Virtue required to sustain the U.S. Constitution. But very little is there.

James Madison who wrote that the Constitution said it requires “sufficient virtue among men for self-government”. Known as the “Father of the Constitution,” he emphasized the essential role of virtue among the populace in sustaining the U. S. Constitution. 

In the Virginia Ratifying Convention on June 20, 1788, he articulated:  “Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks—no form of government can render us secure.” 

He further argued that the effectiveness of any government relies fundamentally on the virtue and intelligence of its people: “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”  

These and other statements below underscore Madison’s belief that the Constitution’s success that depends not solely on its structural design but also on the moral character and civic responsibility of the citizens.

"But I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks -- no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them."  -- James Madison   (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President.   Source: Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust."  -- James Madison   (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President   Source: Federalist #57

Other founders agreed. 

[T]here is no more truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity . . . . – George Washington, First Inaugural Address [April 30, 1789]

"I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared."  -- Thomas Jefferson    Source: letter to William Plumer, July 21, 1816

“Happiness is the aim of life. Virtue is the foundation of happiness.” Thomas Jefferson

“That no free government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”  George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights [1776]

“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams   

"Elections, especially of representatives and counselors, should be annual, there not being in the whole circle of the sciences a maxim more infallible than this, “where annual elections end, there slavery begins.” These great men ... should be (chosen) once a year—Like bubbles on the sea of matter bourne, they rise, they break, and to the sea return. This will teach them the great political virtues of humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey."   -- John Adams  (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President

"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few."   -- John Adams  (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President.   Source: An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, August 29, 1763

"It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives." -    John Adams  

"Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark"... If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?" -- John Adams   (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President    Source: Novanglus, 1775

“Without Virtue there can be no liberty.”  Dr. Benjamin Rush (Jefferson’s friend and a signer on the Declaration of Independence) 

"He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man...The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people."  -- Samuel Adams

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders."  -- Samuel Adams  (1722-1803), was known as the "Father of the American Revolution."   Source: letter to James Warren, 4 November 1775. Reference: Our Sacred Honor, Bennett (261)

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation of infidels or idolaters should be a nation of freemen. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."  -- Patrick Henry  (1736-1799) US Founding Father 

People in power must obey the power of the people.

 When the vast majority of "We the People" of the world demand that people in power provide what humanity needs to sustainably survive and thrive - with liberty and justice for all, then those people protecting the those in power must serve the needs of the masses. It will only take a few of those protecting the leader(s), to remove them from power with the tools they were given and the access they have to those in power. 

"Liberty must be better armed than tyranny."  President Zelinsky 

More than a million people have sworn an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution. While our Constitution still has major flaws, and is past due for major amendments or a transformation.  President Lincoln wrote that the Declaration of Independence is our "Apple of Gold" and our Constitution its "Silver Frame".  And also said it was for 'all people, everywhere, for all time'.  This is the direction for Constitutional reform or complete transformation in line with the ideals and "self-evident" "Truths" within it.  

President Trump is taking the nation in the wrong direction.  Making America Ghastly Again by successfully obliterating objective truths in the minds of over half of those who voted and the policy makers they elected.  This truth decay is literally killing people around the world, alienating our allies, emboldens our adversaries, crippling our nation's lead in science, and undermining any future progress.

Those sworn to protect the Constitution and our nation's freedoms and security need to remove him from power before it's too late to reverse the damage he has done and will continue to do given his desire for power over 'we the people'.   

NO TRUTH = NO TRUST

Trust is vital to every working relationship:  Friends, family, elected official, and between nations. Any union lacking trust is not sustainable. If trust exists problems can be solved.  Are you trustworthy? Is our government?  Our leader?  Only being truthful can sustain trust. The quotes below reveal the need for both.

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” — Albert Einstein

“Trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair.”

“Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it’s broken, but you can still see the crack in that mother fucking reflection.” — Lady Gaga

“Never trust someone who lies to you. Never lie to someone who trusts you.” — Unknown

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” — George MacDonald

““I trust you” is a better compliment than “I love you” because you may not always trust the person you love but you can always love the person you trust…” — Unknown

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” — Stephen Covey

“Trust is built with consistency telling the truth.” Unknown

"For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.” — Bo Bennett

Without truth relationships end.  Lacking trust, there’s no reason to continue.

 

This blog post is in response to a Washington Times columnist, Everett, Piper.  On March 11, 2025, his column titled, "Democrats and common sense: Democrats are now officially the party of relativism, not reality”.  I hope he reads it and responds.

True!  Some of us liberals reject objective reality.   Like "the self-evident" "Truths" expressed in the Declaration of Independence 11 years before those who drafted a fundamentally flawed U.S. Constitution.  And some progressives have said “there is no such thing as a truth with a capital T”

But too many conservatives, including their Republican MAGA President too often use the phrase “common sense”!   In a completely backward way as Thomas Payne‘s famous pamphlet titled the same but brilliantly details. 

In his wisdom he expressed in that short document there is profound examples of 'self-evident truth'. First is the human reality that no individual can survive and thrive alone. We are each dependent on so many things that fail to arise in a shallow mind.   Like the fact that every human is 99.9 the same genetically, thus we are all related in the human family. 

The second reality that not all humans are angels. And we need a set of rules that keep us from killing one another. And finally, that rule set has only two goals.  They fit the primary goal that the human mind was engineered to acknowledge and to conserve, even if others' have lost their mind.  

All life forms are engineered by nature to survive and thrive.   This is a fundamental principle and self-evident truth anyone with logic can grasp.  And every individual has the right to use their freedom and protect themself and their family from anything.  But this requires they not infringe upon the freedom and security of others.  That they be virtuous to all.  

Unfortunately, most political parties and nearly every religion or economist philosophy are examples of relativism, and rarely reality. In other words, they have no 'common' sense of 'being' - other than their tarnished gold rule applied consistently only giving power to who has the gold.

Relativism is a philosophical argument that some mind created under the delusion that there is no objective truth.  I encourage people with this mindset to jump off a 50-story building to prove gravity is not an objective truth.

The greatest flaw of our human mind is its ability to construct its own subjective truths.  Usually suited to their relative needs or circumstances. And a profoundly limited understanding of real life.

One this flawed human habits is evidenced in their political, religious, economic, and spiritual subjective truths.  These are toxic to life on earth.  And if human laws fail to enforce justice, chaos will inevitably reign supreme.   

If a liberal believes what is right for them may be the exact opposite of is right for others they are ignoring the law of non-contradiction. And if such a liberal is reading this right now. Their mind existing in cognitive dissonance is obviously saying “ whatever!”  While in a conservative arguing to often uses the tactic of gaslighting, or 'YA BUTTING' to get off track from encountering a self-evident truth some liberal is defending.

Too many conservatives appear unable to get over their foolishly flawed mental construct that in nature, there is only males and females.  When in fact genetic variation is in every aspect of life. In every human being, being human.  As well as nearly every biological multicellular organism that was not cloned.   And that fetuses are not yet babies. But in their mind, they can believe anything they want. Just as liberal minds often do.  But there are absolutely absolute truths. 

Truths are only fluid and ignorant minds within either party seeking political power.  In the words of Os Guinness, “Truth is true, even if no one believes it, and falsehood is false, even if everyone believes it. Truth is true, and that’s just the end of it.”

And until this world view is understood by every mind committed to surviving and thriving that our species is endangered, along with many other life forms on this gifted planet, because of Truth Decay.  The real world we live in is not self-referential. It is endowed by God, whatever you believe him, he or it to be.  And is not created by consensus of we flawed and vulnerable immortals.

In fact, we cannot live without fundamental truths. Consider engineering without math and the absolute that 2+2 = 4.   Try building anything that defies the law of gravity. 

The denial of absolute truth is simply a denial of logic. And if you claim there are no absolutes, you’re actually proving you have one.

“Live and let live” is tolerable if one person is not trying to kill the other. But if they is a fundamental purpose of life that liberals often ignore.  They try to ban weapons.

The bottom line is that both parties and most people in the United States. Ignore the wisdom of common sense.   And make themselves irrelevant to the survival of themselves, their families, and the United States itself.  No one can be pro science if they deny biology, physics, chemistry, and DNA.

And you cannot be pro-American with our foundational ideals of freedom and common sense - if you think defending borders and creating illegal immigrants is what God intended for humanity. And unless President Trump and his mega minions grasp this fundamental purpose that God has for all of us, may God forgive him and them for their delusions.   And save us all from their insane beliefs and those of liberals, who hold polarized views of reality. 

And if you would like to help spread this particular sane worldview, send an email to Project250@earthlink.net.

 

US REFUSES SUPPORT for UN Sustainable Developmemt Goals

 FYI:  I just found this today.  Seems like mainstream media might be missing some important things...that will have very detrimental consequences to American health, national security, and future prosperity.  Or all the list serves I'm on are busy covering other chaos the MAGA maniacs are creating...

THE UNITED STATES REFUSES SUPPORT FOR THE U.N.'S AGENDA 2030

Posted date: March 11, 2025

In a statement which reaffirms the Trump Administration's fight against DEI and ESG, U.S. representative to the United Nations Edward Heartney told the assembly that the United States "rejects and denounces the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development and the sustainable development goals, and will no longer reaffirm them as a matter of course."

"God does not make immigrants" Nationalism does.

 

Nationalism is created in the human mind.  It (we the people) creates an identity and a mindset that believes one nation's people, or subset of that nation, is superior the rest.  But according to "the Laws of Nature...(our DNA) and of Nature‘s God" (the golden rule) all people are born equal and endowed with "unalienable rights".  And the first fundamental right of all living things is freedom.  The God given agency to survive and thrive.  To move if needed, to keep itself and its family safe and secure.  But over the last 3000 to 5000 years humans (supposedly 'civilized people') created politics, new religious identities, and economic systems. About 400 years ago the practice of drawing lines on a map attempted to ensure that those within those lines (at least a minority or the majority) would be better off than the rest of humanity.  And 16 months short of 250 years ago a document was written that recognized this repressive foolishness and stated the Truth.  The "self-evident" "Truths" that all humanity should hold.

Unfortunately, the laws of all 200+ nations in the world have created their own set of laws.  Two sets. one for each nation.  And one for all nations.  But these two types of law sets...are both set to fail. And fail catastrophically.  These two sets of laws are significantly different in one fundamental aspect. 

National laws are enforceable by the government, be they just laws or not.  And international law is not enforceable. It's more a set of hopeful wishes that assert the self-evident truth that all humanity is blessed with inalienable rights.  But not blessed with the power to enforce them. 

Both sets should raise the question are they legitimate laws if freedom and justice for all is ignored? 

Meanwhile, national governments can enforce regulations on many things. First is who and what can cross their border.  And these governments can even discriminate against minorities or majorities within their governed area delineated by a line that a few humans drew on a map.  Not God. 

This may be the best example of a global violation of a self-evident truth (fundamental principle, human value...).   Collectively, humanity must learn to abide by this "Truth" and many others, or face, perpetual chaos with its growing and horrific costs in lives and dollars, environment destruction, and what little progress civilization has given to many, thus far.

Humanity now has unprecedented capacity for sustainable living for all, for generations to come.  And the capacity for global communication to educate and inspire everyone to their greatest mental, physical and spiritual level.  And hopefully a level of wisdom to transform our current governing systems to abide by the fundamental principles founded on objective Truths, not the personal or political ideologies that are driving our species to ecocide and suicide.  This current mindset is humanity's insanity that still held by too many 'patriotic' nationals, with far too many 'good' Christians, Jews, and Muslims ignoring this reality.  This stubborn mindset confirms the human mind's capacity to believe anything!  And continue defending that flawed belief regardless of its potentially catastrophic impact on the human family!  

Project 250 is an attempt to inoculate humanity against this Truth decay with the intention of preventing more predicable calamity and insanity. 

To make the most of your God given human agency on this troubled planet, endorse Project 250.  Give it swift legs to travel around the world quickly before the 250th anniversary of the 1776 Declaration of Independence July 4, 2026.  It still emphasizes human freedom as the highest American ideals established 11 years before the United States was created.  This profound idealism has already been expressed in over 50 other nations by leaders committed to liberating their followers from the conditions of unjust governments.  

What are you doing to change this?

Project250@earthlink.net

Everything in the world is changing! Except our minds.

 Things Change.  Adapt or perish.  Rotary International’s 1959 game plan needs an update.

Rotary International was founded 120 years ago by a small collection of businessmen committed to peace.  A World War followed shortly.  And then a second world war.   Given this mass murder of mostly good people, some wise souls of Rotary International published a profound book in 1959 to inspire their members and the world with a 60 page book detailing Seven Paths to Peace.   

Understandably driven by the war that killed over 60 million people, a horrifying genocide of up to 6 million, and a new terrorizing new weapon capable of vaporizing tens of thousand of lives in less than three seconds, something must radically change.

Ris 1959 book is now free to the public and anyone still serious about preventing another world war that civilization might not recover from in decades, if at all.

https://rotaryactiongroupforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Rotarys-Seven-Paths-To-Peace-book.pdf

Since then, the evolution of weapons and war has been growing exponentially due to advancements in technology.  And other devastating forces have arose that threatens every civilization on earth.

Unfortunately, since the 1948 creation of the United Nations (with RI’s insider participation), the human mind’s limited linear capacity for learning combined with its capability of believing almost anything – humanity’s global governance system has not changed.  It remains unenforceable and simply unsustainable. 

The UN charter basically cemented this dysfunctional system into place.  It prioritized an inherently flawed structure that established the protection of National Sovereignty over the protection of human rights and the environment.  It codified the illusion of independence in our persistent and irreversibly interdependent world.  

Making matters worse, national and global politics have changed more in the last two months than the last 80 years.  But not in the direction of might makes right, great wealth can buy almost anything/anybody, with both Truth and virtue near obsolete.  And in the last 50 days with Donald Trump clearly winning the 2024 Presidential election, what little stability our global systems had, is now off the road, flipped over, and sliding backwards into chaos.

There was no doubt by the poorest half of humanity that both the global governance system and its unregulated economic system needed to change.   Populist movements have been winning in so called ‘democratic nations’ because they could not stop the disruptive global forces that elected independent nations could not stop with walls or weapons.  But that was what ignorant and delusional strong leaders promised.  And now comes the suffering and hopefully awakening of the need for not just minor changes. But a global transformation that accepts humanities biological reality that “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....” Jen Easterly. CISA director.  Oct. 29, 2021. [the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency is our nation’s newest federal agency established in 2018].   https://www.c-span.org/video/?515706-1/protecting-critical-infrastructure    FYI: Trump created CISA in his first administration.  And hired Jen Easterly as Director.  She was only recently replaced.  It may have been because CISA was recently hacked.  LEARN THIS!  And share it with others.  ‘Everything’ is an autological word – defining itself.  This means every cyber connection, cell in our body, strand of DNA within them...and every leaf, fruit, and energy source we have or consume.

There should have been no resistance to changing the ‘Norm’ of the status quo.  And there is no going back to a normal that quietly allowed the daily deaths of over 11,000 children from easily preventable malnutrition and infectious diseases -even when there was no war, genocide, famine, violent extremist killers, or extreme weather conditions.    Expect that number now to grow significantly, because all the non-profit organizations in the world cannot replace what significantly good US aid agencies and US aid funding had been doing for three fundamental reasons that benefited all Americans and the world.  Moral, economic, and security.

The survival and thriving of our species hinge upon humanity coming together with a grounded sense of reality (fundamental truths, objective truths, Truths we hold to be self-evident…). United we stand a chance. Divided we’re toast. In this context humanity must urgently prioritize achieving the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2025 we are now 5 years away - and with insufficient progress.  Our actions must be accelerated to achieve these with integrity.  We must become a united ‘force of nature for nature’ by prioritizing health over wealth.  This challenge defines our poly-crisis era. And we are running out of time.

"Three things are necessary for the salvation of man:
to know what he ought to believe;
to know what he ought to desire;
and to know what he ought to do."
-- Saint Thomas Aquinas   (1225-1274) Italian philosopher and theologian

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."  -- Soren Kierkegaard   (1813-1855) Danish philosopher

“The strength or weakness of his society depends more on the level of a spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. If a nation, spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by industrial development. A tree With a. Rotten Rotten core cannot be saved. “ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot unlearn the lies they have been taught to believe.” - Alvin Toffler

 “It is the duty of everyman, so far as his ability allows, to detect and expose delusion and error.” - Thomas Paine

“Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.” Rousseau

 "The earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound.  Children no longer obey their parents,  every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching."  -- Assyrian Tablet   Source: c. 2800 BC [also attributed to Socrates]

 As Astronaut Rusty Weikart said, we must act “as crew members on space ship earth not just passengers.”

 "The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others." Albert Schweitzer

 

"Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time." - Marian Wright Edelman

 "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and
this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him."  -- Thomas Jefferson

 “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”  – Martin Luther King, Jr.

 “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings,so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.”  Socrates (a wrestler)

 “For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.” - Neil deGrasse Tyson (another wrestler).

 “[O]ne of the most refined (and rare) certainties of liberalism is that historical determinism does not exist. History has not been written so as to negate any further appeal. History is the work of men, and just as men can act rightly with measures that push history in the direction of progress and civilization, they can also err, and by conviction, apathy, or cowardice, allow history to slide into anarchy, impoverishment, obscurantism, and barbarism. The culture of democracy can gain new ground and consolidate the advances it has achieved. Or, it can watch its dominions shrink into nothingness, like Balzac's ‘peau de chagrin’. The future depends on us--on our ideas, our votes, and the decisions of those we put in power.   Mario Vargas Llosa, Liberalism in the New Millennium [2000]

 "Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.  Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information, and religions destroy spirituality."  -- Michael Ellner

"We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man ... far too little. His psyche should be studied -- because we are the origin of all coming evil." - C.G. Jung

 "We have it in our power to begin the world over again." -  Thomas Paine

 "There's a man who is my brother, I just don't know his name.
But I know his home and family because I know we feel the same.
And it hurts me when he's hungry and when his children cry.
I too am a father, and that little one is mine."- John Denver

 There is a photograph of the Earth, dated February 14, 1990, taken by Voyager spacecraft from 4 billion miles away.  It is a pale blue dot, smaller than a pixel, surrounded by blackness.  Sagan wrote:   “Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.  Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, Copyright © 2006 by Democritus Properties, LLC.   November 26, 2024   One Page Perspective #99

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” – Carl Sagan

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.  Socrates

"All our lauded technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal." - Albert Einstein

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." -  Ralph Waldo Emerson

"What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do." -  John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

"I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples." - Mother Teresa

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them." - Maya Angelou

"I speak not for myself but for those without voice... those who have fought for their rights... their right to live in peace, their right to be treated with dignity, their right to equality of opportunity, their right to be educated." Malala Yousafzai

"The aspiration to such uniformity and order alerts us to the fact that modern statecraft is largely a project of internal colonization, often glossed, as it is in its imperial rhetoric, as a 'civilizing mission'."
-- James C. Scott   Source: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 82

The quotes above and those below are from people I consider heroes.  Charles Darwin is another. His observations of life on this planet led him to a concept that allows us to understand the origins of the characteristics of most life forms today…and why they persist, evolve - or go extinct. I’ve tried to apply his approach to whatever level I can to reducing human suffering or prevent a massive loss of human life or native plant/animal species.  Most preventable deaths and suffering today are perpetuated by the flawed characteristics of our national and global political systems. These persist in exerting increasing complications into our world’s natural system’s, accelerating disrupting trends.  And ‘we the people’ mostly allow it.  We have forgotten that as long as humans remain tied to earth - mother nature will always have the last vote. 

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” Charles Darwin

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." -  Albert Einstein

"Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society"   Albert Einstein 

If Einstein were alive today, I believe he would expand this pearl of wisdom to include that recognizing and accepting our interdependence is ‘essential to sustainably maximizing humanities freedom and security.”  And the survival of our species.

The things to do are: the things that need doing: that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done. Then you will conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done - that no one else has told you to do or how to do it. This will bring out the real you that often gets buried inside a character that has acquired a superficial array of behaviors induced or imposed by others on the individual. R. Buckminster Fuller

"You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all you experience to highest advantage to others. Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone." ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

 “My belief is to make the world work for 100% of humanity, and the shortest possible

time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage

of anyone.”  ~ R. Buckminster Fuller 

 

 "Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?"  -- Socrates  (469-399 B.C.) Greek philosopher & wrestler.

“From our orbital vantage point, we observe the Earth without borders, full of peace, beauty and magnificence, and we pray that humanity as a whole can imagine a borderless world as we see it, and strive to live as one in peace.  William C. McCool, Pilot. Last flight of the Columbia Space Shuttle.

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity" - Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are."  -- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American Journalist, Editor, Essayist, Linguist, Lexicographer, and Critic

Endorse Project 250.
The 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

‘for everyone, everywhere, for all time’ Abraham Lincoln.

If you do NOT know what it is, please email Project250@earthlink.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holy F**K! Unprecedented and ill principled US President & VP bully boy vs Ukrainian President fighting tyranny.

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too."  -- W. Somerset Maugham  (1874-1965)   Source: Strictly Personal, 1941

"To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom." -- Thomas Jefferson  (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President   June 18, 1799

Freedom must be better armed than Tyranny" President Zelensky at the on start of Putin's "special operation".

(In defense of removing President Trump from office by ANY means ASAP please go to the bottom where The WEEK magazine article goes into detail on the dangers ahead.) 

Serious question:  Is America a place or an ideal?   I used to think it was both. And love the American ideal of Freedom that it is our founding principle.  Even if we rarely get that right.  I also saw America as a beautiful homeland with unlimited opportunity for anyone if they worked hard and played by 'the rules'.  But what if those rules were unjust from the start.  Starting with the creation of the U.S. Constitution codifying slavery?  On top of ethnic cleansing of indigenous tribes.  And not allowing women (the foundation of any surviving species) to vote.   

But our freedoms which should be scared to any true American patriot is still persistently abused in other ways by many freedom loving Americans.  We feeling the freedom to litter, build shopping malls over orchards, stadiums over nature, and industrial parks over (or near) low-income neighborhoods. And even expelling American born people because of their parents identity.   Or our Constitution's freedom to recruit any young man to fight - and too often die needlessly abroad - for these 'freedoms' here.  Freedoms for anyone who is non-virtuous to others or the environment we all depend on for healthy air, water, food, homes, and exposure to other people.  And ignore the special needs of people (often women and children) who are most in need of help here.  

Within a week after Ukraine was invaded by Russia's mass murderers under the "Special operation" that war criminal/dictator Putin ordered, President Zelensky said "Freedom must be better armed than tyranny." 

I've never been so ashamed - and now gut sick - immediately after watching our bully US President and VP tag team scold an overly grateful and brave Ukrainian President. 

It's hard to know how this turns out, but here's some guesses - and a plea. 

Trump (and the US) will refuse to give Ukraine the security assurances it needs, in exchange for Trillions of dollars in rare earth metals that we need.  Which would be super stupid.  And even crueler letting the war continue.  The EU and other NATO nations would hopefully unite offering more weapons and even some troops to Ukraine.  Putin's Russia will weaken. And in fear of Russia's collapse, some of its oligarchs/kleptocrats will remove Putin from power.  Hopefully he will resist and meet the same end as Saddam Hussein.  I don't believe he would use nukes.  If he did...he would just die faster. 

My plea is for anyone who has sworn an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution, will do so ASAP!  Use any means (brutal force if necessary) to remove the Trump tag team for tyranny from their offices.  Come on generals!  War vets or any other brave souls who has lost limbs, lovers, or friends in the forever wars - fighting against the beatable tactic of terrorism, which has only grown in ranks and more places.  Even here at home.  Here's a chance to honor your pledge - become an All-American hero.  

I once supervised an employee who came to work seriously concerned that about their marriage partner who was swearing to murder President Clinton.  That angry soul was an air force one pilot...with easy access, a weapon, and with so much distain for that President...the partner was convinced it was going to happen.  

That was the level of hate Timothy McVeigh (a US army soldier) had for Clinton when making the decision to bomb the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  His rental truck with explosives killed 168 men, women, and (nearly a dozen) children.  McVeigh felt bad about the children (they were in a nursery on the first floor).  He saw them as "collateral damage" in his attempt to wake Americans up to the tyranny of our government that he witnessed personally in Iraq and at WACO.  The bombing was on the anniversary of that event. 

Many of Trumps dictates his first 30 days in command has already caused the death and suffering of individuals both here and abroad.  It will be weeks or months before our court system can effectively overturn or stop this lethal insanity of unconstitutional damage.  Meanwhile, far more damage will occur...and thousand more (mostly children) will die abroad from blocked lifesaving foreign assistance programs unconstitutionally stopped.  Expect Russia and China to move in, making more friends in the same places where we will now made more enemies.  Zelensky was right.   America will "feel" our failings.  Just as we always have by violating "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" with our capitalism and misguided military adventures.

If I were Trump, I'd be seriously concerned for my life.   Arrogance may be the death of him.   

I don't hold any grudge against him personally.  He's a narcissist and maybe genetically he can't help it.  I mostly blame both political parties that have allowed the rigging of our economic and political polices that created the decline in our nation's economic conditions.  These have led to the loss of the American dream over the last 45 years.  A massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the ultra-rich that persists.  This was predicted, because it was predictable.  An outcome given the math of unregulated capitalism prioritizing profit over people and the environment.  These policies were deliberate choices.  And they have resulted in enough economic pain - that a majority of voters felt they need to elect the great dumpster fire disrupter - no matter how many lies he told, or how many lives it takes.  They found it easy to believe him.  Perhaps so they didn't have feel responsible for being so un-virtuous. 

In an attempt to counter this persistent "Truth decay" I urge real patriotic Americans to celebrate this 4th of July, and each one after it... to learn about our irreversible interdependence.  Americans, and every community globally, should celebrate the "self-evident" "Truths" that freedom and rights are God given to everyone who is born.  Anywhere. Every time.  God does not make immigrants.  

One great Constitutional error was legalized slavery.  Now it is criminalizing births.  And abusing the freedom loving souls in Ukraine but allowing them to die and suffer by the millions at the hands and projectiles of Trump's buddy in Russia, and his minions.  

Unless of course, a majority of House and Senate members urgently decide to remove Trump policies or the 'man' and his clan, from office, by any means.  We the people... must choose between the "Rule of Law" or the 'law of the jungle" which the King and his butt licking followers appear to prefer. 

The Declaration also said, "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."  

Wake the F**K up defenders Constitution.  Then fix it. 

**********

Controversy of the Week,  March 7, 2025

Defense: Why is Trump purging the Pentagon?

President Trump shredded “America’s soft power” by gutting USAID, said Max Boot in The Washington Post. “Now he seems bent on damaging U.S. hard power too.” Hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans last week to cut 5,400 civilian Pentagon employees, Trump conducted his own “Friday-night massacre.” He fired a half-dozen top military leaders, including Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.—the second African-American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff— and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of Naval Operations. Hegseth offered no rationale for the dismissals, except that they would somehow refocus the military on its “core mission of deterring, fighting, and winning wars.” But it’s telling that Trump’s chosen replacement for Brown is Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, a white, retired, three-star Air Force officer. Caine’s selection tells “Black and female officers that their prospects for promotion may be gravely limited,” said Fred Kaplan in Slate. Worse is Trump’s stated reason for the pick: that when he met Caine during a 2018 visit to troops in Iraq, Caine put on a MAGA hat and told him, “I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.” Trump’s proud sharing of this story—denied by Caine and other officials—is a “nerve-wracking” clue to the president’s plans for the military once he’s cleansed its upper ranks of diversity and suspected disloyalty.

Gen. Brown “is an honorable man,” said Rich Lowry in National Review, but he had to go. The former F-16 pilot “used his position as a political soapbox,” releasing an emotional video after the 2020 killing of George Floyd about the challenges of being Black in the Air Force. Brown’s job is to be a killer, not to pontificate on “hot-button political and social issues.” Like many of the other fired generals, he is a bland product of an “ossified” system that rewards “bureaucratic conformity” over original thinking. That’s doubly true of the military lawyers known as “judge advocates general” (JAGs), said The Wall Street Journal. When Trump fired the three JAGs overseeing the Army, Navy, and Air Force last week, it set off a predictable “media panic” about imminent “lawlessness.” In truth, the JAGs had long favored “risk elimination over mission success,” leaving America’s military far less lethal and effective than it needs to be in this dangerous world.

Call me paranoid, said Charles P. Pierce in Esquire, but yes, it does feel “troublesome” that Trump specifically fired the lawyers charged with resisting illegal presidential orders. Nor was it reassuring when Hegseth explained the JAGs had been fired to stop them from being “roadblocks to anything that happens.” We know what kind of “anything” Hegseth might have in mind, said Paul McLeary in Politico. The former Fox News host promotes a swaggering “warrior ethos” that rejects the Geneva Conventions. In Trump’s first term, he successfully lobbied Trump to pardon two soldiers charged with war crimes and to reinstate Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL accused of killing civilians and stabbing a teenage ISIS prisoner to death.

Trump’s purge has nothing to do with “lethality, or promoting ‘warfighters,’ or any other buzzwords,” said Tom Nichols in The Atlantic. It’s the next step in his pursuit of total power. After capturing the intelligence services, the Justice Department, and the FBI, the Pentagon is “the last piece he needs to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government.” With “his generals” in charge, Trump can start building a military that is loyal to him—and not to the Constitution. “It is praetorianism, plain and simple.”

UN 'World Day of Social Justice'! No justice, no peace. No peace - no freedom or security.

The United Nations General Assembly proclaims Feb, 20, 2025 'World Day of Social Justice'.  Oddly, the UN General Assembly is an assembly of nations in which many like our not 'United States' puts the protection of national sovereignty above the protection of human rights and the environment.  While the United Nations non-democratic Security Council remains united in allowing a few of the most powerful nation on it, to do whatever they want, anywhere they want, to whomever they want. 

Unfortunately, "We the people" of the world have only two options in resolving our conflicts.  Talking or fighting.  The Rule of Law or the law of the jungle.    And now that the US President, the Supreme Court, and both the US House of Representatives and the Senate majorities are protecting transactional actions and unconstitutional policies instead of defending the U.S. Constitution as each has sworn an oath to protect, WTF can "We the People" do?  The violations are coming far faster than our minds and our legal systems can hand them.  This will not end well.  But it MUST end soon. 

Within a week of Putin's illegal military invasion of Ukraine, President Zelinsky said, "Freedom must be better armed than tyranny".  Now, after three years of violations of international laws (hopes and dreams), actual war crimes, massive infrastructure and environmental destruction, with the suffering of the millions of Ukrainian people - and well over half a million of Russian and N. Korean soldiers dead or wounded, US President Trump is calling Zelinsky a "dictator".  And spewing Putin's talking points that Ukraine is responsible for the war.  And peace must now be traded for Ukrainian land and possibly even that nation's existence. 

This Nevel Chamberland's "Peace at any price" did not end well. And  in our world today, it will not for any nation or anyone given our own nation's new transactional foreign policy.  A dictated policy that puts profits and special interests above human rights, the environment, justice for all, and even the "self-evident" "Truths" that inspired the creation of the United States 11 years they were written into the 1776 Declaration of Independence.  

That profoundly universal declaration should have objectively been called the Declaration of Separation.  Simply because "independence" is only a mental construct that exists nowhere in the known universe.  And as the former Director or the newest US federal Agency said, “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....” Jen Easterly, Director of CISA (Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency - established in 2018).  It is vital to note that the word ‘everything’ is an autological word – defining itself.  That means every cell, DNA strand in your body, and food plant or breath of air you consume.  Consider how often we forget that our environment is our fundamental vital life support infrastructure!  So with everything vulnerable humanity must unite. 

"There will be no Homeland Security until we realize that the entire planet is our homeland. Every sentient being in the world must feel secure." - John Perkins

Even if all of the budget and staff cuts to USAID, CDC, HHS, and other vital government agencies are blocked, profound damages have already been done.  Men, women and children are already dying globally from vital programs stopped with Trumps executive orders. And it will take time for these programs to recover. 

Now there is a definitive answer to Time magazine's cover story question the week of Trump's first inauguration "IS TRUTH DEAD?".   It is.  And objective truths, facts, and reality mean nothing. 

What is urgently needed is any true American patriot within or close to this Administration's leadership must take decisive action!  However, it has to be done!  And done quickly! Far faster than our Constitutionally legal methods allow.  Because at this point, the Constitution means nothing to President Trump, his unelected minions, and his MAGA cult followers (which appears to be over half of our nation's voters.).   

While such a violent and 'illegal action' might spark a civil war -- our nation's currently dictated policies now favoring Russia, China, Isreal, and Trump claims to whatever land they desire- with the use of force if needed -- is putting the world down on the inevitable path of the next World War.  A war with weapons now available that will result in no winners. 

For those of you who have sworn an oath to project the Constitution.  And access to the elected leader of this insanity, you have officially already failed at keeping your oath.  Abraham Lincoln called our Declaration of Independence our "Apple of Gold". And our Constitution, its "Silver Frame".  You need to pick a side!  And act on principle, not your political opinion.  Your choice?  Either" the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" or so called "President' Trump's Law of the Jungle.

The National Security implications of gutting the Department of Education, not to including USAID.

Basic education is a crucial human right and civilization’s foundation.  It is also the keystone essential to sustainably maximizing humanities freedoms and security. Home schooling worked for the Taliban. Not so much for those who love freedom and security elsewhere. 

Education can lead to better health if preventive elements are prioritized. They have not been in the current US system.  Kennedy could change that, but not with his anti-vaccine movement.  Emphasis on education and primary health care remains the twin engines of development here and abroad. Cutting USAID will lead to health threats here and there. And the most powerful military in the world will only be helpful in providing urgent care and digging graves. 

In 1983, the publication of "A Nation at Risk" by the Carnegie Commission brought attention to the threat of mediocrity in our schools. It prompted action from foundations and wealthy individuals, resulting in three decades of attempts to improve education through initiatives like Race to the Top, Teach for America, No Child Left Behind, charter schools, and vouchers. Despite these efforts, education remains a serious challenge in our country.

But few people see education as a significant national security concern. This was clearly recognized and highlighted by a bipartisan Presidential Commission on National Security six months prior to Sept 11, 2001. In its final report the commissioners unanimously identified a lack of education in high schools and higher education institutions as a serious threat to US national security. Congressman Newt Gingrich, a member of the commission, apologized for his previous desire to eliminate the Department of Education at the release of the report live at the National Press Club in Washington DC.  He then proposed paying teachers more as well as paying students to learn.  

The shortage of science and engineering students, which remain crucial for quickly producing, and using high tech weapons.  While also producing consumer products for the economic growth to buy those weapons.  As well as for organizing/managing every aspect of our government and its array of independent agencies.  Each vital to America’s health, prosperity, and security. 

But this wise and clear warning was largely ignored by policy makers over next few two decades. And today we are rushing to invest in domestic chip making and advancements in Artificial Intelligence to keep what dominance our nation appears to retain.  

According to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, around 27% of American adults say that they have little or no confidence in scientists to act in the public interest.  And about 23% say they don't have much or any confidence in scientists to provide full and accurate information about the causes and treatments for COVID-19. While this doesn’t mean a complete denial of all scientific evidence, it does represent a lack of trust or confidence in certain aspects of scientific research or expertise.  Today, that rejection of science and the inability of a significant portion of the American electorate to discern truth from falsehood -or fact from fiction - are significant challenge humanity now faces. 

Baghdad was once considered the world's science hub, where the Arabic language gave birth to terms such as Algebra and Algorithms. The city's culture, which was open to travelers and debates, led to the emergence of useful ideas and notable scientific progress in Europe. This was in stark contrast to the Christian-dominated state of affairs there, where non-believers were being persecuted. Fortunately for the Western World, nearly a thousand years ago, a Muslim cleric in the Middle East reinterpreted the Quran and proclaimed that math was the work of the devil, which ended its flourishing era of science in the Arab world.

As of 2021, a total of 8 Muslims has been awarded Nobel Prizes in science, including Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine or Physiology. As of 2021, with an approximately 14.7 million Jews in the world.  And since the establishment of the Nobel Prizes in 1901, over 205 individuals identify as Jewish (by birth or conversion) have been awarded Nobel Prizes.  A majority of them won in the scientific categories of Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine, or Physiology.

With approximately 2.4 billion Christians in the world, representing the largest religious group globally, a total of 269 individuals identifying as Christians (including both Catholic and Protestant) have been awarded Nobel Prizes. Approximately 40% of those having won in the scientific categories of Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine or Physiology.

May God save us and humanity from the MAGA insanity.  Our political system just doesn't appear up for the task. 

Truth decay must be cured

The fight against truth decay is not new.  It goes back thousands of years.  But it is now accelerating.

If the truth sets us free, what do untruths do?  Below are dozens of quotes to enlighten us on the power of “self-evident” “Truths” instead of the personal or political truths we have invented to serve individual interests.  What are some self-evident truths?  

A child should not die before their parent(s).

God does not make immigrants. 

Gravity.

United we stand. Divided we fail. 

 Below are some quotes to assist in curing truth decay. 

“Truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government but civilization itself.” –  President Gerald Ford

"The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold." Aristotle

Aristotle’s idea clearly expressed the fact that even a small mistake or error in the beginning can lead to much larger consequences down the road. When we start with an incorrect assumption or premise, any further reasoning and decision-making will be flawed.  If things are built and allowed to stay on that faulty foundation, the errors will accumulate and multiply if not corrected. The issue of slavery was corrected with an Amendment. But justice was never served.  And the fact that everyone everywhere is dependent upon one another for their freedom and security still has damaging ripple effects.  And our constitution and international laws still ignore this fundamental truth and the fact that 'everything is connected, interdependent, and vulnerable.  And a global effort is needed. ' Not the delusional foundation that states and the people within them are independent from one another.  This delusion has increasingly perpetrated many damaging consequences, ineffective actions, and the increasing dysfunctional systems and structures within every level of local, state, national and global government.  

Aristotle emphasized the importance of starting with a strong foundation of truth and accuracy in our thinking and reasoning to avoid the compounding effects of errors.  Thus, we should ensure that our actions and decisions are based on sound principles and reasoning.  Sound fundamental principles like the self-evident truths that are clearly stated within the Declaration of Independence.  These are offered within the context of “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.  In common words 'humanity must take care of nature, and each other, by abiding by the golden rule'.  

“If I can do no more, let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won.”    – Louisa May Alcott

“Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her water flow not in a perpetual progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.” – John Milton

Those who debated, engineered, and then approved the creation of the U.S. Constitution proves this profound truth.  We now stand in that muddy pool.  

"To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues."  -- John Locke  (1632-1704) English philosopher and political theorist. Considered the ideological progenitor of the American Revolution and who, by far, was the most often non-biblical writer quoted by the Founding Fathers of the USA.

"There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself."  -- Dr. Samuel Johnson   (1709-1784) English author, poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer

“[The masses] have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real; they are almost as strongly influenced by what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two.”  Sigmund Freud  (1856 to 1939) founding father of psychoanalysis.

“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.” Gustave Le Bon   The Crowd: A Study Of The Popular Mind.  1895.  A leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. Died in 1931. 

“Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prudence [1841]

"It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things, which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. ... Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" -- Patrick Henry  (1736-1799) US Founding Father    Source: "The War Inevitable" speech to the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775

"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend." Hypatia of Alexandria, lived circa 400 CE in Alexandria, Egypt

"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting." -- Buddha

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion” Edward Abby

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” James Reeves

“A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good just because it’s accepted by a majority.” Booker T. Washington

"We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth." - Sydney Schanberg

“Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'  Khalil Gibran - The Prophet

"Truth: the deadliest weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death." - John Gilmore (1935- ) Author

“You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.” Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100/Methuselah's Children

"Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others' welfare." Kurt Vonnegut

"Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people."- Spencer Johnson

"The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can ever help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it's the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it's the fools that form the overwhelming majority."  -- Henrik Ibsen   (1828-1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet

"It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition to stand up for it":  A. Hodge

"Truth never tranquilizes. The defining property of truth is its ability to disturb.   Jesus only told half the story.   The truth 'will' set you free.  But, first it's going to piss you off."  -- Solomon Short  fictional character of David Gerrold 

"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common, they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views" - Doctor Who

"There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge."  -- Roger Bacon   (1220-1292)  Source: Opus Majus, 1266-67

"Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action."   -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe    (1749-1832) German writer, statesman   Source: engraved on a plaque at the Naval War College

“Integrity is an accurate reflection in word and deed of whatever one's highest conscience dictates as right. Wisdom is whatever one's highest conscience dictates as truth.”  – Leonard E. Read

“Though all the winds of the doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”  – John Milton, Areopagatica [1644]

"The search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty." - Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766-1817) French author

"The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal": Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Advice to Youth

"There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths."  Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton,  19th century English novelist, poet, and politician. (He believed that no matter how alone or friendless a person may feel, there is always someone who cares enough about them to tell them the truth, even if it is something they do not want to hear. A sincere friend will not hesitate to point out someone's flaws or mistakes, even if it is uncomfortable or awkward to do so. In essence, he emphasized the importance of having genuine and honest relationships with people who are willing to tell the truth, no matter how difficult it may be. It also suggests that true friendship is not about always agreeing with each other, but rather about supporting and helping each other to become better people.)  

"Truth is not determined by majority vote": Doug Gwyn

“A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not.”  Rex Tillerson. Former Secretary of State, at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington,VA May 2018

“If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us.” - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark 

“The WORLD is not sufficiently aware of the influence that sophistry exerts over it. When the rule of the stronger was overthrown, sophistry transferred the empire to the more subtle, and it would be hard to say which of these two tyrants has been the more disastrous for mankind.  Men have an immoderate love of pleasure, influence, prestige, power—in a word, wealth. And, at the same time, they are driven by a powerful impulse to obtain these things for themselves at the expense of others. But these others, who constitute the public, are impelled no less powerfully to keep what they have acquired, provided that they can and that they know how. Plunder, which plays such an important role in the affairs of the world, has but two instruments: force and fraud, and two impediments courage and knowledge.”  Frederic Bastiat, Economic Sophisms [1845]

"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go un-debated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." -- Simon Heffer    Source: Daily Mail, 7 June 2000

"I would rather starve and rot and keep the privilege of speaking the truth as I see it, than of holding all the offices that capital has to give from the presidency down."  -- Henry Brooks Adams   (1838-1918) Pulitzer prize-winning historian (1919), great-grandson of John Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, and son of US Secretary of State, Charles Adams    Source: The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma, 1919

“Perhaps this is not a new thing!   "I know that most men -- not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic, problems — can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty -- conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives."   -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   (1828-1910) Russian writer    Source: What is Art? (1896)

"The political spirit is the great force in throwing the love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place."   -- John Viscount Morley   (1838-1923), of Blackburn    Source: On Compromise, 1874

“It may not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is the right thing to do. Always.”   – M. Russell Ballard

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest": Thomas Paine 

"When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility." - Neil Postman,  Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Robert Reich - Have We Lost the Common Good? [ (4 min) Video]    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t8in5n4cps      In this video, political commentator, author, and former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, points out that most Americans no longer believe that the major institutions of society—government, corporations, banks, charities, and universities—work for them. Only truths will rebuild trust in our systems.

“Americans need to recognize that, once their government commences warring, truth will be target number one.”  – James Bovard,   "Endless U.S. Government Lies on the Afghanistan War" [October 2018]

"The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), US civil rights leader.

“Today’s politics is the art of forcing our love of truth - and logic - to the back of the bus. And putting your political parties priorities in first ten rows.” Cw

"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you." -  Friedrich Nietzsche

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." -  Flannery O'Connor (1925 - 1964)

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it": Mohandas Gandhi  

"If you're right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth." Mahatma Gandhi

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself": Thomas Jefferson

"There is but one truth, one set of facts, one reality.  Honest people may differ in their perception or interpretation of it while ruthless, dishonorable people, media, or governments twist, conceal, deny or lie about it to further their own greed and corruption.” - Bob Davies

"One of the hardest things to teach a child is that the truth is more important than the consequences." - O. A. Battista - [Orlando Aloysius Battista] (1917-1995), Canadian-American chemist and author  

"Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence": Henri Frederic Amiel:   1880s

"Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude.  In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side."   Goethe German writer, artist, natural scientist and politician (1749–1832)

"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority.  Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."  -- Giordano Bruno   [Iordanus Brunus Nolanus] (1548-1600) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, astrologer.   Source: The Shadows of Ideas, Paris, 1582

"Honesty demands that we boldly pursue ideas tested by time, defended by reason, validated by experience, and confirmed by revelation. We will only find truth when we place our confidence in it and not in ourselves. We will only learn when we love truth enough to measure all ideas with a measuring rod outside of those things being measured and are willing to discard those ideas we find to be "intolerable," inferior, and useless." -- Everett Piper   President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University  Source: 'Bethlehem, Not Berkeley, Is the Birthplace of Free Speech,' The Christian Post, Apr 27, 2017

“Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine — the special pleading of selfish interests”. – Henry Hazlitt, Economics In One Lesson [1946]

"The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side."   ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German writer and statesman

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."  -- Albert Einstein  (1879-1955) Physicist and Professor, Nobel Prize 1921

"All truth is true even if no one believes it, and all falsehood is false even if everyone believes it.  Truth is true and that's just the end of it."  Os Guinness

“The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.”  – Goethe. German writer, artist, natural scientist and politician (1749–1832)

“They deem him their worst enemy, who tells them the truth” - Plato, The Republic, c. 380 BC

"It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true." -  Henry Kissinger

"To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true." -   H L Mencken, 1919 

"The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal": Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Advice to Youth

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." -  Winston S. Churchill

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth." -  William Faulkner

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." -  Oscar Wilde

"When telling someone the truth, make them laugh or they will kill you" ~ Oscar Wilde

"The first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth" -  Michael Parenti    

"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."  -  Herbert Sebastien Agar  

"A society committed to the search for truth must give protection to, and set a high value upon, the independent and original mind, however angular, however rasping, however, socially unpleasant it may be; for it is upon such minds in large measure, that the effective search for truth depends."  -- Caryl Parker Haskins  (1908-2001) Scientist, author, inventor, philanthropist, governmental advisor and pioneering entomologist in the study of ant biology    Source: New York Times, 9 December 1963

‘We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgment of the intellect is only part of the truth.’ – Carl Jung  

‘Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.’ – Carl Jung

"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."  -  Herbert Sebastien Agar  

"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." -- Justice Joseph Story : (1779-1845) US Supreme Court Justice 1833

"I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. - I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. - I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering." -  Mahatma Gandhi

“I am for truth, no matter who tells it.” -Malcolm X 

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

"In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth," "In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble." Rep. Ron Paul (R) of Texas

“The men that American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest the most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” -- H L  Mencken (attributed: source unknown)

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them”  Ida B. Wells

“We make ourselves real by telling the truth. Man can hardly forget that he needs to know the truth, for the instinct to know is too strong in us to be destroyed. But he can forget how badly he also needs to tell the truth. We cannot know truth unless we ourselves are conformed to it. We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us. But we make ourselves true by manifesting the truth as we see it”.  – Thomas Merton, From No Man Is an Island [1955]

"The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author.   He may have been a king or serf -- a philosopher or servant, — but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason.  Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world."  -- Robert G. Ingersoll    (1833-1899) American lawyer, Civil War veteran, political leader, orator of United States during the Golden Age of Free Thought, nicknamed "The Great Agnostic"

“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State.”  – Joseph Goebbels

I stand for the truth.  Will you stand for it?  If not, then what do you stand for?