-objective-truth, weakness, impurity, and evil.

            Our first principle, though is that the past did not encounter the problems of today: no one knows what is morally good until the motivation to act is presented such that the good and bad can be understood. Yet when the incentives for action are fully understood, the good may be discovered using the-objective-truth rather than opinion: that is, reason, tradition, rules, law and other human constructs.

For example, given the suspicion that someone is in your home and they may intend you harm, discovering the-objective-truth and benefitting from the discovery rather than getting a gun and shooting at the first sudden movement. I awoke thinking I heard and felt something happening. With my usual self-protection in hand, I creeped in the dark around the house and, reaching the dining room, was startled when a wisp blew a shear away from the window. I wondered. Looking closer, the window was open to ground level! Fear ran through me as I looked closely for a person. I lifted the dining table-cloth, and my son said from the dark, “Dad, it’s me.” I listened to his story, and relief overcame curiosity.

Our purpose in not like Kant’s---perhaps to explain to humankind the way things may be at a point in cultural evolution’s progress. We suggest a plan for satisfactory self-discovery for and by the individual for his or her lifetime. In other words, we hope to help the individual newborn in the two to three decades transition to young adult who has both understanding and intent to discover his or her person. By what preferences will he or she employ IPEA if at all? Is it better to submit IPEA to a chosen doctrine?

Appreciation

The view of or communication with a child inspires wonder. He or she is discovering the world. Perhaps at this moment, there’s fascination with the tips of his or her fingers. I am awestruck and want to know this person’s thoughts and powers. I want to learn the paths of considerations and the conclusions reached. I appreciate this person and want to learn from him or her but know I owe him or her privacy.

Often, he or she will extend an arm with an exploring hand that grabs my glasses or with an open hand and smile for me to meet and greet. The first care-giving to encourage and coach a feral infant and beyond through adolescent transitioning to young adult is to appreciate and preserve the unique person for the sake of his or her attainable purity. The preservation of the unique person is a privilege more than duty for the care-giver, yet if not privilege, duty. In other words, the child ought not be misguided, let alone neglected or abused.

The principle of appreciating the unique person is important during the entire education process. Thus, a professor with a PhD candidate should be informing, encouraging and coaching the person rather than inculcating a school of thought. For example, a constitutional law professor may favor interpretation by originalism, textualism, pragmatism, or stare decisis,[cxxxvi] but the student should graduate with the commitment to uphold the agreement that is offered in the preamble and the-objective-truth. The education system in a civic culture encourages and coaches the student to accept IPEA and choose to use it to develop integrity.

A plan for an education system

The purpose of education is to present to students for comprehension and understanding the leading edge of humankind’s knowledge. It is basic for choosing and maintaining a viable path to adult maturity. The present generation neither knows what will be discovered by individuals in the next generation nor the mistakes adults are making as they encourage and coach students for prosperity in the future. The present system of education is at least misguided. Instead of appreciating the individual, education seeks to inculcate virtual slaves for the economic system.

Civically Encouraging Child Authenticity

The overarching expression of appreciation for each child is to encourage natural civic morality rather than the opinion-based morality imposed by god-government or equivalent social partnerships. Civic morality is based on the-objective-truth, which may be observed through physics.

“Physics” as reported by Merriam-Webster online means “a science that deals with matter and energy and the way they act on each other in heat, light, electricity, and sound.”  However, “science” is a study rather than the object of the study. The study of physics has resulted in the development of laws of physics that are regarded as indisputable because they apply to all of the existing known physical data.  Applying “physics” to mean the object of study, physics is energy, mass and space-time, from which everything on earth emerges. Humankind does not know the origin of physics. Perhaps before energy, mass and space-time there was only potential energy. However, Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity became a law in 2016, with the detection of gravitational waves.[cxxxvii] We know from radiation measurements that physics began 13.8 billion years ago. Therefore, we may say with relative confidence that energy equals mass times the speed of light squared is a confirmation of our definition of physics, the object of fallible scientific study. It follows that through physics, the bedrock of actual reality rather than human scientific study, humankind gradually discovers and understands the-objective-truth. 

When adults collaborate to discover and employ the-objective-truth rather than reason or faith, they establish civic appreciation for children and provide for the children’s children to be conceived---posterity. Appreciation of each infant’s personhood is critical to a possible better way of living.

There are many opinions about the stages of human life. Every individual would be glad they read and took good notes on H.A. Overstreet’s book The Mature Mind, 1949. The reader becomes aware that each human being is born ignorant, irresponsible, inarticulate, sexually diffuse, and self-centered into a world of isolated particulars. I’ve read books about stages of faith and do not recommend them, but would not discourage any individual’s pursuits of their preferences. I do not appreciate Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge, because it, unjustifiably in my opinion, denigrates my trust-in and commitment to the-objective-truth; yet I am glad I read his thoughts.

Lots of people’s ideas, some perhaps dangerous, spring from Erik Erikson’s eight-stage theory.[cxxxviii] Psychosocial identifiers in chronological order are: hope, will, purpose, competency, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom. Interestingly, the last three values come after age 18.

I don’t doubt there is evidence for the Erikson theory and bountiful commentary on epigenetic principles but object to the notion of social values imposed on individual humans. Imposed social values unjustly influence people’s lives. Without either social coercion or government force the individual human would discover his or her values much faster. I say this not from social democracy studies but from personal experience: In the middle of my eighth decade, I articulate that at age 10 or so my tendency to trust-in and commit to the-objective-truth was evident but neither encouraged nor coached. Instead, my caretakers inculcated the combination of a particular factional Christianity and an American folklore. That sociopolitical partnership was so materially good to me that I continued to try to force myself into their mold for five decades. If one of the women I courted in my hometown had fallen in love with me, I’d still be in that mold and not understand the comfortable, hopeful misery I’d be suffering. How can the indoctrinated individual escape materialism? I do not know.

I only know my experience and observations: I fell in love with MWW, my wonderful wife. Her Christianity is radically different and right for her, and her serene confidence is contagious. I could not articulate my attraction to her, but before long, when I would court my wife, “You are so beautiful,” she would respond, “I know. I know; you are not talking about my looks.” After about a quarter century, I realized I had been trying to recruit her to my branch of Christianity---tried to ruin the wondrous individual I loved. I got down on my knees, apologized, and promised to reform. I immediately dropped out of my Christian brotherhood. The process of discovering my long-standing trust-in and commitment-to the-objective-truth had begun. I imagine it takes hard-earned trauma like that for a human to break indoctrination. Therefore, I oppose indoctrination, coercion, and force in encouraging and coaching a newborn into his or her unique young adulthood.

Most children naturally gravitate toward personal autonomy. The civic child regards basic learning as temporal, yet vital, personal opportunity to acquire understanding in order to comprehend full life unto psychological maturity, perhaps above age 65 if at all. In other words, what the child acquires by earnest work during school years only provides the foundation for learning during years of earning the living he or she wants so as to develop his or her person. The civic child, by accepting IPEA, reduces the class-division incorporated in the constitution for the USA and adapted from British, opinion-based law. Every child in America imagines a dream come true, provided she or he masters the bases of understanding during her or his first two or three decades; however, few are coached unto psychological success. Consequently, some aware American children erroneously dream to escape to Denmark. [cxxxix] They may reform America rather than escape.

Incentives rather than coercion and force

A civic culture is aware of its obligation to encourage and coach students to accept IPEA and use it to develop integrity. We propose to use incentives rather than coercion and force and to motivate children to become asset builders rather than consumers. The premise of this theory is that a civic culture provides every collaborative child financial incentives to join the asset class rather than languish in the labor class. In as short as three decades, the ages-old assets v labor class-division of We the People of the United States would be significantly lessened. Instead of oppressor and oppressed within factional societies, there’d be a civic culture with willing members collaborating to raise the American capital system to new heights. More importantly a civic people would reduce both the poor-class demographic and the middle class demographic by increasing the upper class. Dissenters would exist, as usual, and discovered criminals would suffer the rule of law, as now.

This program could improve American capitalism by reducing the size of the poorer population in two ways. First, rededicating civic resources from adult satisfaction to obligations to children, who are more vulnerable than chronologically adult persons, including those who are psychologically underage for their capabilities. Second, directly informing children that, first, civic citizens appreciate each collaborative person and, second, a child is a person who may collaborate. Most children innately collaborate and must learn dissent by example.

We think acting on this proposal would lessen division of inhabitants into asset class versus labor class, without threatening the first principle of property ownership. The proposal fairly distributes annual gross domestic product (GDP). There is no legislative redistribution of existing property: a person’s home remains his or her castle and a person’s savings for retirement remain hers or his. Acquisition of assets comes at market price from earned income, rather than on arbitrary redistribution by government. However, government becomes attentive to population growth and personal income to assure that each adult may earn a living plus savings to invest. Legislation is used to control the distribution of GDP according to human justice rather than to favor the elite population. In other words, persons who accept the responsibility for entrepreneurship are rewarded accordingly, but not at the expense of consumers who collaborate in free markets. Perhaps this becomes a labor department function that parallels the fed’s attention to inflation and interest rates. As always legislation must be accompanied by cooperation by the people: adults would need to save and invest at the target rates for the lifestyle the citizen prefers. In other words, people who are satisfied with average lifestyle save at average dollar rates, which may translate to a higher percentage of their earned income. Providing incentives for children to take charge of their own comprehension, understanding, and intentions would reduce the number of psychologically immature adults in the future.

Capital v labor is a competitive condition that was carried over from English common law and Western socio-economic thought in general. The capital versus labor divide seems unjust and is determined and maintained by scholarly construct or opinion-based ethics instead of physics-based morality or the-objective-truth. “Physics” is energy, mass and space-time from which everything including law emerges, as explained in Footnote [?]. Humankind discovers what has emerged from physics and learns how to benefit and, through physics, learns the-objective-truth. The interrelated system of benefits constitutes physics-based morality or human morality. According to physics, the capital versus labor divide damages the psychological welfare of every American—the most elite as well as the poorest.

Psychological well-being is promoted by separating precious religious values from necessary civic values; social liberty from civic liberty; personal privacy from civic collaboration; imagination from actual reality; appetite from fidelity; appreciation versus egocentricity; fear versus serenity. “Civic” means connections because persons ineluctably, both directly and indirectly, share moments and decades in the same space and time. Social associations are chosen for preference, class or imposed collectivism. In other words, a civic culture of safety and security empowers responsible societies.

What’s new in this proposal is traditional property a subset of assets and coaching every citizen to convert labor into assets by saving and investing a portion of earnings. Just as a person may earn their money to support their preferred lifestyle, they may collaborate to enjoy civic morality. The goal of this proposal is real-no-harm individual liberty with civic morality and its corollary, individual morality with civic liberty.

Furthermore, new in this proposal is the recognition that the first step in discovery is imagination, and any imagined entity that has not been disproved by physics remains a potentially valid entity. For example, the fact that no individual’s god has been discovered does not imply there is no God. Perhaps new dimensions of perception will empower future discovery of the God. Thus, ideas such as the existence of a god or gods awaits discovery of evidence leading to proof. However, since there is no proof at this time, the many god constructs that human groups have developed cannot be used to deny physics-based morality or the-objective-truth. Therefore, for the first time in history, civic people may actually separate private pursuits from civic provisions and inform their governments---state and federal---that they are to follow the religiously neutral agreement that is offered in the preamble. We want this message disseminated by September 17, 2018, and the reform to happen gradually—perhaps in three decades or less. Some opinion already conforms to the-objective-truth. For example, murder and human sacrifice are both illegal. However, the right to both illegally carry a gun and rebuke police-authority is a hot debate in the USA.

            Below, we present details and goals of child incentives then review background leading to the proposal. Make no mistake: this is not a proposal to impose privacy on anyone, but it is a proposal to collaborate for civic safety with domestic well-being. Every idea is proposed for collaboration by civic citizens; that is, the author does not pretend that these ideas are a final or preferred solution to a complex, long-standing problem. Collaboration is a voluntary act; we regard this a proposal for consideration by a civic people.

The Louisiana child incentives program

Patterned after existing Louisiana programs START and TOPS, child incentives begins with either 1) parents’ official notice to the state that they intend to conceive a child or 2) school notification that a child is developing civic morality[cxl] and should apply for the incentives. Either a couple enrolls their intended child or a civic child’s performance in school prompts the state to notify the child (and parents) on his or her own merit. With future educational-collaboration and achievement by the child, at each step toward adulthood, an asset set-aside in the child’s name builds, collectible only upon the child’s emergence as a collaboratively autonomous, civic person. The evidence is approved graduation from four-year college or equivalent accomplishment.

If the parents fail to register their intent to procreate, six months after a child’s birth the state informs the parents about the program and offers parental training. Also, the non-registered parents are encouraged to independently fund their child’s initial asset, to assure their child’s equality and dignity with children whose conception had prior registration. The information focuses on the child and the parents positioning him/her to qualify for the civic program. Single parents are similarly informed. However, the infant incentive-set-aside is exclusively for children who are with married parents, providing discouragement of single parenthood. Yet the child of a single parent may later qualify for subsequent stages in the program, as discussed below.

The following is a list of qualifications concerns we have that have not been discussed with civic citizens—in other words, it’s a draft list that has no input beyond the author’s work:

Only applications by parents meeting the following criteria will be reviewed:

• Must be United States citizens
• Must have been residents of Louisiana for the last five years.
• Marriage license is at least three years old and there have been no overt marital disputes
• The intended child is expected no sooner than eleven months
• The couple is financially stable at their earning level with present margin and promising future to parent a child in their lifestyle
• The couple must have graduated from high school and submit the final transcript
• The couple must have completed approved
• human-reproduction education and marriage education
• exclusive intimacy (monogamy) strengthens fidelity to physics, self, spouse, and others
• monogamy for life assures parents intend to support both children and grandchildren as well as children’s children and grandchildren (posterity)
• Comprehension of basic dualisms: intention vs accomplishment; hate vs appreciation, jealousy vs serenity, gullibility vs confidence; pleasure vs pain; fear vs humility.
• parenting education
• Family finances
• Building assets by saving and investing: converting labor into assets
• training on the importance of gender role-models[cxli]
• No felony convictions in the last five years and good witness to current behavior
• Must submit one character-reference letter
• Must pass a drug test at the time of application.

At the child’s age six months, parents visit a representative of Louisiana—an advisor from family services. The advisor reviews the purposes of the program, at first with the parents but after the child reaches first grade, primarily with the child:

·         Appreciate the child’s personhood: appreciation by his or her family, city, state and country

·         Inform and encourage the child to acquire a mature education for successively

·         Developing comprehension

·         Acquiring personal autonomy

·         Embracing collaborative autonomy

·         Choosing an authentic path toward personal discovery leading perhaps to

·         Psychological maturity during a full lifetime

·         Psychological liberty from both external constraints and personal contradictions

·         Serving humankind in a capacity that empowers individual liberty with civic morality

·         Hand the registered infant a certificate of record that $5,370 has been placed in a Vanguard stock-index set-aside in the child’s name, collectable no sooner than age 30.5 only by the collaborative, autonomous adult that emerged from the civic child.

The following points are covered even for unregistered infants, reported to CECP by hospitals:

·         Capital is a means of supplementing wages to build financial strength; the suggestion is to live on at most 85% of income and invest the balance throughout life, accumulating wealth according to increasing accomplishments.

·         Additional set-asides occur on application-approval by the state when the child satisfactorily finishes pre-school and successively advances beyond. Approval gradually shifts to the child rather than parents.

·         For the unregistered infant, the parents were shown at the baby’s age six months how to dedicate $5,370 to their child, perhaps with their payments over time, patterned after START, a Louisiana program.

·         The agent for the state coaches the parents 1) to trust their child’s nobility to understand and behave responsibly and 2) to remind the child that he or she is a person and has the opportunity to enter the child incentives program. The parents receive a coaching brochure.

The infant incentive, $5,370, may grow; assuming 4%[cxlii] interest, $17,400 accrues when the person reaches 30-1/2 years old. Awareness of this asset advantage encourages parents to qualify their children, because that is the only way the child gets the infant incentive, to become $17,400. Parents who did not register their infant can create the $5,370 infant account independently, hopefully at six months. This feature of the program encourages family planning and discourages yet does not attempt to prevent single parenthood.

Unregistered infants may later join the incentive program on personal, civic merit as determined by the state, beginning upon completion of preschool. The preschool merit is justified on little more than attending the preschool according to the child’s natural abilities, so most children who respond (with their parents) to the state notice receive a certificate for the preschool set-aside, which is $6,440. The message is that the state appreciates him or her as a person. Impact at age 30.5 and college graduate or equivalent could be $16,500, as tabulated below. Likewise he or she is coached to appreciate his or her own person and therefore take charge of comprehension, understanding and intentions, hopefully for a lifetime of learning. Borrowing thoughts from James Kirylo[cxliii], just as an infant must crawl and then walk on his or her own, the transition from child to adult must be a personal accomplishment. The first two decades is that critical time when everyone should encourage the child “to regard [basic] learning as a [relatively] brief yet personally vital opportunity to acquire understanding” and keep that motivation vital throughout the schooling decades. Quoting Austin Guidry, 2016 LSU student in chemical engineering, “Every adult should do all they can do to help each child.” The overall three-decade transition from infant to civic young adult we dub the Overstreet[cxliv] transition to self-discovery.

The student’s transition to psychological adult

There is a review of performance and standards at each stage of the student’s development. It is possible for a person to alienate from the program. At each step, there is additional coaching. For example, while average wages are taxed at over 30%, long-term, capital gains are taxed at 15%; therefore, it is better, in personal need, to temporarily work for more wages—work more hours--rather than spend savings: preserving assets is the key to future financial independence. To assure private liberty each person must both earn his or her living expenses and collaborate on civic morality—be a civic citizen; otherwise, the person may hope someone will provide for them and consequently rule them.[cxlv] Also, a person’s body builds its brain slowly, and the parts needed to develop wisdom are not complete until age twenty-five (male) or twenty-three (female).[cxlvi] Personal autonomy should be a prime commitment during the individual’s decade of high risk-tendencies starting age fifteen. Therefore, at each incentive presentation, the state representative confirms with the student that she or he understands that 1) capitalism produces gains in the set-aside (and reviews the status of the prior set-asides) and 2) a potential stake in American capitalism represents Louisiana’s appreciation for her or him as a participant in civic morality. The student learns that each person has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (IPEA) to develop integrity. The asset set-aside is increased at key accomplishments as follows:

·         $6,440 upon completion of preschool; becomes $16,500 at age 30-1/2 and 4% compound interest

·         $7,730 upon above average completion of sixth grade; becomes $15,660

·         $9,280 upon further above average completion of twelfth grade and acceptance into trade school or college; becomes $14,860

·         $11,140 upon even higher completion of 4-year college before age 22; or $5,570 before age 26; becomes either $15,250 or $6,520.

The maximum set-aside of $40,000 would grow at 4% net returns to a stake of $80,000 at age 30.5 and on to $415,000 at age 72-1/2. If the student joined the program on merit at age six, the stake at age 30.5 is $62,600, which could grow to $325,000 at age 70/1/2; if joining at age twelve, the maximum stake at age 30.5 is $42,000, and that amount could grow to $218,000 at age 70-1/2. With good job placement by age 30.5, the person might turn his or her stake into a retirement-income account.

Contingencies

If the family moved to another state, the student-incentive would continue on state-equivalent qualifications bases. Only the emerged, qualified adult could collect the funds or roll them over into another investment, such as Roth IRA, at age 30-1/2. If the awardee chose to leave America any time before age 70-1/2, he or she could pay the tax and withdraw the funds. If the awardee defaulted before age 30-1/2 (death, criminal conviction, drop out of school, or such), the set-aside would revert to the state.

Publicity

Following The Taylor Foundation’s example, the educational non-profit ACP (see below) would promote CECA to encourage parents to involve every child and to encourage every child to take charge of her/his personal authenticity and civic morality.

With 64,000 births per year in Louisiana and a speculated 50% enrollment, the first year set-asides for infants might amount to $170 million. There’d be administration costs. Before those infants emerged as over 30 adults, the Louisiana community should be more inviting to children and children to be born and thus to adult inhabitants. Federal and state welfare costs should be lessened by the program, because most emerging adults would have more control of their finances and by then may appreciate their own person as much as the state does. In other words, most young adults might be self-reliant.

The program appreciates children as independent persons, and assuming 24,000 qualifying students at each level, additional set-asides each year might be, in millions of dollars: 155, 185, 223, and 267, respectively, or $1 billion total including the infant incentives. With demonstrated success, expansion of personal American capitalism as we imagine, the incentives could increase. Potentials for increase come from both remedial-welfare cost-savings and increases in Louisiana productivity and well-being. Again, not fostering a poor class by appreciating and encouraging children unto personal authenticity would probably increase GDP.

Existing Louisiana programs to assist students: START and TOPS

Louisiana has two existing programs to help families in the essential duty and privilege of educating children: 1) the tax-free saving program with limited matching funds, called Student Tuition Assistance and Revenue Trust (START)[cxlvii], and 2) the Taylor Opportunity Plan for Students (TOPS)[cxlviii]. These two programs would continue in parallel and without competing with CECA for Louisiana support.[cxlix]

            The Advocate recently reviewed reports on START by John Kennedy, Louisiana Treasurer.[cl] Only $10 is required to open an account; a depositor (parent, grandparent, or family friend) can exempt from Louisiana tax up to $2,400/yr or $4,800 if filling jointly; the 529 earnings are tax-free. There are 52,000 depositors with almost $600 million in assets. Students can spend the proceeds on tuition, fees, computers, and other legitimate college, community college, technical college, or business certification expenses. Parental contributions to CECA could be similarly tax exempt.

            

Background

This proposal emerged from ongoing work to establish A Civic People of the United States.[cli] It seems evident, for example by the nation’s large debt, that American persons should appreciate and pay more attention to their children, grandchildren, and beyond, or personal posterity, known civically as “posterity.” We think civic America impersonally generalizes “posterity” and thereby some adults overlook their personal posterity—their children and grandchildren. For example, the 4 million newborns each year face national debt of $4.6 million each; that debt is being increased by the consumption by the newborns from last year as well as extant adults! Of course newborns may never see the debt, but what will happen? Will adults just keep spending? Will America collapse under its own appetites?

 Economic viability is a first principle of the-objective-truth. How does the physics of expanding debt work? Who is expanding the debt? We think the American traditions of cultivating British common law—Blackstone—and governance under the king’s trinity, adapted to “freedom of religion” is originally responsible for the expanding debt at the expense of the poor and middle classes. We cannot solve formidable national opposition to individual liberty with civic morality, but we can take charge and collaborate in the Great State of Louisiana to stop misery and loss generated by We the People of the United States.

We propose incentives for Louisiana parental planning with benefits to the children who in three decades emerge as collaboratively autonomous adults. We think at least 2/3 of inhabitants would like parental planning, but that children should not solely suffer defaulting parents—the 1/3. If parents do not register their intent to procreate, children who demonstrate civic morality may join the program on their own merit. Thereby, during childhood and adolescence, children know they are persons and potential owners in American capitalism if they apply themselves to achieve personal autonomy and collaborative autonomy—civic authenticity. The child applies to the state and a representative tells the child he or she is a person. If something happens to tear the child’s world apart—a divorce or worse—he or she has the knowledge that a civic people “has their back,” provided they persevere to acquire understanding for their own sakes,[clii] no matter how early in life some traumatic challenge may come their way. A civic culture encourages children to emerge as adults with potential to psychologically mature over the course of their long lives—perhaps eighty-five years: The rate of early death would be lessened in Louisiana.

Religious morality

I don’t have experience with other religions, but it seems Christianity has long taught that one of the higher meanings of human life is parenting and family fidelity. Marriage has noble images, but the details, such as fidelity, are obfuscated to some churches. Fidelity to spouse involves no sexual intimacy with other human beings, for life. However, the human continues, like other animals, readily empathetic toward other humans in general and familiar humans in particular. Psychological empathy is exacerbated by physical attraction and driven by the chemistry of sex. A spouse who nourishes an extramarital attraction is susceptible to hormonal and psychological influences-- passion. It takes awareness of biology and fidelity to self to fulfill the important intentions of marriage. But it also requires fidelity to physics, spouse, children, grandchildren, and beyond. In other words, to remain faithful, a person must understand appreciative bonding. In these respects, civic morality has failed to improve woefully inadequate religious doctrine. A civic people has not stepped in to teach what religion will not teach: both sex for procreation and forming beneficial intimate relationships—appreciative bonding. Denial that sex drives are a major feature of both human existence and fulfillment of life is central to age-old civic dysfunction and personal failure to form better human relationships.

The failure is partially due to the nature of religion, which would construct hope and comfort against whatever concerns a person may have, whether by understanding or by mystery. What a person hopes for from personal gods is left to the gods to fulfill. An example is concern about the afterdeath—that vast time after the body, mind, and person stop functioning.[cliii] The precious promise of Christian morality is comforting eternal life, which seems a harmless hope. Christianity looks to Jesus for salvation of the soul and Christian doctrine inculcates spiritual morality to fulfill the afterlife. But the obbject for a civic culture is each person’s safety and security during life, which requires civic morality—beyond the particulars of dogma for salvation from death.  

However, religion falsely claims to generate all morality. A civic culture recognizes that only persons can deliver civic morality. In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln, with the Confederate States of America already seceded, said, “Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?” I think therein Lincoln was separating civic morality from Christian morality, which in 1861 was embarking on war against itself within one body politick. That is, white, Southern Christian church waged war with white, Northern Christian church over more erroneous Bible beliefs.[cliv]  We think a civic culture can fulfill Lincoln’s vision and do not want to delay the reforms: Christians among other factional groups may comprehend that individual liberty with civic morality is achievable if 2/3 of the people collaborate to establish a civic culture.

Also, the Christian notion that a couple’s intimacy is exclusively for procreation seems gravely erroneous. Intimacy is also for human bonding—appreciative bonding, which should precede both making love and procreation. We prefer the term “making love” rather than “having sex,” and making love can be practiced with procreation prevention, even with no intercourse. Appreciative bonding should be mature when making love occurs or procreation is intended. A typical couple who have not psychologically bonded are not prepared to extend their intimacy to progeny. And with bodies that complete construction of the brain at age twenty-five, procreation probably should not happen before age thirty or so.

Often, misery springs from “love” and being “in love,” concepts generally regarded as unassailable. We contend that psychological appreciation is critical to human relationships and appreciation should take its place in the determination of whom to love. If a person does not appreciate a person, there is no civic excuse for attempting to either make love or have sex; sex for sport is a private matter until harm becomes public. On the other hand, couples who established appreciative bonding have sex when there are no internal or external constraints on their love. These ideas are not meant for imposition on other people. However, heretofore, civics has left it to religion to convey these critical issues to children, adolescents, and chronological adults; leaving it to religion amounts to abdication of civic responsibility: Extant civics repairs broken lives when it could be promoting integrity for a lifetime. What’s needed is candid, appreciative talk among a civic people. A civic people soothe emotionalism with civic personal appreciation.

Today’s society, a way of living that is chosen by many persons, promotes the notion that to satisfy adult appetites is the rewarding type of life. I even witnessed a woman tacitly stating that relieving men’s sexual appetites is a civic responsibility! Proponents for “safe” promiscuity claim monogamy represses desire and natural satisfactions during life, and they have a point, but does appetite-gratification entail civic well-being? No. The claims of mutually permissive expectations include: sex partners may know and exchange satisfactions in promiscuity; fidelity and jealousy are manageable attitudes; passions may focus on short term objectives, like “needing someone to love me”; appetites are to be nourished; humans are smart enough to be promiscuous without harm. There may come a time when these concepts are in evidence by humankind—perhaps at a higher civic morality than today’s performance--but it is not currently indicated. Today, there seems to be a high level of misery and loss. Suicide rates are increasing.[clv] Children learn from a conflicted world, and many children suffer abuse then grow up to innovate suffering---create new ways beyond the old.

The consequences of sexually promiscuous attitudes are not pretty, and I do not need to enumerate them. But regardless of how personal harm happened, a civic people deliver the remedial action when human passion exceeds self-control, whether the problem is disease, neglect, abuse, rape, or murder. For example, as soon as the abuse of a child is evident, the State of Louisiana takes charge of the child and may prosecute the parent. As an alternative to helping abused children, a civic culture has responsibility to discourage harmful behavior through persuasion, incentives, and other influences. A civic people prevents abuse rather than reacts to abuse.

We the People of the United States has stood indolent while the sex revolution, started with the 1949 Kinsey reports has led to over 30% of Americans involved in sex abuse either as victim or perpetrator or both. Civic morality should focus more on preventing pain and misery and abuse and thereby lessen the need for remediation. I’m being repetitious on opposing abuse. That is the originating motivation for this proposal: a civic people will do what it can to lessen child abuse and adult abuse. Additionally, focus on posterity and safety has led to a more inspiring legislative proposal—to lessen class distinctions in the USA by providing incentives for parents and children to collaborate for the child’s potential ownership in American capitalism when the child emerges a young, civic adult.

This section is labeled “religious morality” and ends on sexual abuse, which may seem disconnected. However, precious religion would offer people comfort in the face of unknowns, and religious practices tend to inculcate dependency on higher powers. But control of sexual behavior is by IPEA, and promiscuity can become a civic issue if the person does not learn self-control. A civic people recognizes the power of sex and takes charge of sex education, leaving religious education to the church.

Existing class problems born in ignorance
           

Below, we discuss a combination of economic and class problems and proposals for reform. In this discussion “civic” refers to necessary human connections because persons occupy the same land during the same years rather than “social” human contacts persons prefer or are classed by. Beyond learning from past civic mistakes, civic morality according to “traditional” opinion has no value for 2018 civic morality. For examples, both Marxism and liberation theology are of no interest, except to expose errors of the past. Some Bible interpretations support slavery. The 2018 goal is to develop full civic lives, minimize misery and maximize individual liberty with civic morality—increase personal safety and security, leaving the afterdeath to the-objective-truth. HERE1

First, federal welfare programs that redistribute taxes to poor and middle-class adults adversely affect Louisiana civic collaboration, keeping inhabitants in the bottom of fifty-state rankings in many categories. It is a self-promoting federal problem imposed on Louisiana inhabitants; the federal government cares not about Louisiana human costs, often early death. With this state program, PECA, federal welfare programs would continue, but PECA would deliberately lessen or eliminate future Louisiana applications through higher earned incomes relatively soon, perhaps within three decades. In other words, this program lessens federal welfare in Louisiana by lifting earned income and saving Louisiana people from the federal government! (I’m reminded of Jeremiah Wright’s non-religious essence, look not to government,[xix] but prefer borrowing Abraham Lincoln’s words quoted above to suggest: willing persons cultivate ACP.)

Second, American capitalism, perhaps among the world’s best economic systems, needs “tweaking” so as to involve the poor not merely as consumers but as owners, not necessarily of property but of assets. Today, the elite and the affluent are both aware that fortunes are made by investing in and owning the world’s largest financial market—American capitalism. The elite, intentionally or not, take for granted their long-practiced advantage against the poor, who are kept ignorant of assets and dependent upon labor. Federalist 10 could convince some readers that favoring the elite is James Madison’s intention. Elite children receive elite educations and their family-financial assets build during the process. Some elites hypocritically say elite children come up “by the grace of their gods,” and the poor can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” Some poor and middle class people succeed despite these political and religious propaganda, but more fail even though they contribute to the nation’s consumerism, and some simply die young. The consequence is that “the American dream” is a nightmare for many inhabitants.

If you don’t inherit assets, you have to save and invest earnings to build assets. Otherwise, your life-style is limited to what you earn, and leaving something to personal posterity—helping your children to a better life--is not likely. I like the advice to live on 85% of net income for life, using the 15% to build assets. But that possibility for many Americans does not exist. Below is data on income[xx], thresholds[xxi], taxes[xxii], and money available to spend for various income levels of Americans:

Top % income	Income $	Tax          Rate %	Tax $	Spend $	Ratio	Spend/ Median Tax
1 .0	368238	20.9	76962	291276	12	67
0.5	558726	16.8	93866	464860	19	107
0.1	1695136	10.3	174599	1520537	62	350
0.01	9141190	5	457060	8684131	353	1999
Median	28964	15	4345	24619	1	6
GDP/person	56600	25	14150	42450	1.7	10

The last row, $56,600 income, approximates the cost of living, and the average taxpayer has enough to live on, but 50% of inhabitants have only half the required income (median). The last two columns are ratios. First, there’s spending divided by the median taxpayer’s spending. People with average income may spend 1.7 times more than people with median income, and the top 1% may spend 12 times as much. The last column has the ratio of what may be spent to tax paid by the median taxpayer. That ratio is 10 for the average taxpayer and 67 for the top 1%! The income imbalance is shocking! Unbelievable! And it obtains by the grace of a god: What god?

If a person with income at the cost of living saves 15%, year, that’s $6,370, leaving them only $36,080 to spend toward the cost of living, $56,600! If the median earner saves 15% or $3,690, they are left with a further impoverishing $20,920 to spend. The top 1% save $43,690 and spend $247,590 as their 85%. The poor have no hope for saving and investing, and therefore their children tend to be kept in the poor class. ACP can change this American travesty, without raising the question of wealth disparity, which is much worse. Many studies write about the wealth gap, perhaps to obfuscate the income disparity.

How this travesty developed

Long-standing Edmund-Burkean (British, d. 1797) tradition overlooks the advantages of including the poor in ownership of capital, whether land or stocks or an enterprise. Adam Smith (d. 1790) also overlooked the advantage of including the poor as persons who are appreciated in civic morality; Smith claimed a person needed “propriety” to enter the discussion. James Madison advocated protecting the elite from the masses in Federalist 10 (1787), expressing the attitude that only the elite know how to distribute capital. The elite were theistic, land-owning, educated, British colonial men. America has needed to recover from British common law under Protestant theism ever since.

In this proposal, the elite benefit from collaborating with productive masses rather than continuing to repress the masses; the elite now take enough of GDP to carry welfare persons who receive tax redistribution. With the masses instead participating as asset owners, the entire economy increases to a new high. CECA is designed to preserve property ownership yet share the gross domestic product on a more per capita basis. The above table indicates the problem but not the cause, which seems to be our opinion-based system of governance. If you want to understand me on this point about opinion, read any 2014 Supreme Court decision.[xxiii] Justices argue opinion about prior opinion, then take a vote and the majority opinion prevails. With a committee of nine, mobocracy is guaranteed on every decision, including whether to accept a case or not. When past American cases don’t provide them reference, they often site Blackstone, an eighteenth century statement of British common law, complete with Protestant theism.  We need better than opinion-based ethics and its progeny, religion. ACP proposes physics-based ethics to determine TIFR based civic morality, a first principle of which is economic viability for every civic person.

The poor, with typical human gullibility,[xxiv] often perceive that increasing their wages is the way to the American dream. In today’s market, often the poor forego essential education-the basics-- to enter the high-risk sports or entertainment worlds, again with the gullibility that they will be among the few who succeed. The risk-reward relationships in those fields are like the lottery: There needs to be economic reform. The local school system just lowered the grade requirement for extra-curricular activities from 2.0 to 1.5, literally to “save lives,” some administrators claim at the behest of well-meaning coaches. Meanwhile, some high schools in the USA are eliminating the violent sports--to save lives. The chances of reaching the top in sports are slim. Many top athletes never recognize capitalism’s power to build security or beyond through financial wealth.

People with inherited wealth think that’s the way it ought to be: only the elite people own American capitalism. Again, they have advantage by the grace of their god. A civic people has the responsibility to reform that age-old myth, as well as “you will always have the poor,” perhaps the-objective-truth for a few, but too often used as an excuse for elite-protective legislation imposed on the many.

Beyond any argument the elite might express to justify keeping poor children from ownership in American capitalism—from partnership in the world’s largest economic market as both consumer and owner—reform of GDP distribution is a key to American civic morality and American financial security. Every inhabitant has less psychological well-being because of the labor v assets unfairness in the USA. The physics of this injustice is much like the physics of slavery—chains, whips, guns, brutality and abuse to salves with burdens to slave-masters.

Third, while we set lofty public-education goals like 90% high-school graduation by 2020, some children do not want to learn and their parents don’t care. A nation needs and wants civic children but does not protect candidates against unaware, neglectful, abusive, and murderous parents, care-takers, and a conflicted world. The damage by harmful parents happens too early in the child’s life for the child to ever recover the opportunity he or she had as a newborn. Would that we had a magic wand--to return to a state of nature--that child who has not overcome this conflicted country: but physics—energy, mass and space-time--marches on without mercy. ACP should apologize to children in the cycle of poverty: the poor beget the poor and We the People of the United States don’t care! By tradition, We the People of the United States wait for their personal god or their government to stop the abuse of their posterity. ACP should feel remorse for not correcting this long-standing offense against children! ACP should provide CECA but also consider procreation licensing to defend children from being born to psychological children and child abusers living in adult bodies. And this has nothing to do with skin color rather has to do with abuse of people and physics: Physics returns multiple woe for woe: that’s why we observe America exponentially declining.

The Pope, during his September 2015 visit railed about environmental issues but did not recant his encouragement for couples to procreate. But Bill Nye, talking about what individuals can do about global warming includes, “. . . educating more women and girls. Because that is the surest route to controllably, manageably reducing the human population.”[xxv] If we modify Nye’s statement to include men, it is a much softer approach than my blunt “procreation licensing,” yet procreation licensing might facilitate his suggestion.

The loudest political noise in this country is that skin color matters, half a century after the USA declared skin color does not matter, and I naively (it seems now, but I’m still anticipating) celebrated the key events: the 1964 and 1965 civil rights acts on non-discrimination and voting rights. I did not notice it in 1963, but MLK asserted focus on his four children to emphasize reform for blacks. (More egregiously respecting my civic morality then, I did not take to heart the “check cashing” part of his speech.) Today, only 20% of poor children under 18 are black.[xxvi] That’s right: 80% of America’s poor children are non-black. “Black church,” perhaps 6.5% of Americans,[xxvii] continues in MLK’s egocentric, “victimized” psychology. In fact, some of black church extols black liberation theology (James Cone, 1969, 2009), when some elite black theologians have their way. In Cone’s theology, the Christian god is black, and a white person can save his/her soul[xxviii] only by helping black Americans gain supremacy! Perhaps we see black liberation theology in action in New Orleans with the drive to remove Civil War memorials. New Orleans monument-moving proponents take a narrow view of history: There’s nobody urging to tear down St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo for seventeen centuries of offenses by the Catholic Church—including the fifteenth-century Doctrine of Discovery and granting monopolies on African slave trade. No one complains about a Bible canonized by the Catholic Church that contains both old and new books that justify slavery. There’s no one marching to honor the African gods that motivated the African slave trade. I doubt that American blacks who are Catholic are sympathetic to black liberation theology. Few inhabitants will even discuss black liberation theology.

Skin colors of gods may be an interesting debate, but arbitrary fractionation of Christianity is a cultural aside—a private art form. And salvation by Jesus is a personal pursuit for the afterdeath, not a civic pursuit for check cashing or other non-civic favoritism. That’s the issue that brought me the label “heretic” in Southern Baptist Sunday school: I said my church should treat all neighbors the same, and the teacher adamantly disagreed with me. Now, he’s in the church, and I’m happily out yet seeking to collaborate with him. Recalling Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, only ACP can negotiate civic morality. America needs an over-arching culture of ACP that influences We the People of the United States to collaborate for civic morality. With an over-arching culture of civic morality, cultural factions such as black liberation theology can flourish in private as long as they do not enact civic harm. The idea that some Americans are African-Americans is OK as a factional culture, but African-Americans can join the over-arching civic culture. ACP collaborates so that skin-color does not matter and the totality We the People of the United States can be approached asymptotically.

Beyond real-no-harm social cultures, ACP has the duty to try to involve every child-inhabitant in American capitalism. When injustice is discovered, ACP collaborates for reform. However, some persons will not collaborate for PLwCM. Some people can’t overcome their desire for alienation so as to compete for domination. People must be free to alienate, as long as they don’t perpetrate harm. However, people who alienate should know they are of We the People of the United States but not of ACP of the United States, a voluntary, over-arching culture guided by TIFR, discoverable through physics.

Fourth, ACP treating children as persons would empower children to comprehend—more convincingly than either private or public exhortations, admonishments, punishments and hypocrisy motivate them. We propose setting aside funds for collaborative children to work for a potential stake in American capitalism. Take some of the taxes now redistributed to adults---both through welfare and through tax deductions, factional favoritism, and support for adult entertainment--- to set-aside for each child the funds to become available to her or him as an emerging adult who collaborates for civic morality. The grantor, the state of Louisiana, would inform the child that he or she is being appreciated as vital to this country by the set-aside of a small fraction of its GDP to be awarded upon the child’s success. The child must qualify for the succession of set-asides by performing well in acquiring and understanding basic education through four years college or an equivalent choice made by him or her, such as a two-year trade school with two years apprenticeship. Failure to achieve the goal forfeits the award: thus, it is not a give-away,[xxix] but that recognition of personhood would sustain the person through many trials and tribulations.[xxx] This paragraph is repetitious, in summary.

Fifth, the sexual revolution since the 1950s Kinsey Reports enhanced a trend with 30% of inhabitants involved in child abuse either as victim or perpetrator.[xxxi] It is common for parents, clergy and other child-care officials to perpetrate sexual abuse. People write about this problem all the time, yet We the People of the United States maintain the treadmill of abuse. Concern for neglected, abused, and murdered children has motivated this work. ACP intends, as much as possible, to let people live as they wish but considers it a civic duty to protect children from the potential for abuse more than help them after abuse occurs. Safety with well-being is the overall goal. As always, education is the key, but understanding is difficult for a child to acquire when civic evidence is that the USA does not care, and some religious institutions, for example, Christianity, try to prevent the required education. In fact the USA could care less about the old saw “teach a person to fish . . .”[xxxii] Democracy for remedial well-fare allotments and favor drives the debt the USA is building on personal posterity. More importantly, the elite people compete for favor in the debt increase in order to increase their shares of national assets, in effect, so that they can carry the poor class and, lately, as well, the middle class. The elite could care less about the national debt, as evidenced by the national debt!

Sixth, not only are children the most vulnerable inhabitants, most young adults have the least financial strength during the decades of highest need: the family and estate-building years. This program potentially endows each person with a stake in American capitalism after three decades’ preparation for adulthood. The stake could be $80,000. The benefits double to $160,000 for married couples or partners. Young couples who have fractional ownership in American capitalism will be better able to contribute to their posterity, even if they also have college debts. With practice and development, this program could lead to termination of the Social Security System! There may be benefits we have not imagined.

These six points are not Phil Beaver’s lonely imagination. They are substantially supported by writers like Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist, 2010, for example, page 211, “The more independent and well-off we all become, the more population will stabilize well within the resources of the planet.” Ridley did not address our concern about child abuse, but Marci Hamilton does (see above). Robert D. Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, 2015, a book with many data charts--evidence, seems to imply that damaged children get damaged before they ever attend school, so school can only try to restore the child after the damage is done. The book was recommended by Fevzi Sarac. Nothing I’ve seen brings home the disparity of class distinction more than Richard Wilkinson’s TED talk “How economic inequality harms societies.”[xxxiii] Perhaps tongue in check, Wilkinson says, “The American dream is to move to Denmark,” with many supporting data charts.

The evidence is so strong, my heart wants revolutionary change, but the rational mind seeks gradual reform of a 400 year-old, foreign-originated, injustice: economic classism based on property, imposed on North America by England. Turning that harm to a benefit would be one of the most celebrated accomplishments in human history, and would position the USA to help the world to a better future. Reform over the next three decades seems a reasonable goal; ACP seems feasible; and focus on infants and children to be conceived seems right. As always, the chief beneficiaries—poor children—would be 80% non-black, but black children would be included in the benefits, as always, since 1776. But I see no reason to focus on skin color.

Summary

            The universal challenge of nourishing children from total dependence upon the couple that conceive the child plus civic support unto the child’s personal autonomy then collaborative autonomy and preparedness for an adult journey to psychological maturity has long been the noblest human work.[xxxiv] Socialist countries often disparage American capitalism as not in the interest of the individual but rather in the interest of greed; however, “socialist capitalism” does not seem attractive at all, so I wonder about the nuances of “greed.” The American elite defend their legal favor based on Edmund Burke’s ideas about property. Burke overlooked a country’s productivity as the property of the inhabitants, and Burke’s fallacy must be reformed. (With Burke’s values, perhaps a person should not go to war if in fact he or she has no stake in the nation’s assets—no personal assets to defend and only the fruits of daily labor to live for. Perhaps the poor should not go to war only for the elite.) Ownership in America’s GDP should be fairly distributed. One may argue that an inhabitant must go to war because his or her country owns him or her by virtue of birth or naturalization, but there is neither personal liberty nor civic well-being in such enslavement, especially when many wars are unjust in themselves. I am reminded of the kind-hearted side of Jeremiah Wright—what it means to him to lose a loved one.

The constitution for the USA maintains a privileged class, and it was designed that way according to Federalist 10. We see the consequence in Baton Rouge, with BRAF personnel making relatively high salaries from strategic involvement in Baton Rouge capital improvements made on the backs of the consumer class, a redistribution of civic endeavors that goes un-noticed by the poor and middle-class people who support the improvements with personal labor and consumerism but not asset ownership. Property ownership and influencing public plans to utilize that property seems the basis of BRAF’s accumulated wealth and high personal incomes. It’s true that some people do not have good savings practices, but as I showed above, most have not the means to save and invest. Also, the importance of converting labor into assets has never been a major teaching point in this country. Saving, yes, but converting labor into assets, no. Through advertising, the poor are encouraged to be consumers but are not encouraged to become asset owners. It seems BRAF and many other so-called non-profits know and are complicit in immoral-civic American-capitalism.

Young couples, often saddled with college debt, find themselves at age 30 ill equipped for the challenging task of forming a family and building financial security. Their civic children are essential to maintaining the people. Family contributions to capitalism as major consumers is well appreciated. However, heretofore, most child-person’s civic candidacy for ownership in the capital market has been overlooked--perhaps repressed.

Looking at it on an assets basis, the current national wealth is 118 trillion dollars or $370,000 per inhabitant. CECA proposes that ACP provide incentive, up to $40,000 set asides during the first two decades of a civic child’s noble, personal work to prepare for collaborative adulthood. That’s only 10.8 % of average national wealth per capita. It takes $8 million dollars unhidden wealth (excluding Panama banks or such offshore hiding) to be in the top 1% of inhabitants, and that’s 22 times the average wealth or 200 times the wealth-cost of CECA. The elites of America should be ready to reform American capitalism, if not for fairness, to assure future financial viability of the USA, for their own psychological well-being and that of their personal posterity—their children, grandchildren and beyond.

Elitists might admit that security for their posterity—their children’s and grandchildren’s safety with well-being--is greatly dependent upon the rest of the inhabitants. Elites have enjoyed the benefits without sharing the economic engine beyond the consumer side. Capitalists, often born of capitalist families, perhaps hypocritically preach a false American ideal. Quoting Arthur Brooks, formerly professional French horn player, “Happiness comes from faith, family, community and work.”[xxxv] That statement seems like propaganda to me: Capitalists impose that image on laborers. However, it is clear that personal liberty comes from assets, which work for owners 24-7-365. To the elite, “work” translates to a professional position and management of assets and personal interests. Many elites never worked and never will work. Capitalists are not limited to what their person can accomplish in one day, as is the laborer. Capitalists’ assets are at work while the capitalist sleeps. In the course of one life, it seems impossible, without asset ownership or extreme luck, such as making it in professional sports or entertainment or winning the lottery, to move from poverty or other form of repression--from being labor-dependent to part owner in American capitalism. The status of part-owner in American capitalism should be promoted for every collaborative citizen. People who assert that it is available to all do not advertise the importance of converting labor into assets and the opportunity to save, as noted above, and could care less that for some persons, saving money is impractical—competes with starvation. The evidence that the elite could care less is in the fact that this disparity exists after 227 years of American political regimes.

            The capitalists, intentionally or not, have widened the income gap so that they can essentially “carry” a poor class: “you will always have the poor with you.” It is true there will always be some persons who cannot immediately achieve personal autonomy; ACP must help them. Also, there will always be people who do not want domestic goodwill—want alienation: They must be constrained. However, most children born in America become consumers in the world’s largest capital market, and that market will be even stronger when most people are also asset owners. American capitalism can move to a higher level with CECA. There is potential to lessen federal largesse, for example, by reducing remedial welfare departments and expanding to cover the social security taxation, which is misused by the federal government.

            Our generation can take action now to reduce one of the major, original dividers in American civic morality: capital class versus middle class and labor class. We can, as a civic duty, provide incentives for every intended child, performing child and collaborative student through set-asides for future ownership in American capitalism. We can achieve the combination PLwCM. Many other demands on Louisiana revenues pale before this perhaps $1 billion/year, only 4% of the current budget, to benefit the most vulnerable 25% of inhabitants.

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 7/12/16

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[xv] 

[xvi] Perhaps I am motivated by my own past. I was a lower middle-class Knoxville, TN boy somehow inspired to attend college. I earned a position in the engineering-scholarship program and worked in another city for three months then returned to school and my parents’ home for three months, taking five years to graduate with honors. One night, my parents were fighting with unusual intensity and I thought perhaps I should go intervene. Despite the disturbance, I could not decide, despite all I had witnessed, who was in the right: Mom or Dad. Then I thought about the final exam I was preparing for. I thought my future was my relief from the misery of home, so I sat back down and focused on the study-review for the test. I never stopped trying to help my parents get along or stopped loving them, but I decided my future would not involve the misery they shared—basically never deciding to psychologically collaborate. I imagine a civic people who encourage personal autonomy and early understanding for most children, adolescents, young adults and beyond, and in the long run, a lessening of misery and loss at the adult level.

[xix] Jeremiah Wright. Online at www.blackpast.org/2008-rev-jeremiah-wright-confusing-god-and-government .

[xx] Median income and other data, 2015, online at www.usdebtclock.org/ .

[xxi] Threshold 2010 incomes, online at www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/10/forget-the-top-1-look-at-the-top-0-1/ .

[xxii] Online at www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx .

[xxiii] For example, Greece v Galloway, wherein it is opinioned that “legislative prayer” is for legislators and thus none of the people’s business. See online at www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-696 .

[xxiv] Gullibility is perhaps the greatest human error, yet it is not listed among the seven deadly errors. The reason gullibility is not listed is obvious to someone who is climbing out of the well of religious indoctrination, and the reason is well known in papal circles. A person’s first shield against gullibility is humility.

[xxv] Lynn Elber, “’Science Guy' Bill Nye gets heated up over climate change,” Associated Press, November 11, 2015, online at bigstory.ap.org/article/ca4994d6d6064999b07a2b55eb2def97/science-guy-bill-nye-gets-heated-over-climate-change .

[xxvi] The 2013 list by ethnicity and millions of children, online at http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_1100.html .

[xxvii] “Historically black Protestant,” online, www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ .

[xxviii] I use the word “soul” without objection but not to encourage belief in a person’s capability to affect their afterdeath, that vast time after their body, mind, and person has ceased to function.

[xxix] Resistance against “give-aways” because they encourage indolence was emphasized to me by a thoughtful nurse during my hospitalization in late 2015.

[xxx] For example, in William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” 10-year old Colonel Sartoris Snopes reports his dad’s intent to burn another barn then leaves his family after a country-store judge shows the boy the meaning of justice. The boy had learned authenticity. A civic people can influence such learning without the misery, but we have to escape mentalities like President Obama’s second inaugural phrase “schools and colleges to train our workers.” Our schools and colleges need to support children and young adults on their personal paths to collaborative, lasting adulthood.

[xxxi] Marci A. Hamilton, Justice Denied, 2008.

[xxxii] Feed somebody and you have provided a meal; teach them to fish and you have fed him or her for life.

[xxxiii] Online at www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson?language=en#t-73987 .

[xxxiv] This challenge becomes more formidable with the advent of technological procreation, surrogacy motherhood, and other innovations that subjugate the single-cell conceived from a couple.

[xxxv] William McGurn, “Playing the Music of Capitalism,” Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2015, online at wsj.com/articles/playing-the-music-of-capitalism-1436568716 .

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[1] The hyphens help the reader keep this thought together and think it on each reading. People often respond to “the-objective-truth” with their objective truth.

[2] Revised from “civic-morality” after dialogue with GM King, “Federal help still key for saving gulf,” The Advocate, comments, April 21, 2017, online at theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/article_993aeff0-25f1-11e7-a2d3-63082349626f.html.

[3] This is the message I glean from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Divinity School Address,” 1838, online at emersoncentral.com/divaddr.htm.

[4] As things are, this maturity is rare: perhaps Mother Theresa achieved perfection. However, with public integrity more people might attain personal perfection.

[5] Dimensions beyond length, width, depth and time address other universes and do not alter current perception of the earth like a globe that formed as a gravity-gathered cloud of gases and dust. See bbc.co.uk/science/earth/earth_timeline/earth_formed .

[6] Literally, a liar cannot communicate an idea: A liar cannot talk. This comes from a 1941 essay by Albert Einstein, discussed further, below.

[7] Personal autonomy, while natural, is not spontaneous. It is developed from experiences and observations with discipline toward understanding and practicing civic justice. Perhaps it is the object of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “Self-reliance,” 1841. See emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm . However, I do not think it is necessary to go beyond body, mind, and person in considering human fidelity: Speculation about the soul addresses neither civic morality nor human authority.

[8] For example, a theory of ten dimensions extrapolates to universes with properties unlike our gravity and such. See youtube.com/watch?v=aCQx9U6awFw .

[9] Saul McLeod, “Maslow’ Hierarchy of Needs,” 2007, 2016, online at simplypsychology.org/maslow.html .

[10] “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

[11] Federalist 10.

[12] Conversation with Don Miller, Baton Rouge, May, 2017.

[13] Hoover’s struggle seems current as Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” vs liberal democracy, democratic socialism or progressivism.

[14] “Faith in reason” seems unwise. Science is a process for study and the student may reason based on false perceptions, like a mirage. The object of study is discovery, and the product is the-objective-truth, which does not respond to reason. However, rational thought is essential to the acceptance that evidence represents a discovery rather than imagination. I object to “faith” in this context and prefer “trust and commit to” the-objective-truth, the product of evidentiary discovery. I am indebted to Harold Weingarten for asking me, on January 19, 2006, “Phil, do you express absolute truth, ultimate truth, or Phil’s truth?” I don’t recall “real truth” or “actual truth” from him, but they may have been there.

[15] Murray’s “contention . . . objectively true,” is controversial. First, the-objective-truth does not respond to opinion, and second it is good that Murray points to objectivity.

[16] “Was the canon of Scripture determined before the Church councils that decided it?” Online at catholic.com/qa/was-the-canon-of-scripture-determined-before-the-church-councils-that-decided-it

[17] Online at crf-usa.org/foundations-of-our-constitution/magna-carta.html .

[18] askacatholic.com/_WebPostings/Answers/2002_10OCT-DEC/2002OctWhenDidEnglandBecome.cfm

[19] Bill of Right 1689, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689

[20] Miller, Fred, "Aristotle's Political Theory", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/aristotle-politics/>

[21] Rothschild banking family of England, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_banking_family_of_England

[22] Branches of physics: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_physics

[23] Subfields of physics: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Subfields_of_physics

[24] Fiction, speculation, and imagination persist only in the absence of knowledge.

[25] Writers speculate twice two is not four, but two apples plus two oranges is always four fruit.

[26] See an ancient statement at Matthew 6:27.

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[i] Perceptions of gravity at sciencenews.org/article/einsteins-genius-changed-sciences-perception-gravity .

[ii] Use the Polanyi endnote and ibid later.

[iii] This idea is an adaptation from Agathon’s speech in Plato’s “Symposium.”

[iv] Online at massar.org/setting-the-record-straight-the-worcester-revolt-of-september-6-1774/

[v] “Dr. King’s Radical Biblical Vision,” Online at wsj.com/articles/dr-kings-radical-biblical-vision-1522970778.

[vi] Conversation with Dona Bean, 2016.

[vii] Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, 1958, 1962, seems to rebuke the-objective-truth and then state that his religious belief has the same value to him. He could have merely described the-objective-truth rather than rebuke it.

[viii] Plato, Symposium, “Agathon’s Speech,” ca 370 B.C., online at faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281b/Philosophy%20of%20Magic/Phil%20100/Readings/Symposium/Agathon.htm .

[ix] US Civil Service Commission, online at wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Civil_Service_Commission and Louisiana commission online at civilservice.louisiana.gov/ .

[x] James Madison, Federalist 10, Daily Advertiser, New York, November 22, 1787.

[xi] Kiersten Schmidt and Wilson Andrews, “A Historic Number of Electors Defected . . . “, NYT, DEC. 19, 2016, online at nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/19/us/elections/electoral-college-results.html.

[xii] David Wasserman, The Cook Political Report, January 2, 2017, online at cookpolitical.com/story/10174 .

[xiii] In planning discussions in 2016, Dona Bean (d. September 20, 2017) proposed “individual independence” to express “private liberty with civic morality.” Later, she supported “individual” rather than “personal” to title June 21 celebrations of 1788’s ratification day. Now, we articulate “individual liberty with civic morality” and celebrate Individual Independence Day each June 21. Thank you, Dona.

[xiv] Nederman, Cary, "Niccolò Machiavelli", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/machiavelli/>

[xv] Niccolo Machiavelli, “Concerning Ecclesiastical Prinipalities,” The Prince, 1513, online at constitution.org/mac/prince11.htm .

[xvi] Papal bulls, which are listed at wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_papal_bulls show Church influence on global conflicts. On the doctrine of discovery with enslavement, especially African trade, see bulls of June 18, 1452; January 8, 1455; March 13, 1456;, May 3, 1493; May 8, 1529; May 29, 1537; and April 22, 1639. As an aside, particular enmity toward the Jews was evident on January 19, 1567; in February, 1569; and in 1593.

[xvii] Online at historyofmassachusetts.org/massachusetts-american-revolution/.

[xviii] Herbert Hoover, “Rugged Individualism,” Madison Square Garden, New York, New York, October 22, 1928, online at teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/rugged-individualism/.

[xix] Festenstein, Matthew, "Dewey's Political Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/dewey-political/>.

[xx] Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey#Criticism .

[xxi] Charles Murry, “The Idea of Progess: Once Again with Feeling,” July 30, 2001, online at hoover.org/research/idea-progress-once-again-feeling.

[xxii] Luke 14:26; John 15:18-23.

[xxiii] Carter, Ian, "Positive and Negative Liberty", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), online at plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/liberty-positive-negative.

[xxiv] Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1967.

[xxv] Need reference. Get from Plato.

[xxvi] “Athenian Democracy,” online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy .

[xxvii] Lovett, Frank, "Republicanism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/republicanism/.

[xxviii] Zoe Williams, online at theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/14/a-young-stephen-hawking-would-never-survive-in-todays-age-of-austerity.

[xxix] Lovett, Frank, "Republicanism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/republicanism/>.

[xxx] Online: theway21stcentury.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/how-many-christian-denominations-worldwide/

[xxxi] Cornell West, online at wsj.com/articles/dr-kings-radical-biblical-vision-1522970778.

[xxxii] Vine Deloria, Jr. God is Red. 30^th Anniv. Ed., 2003.

[xxxiii] Roanoke Colony, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony

[xxxiv] “Martin Luther and the 95 Theses,” history.com/topics/martin-luther-and-the-95-theses .

[xxxv] English Cvil Wars, britannica.com/event/English-Civil-Wars .

[xxxvi] “The 13 colonies,” history.com/topics/thirteen-colonies.

[xxxvii] ”Portuguese colonization of the Americas,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_colonization_of_the_Americas#Settlements_in_North_America

[xxxviii] “Timeline . . . colonization of North America.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_European_colonization_of_North_America

[xxxix] “Religion in Colonial America,” facinghistory.org/nobigotry/religion-colonial-america-trends-regulations-and-beliefs

[xl] “The age of reason.” gcschools.net/ghs/housej/III%20Assignments/age_of_reason.htm

[xli] “Parliamentary taxation . . . “history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/parliamentary-taxation .

[xlii] Online at http://historyofmassachusetts.org/massachusetts-american-revolution/.

[xliii] “Shot heard round the world,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_heard_round_the_world

[xliv] Ray Raphael, “The True Start of the American Revolution,” February 12, 2013, online at https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/02/the-true-start-of-the-american-revolution/.

[xlv] “The Declaration of Independence,” ushistory.org/declaration/document/ .

[xlvi] “Demographics of the colonial period,” edci815s12.wikispaces.com/Demographics+of+the+Colonial+Period .

[xlvii] “Loyalists during the American revolution,” let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/the-road-to-independence/loyalists-during-the-american-revolution.php

[xlviii] “The Pacifists,” americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/rebellion/text5/text5.htm .

[xlix] “Key dates in Census, statistics and registration, Great Britain 1000 – 1899,” thepotteries.org/dates/census.htm

[l] “French and Indian War,” history.com/topics/french-and-indian-war

[li] Henry J. Sage, “The Second Hundred Years War,” 2005, http://sageamericanhistory.net/colonies_empire/topics/colonialwars.html

[lii] “Anglo-French War, 1778-1783,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-French_War_(1778–1783)#North_American_Operations.2C_1780-1781

[liii] “Siege of Yorktown,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yorktown

[liv] “Battle of Chesapeake,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Chesapeake

[lv] “Peace of Paris (1783),” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Paris_(1783)

[lvi] “Treaty of Paris (1783),” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)

[lvii] “Washington’s Circular Letter of Farewell to the Army,” June 8, 1783, loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/amrev/peace/circular.html

[lviii] “Confederation,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation

[lix] “Annapolis Convention,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapolis_Convention_(1786)

[lx] “Shays’ Rebellion,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion

[lxi] “The Constitutional Convention of 1787,” http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/convention1787.html

[lxii] Online at http://sos.ri.gov/divisions/Civics-And-Education/RI-History.

[lxiii] Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Plan.

[lxiv] “Presidential Election Laws,” archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/provisions.html

[lxv] “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic,” loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06.html

[lxvi] “Observing Constitution Day,” archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution-day/ratification.html

[lxvii] “Slave states and free states,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_states_and_free_states

[lxviii] “Ratification Dates and Votes,” usconstitution.net/ratifications.html

[lxix] 1^st congress at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_United_States_Congress and timeline of USA, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_history

[lxx] Ratification Day, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_Day_(United_States)

[lxxi] Online at datesandevents.org/events-timelines/27-native-american-history-timeline.htm.

[lxxii] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_papal_bulls.

[lxxiii] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dum_Diversas.

[lxxiv] “Neuroscience,” Merriam Webster, merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neuroscience .

[lxxv] “Astrobiology,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology

[lxxvi] Plato, Phaedo, online at iep.utm.edu/phaedo/.

[lxxvii] Online at theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa. and pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/president/spirituality.html and wrmea.org/2004-june/woodwards-plan-of-attack-reveals-why-bush-started-unnecessary-war-on-iraq.html.

[lxxviii] Conversation with Wayne Parker, Baton Rouge, on 4/14/2010. It seems that discovery uncovers the immensity of the unknowns.

[lxxix] Albert Einstein thought the universe is static, but Edwin Hubble proved it is expanding. See online at windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/tornado/doppler_effect.html.

[lxxx] “Einstein described “gravity not as a force, but as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime caused by the uneven distribution of mass. [For] for most applications, gravity is well approximated by [Newton] as a force which causes any two bodies to be attracted to each other, with the force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.” See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity.

[lxxxi] This comes from a question by G. W. Leibniz, d. 1716.

[lxxxii] Stout, Martha, Ph.D. . The Sociopath Next Door. Broadway Books. 2005, pp 164-180.

[lxxxiii] Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)#Part_I:_Of_Man.

[lxxxiv] Lissner, Ivar. The Silent Past: Mysterious and Forgotten Cultures of the World. Translated from German by J. Maxwell Brownjohn. 1962. G.P. Putnam’s Sons. NY.

[lxxxv] Also, online at heretical.com/cannibal/mamerica.html, from Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings: The Origin of Cultures, Glasgow, 1978, pp. 110-124.

[lxxxvi] It took the Church 400 years to admit that Galileo Galilei did not err by confirming that Copernicus’s idea that the Sun is the center of our galaxy.

[lxxxvii] Online at youtube.com/watch?v=iFpc35walI8.

[lxxxviii] Boorstin. 1983. The Discoverers. Random House. NY.

[lxxxix] Alexander Friedman published mathematics for an expanding universe in 1924. See online:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Friedmann . And Georges Lemaitre reported after Friedman:  see online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre.

[xc] Jim Callender, Baton Rouge, 5/3/2016 conversation.

[xci] See “Proposed Constitutional Amendments” at http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06.html .

[xcii] Online at www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ .

[xciii] Adapting Albert Einstein’s 1941 speech, “The Laws of Science and The Laws of Ethics.” Online at http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/my-friend-einstein/.

[xciv] Kahlil Gibran expressed this idea in “On Children,” a poem in the collection, “The Prophet,” 1923, online at katsandogz.com/onchildren.html.

[xcv] Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_%2B_2_%3D_5 .

[xcvi] I do not know if anything controls the origins and progress of actual reality and avoid pretense by using “god” instead of terms commonly taken for granted. My expression, god, may be read with an interrogatory inflection. In this way, the reader may sense the humility I intend.

[xcvii] Online at either stateofweb.blogspot.com/ or slideshare.net/ohteikbin/the-best-religion .

[xcviii] “I do not know,” is an assertion that requires humility, integrity, and fidelity, applying in each instance to both the-objective-truth and the self. In other words, when you do the work to reach understanding but cannot draw a conclusion, you admit to yourself, “I do not know,” thereby avoiding contradiction. Admitting to self can be difficult when the question is, “Is there a god?”

[xcix] The author has a policy against believing. He prefers to wait for discovery and understanding of the-objective-truth.

[c] The-objective-truth is the reality that yields to neither faith nor hope nor reason nor force nor words. I trust in and am committed to the-objective-truth much of which is undiscovered and some of which is known.

[ci] I was prompted to post this comment after reading and commenting on Shirley S. Wang's article, "Clues to Teaching Young Children to Tell the Truth," June 30, 2014, at online.wsj.com/articles/clues-to-teaching-young-children-to-tell-the-truth-1404167647?tesla=y .

[cii] Matthew 7:6.

[ciii] “Where slavery is still practiced”: online at www.religioustolerance.org/sla_world.htm .

[civ] Atlantic slave trade, online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#European_participation_in_the_slave_trade .

[cv] Quakers: online at abolition.nypl.org/essays/abolition/2/

[cvi] Thomas Paine.  Online at declaringamerica.com/paine-african-slavery-in-america-1775/ .

[cvii] South Carolina Declaration of Secession. Online at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp / .

[cviii] Lincoln. Online at www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/hodges.htm .

[cix] Southern University. Online at www.subr.edu/index.cfm/newsroom/detail/739

[cx] DNA. Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve .

[cxi] Skin color adaptation, online at evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/140305_skincolor and at www2.palomar.edu/anthro/adapt/adapt_4.htm.

[cxii] Recall Abraham Lincoln’s statement that a house divided must fall.

[cxiii] Michael Polanyi in Personal Knowledge, 1958, seems to assert that worshipping his god liberates him from his perceptions. Responsible, personal, private liberation seems to be a value for anyone. Yet Polanyi spends most of the book discounting my liberation.

[cxiv] Physics & Ethics. Online at www.peep.ac.uk/content/618.0.html .

[cxv] Then, I was using the phrase "the ethics of physics." In 2012, Doug Johnson, Watson, LA convinced me to use "physics-based ethics", because physics drives humans to ethics.

[cxvi] ancienthistorylists.com/ancient-civilizations/10-oldest-ancient-civilizations-ever-existed/

[cxvii] ancienthistorylists.com/mesopotamia-history/top-11-inventions-and-discoveries-of-mesopotamia/

[cxviii] ancienthistorylists.com/ancient-civilizations/10-oldest-ancient-civilizations-ever-existed/#1_Mesopotamian_Civilization

[cxix] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_government

[cxx] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

[cxxi] George Weigel, “Democracy and Its Discontents,” National Affairs, No. 35, Spring 20158, page 170, online at www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/democracy-and-its-discontents

[cxxii] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_Donald_Trump

[cxxiii] “Civilization,” online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization#History.

[cxxiv] “Cannibalism,” online at www.seeker.com/cannibalism-a-history-of-people-who-eat-people-1769840684.html.

[cxxv] Online at www.ibtimes.co.uk/india-man-beheaded-suspected-sacrifice-better-harvest-1504156.

[cxxvi] Online at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/#xRy5Fli08TZT97mD.99.

[cxxvii] Repetition of “individual” was first expressed in conversation with Tyler Robertson of Moss Point, MS, on May 22, 2018 at Perkins Park, Baton Rouge, LA.

[cxxviii] Online at https://www.quora.com/Where-did-the-stereotype-that-white-children-dont-respect-their-parents-come-from/answer/Phil-Beaver-1 and Howard Ely, ed. “The Colors of Life,” poem “Davey,” 2003.

[cxxix] Online at http://coursesonhorses.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-old-is-foal-before-it-can-walk.html.

[cxxx] Online at https://www.parents.com/baby/development/walking/walking/.

[cxxxi] Online at https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051.

[cxxxii] Online at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244288.

[cxxxiii] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing.

[cxxxiv] Online at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896261/.

[cxxxv] Online at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-evil/#HisTheEvi.

[cxxxvi] Online at https://www.theodysseyonline.com/interpretations-constitution-originalism-textualism-pragmatism-stare-decisis.

[cxxxvii] Online at www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211.

[cxxxviii] Online at https://simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html.

[cxxxix] Richard Wilkinson, “How income inequality harms societies,” TED Talk, July 2011, online at  www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson?language=en .

[cxl] Civic morality refers to personal recognition that people are connected by living on the same land and each person must collaborate for safety with well-being so that each person may have the individual liberty to pursue differing personal interests such as religious moralities, fine arts, sports, travel, and other precious, private practices.

[cxli] This provision is critical for all parents, including same-sex parents. Perhaps gay partners can encourage a daughter to emerge as psychologically mature woman she would be. In other words, perhaps gender is not a matter of civic influence. Along with child-bearing bodies, females have innate, caring characteristics men cannot foster. Nothing in my past influenced my personhood as strongly as deciding to be heterosexually monogamous for life, and to this day I would not change the woman my wife is. I am grateful for my decision but could not have predicted its importance, yet acted on it. Based on my understanding of physics, gender role-modelling is critical to a civic people. I am ready to collaborate on the issue. In other words, I know I do not know the-objective-truth about this issue as well as other issues.

[cxlii] A recent report shows Vanguard funds earning 5.6% over the last 10 years.

[cxliii] See online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Kirylo .

[cxliv] H. A. Overstreet. The Mature Mind. 1949.

[cxlv] The phenomenon of helplessness persists from infancy until old age. It may be observed as people age and lose control of their daily care. Loss of psychological liberty often becomes terminal, no matter how wealthy the person may be. For example, the person who has retreated to books for companionship is demoralized when that liberty is consumed by inability to access books.

[cxlvi] David Dobbs, “Teenage Brains,” National Geographic, October 2011, online at ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dobbs-text .

[cxlvii] Online at www.startsaving.la.gov/savings/overview.jsp .

[cxlviii] Online at http://www.pftaylorfoundation.org/education/taylor-plan-tops/ .

[cxlix] On April 25, 2016, with TOPS being thoroughly reviewed by the Louisiana legislature, it occurred to me that TOPS could actually incorporate CECA, and I wrote to James Caillier to make that suggestion. Also see theadvocate.com/news/opinion/15557283-148/our-views-tops-bills-are-on-the-move-good-and-bad .

[cl] Online at theadvocate.com/news/opinion/14228786-123/our-views-tax-breaks-long-term-savings-fund-from-new-governor-on-college-tuitions-clearly-valuable-f .

[cli] See essays online at promotethepreamble.blogsot.com, especially under the tab “Discussion.”

[clii] Perhaps I am motivated by my own past. I was a lower middle-class Knoxville, TN boy somehow inspired to attend college. I earned a position in the engineering-scholarship program and worked in another city for three months then returned to school and my parents’ home for three months, taking five years to graduate with honors. One night, my parents were fighting with unusual intensity and I thought perhaps I should go intervene. Despite the disturbance, I could not decide, despite all I had witnessed, who was in the right: Mom or Dad. Then I thought about the final exam I was preparing for. I thought my future was my relief from the misery of home, so I sat back down and focused on the study-review for the test. I never stopped trying to help my parents get along or stopped loving them, but I decided my future would not involve the misery they shared—basically never deciding to psychologically collaborate. I imagine a civic people who encourage personal autonomy and early understanding for most children, adolescents, young adults and beyond, and in the long run, a lessening of misery and loss at the adult level.

[cliii] The neologism “afterdeath” is used intentionally to assert that “afterlife” seems speculative: in the afterdeath there may be nothing. Furthermore, if some religious moralities are true afterlife is only a subset of afterdeath. Thus, some say in the afterdeath there is everlasting life somewhere else; others say there is reincarnation on earth.

[cliv] South Carolina Declaration of Secession, online at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

[clv] Jeanne Whalen, “Sucide Rates Rise Across the U. S.” WSJ, June 8, 2018, page A3.