Revote Case is the way to AVOID Civil War

  The assertion has been made that the Revote case, if it should succeed, might cause civil war. Rather, it seems quite obvious to us that the best way to avoid such an event, to replace war with persuasive speech and constitutional procedure, is to void the 2016 election because it was decisively influenced by a foreign power, namely Russia, or their temporary tyrant, Vladimir Putin. The fascism, which everyone knows has been rising in America surrounding the election of Donald Trump, may well be a foreign contrivance. It is certainly being cultivated to the delight of Putin, as is foreign war for the United States. We do not know what he has in mind for us, or just how he plans to harm the United States, but as we have told him, it is time, even for his own good, that he go home and try to make his own nation “great.” We do not care to find out what beneficence this dictator intends for us. But as the Chaldeans, the Mexicans and Muslim Americans know already, and as ICE imposes fascism to the limit of its legal ability, just below the level of general public apprehension, it is quite real. The “Ethno-state,” is TREASON, adhering to a different constitution, and these have been and are in apparent alliance with the “white” guys over on the other side of the globe. The revote effort is in truth the best way to avoid civil war and worse. For do not think that fascism could seize power in the united states without some asserting their natural right as stated in the fourth clause of the second sentence of the Declaration, “whenever” government fails to secure these ends, the purpose to “secure” “rights,” …., but not for trivial causes. “But when…”

   All indications are that “when” will be much too late.

   One problem is that the anti-Trump forces would likely lose. One of the first things, one notes, that Trump did was to flatter the NRA people, so that they are supporting the tyrant and looking in the opposite direction for one wanting to end the gun show and gun lobby American promiscuity regarding firearms to come to “take their guns.” Never mind if arms are used to oppress or to arm fascist tyranny instead of Liberty. For some time now, the only Amendment in their Bill of Rights has been the Second. Next is to pretend to a power to “deputize” state police in the service of ICE. ICE is in fact guilty of MURDER if the Chaldeans are deported illegally to a place they are in danger, and they are killed. We must sit by like lambs and watch our government and Donald Trump cross the line of murder so characteristic of the tyrant (Plato, Republic, Book VIII). The way of peaceful, non-violent protest is not only right, but it is in our circumstances also a necessity. In Ancient Rome, the Republican forces lost a decisive battle with Pompey against Caesar, and then the Republicans were done. The error of Brutus inaugurated over a century of the worst tyranny the world had ever seen, and would see until Stalin and Hitler. Four or Five times, in the late days of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, monsters took the imperial diadem and murdered at will until they were assassinated, but Rome could not rid itself of seemingly perpetual tyranny. The error of Brutus was to fail to observe the action of the first Brutus, who, upon the rape of Lucrece, expelled but did not kill the tyrant Tarquin, and founded the Roman Republic, from which, (and not from Imperial Rome) we copy our own Senate. The bad emperors killed Senators at will, and borrowed their wives as well, right in font of them while they smiled and flattered as though nothing were occurring. Tyranny cannot be expelled by assassination, because it is, despite appearances, not caused by a single man. It is a disease of a polity, now looming for America, though we are blessed not to even be able to imagine tyranny as a possibility for us. The Chaldeans know otherwise.

   Soon we may see that despite non-violent efforts, the protesters against the rising fascism may be attacked. Then with the seized law, the Trumpsters will simply reverse the guilt with a fake news statement and arrest anyone so rude as to defend themselves or other innocents: That is the sort of thing that tyranny and tyrants do. We have already seen it emerge. I myself am labeled dangerous, while doing nothing wrong, but warning of real dangers, such as the planned attack on Chicago. Martin Luther King and Company would train the activists to be able to sit calmly even while women and girls are attacked by men with badges right in front of you-what else can one do that does not bring more harm than good? Get the innocents out of the way. Use caution gathering in one place. But do not doubt that these things are “just a shot away.”

   The revote effort is precisely the way to avoid the civil war that fruitlessly will be caused by the rising fascism left unchecked. Our Constitution provides the means, in both the Supreme Court and though impeachment, to avoid tyranny and to remove a tyrannical president without war- that is indeed its point. Though fee speech, press and assembly would be bound to get rowdy, election is precisely the replacement for civil war, even as football is a civilized sublimation of war between cities. And here is  fine thought: Colin Powell received the third most votes in the Electoral College, due to one “faithless” elector out east. He would then be available for the House to choose as President, a compromise candidate, should neither candidate receive a majority in an Electoral College e-vote. Now that is a way to heal the faction leading to civil war, should Mr. Powell be available. I am still angry that his career was harmed by the vote in the U.N. on Iraq, Saddam,and WMD (Saddam violated the treaty that ended the Gulf War, so the war resumed.WMD was not the issue. They just wanted an unanimous vote in the U.N., remember?) The Republicans seem slow to realize that they do not need Donald Trump at all, nor does America, for the most, need any individual, with perhaps Lincoln and Jefferson excepted. Obvious is Obvious, and we need merely make the truth, now known to two thirds of the electorate, effective through our constitutional institutions. The Russians threw the 2016 election. We would not otherwise elect a man who had literally never read the Constitution. Russia wanted us to have a pilot who literally does not know what he is doing, but can be led about by flattery and such ends as “winning” and Money. One  cannot serve both God and mammon, but especially the US. Christians have been thoroughly deceived, as were the Republicans, by the prospect of running the table with their dear partisan platform. But what two thirds may never know, until it is much too late, is what depends upon our action, to now stand up for Liberty and for our now 230 year old Constitution.

Twentieth Century Ideological Tyranny or “Totalitarianism”

Source: Twentieth Century Ideological Tyranny or “Totalitarianism”

Amicus Brief: On Supreme Court Case #16-1464

I am wondering what the deadline is for these Friend Letters, and any editorial suggestions are most welcome.

Thoughts, Comments and Questions

The Supreme Court

1 First St. NE

Washington, D.C.  20543

   I would like to submit my whole website as arguments and my whole internet experience as evidence in a letter as a friend of the Supreme Court in deciding case #16-1464 to void the 2016 election due to Russian interference.

   As indicated in Ex Parte Yarbrough (1885), the constitution assumes elections that are fair and not thrown, as by violence, bribery or indeed by foreign interference. As stated in Yarbrough, it is unthinkable that Congress have no power to pass laws to secure elections. We say that it is alike unthinkable that a presidential election be thrown and the Supreme Court have nothing to say about it. As stated in Marbury v. Madison, the Court is the interpreter of the Constitution. “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”…

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Stones: “Time Waits for No Man”: No favors Has He”

Copied from the songmeanings site, where Replican1212 has an extraordinary comment from 2008.

Yes, star crossed in pleasure the stream flows on by
Yes, as we’re sated in leisure, we watch it fly
And time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me
And time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me
Time can tear down a building or destroy a woman’s face
Hours are like diamonds, don’t let them waste
Time waits for no one, no favours has he
Time waits for no one, and he won’t wait for me
Men, they build towers to their passing yes, to their fame everlasting
Here he comes chopping and reaping, hear him laugh at their cheating
And time waits for no man, and it won’t wait for me
Yes, time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me
Drink in your summer, gather your corn
The dreams of the night time will vanish by dawn
And time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me
And time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me
No no no, not for me….

   Coming out of “Rocky Mountain High,” I see that the first sentence here is a shooting star. Saturated overfull in leisure, we wast time, when hours are like diamonds. Cat Stevens: “Lets all start livin’ for the one that’s going to last.” “All your money won’t another minute buy,” (Kansas). Incidentally, what a joke to think ill of Jaggar /Richards: look what fun he makes even of cheating, the injustices humans do, upon the argument that one must. “Drink in your summer, gather your corn, the dreams of the night will vanish by dawn.” Indeed, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” And fame? The very ground of fame in our generations we seek to benefit and save by our legacy, even as the Stones do for us here, will be rolled up like a scroll! Indeed, and “Leave not a rack behind.” But “hours are like diamonds.” We cannot but underestimate the value of the gift of the fact that we are here at all to begin. Hence, loss, for which some are angry at God, is just less of the gift we never appreciated, as when our love was there (Dylan, “Tomorrow…).

Consider the Language of Ex Parte Yarbrough (1884), and Apply It to the Supreme Court Itself, (Which Has Article IV.4)

   It is of course difficult to base the revote case on precedent, because, (duh) the circumstance is literally unprecedented. But the language of the Yarbrough case, in which Yarbrough and others were convicted of intimidating a citizen from voting for a member of Congress in violation of  federal legislation, might well make one think that a foreign actor cannot turn a presidential election without the Supreme Court itself having something to say about the matter. In Yarbrough, the issue is whether congress has the power to punish violations of election laws under the Constitution, but we believe that the statements to the effect that the Constitution ASSUMES elections free of “violence, corruption or fraud” amounts to a precedent that pertains to the present case, #16-1464, to void the 2016 election due to Russian interference.

   Justice Miller states:

The idea that Congress has no power to secure elections from violence, corruption, or fraud by making appropriate laws is startling. The proposition that every power of Congress must be expressly granted in the Constitution has never been adhered to by this court. The Constitution itself recognizes this inherent inability to put into words all derived powers when it gives Congress the authority to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry out its functions.

 Another objection was advanced, that the right to vote for a member of Congress is not dependent upon the Constitution, but upon the law of each state, respectively. Even if that were true, the election would still have to be free from bribery and corruption. However, the right to vote for a member of Congress does flow from the Constitution, for the Constitution adopts the qualifications of the state for electing the members of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. therefore, the right does not depend exclusively on the law of the state.

   It is essential that a government such as ours have within its constitutional framework the authority to provide against these evils, or it will soon be at the mercy of combinations of brute force.

   While there are Federal statutes prohibiting interference with the right to vote, the execution of those statutes is now in the power of those benefiting from the corruption of the 2016 election. See my Amicus Brief and previous blogs for an account of what happens when a citizen calls the Federal office to learn what these statutes might be, and that was before the inauguration.

 

Note* They told me to go read Tik Nat Han. So I did!

Appendix: Another copy of the selection from the 1884 decision of Justice Miller, from the U.S Supreme Court website Justia: It is obvious that Congress would have the power to pass laws forbidding the collusion with a foreign power in a presidential or any other election. What we argue from Yarbrough is not that such a law has been passed, but that for the same reasons that Justice Miller argues that such a law is obviously constitutional, the court in fact has the power to void a presidential election where the foreign interference is decisive, especially when not voiding the election places the Constitution itself in such peril that we may never have the chance to pass such a law or use such a precedent under this republican form of government if the principle is not now explicated and the precedent set.

That a government whose essential character is republican, whose executive head and legislative body are both elective, whose numerous and powerful branch of the legislature is elected by the people directly, has no power by appropriate laws to secure this election from the influence of violence, of corruption, and of fraud, is a proposition so startling as to arrest attention and demand the gravest consideration. If this government is anything more than a mere aggregation of delegated agents of other States and governments, each

Page 110 U. S. 658

of which is superior to the general government, it must have the power to protect the elections on which its existence depends from violence and corruption.

If it has not this power, it is left helpless before the two great natural and historical enemies of all republics, open violence and insidious corruption.

The proposition that it has no such power is supported by the old argument often heard, often repeated, and in this Court never assented to, that, when a question of the power of Congress arises, the advocate of the power must be able to place his finger on words which expressly grant it. The brief of counsel before us, though directed to the authority of that body to pass criminal laws, uses the same language. Because there is no express power to provide for preventing violence exercised on the voter as a means of controlling his vote, no such law can be enacted. It destroys at one blow, in construing the Constitution of the United States, the doctrine universally applied to all instruments of writing, that what is implied is as much a part of the instrument as what is expressed. This principle, in its application to the Constitution of the United States, more than to almost any other writing, is a necessity by reason of the inherent inability to put into words all derivative powers — a difficulty which the instrument itself recognizes by conferring on Congress the authority to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry into execution the powers expressly granted, and all other powers vested in the government or any branch of it by the Constitution. Article I, sec. 8, clause 18.

We know of no express authority to pass laws to punish theft or burglary of the treasury of the United States. Is there therefore no power in Congress to protect the treasury by punishing such theft and burglary?

Are the mails of the United States, and the money carried in them, to be left at the mercy of robbers and of thieves who may handle the mail because the Constitution contains no express words of power in Congress to enact laws for the punishment of those offenses? The principle, if sound, would abolish the entire criminal jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and the laws which confer that jurisdiction.

Page 110 U. S. 659

It is said that the States can pass the necessary law on this subject, and no necessity exists for such action by Congress. But the existence of state laws punishing the counterfeiting of the coin of the United States has never been held to supersede the acts of Congress passed for that purpose, or to justify the United States in failing to enforce its own laws to protect the circulation of the coin which it issues.

It is very true that while Congress at an early day passed criminal laws to punish piracy with death, and for punishing all ordinary offenses against person and property committed within the District of Columbia, and in forts, arsenals, and other places within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, it was slow to pass laws protecting officers of the government from personal injuries inflicted while in discharge of their official duties within the States. This was not for want of power, but because no occasion had arisen which required such legislation, the remedies in the state courts for personal violence having proved sufficient.

Perhaps the earliest attempt of Congress to protect government officers while in the exercise of their duty in a hostile community grew out of the nullification ordinance of South Carolina, and is found in the “Act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports.” That act gave a right of action in the courts of the United States to any officer engaged in the collection of customs who should receive any injury to his person or property for or on account of any act done by him under any law of the United States for the protection of the revenues. And where any suit or prosecution should be commenced against him in a state court on account of any act done under the revenue laws of the United States or under color thereof, the case might, on his petition, at any time before trial, be removed into the Circuit Court of the United States. Act of March 2, 1833, 4 Stat. 632.

When, early in the late civil war, the enforcement of the acts of Congress for obtaining soldiers by draft brought the officers engaged in it into hostile neighborhoods, it was found necessary to pass laws for their protection. Accordingly, in 1863, an act was passed making it a criminal offense to assault or obstruct

Page 110 U. S. 660

any officer while engaged in making the draft, or in any service in relation thereto. 12 Stat. 371. And, the next year, the act was amended by making it applicable to the enrollment and resistance made thereto, and adding that, if any assault on any officer or other person engaged in making such enrollment shall result in death, it shall be murder, and punished accordingly. 13 Stat. 8, § 12. Under this statute, Scott was found guilty of murder in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Indiana, and the case was brought here by a certificate of division of opinion.

It was not doubted for a moment by Court or counsel that Congress had the power to pass these statutes, but it was held that serving notice of a draft, in doing which the man was killed, was not a service in the enrollment, as charged in the indictment. United States v. Scott, 3 Wall. 642.

In the case of United States v. Gleason, Woolworth 128, the defendant was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of an enrolling officer while engaged in making the enrollment, and his sentence being commuted to imprisonment for life, he died in the Iowa penitentiary while undergoing the modified sentence. It was never suggested that Congress had no power to pass the law under which he was convicted.

So, also, has the Congress been slow to exercise the powers expressly conferred upon it in relation to elections by the fourth section of the first article of the Constitution.

This section declares that

“[t]he times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time make or alter such regulations, except as to the place of choosing senators.”

It was not until 1842 that Congress took any action under the power here conferred, when, conceiving that the system of electing all the members of the house of representatives from a State by general ticket, as it was called — that is, every elector voting for as many names as the State was entitled to representatives in that house — worked injustice to other States which did not adopt that system, and gave an undue preponderance

Page 110 U. S. 661

of power to the political party which had a majority of votes in the State, however small, enacted that each member should be elected by a separate district, composed of contiguous territory. 5 Stat. 491.

And to remedy more than one evil arising from the election of members of Congress occurring at different times in the different States, Congress, by the act of February 2, 1872, 30 years later, required all the elections for such members to be held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in 1876, and on the same day of every second year thereafter.

The frequent failures of the legislatures of the States to elect senators at the proper time, by one branch of the legislature voting for one person and the other branch for another person, and refusing in any manner to reconcile their differences, led Congress to pass an act which compelled the two bodies to meet in joint convention, and fixing the day when this should be done, and requiring them so to meet on every day thereafter and vote for a senator until one was elected.

In like manner, Congress has fixed a day, which is to be the same in all the States, when the electors for president and vice-president shall be appointed.

Now the day fixed for electing members of Congress has been established by Congress without regard to the time set for election of state officers in each State, and, but for the fact that the state legislatures have, for their own accommodation, required state elections to be held at the same time, these elections would be held for Congressmen alone at the same time fixed by the act of Congress.

Will it be denied that it is in the power of that body to provide laws for the proper conduct of those elections? To provide, if necessary, the officers who shall conduct them and make return of the result? And especially to provide, in an election held under its own authority, for security of life and limb to the voter while in the exercise of this function? Can it be doubted that Congress can, by law, protect the act of voting, the place where it is done, and the man who votes from personal violence or intimidation, and the election itself from corruption or fraud?

Page 110 U. S. 662

If this be so, and it is not doubted, are such powers annulled because an election for state officers is held at the same time and place? Is it any less important that the election of members of Congress should be the free choice of all the electors, because state officers are to be elected at the same time? Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371.

These questions answer themselves, and it is only because the Congress of the United States, through long habit and long years of forbearance, has, in deference and respect to the States, refrained from the exercise of these powers that they are now doubted.

But when, in the pursuance of a new demand for action, that body, as it did in the cases just enumerated, finds it necessary to make additional laws for the free, the pure, and the safe exercise of this right of voting, they stand upon the same ground, and are to be upheld for the same reasons.

It is said that the parties assaulted in these cases are not officers of the United States, and their protection in exercising the right to vote by Congress does not stand on the same ground.

But the distinction is not well taken. The power in either case arises out of the circumstance that the function in which the party is engaged or the right which he is about to exercise is dependent on the laws of the United States.

In both cases, it is the duty of that government to see that he may exercise this right freely, and to protect him from violence while so doing, or on account of so doing. This duty does not arise solely from the interest of the party concerned, but from the necessity of the government itself that its service shall be free from the adverse influence of force and fraud practiced on its agents, and that the votes by which its members of Congress and its President are elected shall be the free votes of the electors, and the officers thus chosen the free and uncorrupted choice of those who have the right to take part in that choice.

This proposition answers also another objection to the constitutionality of the laws under consideration, namely, that the right to vote for a member of Congress is not dependent upon

Page 110 U. S. 663

the Constitution or laws of the United States, but is governed by the law of each State respectively.

If this were conceded, the importance to the general government of having the actual election — the voting for those members, free from force and fraud — is not diminished by the circumstance that the qualification of the voter is determined by the law of the State where he votes. It equally affects the government; it is as indispensable to the proper discharge of the great function of legislating for that government that those who are to control this legislation shall not owe their election to bribery or violence, whether the class of persons who shall vote is determined by the law of the State, or by the laws of the United States, or by their united result.

But it is not correct to say that the right to vote for a member of Congress does not depend on the Constitution of the United States.

The office, if it be properly called an office, is created by that Constitution, and by that alone. It also declares how it shall be filled — namely, by election. Its language is:

“The house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in each State shall have the same qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.”

Article I, section 2.

The States, in prescribing the qualifications of voters for the most numerous branch of their own legislatures, do not do this with reference to the election for members of Congress. Nor can they prescribe the qualification for voters for those eo nomine. They define who are to vote for the popular branch of their own legislature, and the Constitution of the United States says the same persons shall vote for members of Congress in that State. It adopts the qualification thus furnished as the qualification of its own electors for members of Congress.

It is not true, therefore, that electors for members of Congress owe their right to vote to the state law, in any sense

Page 110 U. S. 664

which makes the exercise of the right to depend exclusively on the law of the State.

Counsel for petitioners, seizing upon the expression found in the opinion of the court in the case of Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 178, that “the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone,” without reference to the connection in which it is used, insists that the voters in this case do not owe their right to vote in any sense to that instrument.

But the court was combating the argument that this right was conferred on all citizens, and therefore upon women as well as men.

In opposition to that idea, it was said the Constitution adopts as the qualification for voters of members of Congress that which prevails in the State where the voting is to be done; therefore, said the opinion, the right is not definitely conferred on any person or class of persons by the Constitution alone, because you have to look to the law of the State for the description of the class. But the court did not intend to say that, when the class or the person is thus ascertained, his right to vote for a member of Congress was not fundamentally based upon the Constitution, which created the office of member of Congress, and declared it should be elective, and pointed to the means of ascertaining who should be electors.

The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, by its limitation on the power of the States in the exercise of their right to prescribe the qualifications of voters in their own elections, and by its limitation of the power of the United States over that subject, clearly shows that the right of suffrage was considered to be of supreme importance to the national government, and was not intended to be left within the exclusive control of the States. It is in the following language:

“SEC. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

“SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. ”

Page 110 U. S. 665

While it is quite true, as was said by this Court in United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 218, that this article gives no affirmative right to the colored man to vote, and is designed primarily to prevent discrimination against him whenever the right to vote may be granted to others, it is easy to see that, under some circumstances, it may operate as the immediate source of a right to vote. In all cases where the former slave-holding States had not removed from their Constitutions the words “white man” as a qualification for voting, this provision did, in effect, confer on him the right to vote, because, being paramount to the state law, and a part of the state law, it annulled the discriminating word “white,” and thus left him in the enjoyment of the same right as white persons. And such would be the effect of any future constitutional provision of a State which should give the right of voting exclusively to white people, whether they be men or women. Neal v. Delaware,103 U. S. 370.

In such cases, this fifteenth article of amendment does, proprio vigore, substantially confer on the negro the right to vote, and Congress has the power to protect and enforce that right.

In the case of United States v. Reese, so much relied on by counsel, this Court said, in regard to the Fifteenth Amendment, that

“it has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right which is within the protecting power of Congress. That right is an exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

This new constitutional right was mainly designed for citizens of African descent. The principle, however, that the protection of the exercise of this right is within the power of Congress is as necessary to the right of other citizens to vote as to the colored citizen, and to the right to vote in general as to the right to be protected against discrimination.

The exercise of the right in both instances is guarantied by the Constitution, and should be kept free and pure by Congressional enactments whenever that is necessary.

The reference to cases in this Court in which the power of Congress under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment

Page 110 U. S. 666

has been held to relate alone to acts done under state authority can afford petitioners no aid in the present case. For, while it may be true that acts which are mere invasions of private rights, which acts have no sanction in the statutes of a State, or which are not committed by any one exercising its authority, are not within the scope of that Amendment, it is quite a different matter when Congress undertakes to protect the citizen in the exercise of rights conferred by the Constitution of the United States, essential to the healthy organization of the government itself.

But it is a waste of time to seek for specific sources of the power to pass these laws. Chancellor Kent, in the opening words of that part of his Commentaries which treats of the government and constitutional jurisprudence of the United States, says:

“The government of the United States was created by the free voice and joint will of the people of American for their common defense and general welfare. Its powers apply to those great interests which relate to this country in its national capacity, and which depend for their protection on the consolidation of the Union. It is clothed with the principal attributes of political sovereignty, and it is justly deemed the guardian of our best rights, the source of our highest civil and political duties, and the sure means of national greatness.”

1 Kent’s Comm. 201.

It is as essential to the successful working of this government that the great organisms of its executive and legislative branches should be the free choice of the people as that the original form of it should be so. In absolute governments, where the monarch is the source of all power, it is still held to be important that the exercise of that power shall be free from the influence of extraneous violence and internal corruption.

In a republican government like ours, where political power is reposed in representatives of the entire body of the people, chosen at short intervals by popular elections, the temptations to control these elections by violence and by corruption is a constant source of danger.

Such has been the history of all republics, and, though ours

Page 110 U. S. 667

has been comparatively free from both these evils in the past, no lover of his country can shut his eyes to the fear of future danger from both sources.

If the recurrence of such acts as these prisoners stand convicted of are too common in one quarter of the country, and give omen of danger from lawless violence, the free use of money in elections, arising from the vast growth of recent wealth in other quarters, presents equal cause for anxiety.

If the government of the United States has within its constitutional domain no authority to provide against these evils — if the very sources of power may be poisoned by corruption or controlled by violence and outrage, without legal restraint — then indeed is the country in danger, and its best powers, its highest purposes, the hopes which it inspires, and the love which enshrines it are at the mercy of the combinations of those who respect no right but brute force on the one hand, and unprincipled corruptionists on the other.

 

 

The Pauline Epistles: Known and Suspected Forgeries.

I have added some thoughts in the comments to this nice update on what the scholars are up to of late- MM

The Ancient World

By Pat Lowinger

Within modern Christianity there remains pervasive misunderstandings regarding the date(s), authorship and transmission of various portions of the New Testament.  One of the most prolific New Testament authors was the Apostle Paul.  Of the fourteen Epistles credited to Paul, the current mainstream consensus among scholars is that no more than nine are authentic.  The remaining five, some would argue seven, are known forgeries- falsely attributed to the Apostle Paul.

Origin and Acceptance of Paul’s Letters:

Modern Orthodox Icon depicting the Apostle Paul

Current scholarship dates the earliest of Paul’s Epistles (First Thessalonians) to around 50 CE and the latest (Romans) at some point prior to 60 CE.  This isn’t to imply that there isn’t some room for debate.  For example, some scholars would argue that First Thessalonians wasn’t authored until 52 CE, but generally it’s excepted that the authentic letters of Paul were…

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#16-1464 to Void the 2016 Russian-U.S. Election

…On our news, we have only heard about how the CIA has Vlad directly ordering cyber attacks on the elections. And they talk about our response. #16-1464 is the Revived Re-vote case, to void the 2016 election due to Ruskies meddling to elect Donney and co.

   Elections are assumed by the constitution, fundamental, and, we say, “think the Supreme Court has nothing to say about it?” They say, “no precedent,” we say it is unprecedented. The case is based on Article IV.4, plus things said in the Classic and Yarbrough cases, which are about the suppression of the black vote. Federalist 68 indicates that the electoral college was to provide a remedy should some foreign power raise some “creature of their own” to the presidency. Mark Small has written up the case, and it is granted mandamus, with a response from the Trump-Russophiles due by July 7. For my Amicus Brief- which is a letter that any citizen is allowed to submit as a friend of the court, Amicus meaning Amigos, friends (in Latin rather than Latin-American). I tried to write only things I could add, without repeating much that is in the case. The truth is that when the Trump-Russians interfere with political association, speech and free political action, violating two clauses of the First and then the Fifth amendment liberty clause-when they do this, they leave a trail, and collusion is demonstrated in the very attempt to silence free opposition. This is a whole un-mined category which coheres with the other categories of evidence to “prove” what is by now so obvious the few doubt it: Russia elected Trump for us, and we do not know their full perfidious purpose even yet, but we do not want to find out! Hence we are asking the court to provide a remedy such as a re-vote. And if some think that this will cause “civil war,” to have a new election, we see who was against elections, we see that fascism rising is what will cause civil war, and we see the fourth clause of the second sentence of the Declaration as well, which means that we are not required to give up on republican or free self-government. My draft is at mmcdonald777Wordpress, with three sevens- my secret site where I tell the truth about my other site, and its more fundamental purposes. I am hoping for criticism and feedback on the draft before I print it, and send it in.

“Thomas Jefferson lives!”

– John Adams, July 4, 1826.

Invention: An Internet of Integrity

   I am astonished that no one starts up an internet of integrity. The Niche is wide open, entrepreneurs! Imagine tech that does not spy on you and use you for their profit. Soon the people will be catching on, so it may well be a bull market. Imagine a Twitter that does not sell fake followers, a WordPress that does not block search term access to one’s site awaiting an extortion fee. Imagine a government obliged to obey the Bill of Rights they swore an oath to uphold, and just not use the camera and audio in every computer to take paternal and tyrannical powers over every citizen. Imagine a nation that cared to secure elections more than short term profits, and a 2016 election that was not hacked by the Russians to run Donney up the flagpole and watch the slavish Republicans salute! Perhaps we would have had Bernie or Hillary v. Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. Imagine if thee wee not a Russian hacking of U.S. hospital computers, and no Russian mob induced Oxy epidemic! We may have even had Ben Carson!

   And imagine an FBI that would admit to using the spy-tech and Russian assistance against ISIS and domestic terrorism, but made a terrible mistake in forgetting what it means to have risen through the ranks of the KGB-oops! Imagine a Congress that would regulate the internet and perhaps gun lobbies to boot, and oversee the federal executive agencies like it is supposed to, pursuing questions when these arise, rather than allowing the FBI/etc. to attack the one raising the questions.

   But that is what it means to be a Platonist, to bear the pain of knowing not that the best regime is unachievable- who cares?- but that all these evils are entirely avoidable if we would just stand up with a little integrity, even on the internet.

   So what if we set up such a thing, right alongside the old internet, now we have seen the flaws in that which will surely lead to disaster? And in the meantime, remember, the key to the discontents of modern tech is manual backup. Have they deported Emmanuel Backupez already? Senior Peace?

Chemical and Neurological Causes in Psychology

   As the account of chemical and neurological causes and cues has become fashionable, people take solace in the supposedly scientifically based idea that their mental illnesses are not “their fault,” but rather due to an involuntary condition that is like a disease. These things are caused by “chemical imbalances,” and here we will show you the neurons lighting up, and there tweak your dopamines and receptors for you.

   And did you think that when something occurs that is one’s fault, like murder or rape, there is not also a chemical and neurological process occurring in the brain? We are not in the least surprised, philosophically, that there is something going on on there! In fact, volition is very difficult to understand, but no scientist will have a chance or a clue if he does not also philosophize. The human soul is a great mystery, and we simply do not possess authoritative knowledge regarding the soul. Appeals to the “experts,”the “professionals,” are rationalizations and ways to avoid responsibility. I know, for I have seen the brains and faces of those who thus rationalize, and are unable to question first principles while they are hurting others.

   Again, I can tell you to read Plato, Phaedo, about 99, where Socrates discusses the materialists saying that the reason he is sitting in prison is that his legs are bent a certain way. No one reads this, not a single one I know has ever gone to this book directed by my blog, in over a year. We are no longer able to read or to desire to read, inquire and study, yet will take six figure salaries for doing more harm than good, because we are the experts, the “professionals,” whom everyone is obligated to trust like a medical doctor or a new priesthood. Perhaps we are too slavish to continue free.

   I am sue there is a chemical cause for the decline of the liberal arts, called Oxy, and a medical and material cause, called money. Hence it is not our fault, and next we will fight the stigma, and treat the neurological cause of sarcasm.

Note* A neurologist on NPR, who has done some truly interesting work on the brains of “psychopaths” and “sociopaths,” as we call this, said she studies neurons because she is “not a dualist.”  The assumption- a philosophical assumption- involved in this statement is absurd in many ways, and I would expect a Philosophy 101 student to understand what they are saying better than does this now famous neurologist. Matter and form are never separate, but this no more implies materialism than it would imply “formalism.” It is our minds that are darkened: we are like prisoners in a cave, and surely must ascend if we are ever to care for human beings. Anything else would be “unprofessional,” no?

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Mark Small and the Revote Case: Federalist 68: Void the Election

   Supreme Court case #16-1464 asks the Court to void the 2016 election due to Russian Interference. Like the first case, brilliantly and beautifully written by Jeroll Sanders, this case is based on Article IV Section 4 of the constitution, which requires that the federal or national government protect the states from foreign interference. The attack on the election was like a foreign invasion, and these methods continue. We have barely begun to realize what is occurring and put a stop to the illegal and unethical things being done on the internet to control politics. Oh, you are surprised that such things occur, or will be done if not opposed or prevented?

   Attorney Mark Small of Indiana has written the Revived case, and bought in some more comprehensive arguments as to why the Supreme Court is the only recourse likely to be available, and why they have the power and to void an election and the duty to void this one. Between points 47 and 60, he is especially brilliant. Having demonstrated that impeachment is unlikely because the also likely helped the Republicans gain a majority in the Senate, Mr. Small notes the opinion of the Founders, as in Federalist 1, about party, and the “members of the Electoral College are not independently selected as the framers had anticipated, but are chosen by the same process” selected by the political parties. The Electoral College, as discussed in Federalist 68, was to be the last stop to prevent “foreign cabals” from afflicting us with a tyranny or tyrannical executive for their own advantage. The founders set up our voting for slates of electors, people thought most capable, who would then elect the president. Their explicit intention is that the electors not be chosen from pre-existing bodies, such as political parties. The Russian corruption of the Republican Party is all that was required for Putin to select our president for us, for his advantage and not ours, and they did this by effecting the vote in subtle ways throughout the Primaries. They ran Trump up the flagpole, and everyone kept saying, “well, he won the election…,” such is our reverence for the electoral process. They ran Trump up the flagpole, and all the Republicans saluted. The electors were chosen by party, and in 25 States were told that they were legally bound, just because the unconstitutional laws binding them have not been challenged yet. The explicit intention of the founders, as shown in Federalist 68, is that they be able to prevent  a tyrant, and it is obvious from one example that the state laws binding the electors are unconstitutional: say one elected were revealed, between the election and the inauguration, to be an ax murderer. Or say he were simply revealed, whether by ignorance or intention, to be in effect a traitor? Similarly, those who would like to abolish the electoral college, thinking it a vestige like the appendage little toe, have likely not read the Federalist papers.

   It is similarly obvious that the Supreme Court has the power to void this election. The alternative is to say that such a thing could occur and the Supreme Court could have nothing to say about the fundamental constitutional structure of elections. The Court and the constitution assumes that elections are, as said in the Yarbrough decision, free of bribery and corruption. The president derives his legitimacy from the Constitution, of which the Supreme Court is the fundamental interpreter. There is some question as to whether the president must always obey the Court, as raised by Andrew Jackson, but the powers of the president are only to execute laws enacted by Congress, and the Supreme Court determines whether those laws are constitutional. In our last flirtation with tyranny, Jackson simply defied the decision of John Marshall that he could not remove the (Christian, English speaking) Cherokee of Georgia, and enacted a national sin, the Trail of Tears. It is in fact precisely the Supreme Court that has the office of voiding the election, and it is likely that the Congress and the rest of the nation will obey the decision, as the president will no longer have legitimacy.