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exxar1 · 4 years ago

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Interlude 1: Lessons From The Old Testament

3/27/2021

It is a lovely Saturday afternoon in Las Vegas. And I mean genuinely beautiful spring weather! It’s 73 degrees outside with a perfectly pleasant breeze that would be great accompaniment for a hike in Red Rock canyon. Alas, I must report for work in an hour.

In following my plan to read the whole Bible in a year, I’ve been working through the books of Samuel and Kings for the last 2 weeks. This morning I wrote down some of the lessons I’ve gleaned from the Old Testament in general, but these 4 books in particular.

1. Am I listening for God’s voice? 1 Samuel 3:10: “…Speak; for thy servant heareth.” No, God doesn’t use an audible voice today as He did with Samuel, but that’s because we now have his Holy Word in the form the Bible. We also have the Holy Spirit if we are truly born again. I need to make sure that I’m always listening for the Spirit and seeking God’s wisdom in all things. I should never be so busy with daily life, nor should the noise of the world be so loud, that I don’t hear God when He speaks to me.

2. God does not tolerate sin. Eli was a servant of the Lord, but he failed to rear his sons to also fear and obey God. Because of this, God took the lives of all three and gave the priesthood to Samuel. Same for the nations of Israel and Judah. Throughout the books of Samuel and Kings, God punished his chosen people over and over as they continually disobeyed his commandments and turned to idol worship. There were occasional respites, short periods where certain kings would obey and fear God; David and his son Solomon, for example. Unfortunately, those two – and two or three others in the succeeding generations – were the exception, not the rule.

Am I always obeying the Lord’s commandments? Am I living my life in complete service to Him? When I do sin, am I genuinely repentant? God will forgive me, His love and mercy are as vast as the universe He created. But He is also a jealous God, and He will punish me when I turn from Him, as a loving father will discipline his child when he strays. I should always be striving to please God and obey Him always in all things.

3. There are consequences for sin. God’s divine patience with Israel and Judah finally reached an end in the latter half of the book of 2nd Kings. He delivered His people into the hands of their enemies, and both nations were exiled into Babylon. Chapter 17: 7-23 summarizes the sins of Israel and Judah and God’s punishment for their continual sin.

Even though God will always forgive me when I sin, He will not spare me the consequences of my sin. Therefore, I need to always be seeking Him first and be making good choices.

4. God will reward obedience and faithfulness to Him. David was chosen as King of Israel because he had a heart that was always seeking God. Even in the worst times of his life, when he was on the run and hiding from Saul, David never lost his faith that God was always with him, and that He would take care of him. (Psalms 23 & 46.) God rewarded this faithfulness time and again throughout David’s life.

Same goes for Solomon. When God spoke to Solomon early in his life, Solomon requested not riches or long life but, instead, the wisdom to lead the nation of Israel. God rewarded Solomon’s request with not only wisdom but riches as well.

Now, it should also be noted that, even though David and Solomon always sought to please and obey God, they also sinned. Both men were polygamists, and David even committed murder to try to cover his sin of covetousness and adultery. But God used them anyway, and each still suffered the consequences of their sin. Which brings us to the final point:

5. God always keeps his promises. The Israelites were never completely wiped from the face of the Earth. God had made a covenant with Abraham, and He had also promised His people salvation through the lineage of David. Therefore, while He allowed His people to suffer the consequences of their disobedience, He still protected them and kept His word to them.

God will do the same for me. No matter how many times I stray, I will never lose my salvation. God has promised me that He is preparing a place for me in Heaven, and He will keep that promise. But neither is that a license to go do whatever the hell I want. Refer back to lesson #3.

What I also found most striking about these four books was the clear parallel of the nation of Israel/Judah at this time and the United States today. Over the past year, I have argued with strangers on Facebook who try to convince me that America is not now and never was a Christian nation. That belief utterly baffles me. The phrase “In God We Trust” is still stamped on all our coins. The Declaration of Independence uses the phrase “divine Creator”. Despite all the scrubbing and washing by today’s social justice warriors, it’s still a known fact that all our founding fathers believed in the basic religious principles taught in the scriptures. Those principles are scattered throughout the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other documents such as the Federalist Papers. George Washington and his compatriots might not all have been born again Christians, and they were most certainly as flawed, failing and sinful as you and me. But they regarded the Bible as an essential guide to the basic facts of our flawed, failing, sinful human nature, and they crafted a carefully constructed form of government that was designed to enhance the best in all of us and, by the same effect, discourage the worst.

Today, that government is in serious threat of being dismantled from the inside out. The founding fathers had not anticipated what Paul wrote to Timothy: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

Today’s generation is all about the self. Just as Israel and Judah in the Old Testament continually turned away from God to worship false gods and idols, so we today have turned away from God to worship the idol of ‘self’. There is not a single news headline lately that doesn’t bear some form of the phrase “personal rights”, or “individual truth”, or “living as him/her/itself”. Everyone screams about their own “truth” and that their “rights and freedom of expression” are all that matters, especially when it comes to the homosexual and transgender movements. Everyone’s rights are more important than everyone else’s, and our nation has become a people who are “…lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” (And no, before you even say it, I am not referring to the COVID/mask/pandemic government mandates. That specific case is a whole ‘nother argument where, yes, personal rights and freedoms most definitely matter.)

And, just as He did to Israel and Judah at the end of 2nd Kings, God’s divine patience is rapidly running out for America. God delivered Israel and Judah into the hands of their enemies, the Babylonians. His chosen people spent seventy years in exile as punishment for their wickedness and their disobedience. Something I didn’t know before reading the commentary in my MacArthur study Bible is that Israel never returned from that captivity. Several thousand Israelites had migrated to the kingdom of Judah prior to the Babylonian captivity, so that all twelve tribes were still intact seventy years later, but it was only the former kingdom of Judah that actually returned, whole and united as the ‘new’ nation of Israel, seventy years later.

Think about that. God kept his promise to Abraham. The whole of His chosen people were not utterly wiped from the face of the earth, but the meager, reunited nation that returned from Babylonian captivity was nowhere near the size or power that it once was. God’s wrath was justified and vast.

If you study world history, you will find that ANY nation that has ever put God first has ALWAYS prospered. Think of the Victorian era of 19th century Great Britain. Queen Victoria was – and still is – revered as one of England’s greatest monarchs, and it’s because she believed that her empire was blessed by God. The evidence is self-explanatory. At that time, England – and the United States – were considered by all the world as the greatest powers, and the best lands of equal opportunity by all those seeking a better life. Our founding fathers built this nation on the premise that God had created every man and woman – no matter his/her race or station in life – equal. That ALL of us were endowed by our Divine Creator with certain, inalienable rights. And that, as long as we continued to recognize the source of our blessing and our greatness as a nation, we would prosper.

Sadly, that cannot be said of us today. We, as a nation, have fallen so far from God’s grace that I wonder what our exile will look like. Though I have not yet done a close reading and study of the book of Revelation, I am fairly certain that nowhere in that book is there a mention of any western nation such as ours. We are rapidly losing our reputation as a world super power, and I believe that America as we know it today will not exist by the time chapter one of Revelation begins. And, right now, it’s not hard to see why.

John 1:4-5 says, “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (Emphasis mine.) America has become filled with great darkness. For me, personally, that is my only mission for the rest of my life. I will do what I can to be a light for Christ and the gospel as we get closer and closer to that first chapter of Revelation. God’s wrath is coming, and only those who have believed on His name and accepted Him as their Lord and savior will be spared His judgment.

The only answer for today’s corrupt generation is the command from God found in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” For those who are still ignoring that command, Isaiah warns, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Amen.

#Christianity #life #God #the bible

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didanawisgi · 7 years ago

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Prayers aren’t doing anything. We need gun control laws. We need our government to take action... Or do we?

Ok, so since this is a blog, that means I have to write original stuff from time to time, otherwise it can’t rightly be called a blog, can it? I have many kinds of friends, and I make it a point to be friends with different people, especially ones with different opinions. Here, a family friend of my fiancee posted on her facebook this statement: “Prayers aren’t doing anything. We need gun control laws. We need our government to take action.” She is very pro gun control and insists that action be taken, however, we politely entered into a discussion about it and I tried to explain why I am against “gun control”.

I said: “ I think the most important thing is identifying violent and unstable people early, but the state of our mental healthcare workforce is lacking. The culture and resources dedicated to this needs to shift. I think the political left should focus their efforts there and come up with the most humane ideas. As for gun control in general I am against and will continue to carry concealed. Most of the gun control ideas are either already on the books or knee-jerk and not well thought out. Also the second amendment precludes most of it anyway. I like for things to be practical and effective, so it’s just my opinion that we need to shift focus on how to empower physicians and law enforcement and the judiciary with laws while at the same time allocating more funds to mental health safety nets and research. “

She replied: It’s hard for me, because I think no matter what we do considering the mental health community (which could take decades) won’t stop mass shootings. When someone has a conceal carry on during a mass shooting, I feel like it just makes it more dangerous because they don’t always know where to shoot, can hurt more innocent people, and could be considered the shooter. What about the mass shooting in Australia? The 1996 Port Arthur massacre resulted in legislation that saw a dramatic decline in gun crimes. It made a huge difference. Was sandy hook (and everything since) not enough to change our legislation? This pattern will continue as long as the NRA has politicians in its pocket.

I then said: I understand where you are coming from; my perspective is different. Some of the best data and research currently available has put the onus on gun control proponents (for instance check out the Harvard Law study I posted below, that is fairly comprehensive and has good/logical points backed by statistical evidence). Most concealed carry holders have decent training and must demonstrate proficiency and accuracy by law. Also, they are trained/lectured in precisely which instances your gun can be pulled, under protection of the law. The NRA is not really the issue, but the millions of citizens that will not give up any Constitutional right apropos 2nd Amd. that hold their feet to the fire. If the NRA were dismantled entirely today, another would arise in a few months and eventually become just as prominent. I also plan on becoming an NRA member in the future, or whatever gun rights lobby group that will protect my right of self defense, particularly with the rise of white nationalist groups. The first thing the KKK and Jim Crow/government law did was to take away guns from black citizens. If you listen to Malcom X or even MLK (who owned firearms in his home for self defense), the logic and reasons seem fairly sound and self-evident, at least to me. Also, the 2nd amendment and the Federalist papers particularly Madison, make a compelling argument for it as well. Let me know if you want the link, it is a very interesting read. I still contend that the mental health in this country is terrible, even with my first hand knowledge, I still can't believe some of what I've seen. But yes, I understand where you are coming from. There will be no path forward with no improvement if we can't find some common ground on where to take action, as it seems stalemate currently.

She said she would like to read my sources...

Here is the article I cited in its entirety from Harvard Law Review journal: http://www.law.harvard.edu/.../Vol30_No2...

These are some of the more interesting/salient parts in terms of debate:

INTRODUCTION International evidence and comparisons have long been offered as proof of the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths.1 Unfortunately, such discussions are all too often been afflicted by misconceptions and factual error and focus on comparisons that are unrepresentative. It may be useful to begin with a few examples. There is a com‐ pound assertion that (a) guns are uniquely available in the United States compared with other modern developed nations, which is why (b) the United States has by far the highest murder rate. Though these assertions have been endlessly repeated, statement (b) is, in fact, false and statement (a) is substantially so. Since at least 1965, the false assertion that the United States has the industrialized world’s highest murder rate has been an artifact of politically motivated Soviet minimization designed to hide the true homicide rates.2 Since well before that date, the Soviet Union possessed extremely stringent gun controls3 that were effectuated by a police state apparatus providing stringent enforcement.4 So successful was that regime that few Russian civilians now have firearms and very few murders involve them.5 Yet, manifest suc‐ cess in keeping its people disarmed did not prevent the Soviet Union from having far and away the highest murder rate in the developed world.6 In the 1960s and early 1970s, the gun‐less So‐ viet Union’s murder rates paralleled or generally exceeded those of gun‐ridden America. While American rates stabilized and then steeply declined, however, Russian murder increased so drasti‐ cally that by the early 1990s the Russian rate was three times higher than that of the United States. Between 1998‐2004 (the lat‐ est figure available for Russia), Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates. Similar murder rates also characterize the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and various other now‐independent European nations of the former U.S.S.R.7 Thus, in the United States and the former Soviet Union transition‐ ing into current‐day Russia, “homicide results suggest that where guns are scarce other weapons are substituted in killings.”8 While American gun ownership is quite high, Table 1 shows many other developed nations (e.g., Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Denmark) with high rates of gun ownership. These countries, however, have murder rates as low or lower than many devel‐ oped nations in which gun ownership is much rarer. For example, Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002. The same pattern appears when comparisons of violence to gun ownership are made within nations. Indeed, “data on fire‐ arms ownership by constabulary area in England,” like data from the United States, show “a negative correlation,”10 that is, “where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are high‐ est.”11 A second misconception about the relationship between fire‐ arms and violence attributes Europe’s generally low homicide rates to stringent gun control. That attribution cannot be accu‐ rate since murder in Europe was at an all‐time low before the gun controls were introduced.13 For instance, virtually the only English gun control during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the practice that police patrolled without guns. During this period gun control prevailed far less in England or Europe than in certain American states which nevertheless had—and continue to have—murder rates that were and are comparatively very high.14 In this connection, two recent studies are pertinent. In 2004, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released its evaluation from a review of 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some original empirical research. It failed to identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, sui‐ cide, or gun accidents.15 The same conclusion was reached in 2003 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s review of then‐ extant studies.16 Stringent gun controls were not adopted in England and Western Europe until after World War I. Consistent with the outcomes of the recent American studies just mentioned, these strict controls did not stem the general trend of ever‐growing violent crime throughout the post‐WWII industrialized world including the United States and Russia. Professor Malcolm’s study of English gun law and violent crime summarizes that nation’s nineteenth and twentieth century experience as fol‐ lows: The peacefulness England used to enjoy was not the result of strict gun laws. When it had no firearms restrictions [nine‐ teenth and early twentieth century] England had little violent crime, while the present extraordinarily stringent gun controls have not stopped the increase in violence or even the increase in armed violence.17 Armed crime, never a problem in England, has now become one. Handguns are banned but the Kingdom has millions of illegal firearms. Criminals have no trouble finding them and exhibit a new willingness to use them. In the decade after 1957, the use of guns in serious crime increased a hundredfold.18 In the late 1990s, England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban of all handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of thousands of guns were confiscated from those owners law‐abiding enough to turn them in to authorities. Without suggesting this caused violence, the ban’s ineffectiveness was such that by the year 2000 violent crime had so increased that England and Wales had Europe’s highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States.19 Today, English news media headline violence in terms redolent of the doleful, melodramatic language that for so long characterized American news reports.20 One aspect of England’s recent experience deserves note, given how often and favorably advo‐ cates have compared English gun policy to its American coun‐ terpart over the past 35 years.21 A generally unstated issue in this notoriously emotional debate was the effect of the Warren Court and later restrictions on police powers on American gun policy. Critics of these decisions pointed to soaring American crime rates and argued simplistically that such decisions caused, or at least hampered, police in suppressing crime. But to some supporters of these judicial decisions, the example of England argued that the solution to crime was to restrict guns, not civil liberties. To gun control advocates, England, the cradle of our liberties, was a nation made so peaceful by strict gun control that its police did not even need to carry guns. The United States, it was argued, could attain such a desirable situation by radically reducing gun ownership, preferably by banning and confiscating handguns. The results discussed earlier contradict those expectations. On the one hand, despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the 1990s. On the other hand, the same time period in the United Kingdom saw a constant and dramatic increase in violent crime to which England’s response was ever‐more drastic gun control including, eventually, banning and confiscating all handguns and many types of long guns.22 Nevertheless, criminal violence rampantly increased so that by 2000 England surpassed the United States to become one of the developed world’s most violence‐ridden nations……

Here is part of their Conclusion: This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra.149 To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world. Source: Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy http://www.law.harvard.edu/.../Vol30_No2...

I then said, Federalist 10 and 46 represent in my opinion, the chief parts/reasoning of why the second amendment is important.

Here is part of Madison's argument in Federalist 10: "From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy… can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union." James Madison, Federalist No. 10

So here he argues why a Republic is better then a Democracy, and the idea of the "mischiefs of faction" and how at any given time the majority will in one way or another coerce the minority. Democracy, counter-intuitively then, is the great civilization killer, and easily undermines individual freedom, hence the "tyranny of the majority".

In Federalist 46, he examines the differences and pros and cons of having a Standing army (Military controlled by government) vs armed citizenry: In Federalist No. 46, Madison calculates that the new government could support a standing army but "To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops… . Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

Here I think we find the seeds of the Second Amendment, and the relationship to standing army (Government controlled) vs an armed citizenry, which if need be (unlikely going to happen, but still) acts as a kind of fail safe to preserve the Republic (atall costs). Democracies do not need a first or second amendment, however a Republic does. (In my opinion). In a Democracy, the vast majority would be fine with gun control, likely not seeing any "modern" need for an armed citizenry, and would just vote on it and it would be so. But the problem is that this is precisely how nations die, and join the eternal cycle of failed states.

I could go on in a further attempt to explain my logic/reasoning as to why I think the second amendment is necessary to preserve the Union (forever), and to preserve the Republic (specifically). But I think I have said enough to at least get my reasoning in a way that does not make me seem like a radical. I think if you really consider it, you will see where I am coming from.

Also, here is an article from one of my favorite philosophers of today, Sam Harris, whom you may be familiar with. He writes with clarity and sound logic. Here is a piece he did on gun control (if you are interested): https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun

Here are some follow up questions in a pod cast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0DYpaLgWIo

Here is some more material on the "dilemmas of democracy" https://www.city-journal.org/.../james-madison-and...

Here's a brief discussion of Federalist 46 https://armsandthelaw.com/arc.../2005/04/federalist_no_4.php

Here is something I wrote that you may be interested in and partly explains why I am "republican" along with what I mentioned about Democracy and the "micheifs of faction": What follows is something I wrote for a facebook “civil politcal debate” as a favor to a fellow freemason in Canada, where I attempted to get at the essential reason why I think we have so much political upheaval, and how to get back to our Constitutional way of life by examining Hamilton’s Federalist No. 17 and the implications therein. “First, I would like to thank Bro. Charles for inviting me to comment in a civil discussion of politics, a subject I usually do not attempt to discuss on Facebook due to the inherent limitations of the medium itself. The format and back-and-forth nature of posts only seems to foster hurried and usually less well thought out arguments “in the heat of the post”. I have come to realize you do not persuade others by quipy remarks or tones that, in your own certitude, just come off as condescension regardless of how well thought out or how right you may be (or think you are). I shall attempt to render my opinion on the first part of your questions Charles, and that is, is the phenomenon like Trump and Brexit a ‘Great Rebellion’? The short answer is in the affirmative, and here is why. Two words: Power, and Sovereignty; but perhaps not in the way you may be thinking. What I mean by power is, where does the actual political power come from in this day and age? From the People presumably, but the fear, justified or not, is that both nations, a Constitutional Republic and a Parliamentary Democracy are no longer responsive to the Will of the People. The Spectre of Oppression rises as the perception of true freedom wanes. People feel more and more disconnected, disaffected, disenfranchised, and trod upon by undue regulation. In many instances, it affects them personally, financially, and has significant influence on their means. And yet, what recourse do they have? Voting ad nauseam with little to show for it? It feels as if no one represents you completely, largely due to entrenched political platform with little maneuverability, dominated by crony kow-towers suffering from Group Think. With each election cycle, we the Peoples of both Nations, feel like our Power, or Self-Evident Liberty to govern ourselves, is slipping away. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist no. 17, has this to say about the advantage of maintaining matters related to Law and Justice at the Local level: “There is one transcendent advantage belonging to the province of the State governments, which alone suffices to place the matter in a clear and satisfactory light… I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice. This, of all others, is the most powerful, most universal, and most attractive source of popular obedience and attachment. It is this, which, being the immediate and visible guardian of life and property; having its benefits and its terrors in constant activity before the public eye; regulating all those personal interests, and familiar concerns, to which the sensibility of individuals is more immediately awake; contributes, more than any other circumstance, to impress upon the minds of the people affection, esteem, and reverence towards the government.” Hamilton is essentially saying that Liberty is best maintained locally, in terms of civil and criminal law, and that when done so, is more responsive to the People, and they in turn, are more cooperative and filial with the Government (imagine that! Lol). So, therefore, this is the crux of my point, and where my assumptions rest as to the nature of the problem. Trump and Brexit (and Bernie I would argue) are manifestations of the People’s hope to regain some of the “Power” they intuitively sense they have lost, but few will cite the raison d'être as I have. Naturally then, my solution rests in returning the ‘ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice’ or “Power to the People” in the form of greater reliance on Local and State Governance, and considerably less Federal encroachment in these arenas, which would serve to assuage the Fears, real and imagined, of the Populace, and bring back a more responsive government for the people, by the people. Now that I have clarified (hopefully) what I mean by “Power,” let us move onto Sovereignty, which is defined as ‘the authority of a State to govern itself’. This part is easy, for I see sovereignty as a natural extension of the principle of power, or rather, as an (Fractal-like) iteration of the self-evident Right of Liberty, or to govern ourselves. One of the chief complaints I heard/read from supporters of Brexit was that being in the EU degraded British Sovereignty. Well what does this mean really? It means that the very ‘power’ Trump supporters (and other supporters) want back, a greater ability to self-govern, are the very same thing the Brexit voters want; more freedom, particularly in regards to civil law and the regulations they feel like they have no say or voice in. Their say in the ‘ordinary administration of civil and criminal justice’ is eluding the voters of both nations. Taking back one’s sovereignty is just another way of saying I want more say in civil and criminal law from a governmental perspective. So, this is why I would have to answer the first part of your question in the affirmative; it is a ‘thing’ whose cause rests in the voters declining ability to have a voice in civil, tax, property, etc. law that is imposed on them by politicians orders of magnitude removed from them.”

Anyway, I wanted to share this with my followers, food for thought. I highly recommend reading and listening to Sam Harris philosophical approach to the Riddle of the Gun. Take care followers and have a Blessed day.

REGIII32

p.s. feel free to debate and argue (followers), I enjoy hearing your thought processes and seeing your evidence.

#politics #me #gun control #controversy #federalist papers #sam harris

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sonofhistory · 8 years ago

Note

What was Hamilton and Monroe's relationship like?

Alexander Hamilton and James Monroe had the potential for a lasting relationship. When the Virginia Assembly ordered the formation of four new infantry regiments, James Monroe, who rode home to enlist, was carrying letters of recommendations–one of which came from Alexander Hamilton. Both men were present in the withering winter of Valley Forge and Hamilton wrote to John Laurens of him on May 22nd, 1779:

“Monroe is just setting out from Head Quarters and proposes to go in quest of adventures to the Southward. He seems to be as much of a night errant as your worship; but as he is an honest fellow, I shall be glad he may find some employment, that will enable him to get knocked in the head in an honorable way. He will relish your black scheme [Laurens was currently in South Carolina attempting to carry out his plan for raising his black battalions] if any thing handsome can be done for him in that line. You know him to be a man of honor a sensible man and a soldier. This makes it unnecessary to me to say any thing to interest your friendship for him. You love your country too and he has zeal and capacity to serve it.”

Both men were close in age, Alexander born in 1755 was three years older than James born in 1758. At Yorktown, October 14th, 1781, Monroe and Hamilton were with one another as they both led a charge through enemy redoubts at Yorktown.

After the war, both men went on a rather same route: marriage, starting a family and working as a lawyer until appointment into the Continental Congress. By the time the constitution was ratified, both men were on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

In December of 1792, former congressional clerk reported that Hamilton had been involved with a criminal speculator in misuse of government funds. Congress appointed a committee to investigate: Federalists Frederick Muhlenburg, and Abraham Venable and non-federalist James Monroe. All three confronted Hamilton of December 15th who instead, confessed to an affair. The immigrant passed over letters he had shared with Mrs. Maria Reynolds to further show proof that he was not involved in embezzling government funds. The three men promised not to speak anymore about the affair and went on their way; of course not Monroe. Monroe instead sent along the information to good friend and mentor, Thomas Jefferson whom was at Monticello.

One morning in 1797, Monroe received a letter from Hamilton who challenged his keeping of the secret from five years earlier. Unaware that the information he’d passed along to Jefferson had been released, Monroe put off replying until consulting with Muhlenberg and Venable. The day after Monroe arrived in New York and consented to a meeting between the two, Hamilton appeared at his doorstep with brother-in-law John Barker Church on the morning of Tuesday, July 11th. Agitated, he demanded to know why Monroe had not replied to his letter and accused him of leaking the affair. Monroe explained he had left the dossier with a “friend in Virginia” and still unaware it had been released. David Gelston who was also present at the scene of this dispute wrote an account of the event:

“Colo. Hamilton came about 10 oClk in the morning… [Hamilton] appeared very much agitated upon… entrance into the room… he went into a detail of circumstances at considerable length upon a former meeting at Philada. between Mr Muhlenberg Mr. Venable…

…Colo. M then began with declaring it was merely accidental his knowing any thing about the business at first [the affair] he sealed up his copy of the papers mentioned and sent or delivered them to his Friend in Virginia [most likely Jefferson]—he had no intention of publishing them & declared upon his honor that he knew nothing of their publication until he arrived in Philada from Europe and was sorry to find they were published.

Colo. H. observed that as he had written to Colo. M. Mr Muhlenburgh & Mr. Venable he expected an immediate answer to so important a subject in which his character the peace & reputation of his Family were so deeply interested…

…Colo. M then proceeded upon a history of the business printed in the pamphlets and said that the packet of papers before alluded to he yet believed remained sealed with his friend in Virginia and after getting through…

Hamilton grew rather infuriated, shouting “This as your representation is totally false!”

Both men rose to their feet. Monroe, offended rose first saying:

Do you say I represented falsely? You are a Scoundrel.”

Colo. H. said I will meet you like a Gentleman [a duel]

Colo. M Said I am ready get your pistols…

It was at this point that Church and Gelston stepped between the two political titans, “Gentlemen, gentlemen, be moderate,”

Although Hamilton remained “agitated”, Monroe went back into clarity and reiterated his lack of knowledge over the leak of private information. Hamilton agreed to let this whole thing rest until Monroe returned to Philadelphia to meet with Muhlenburg and Venable and both agreed to meet once again in a weeks time with “any intemperate expressions… be forgotten.” In the days that followed, Monroe and Muhlenburg cosigned a letter to Hamilton that neither had any knowledge about the publication of the Reynolds dossier. Venable was away and was unable to reply.

“You have been and are actuated by motives towards me malignant and dishonorable,” Hamilton relayed, “nor can I doubt that this will be the universal opinion, when the publication of the whole affair with I am about to make shall be seen.” Infuriated by the pursuit, Monroe was quick to shoot back:

“Why you have adopted this style I know not. If you object is to render this affair a personal one between us, you might have been more explicit… I have stated to you that I have no wish to do you a personal injury. The several explanations which I have made accorded with truth… If these do not yield you satisfaction, I can give you no other, unless called on in a way which… I wish to avoid, but which I am ever ready to meet.”

Monroe asked Aaron Burr to serve as his second. Burr urged Monroe to send a conciliatory letter of some sorts, “Seeing no adequate cause… why I should give a challenge to you… I own it was not my intention to give or even provoke one… If, on the other hand, you meant this last letter as a challenge to me, I have then to request that you will say so.” Both men let up on the whole ordeal and a duel, never fought.

James Monroe has no known reaction towards Alexander Hamilton’s death. Though, in the decades after her husband’s death, Elizabeth Hamilton had one grievance which stuck with her for many, many years: the Reynold’s affair, something which she blamed the leak of solely on Monroe. In the 1820s, after Monroe had completed his two full terms as President of the United States, he called upon Eliza in Washington D.C., hoping to “thaw the frost” between them. Eliza was then about seventy, her nephew read her the invite and “she read the name and stood holding the card, much perturbed,” said a nephew, “her voice sank and she spoke very low, as she always did when she was angry. “What has that man come to see me for?” The nephew said Monroe had come to pay his respects. She wavered, “I will see him.”

When she entered the parlor, Monroe rose to greet her and did not invite him to sit down. With a bow, Monroe began what seemed to sound like a well-rehearsed speech, “that it was many years since they had met, that the lapse in time brought its softening influences, that they both were nearing the grave, when past differeneces could be forgiven and forgotten.

Eliza believed Monroe was trying to draw a moral standing between them and she was not in a forgiving mood. “Mr Monroe, if you have come to tell me that you repent, that you are sorry, very sorry, for the misrepresentations and the slanders and the stories you circulated against my dear husband, Iif you have come to say this, I understand it. But otherwise, no lapse of time, no nearness of grave, makes any difference.” Monroe was without a comment, picked up his day, bid her good day and left the home, never to return.

#James monroe #alexander hamilton #Flood Pressles box #Sincerely Anonymous

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maxwellyjordan · 5 years ago

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Empirical SCOTUS: How Chief Justice Roberts articulates his ethos through his Year End Reports

Chief Justice John Roberts released an impassioned Year End Report on December 31, 2019, which generated much commentary. The New York Times, for instance, wrote about Roberts’ calls for an independent federal judiciary. The Wall Street Journal examined his warnings against rumor and false information. These values inherent in the report foreshadow important aspects related to the (presumably) upcoming Senate impeachment hearings, over which Roberts will preside. Although these allusions clearly relate to current politics, Roberts did not stray drastically from the substance in his previous Year End Reports, nor from topics he discusses in some of his most well-known decisions. This post looks at some of the key words Roberts uses in Year End Reports.* It also looks at some of the top words in his opinions issued in the month of June, when the court tends to release its most important opinions. Roberts often steeps his prose in the court’s history and is not averse to discussing the relationship between politics and the court. We can see these facets of his writing in his word choice in both sets of texts.

One of the more profound statements in Roberts’ 2019 Year End Report came in the second-to-last paragraph:

We should celebrate our strong and independent judiciary, a key source of national unity and stability. But we should also remember that justice is not inevitable. We should reflect on our duty to judge without fear or favor, deciding each matter with humility, integrity, and dispatch. As the New Year begins, and we turn to the tasks before us, we should each resolve to do our best to maintain the public’s trust that we are faithfully discharging our solemn obligation to equal justice under law.

This notion of trust in the judiciary is central to Roberts’ philosophy of the court. It is so crucial that Roberts gave one of his very few public comments defending the federal judiciary after President Donald Trump criticized the decision of an “Obama Judge” who ruled against the president’s migrant asylum policy. The trust and judicial independence that Roberts focused on in the 2019 Year End Report echoed themes espoused in the Federalist Papers. This is clear from many of the report’s top terms.

Click to enlarge.

Although some of the top terms are common words that appear across many of Roberts’ Year End Reports, mainly dealing with judges and their role in civic education, we see that “federalist” (relating to the Federalist Papers) came up six times, while the authors of the papers were mentioned often as well: John Jay eight times, James Madison five times and Alexander Hamilton four times. We see these words’ purpose in passages that underscore the importance of living under a democratic government:

Happily, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay ultimately succeeded in convincing the public of the virtues of the principles embodied in the Constitution. Those principles leave no place for mob violence. But in the ensuing years, we have come to take democracy for granted, and civic education has fallen by the wayside.

Looking across all Roberts’ Year End Reports since he took over the role of chief justice in 2005, we see that he tends to focus on concepts essential to courts and the rule of law. The top row shows the number of times words have arisen, and the bottom row shows the number of reports in which the words appeared (the maximum is 15).

Click to enlarge.

Many of these words are specific to courts and judges, but others signify broader topics. Some examples include “system,” which was used 63 times in 13 reports, “Congress,” which was mentioned 58 times in 13 reports, and “government,” which was discussed 49 times in 12 reports. An example of the uses of system comes from Roberts’ 2005 report: “I also understand that it is the responsibility of Congress to do difficult things when necessary to preserve our constitutional system. Our system of justice suffers as the real salary of judges continues to decline.” In ways like this, Roberts expands his discussion beyond the courts to the federal government more generally.

A look at some other common, though less frequent, words in Roberts’ Year End Reports reveals additional trends.

Click to enlarge.

“Branches” of government are described 22 times in 10 reports, “constitution” appears 28 times in 11 reports, “executive” comes up 12 times in five reports, and the “president” is used 12 times in seven reports. In addition, various individuals are the subject of frequent discussion, including former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, mentioned 13 times in six reports, and Hamilton, who came up nine times in five reports.

When we look at the top words that appear in the 71 opinions Roberts has authored that were released in June (consisting of 38 majority opinions, 25 dissents and eight concurrences), the topics are fairly consistent with the main words in his Year End Reports.

Click to enlarge.

“Court,” “government,” “law,” “federal,” “United States” and “Congress” are all top-frequency words from Roberts’ Year End Reports. Some additional political notions also arise frequently in these opinions. “Power” was mentioned 499 times across 46 opinions, “rights” came up 392 times in 42 opinions and “political” came up 338 times in 33 opinions.

“Power” came up most frequently (134 times) in Roberts’ majority opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius, examining the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. “Rights” are discussed the most (43 times) in Roberts’ majority opinion in Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems. Finally, the term “political” came up the most in Roberts’ majority opinion in last term’s Rucho v. Common Cause, which held that partisan gerrymandering presents a political question beyond the reach of federal courts.

None of these June opinions, however, is the most similar in terms of word composition to Roberts’ 2019 Year End Report. Using a method called cosine similarity, described as “a metric used to measure how similar the documents are irrespective of their size,” the three most similar opinions to the 2019 Year End Report are Roberts’ 2011 majority opinion in Stern v. Marshall and his 2008 dissents in Boumediene v. Bush and Sprint Communications v. APCC Services.

Where are the similarities between these opinions and Roberts’ 2019 Year End Report? Stern demonstrates how an unlikely opinion mirrors concepts from the report. Much of the case discussion surrounds the extent to which Article III authorizes Bankruptcy Court judgments. In one section Roberts performs a historical analysis:

Article III protects liberty not only through its role in implementing the separation of powers, but also by specifying the defining characteristics of Article III judges. The colonists had been subjected to judicial abuses at the hand of the Crown, and the Framers knew the main reasons why: because the King of Great Britain “made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.” The Declaration of Independence ¶ 11.

As this passage makes apparent, it is not always the predictable cases in which Roberts’ opinions raise the same concepts and concerns as do his Year End Reports. Nonetheless, the themes in Roberts’ opinions and Year End Reports often have implications that extend beyond specific cases to political ideals and expectations for a well-functioning democracy.

*When processing the text, one- and two-word phrases were included. A stoplist dictionary removed generic words such as “and” and “the.” Words under two characters were removed.

The post Empirical SCOTUS: How Chief Justice Roberts articulates his ethos through his Year End Reports appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

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#law #justice

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quiltedopenlettertounclesam-blog · 6 years ago

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Yes, Uncle Sam, love does exist.

One evening last December, my husband and a friend quizzed each other on U.S. citizenship questions. I sat in the living room with them, listening as I worked on my husband’s Christmas quilt. They were studying for the final step of the U.S. citizenship application process, where 10 questions out of a pool of 100 are administered orally by an immigration official.

Questions range from as easy as #28 (“What is the name of the President of the United States now?”) to as difficult as navigating the subtleties between the rights and responsibilities of citizens versus residents as bestowed by the Constitution (#49 “What is one responsibility that is only for United States citizens?” and #51 “What are two rights of everyone living in the United States?”).

Over a decade ago, I passed my high school A.P. U.S. History exam. Immediately thereafter I replaced most of the memorized facts with post-high-school-worries and summertime shenanigans. Bearing witness to the study session unfolding in my living room was an excellent refresher course in U.S. history and, much like my husband, I began internalizing the 100 items the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) deem most important for new citizens to know. We hold our new citizens to high standards.

Occasionally, self-quizzes pop into my online periphery, touting citizenship questions and daring me, “Could you pass?” I’ve seen cringe-worthy videos of random victims fumbling through incorrect answers to the same questions naturalized citizens are required to answer correctly. Most of the questions I knew vaguely, but the USCIS only accepts a highly specific set of answers.

Off the top of your head, and without help from Alexa or Google:

- Do you know the answer to Question #70? (“Who was President during World War I”)

- How about Question #23? (“Name your U.S. Representative”)

- Can you differentiate between a responsibility granted by the Constitution for U.S. Citizens (Question #49, mentioned previously) and a right of everyone living in the United States, citizen or not (Question #51, see above)?

- Couldn’t we ALL benefit from a cozy living room refresher course?

Let’s back up: My husband and I have spent the last half-decade wading through the U.S. immigration system together, petitioning for visas, requesting permissions, demonstrating evidence, and spending large chunks of our savings on the aforementioned. What began with a petition for an interview at a U.S. embassy in South America turned into a whirlwind visa approval with strict time limits on his entry to the U.S. and just 90 days to legally marry on U.S. soil, morphing into formal requests for permissions to work and travel, then a temporary conditional residency, resulting in our filing for permanent residency and, most recently, applying to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Phew.

I recognize that my socio-economic and race privileges, paired with good will and support from family and friends, made any of the above possible. This has been an exhausting and humbling and privacy-invading process for us, and I’m disturbed to think how exponentially more difficult it would have been under different circumstances: if I were not white; if my family could not have helped us prove financial solvency; if ours wasn’t a heterosexual relationship.

Almost every step of our immigration process mandated we show evidence of our continued genuine relationship, and we not only sent the required formal documents (marriage certificates, joint leases, bank accounts, and tax returns), but we also attempted to show the humanity of our relationship, that which black-&-white documents simply cannot convey, in hopes that humans on the receiving end of our application would see us as real people.

We included the receipt for our wedding rings, bought as soon as we learned we were granted an embassy interview and marking the exact moment we allowed ourselves to believe our dream might become reality; we included ticket stubs from flights taken together throughout his native country and the ominous one-way ticket from his country to mine; we included photos of our impromptu marriage ceremony in a U.S. county government office, when our 9-year-old niece boldly stepped into the role of Maid of Honor with a beautiful reading – in two languages, no less! – as follows:

Today I am marrying my best friend, The one I laugh with, The one I live for, The one I dream with, And the one I love.

(These very words are now stitched into my husband’s Christmas quilt)

We were stuck for almost 18 months at the “permanent residency” step of our immigration process due to unprecedented backlogs in the USCIS system. It was during this time the defining phrase “a nation of immigrants” conspicuously disappeared from the USCIS mission statement.

A nation of immigrants: I am as proud of my husband’s South American heritage as I am of my own immigrant ancestry. I am just two generations removed from the brave Jampolsky family that anglicized their Eastern-European surname to the American-sounding “Jay.” Question #67 of the civics exam states: “The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution. Name one of the writers.” One of the accepted answers is John Jay, a founding father of the USA.

While my family shares John Jay’s name today, our “Jay” comes from immigrant tailors taking a purposeful measure to avoid implicit bias when 20th-century New Yorkers purchased their garments. My family’s original surname is etched on the wall at Ellis Island, meaning the Statue of Liberty was our beacon of hope, as it was for so many others. For more on Lady Liberty, see citizenship Question #95.

A few weeks before citizenship questions ricocheted around our living room, we received an “RFE” from the USCIS regarding my husband’s residency petition: the dreaded Request For Evidence. After sending bank letters, joint health insurance policies, utility bills, photos from our first years of marriage, and affidavits from family members, we now had a hard deadline to provide even more proof of our relationship, and failure to comply risked deportation. Was there still room to doubt the existence of our love?

We pulled out all the stops. We slogged through every single document containing our two names, and we spent over $100 at the copy store making a veritable tower of papers. We are products of our tech- and texting-savvy generation, and it dawned on us we had no idea how to send via snail-mail a stack of documents too thick for paperclips, staples, or envelopes.

We ultimately tied the giant bundle together with ribbon leftover from tethering our garden vines, and after placing everything in an over-sized box we filled the extra space with plastic bags blown up like balloons. Our previous attempts to prove our humanity with photos and anecdotes obviously hadn’t worked, as shown by this Request For Evidence, but perhaps this MacGyvered packing method would do the trick?

After a few anxious weeks, my husband’s permanent residency was approved. In rapid turnaround, he soon applied for U.S. citizenship – I’ll save the conversation surrounding one’s willingness to pledge loyalty to the U.S. in today’s xenophobic environment for another time. We are back to playing the waiting game, but at least this time we have a solid method of distraction by way of studying for the citizenship exam.

Let’s shift gears to this Christmas quilt: When you’ve just spent upwards of a thousand dollars on applications, copy fees, and postage (and when a thousand dollars is still a considerable sum of money), what helps pass the time while your husband works evenings, without increasing the credit card balance? A quilt. What will be unequivocally better than any gift found on Amazon? A quilt. What can I give to the person who opened my eyes to the beauty of a new culture, who walks with me through international bureaucracy barriers, and who continues to be the best thing to happen to me each day? This quilt.

I grew up accompanying my mother to Quilt Guild meetings and falling asleep under a patchwork made by her and her friends. I marveled at the Gee’s Bend quilts and devoured children’s books about the Underground Railroad, with illustrations depicting specific quilt blocks that signaled safe houses. I showed up at college with an extra-long quilt for my dorm room’s Twin XL mattress, and I myself have made T-shirt quilts for friends when beloved tees from high school athletic teams and drama clubs became too threadbare to continue wearing and washing.

Quilt symbolism fascinates me, so I carefully chose representative blocks for this foray into heirloom quilt making: the “Log Cabin” block, with its square hearth in the middle wrapped in outward radiating strips, for the homes we’ve made on two continents; my mother’s favorite “Flying Geese” flock around the centerpiece, for although geese migrate long distances, they always find their way home; “Storm at Sea” for my husband’s love of the ocean and recognition that life’s storms are better weathered together.

Quilting purists will notice my Storm at Sea block contains one too many diamond-and-triangle rows, the result of a novice attempt to make things fit after flipping the square centerpiece on its corner – let’s chalk that up to the Amish quilting tradition of purposefully including an imperfection in each piece, or in my case, a fair few imperfections.

I was, perhaps, a little overzealous trying to hand-quilt the entire piece before Christmas, which is why basting stitches are still visible (though I might argue the basting stitches reflect our life together as a work in progress). Leaves and curling tendrils will eventually replace the basting stitches, embodying the fruit vines my husband so carefully tends, and ruefully reminding us of the string used to bundle our Request for Evidence papers.

Quilts need stitches every few inches to anchor their layers, and I needed something to anchor me in the tumultuous close of 2018. Hand quilting is meditative: making uniform, even stitches means rocking the needle up and down, over and over again. Placing the needle perpendicular to the fabric, find the tip of the needle from underneath and use the thimble you filched from your mother’s sewing room decades ago to push the needle through, then begin the process anew. I recommend playing an audio book and losing yourself in someone else’s world and in a rhythm of stitches.

I was like the millennial Betsy Ross stitching into the night, trying to finish before the holiday, and my husband the modern-day immigrant Francis Scott Key, finding his own quilted Star-Spangled Banner* on Christmas morning after having survived the bombardment of plagues that the year 2018 hurled at our family.

*For anyone keeping score, “the Star-Spangled Banner” is the correct response to Question #98: “What is the name of the National Anthem?”

The living room study session paused: “What the *bleep* does ‘Spangled’ mean?”

Follow-up observation: “Spangled” is not an English vocabulary word I’d had occasion to translate into Spanish, nor is it easy to do so. Despite not having a direct translation, I got the point across with “estrellada,” and “cubierto de estrellas.”

At one point, I showed process shots of the quilt to a friend (also an immigrant and someone who has selflessly adopted me and my husband on numerous holidays). While swiping through photos she mused, “Making quilts is something typically American, isn’t it?”

A little context: I spent the better part of six years living in South America, struggling all the while to put my finger on the U.S. equivalent of the traditional dishes, the typical costumes and dances, and the ingrained cultural customs I witnessed. Everyone in my new country inherently knew they must greet each person individually when entering a room, and everyone expected that pork belly and freeze-dried potatoes be served at weddings (usually well after midnight), just like everyone assumed fast-food hamburgers were wholly representative of the U.S. Sigh.

Thanks to my immigrant friend’s nonchalant observation, I discovered that quilting was the very evidence I sought: a cultural link, a generational continuum, a method of telling stories and connecting families. Quilting is an American tradition. Quilting is MY American tradition.

Returning to the pre-Christmas study session, quilt on my lap, Question #55: “What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy?” Easy answers include voting and running for office. Farther down the list of USCIS-approved ways we can participate in our democracy is “write to a newspaper.” At the raised eyebrows I saw appear over my quilt, I explained Letters to the Editor and Op-Eds.

“So … Anyone can write?” “Yes.”

“… And does anyone actually write?” “Well …”

Apparently, not all answers to the USCIS questions have contemporary resonance (seeing as writing to a newspaper certainly pre-dates 160-character limits), and it seems not all South American countries encourage writing to newspapers, thus the question I just fielded. Once I’d gotten past the shock that writing to a newspaper is now a somewhat archaic concept, I used the classic example of “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” to show that anyone can indeed write to a newspaper. It was Christmastime, after all.

To jog your memory, in 1897 a young girl named Virginia wrote to the New York Sun doubting if Santa Claus was real, and the editor’s response is a timeless explanation that “often the most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.” You’ll notice there was no implication that at age seven, “It’s marginal, right?”

When all is said and done, it’s important to note my husband and I are grateful. Although I aim to remind the USCIS that this will always be a nation of immigrants, its systems have allowed me and my husband to live, be free, and pursue our happiness on U.S. soil.

So, in the Christmas spirit (albeit belatedly), with help from Virginia and the editor at the New York Sun, and with renewed inspiration to contribute to my democracy as Question #55 of the citizenship exam suggests, I conclude with this:

Yes, Uncle Sam, love does exist.

Our relationship exists “as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist,” and this gives our “life its highest beauty and joy.”

And yes, Uncle Sam, we are a nation of immigrants.

As neither of these two statements has been clear from the stacks upon stacks of papers and documents and signatures and petitions and forms and photos we dutifully provided, I invite you to come lay under my husband’s Christmas quilt, painstakingly stitched with generations-old traditions and infused with an entire nation’s dreams. For without these dreams, “there would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.”

I invite you to wrap yourself, as our future children will, in the warmth of this labor of love, and to dream with us our American dream.

#citizenship test #democracy #nation of immigrants #uscis #uncle sam #stitch by stitch #quilt #quilted with love #handmade with love #immigration #america #citizenship

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iuniverseblog · 6 years ago

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Great Literary Works of Early America

In honor of July 4th, we thought we’d talk a bit about the early literature of our country, especially some books and writers that we no longer read in school. Even in these early works, we see the richness of American literature coming alive.

Charles Brockden Brown

Let’s begin with taking a look at the earliest American novels. Popular consensus says that the first novel written in a free United States was The Power of Sympathy, by William Hill Brown, in 1789. The story is told in an epistolary form (i.e. through the exchange of letters), as was popular at the time. The Power of Sympathy is classified as a “sentimental” novel, one which deals heavily with the characters’ emotions. The plot is racy, even by today’s standards, as it is based on a real-life case of scandal and seduction.

While Brown’s book is considered the first American novel, the first American novelist to establish a reputation was another “Brown”, fully named Charles Brockden Brown. The writings of Charles Brockden Brown are famous as being early examples of the Gothic novel, involving old manor houses, eerie passageways, graveyards, and sinister doings. Some of Brockden Brown’s novels include Wieland, Ormond, and Edgar Huntly.

Shortly after Brockden Brown, we see the arrival of Washington Irving, generally considered the first American writer to support himself entirely by his pen. Irving’s literary fame commenced with his History of New York, a hilarious satire which poked fun at New York’s colonial Dutch families. This work was followed by The Sketch Book, which contained the tales of “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” – both of which remain part of the standard American literary canon to this day.

James Fenimore Cooper

While Irving was not a novelist, the next writer of novels to gain notoriety was James Fenimore Cooper. Many of his novels focus on the American colonies before Independence. One of his early novels, The Spy, is an exciting tale of the American Revolution. His most famous novel, The Last of the Mohicans, is a story of the French and Indian War, which took place from 1756-1763.

Moving away from fiction, a book that serves as an embodiment of early America is The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Covering the first half of Franklin’s life, the book gives a first-hand glimpse of life in colonial Boston and Philadelphia, while capturing the American spirit of diligence and practicality. Franklin himself is often referred to as “The First American”. Lastly, the work is a great guide for how to improve our daily lives — in addition to being an autobiography, it is also a self-help book!

While Franklin’s autobiography does not mention his political career, an early series of political writings is found in The Federalist Papers, a combination of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay (our first Chief Justice). Written from 1787-1788, the essays had the intention of motivating states to sign the Constitution, which was being criticized by people who did not want a strong central government. The Federalist Papers is a stimulating insight into the brilliant minds of our Founding Fathers – it shows their intellect, education, and genuine concern for the republic. The most famous essay is #10, written by Madison, and discusses the dangers of faction. The writing style is sublime, featuring the beauty of 18th-century prose and comparable to Burke and Gibbon in England – showing that these young American whippersnappers could write just as well as their cousins across the pond. To give you a taste of this literary flair, one early sentence by Hamilton reads, “The consciousness of good intentions disdains ambiguity.”

(There is also a series called The Anti-Federalist Papers, though it has not fared so well in literary longevity – perhaps because its overall message failed!)

Jonathan Edwards

It’s difficult to think of early America without thinking of the religious dimension. Our first successful colony, Massachusetts, was largely founded by Puritans, and their influence remains in our culture to this day. William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation contains descriptions of colonial life from 1620 to the late 1640s, though for the sheer religious side of life, one can look at the sermons of Jonathan Edwards. A Puritan minister, Edwards adhered to a very strict interpretation of Christianity, and his sermons were characterized as having a “fire-and-brimstone” quality, with references to the “black clouds of God’s wrath” hanging over us. Mankind was doomed, except for a very select few — whom, inexplicably, God apparently had already saved. Check out his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, here.

Finally, if you liked the film The Revenant, you will probably enjoy reading about the travels of Lewis and Clark through the Louisiana Purchase. For some reason, this adventurous journey has received relatively little attention in literature and film, but it must have been both fascinating and extremely dangerous. These explorers were up against a completely unchartered territory, with deadly animals and hostile inhabitants, and they braved through it with true American manliness and perseverance. You can order The Journals of Lewis and Clark over amazon.com for free, and for further study, there is the masterful volume Undaunted Courage by Professor Stephen E. Ambrose.

Naturally there is a wealth of other works from early American literature, and we encourage you to delve deeper into this period. Let us know any books that you can recommend!

Make sure to check out the iUniverse site for more advice and blogs, as well as iUniverse Facebook and iUniverse Twitter.

— By Tom McKinley

The post Great Literary Works of Early America appeared first on iUniverse Blog.

#iUniverse #iUniverse Blog #iUniverse Publishing

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oldguardaudio · 8 years ago

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Learn a bit about our next Supreme Court Judge - Tenth Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch -

Learn a bit about our next Supreme Court Justice - Tenth Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch -

President Donald Trump nominates Tenth Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of The United States of America

On September 11, 2001, at the age of 45 and at the height of her professional and personal life, Barbara K. Olson was murdered in the terrorist attacks against the United States as a passenger on the hijacked American Airlines flight that was flown into the Pentagon.

The Federalist Society established this annual lecture in Barbara's memory because of her enormous contributions as an active member, supporter, and volunteer leader. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson delivered the first lecture in November 2001. The lecture series continued in following years with other notable individuals.

In 2013, the Honorable Neil M. Gorsuch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit delivered the lecture. He was introduced by Mr. Eugene B. Meyer, President of the Federalist Society.