Building Bridges?

So, someone I consider to be a good friend just deleted me on Face Book. Not hid me, deleted me. I can't even reply to her now, because that was my only connection. Why did she delete me? Because she's a bridge builder, or so she says. Funny, I didn't think you built bridges with a torch in hand.

She didn't like my article about Natural Born Citizens, and how I came to the conclusion that the founders intended the Constitution to only allow people born of two American citizens to become President. Thought I was Xenophobic or something, because I thought it made sense that the possibility of being a dual citizen in charge of the nation's armed forces could be a reasonable conflict of interest. But no, she's an enlightened intellectual, and couldn't be bothered to actually deal with me on my well reasoned position. So instead of being honest with me, she just deleted me. As I say, funny way to build a bridge.

You see, I've been thinking a lot about building bridges lately. So here are some observations: first, you don't need to build bridges to people you agree with, you're already on the same side! So, when you're building a bridge you are only ever doing so with people you disagree with. Secondly, bridges must be built from both sides. You can build your bridge to the middle, but if one is not built in return, you'll never connect. Third, and most importantly, you have to be able to see your bridge "from the other side." Otherwise, you won't be able to build your bridge in the right direction.

That's all well and good fanciful fluff, but how about some more practical knowledge. Try this: the other person is always right. How's that you say? You're finally embracing post-modern nihilism? Hardly. What I mean is, the other person thinks they are right, just as you think you are right, and so you must treat them as such. That is, you must respect that they believe they are right, and act accordingly. No one will build a bridge back to you if they do not feel respected.

So, assuming she ever reads this, let me try applying these pearls of wisdom to the situation at hand. Case 1, I write a heartfelt and carefully considered piece detailing a nugget of knowledge I have recently gained, and I share it honestly and excitedly with my friends, and ask for and receive honest feedback (mostly negative, but honest) on my opinion and idea. I felt respected that other people considered my idea as something I was interested in, even though they disagreed. I felt respected that they were willing to share their disagreement with me. It was hard work, pushing past those disagreements to share honestly with them, and for them to respond in kind. We didn't change each other's minds. But we built a bridge!!! I now trust them a little more, and they trust me.

Except for my friend. She was offended by my piece, but she wouldn't tell me so. But I believe she was offended. That is, whether or not I think the offense was legitimate, she believed it so, and therefore it most certainly was, to her at the least. And when you're building bridges, that's all that matters! And so if you ever read this, know that I did not intend to offend, if you can accept that. Know that I accept you were offended, and I only wish you had trusted me enough to tell me so. I also wish that you had given me the trust to recognize that I honestly believed in my work. You cannot build bridges any other way, and it takes the sting out of the offense to be molded in this way. To know someone is honestly committed to an idea that you find offensive can give you the strength to hold that connection, but it still takes work and you must continually try at it.

Case 2. A current event initiated by a group of people has our family in a stir. This group has caused offense, yet they and their supporters refuse to recognize the offense. They do not wish to build a bridge, or give the offended the respect of holding honest feelings of offense. A writer pens an article detailing exactly where the offense comes from, in an effort to enlighten those who do not understand the source of the grief. My wife posts said article on *her own* wall. Our friend reads and takes her own offense at the article. But instead of respecting that my wife indeed holds these things honestly and openly, and reacting as such, she blatantly insinuates she is a bigot. After my wife, who has had it with being slandered as a racist, bigot, etc., without so much as a single shred of evidence, lets our friend know that she's had it with being slandered as a racist, bigot, etc., without so much as a shred of evidence, our friend the bridge builder deletes us from her friends list.

Was she honestly offended by the article in question? I believe so. Was she justified in insinuating my wife is a bigot? Maybe she honestly believes it to be so, but she did not respect her enough to say so honestly to her face. "But you know so much about building bridges, why couldn't you build one with her?" you say. Ah, but remember it takes two to build a bridge.

Natural Born Citizen

The waters on this issue have become so muddied with “Birthers” and myriad claims of dubious (and not so dubious) natures that even discussing this rationally has become difficult. It is so emotionally charged that considering the issues involved and not the implications has become impossible, rather like a tainted jury pool. However, I will attempt to lay out the facts as I see them one more time, with the addition of a new wrinkle from current events.

From all available information, our President, Barack Obama, is a Citizen of the United States of America. However, he is not a Natural Born Citizen, but rather a Naturalized Citizen of the United States. A Natural Born Citizen must be born of two Citizens of the United States (who, themselves, do not have to be Natural Born). A Naturalized Citizen may be granted citizenship under a variety of circumstances, and in the case of our President, he was Naturalized by fact of one of his parents being a Natural Born Citizen (his mother).

However, since his other parent was a Natural Born Citizen of Kenya, he (Barack) could not therefore be a Natural Born Citizen of the United States. Only just today, August 5, 2010, the nation of Kenya ratified a new Constitution. This new Constitution grants citizenship to anyone who is or has been born of at least one parent who is a Citizen of Kenya. Therefore, our President is automatically a dual citizen with citizenship in Kenya as well as the United States.

Finally, the United States Constitution retains a clause that requires Natural Born Citizenship for Presidential eligibility. The intent was to prevent individuals with divided allegiances from taking power of the executive branch of the country. Surely someone with dual citizenship is precisely the case these gentlemen were considering when they wrote this clause. That is, any Naturalized Citizen would have at least the possibility of claiming citizenship in another country, and thus divide his or her loyalty accordingly, whereas a Natural Born Citizen would have (at the least) none of the entanglements of dual citizenship and the burden of the inherent loyalties therein.

If I had to conjecture, I would say that they (the Founders) had in mind the bewildering array of entanglements existing within the European Continent at the time. The intermarriage among the ruling classes of the different nations caused a nightmarish maze of loyalties and duties and alliances that I believe the American Colonists wished to avoid in their new country.

Given the above, what are the implications to us now? Well, they range from the inane, to the bizarre, to the quite serious. In the matter of trivia, Barack Obama is the first openly publicized Naturalized Citizen to become President (the actual first would have been Chester Arthur, whose father was Irish and who may have been born in Canada). In a bizarre twist, the People of Kenya could now levy requirements on our President, to fulfill the duties of a Citizen of Kenya, unless he actually revoked his Citizenship (which would then prove he was indeed a dual citizen!). Aside from strange legal entanglements, it is quite apparent that Mr. Obama indeed has two home countries to contend with. We may never know the extent to which he is ultimately loyal to one or the other, as it is a matter of the unseen heart (he may not know himself!), which I think is why our Founders wished to spare us the trouble.

Finally, there is the most obvious and glaring point, which is that his election as President was not in fact Constitutional. Rather, his candidacy was deemed to be Constitutional by one federally appointed authority (the Chief Justice), his main opponent in the contest (John McCain), and a majority of the country (53% of the voting public). However, he was not deemed so in the correct fashion under the Constitution that he has sworn to uphold, namely the consent of three fourths of the states by Constitutional amendment. What does all that mean? Not much, just add it to the list of the many items our Government has deemed by its own standard to be legal when they are clearly not. But when will the camel’s back break? When will the list become so onerous that the Constitutional authority of our Government ceases, and only the authority of Force remains? This is the thing that we ought to be concerned about most of all in this strange affair.

No We Couldn't

Couldn't what? Keep it. Keep what? A Republic. We couldn't keep the Republic. Maybe we can restore it, maybe we can re-found it, but we couldn't keep it. Two Hundred and twenty three years ago a lady asked Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention: “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”, and Franklin replied: “A Republic, if you can keep it.” The lady got her answer that day, and now we have Franklin's answer for him.

Our founders always knew this day would come. They prayed it would not, and there were many miracles along the way, and many days of blood and pain to preserve it. But battered and bruised it kept on. Until today. Today we have lost the Republic, if only temporarily. Today the Republic gave in to the pull of Socialism, and betrayed all its principles to do so. Today, the agreement between the sovereign States of America has been broken.

Always before, the agreement, the Constitution that bound the country and created a voluntary union of the separate states, had held, even if bent beyond recognition at times. Now the agreement has been flagrantly violated, and the "political bands which have connected them with another" have been dissolved, in spirit if not yet by law.

And so by law the Republic will continue to appear to function, to push forward. But the heart has been shattered, and the blood will eventually stop flowing through its veins. The heart was the American Spirit of people willing to do Good in a country that asked it of itself, but never forced that Good upon itself or others; of people willingly binding themselves to laws that punished only the commitment of Evil upon one another.

But no more. Now the willing spirit has been shackled like a slave. To representatives charged with protecting our way of life, it is no longer enough to merely punish Evil acts. Now the version of Good as seen by some must be forced to become the Good done by all in the country. Now, if your Good acts are not as some see Good, you have become Evil, and must be punished. Now, you cannot do Good willingly. Now you are compelled to do what some call Good; and in the subjugation to the Good will of some, we are all made slaves. Now, our reward for our willingness to do Good has been lost. We are forced to do what we do not believe is Good, and the Good we do has been forced from us, making all our gifts and generosity into mere obligation.

^{1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.}

²"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ³But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Matthew 6:1-4

Now, we can no longer do Good in the name we choose. Now our Good is done for us in the name of our representatives, chosen by some but not all, and we have again lost our reward.

This Republic has struggled over what was Evil, and what was to be punished as Evil by the Republic. Never have we struggled so hard over what was Good, and never has Good been punished as Evil by the Republic like today. Our Republic should and can deal with two groups of people who wish to do Good in their own way. And when those groups disagree, it has provided us with a way to establish a new agreement, if agreeable to most all, and if not, to allow us to continue doing Good in our own ways.

But now one group's Good has become the other group's Evil. Now instead of two groups doing Good in their own way, one group's Good of Socialism and Social Justice has been forced on the other, and the other group's Good of Economic Liberty and Personal Responsibility is a punishable Evil. And now we have proven that the two Goods will not mix, not even in our Republic that fought so hard, and bled so much so that they might.

"And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay." ^{Daniel 2:43}

And now we go about the business of disuniting, in spirit if not in law. As long as the one side compels the other, we may never disunite by law. But as long as we are compelled, we will never be the Republic of the United States of America again.

Sincerely, in peaceful melancholy and yet in hope of the return of my Lord Jesus,

Benjamin Passler Claggett

A Citizen and a Christian

Written this day, the Twenty Second of March, in the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ Two Thousand and Ten

The One-Fourth Rule Amendment

A proposed amendment to the United States Constitution:

"Whereas a three-fourths majority of States (Legislatures or Conventions) are required to amend the United States Constitution, and by inference a more than one-fourth minority of States may block such an amendment,

So shall a greater than one-fourth minority of States (Legislatures or Conventions), who support an amendment preventing a change to the United States Constitution, have such an amendment be passed as binding upon the United States Constitution."

Such an amendment, a "one-fourth +1 amendment," will clarify the limits of government power beyond what is set forth in the United States Constitution, and demarcate which "three-fourths amendment" would be required to allow government the use of said powers.

In truth, the Bill of Rights ought to have been of this "one-fourth + 1" nature. That is, it should have only required a slightly greater than one-fourth minority of population to maintain the access to the rights therein. As it is now, when those rights are infringed on, it has now been established that we in fact need a three-fourths majority of the population to defend those infringements.

Addendum:

Another way to word or structure this amendment would be that 1/4th + 1 states could vote to overturn any congressional law as being unconstitutional. This would be a more "re-active" approach, whereas the former would be more "pro-active."

Health Reform Constitutional?

http://www.theweek.com/bullpen/column/104493/Health_reform_Unwise_not_unconstitutional

Fortunately, David Frum does not decide what is and is not Constitutional. And neither does the Supreme Court. For something to be "Constitutional" it must be something that *I* agree should be in the purview of the federal government. That is the only standard of Constitutionality, and no one can tell me something is Constitutional when I believe it is not. What I decide to do about the circumstance (namely that the Federal Government agrees amongst itself that my personal health care / insurance / banking / transportation etc. falls under their jurisdiction) is an entirely different subject.

Statement of Faith (a work in progress, but a good start)

I believe that the people, places, and events of the Bible are real. I have read the accounts of those people, and believe that the God they spoke of is real, including all that he said and did, and promised to do. I believe the accounts spoken and written down about the man Jesus, who was called the Christ, the Messiah. I believe that the claims he made of himself were true, that he is the Son of God, who was and is and is to come. I believe that he was slain in my place, that he was executed for my transgressions. I believe the account of those who saw him raised from the dead, in physical form that they could touch, feel, and talk to. I believe that just as he was raised from the dead, so I will have new life through my faith in him. I believe this new and eternal life is a gift, freely given, and is not from any worthiness on my part. I believe I do not deserve it, and that no one does. But I believe it was offered freely, and I have freely accepted it, in faith.

I believe that humanity has been holding the burning coal of the knowledge of Good and Evil in its hands, ever since Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the same. I believe all of our struggles as humans stem entirely from that event, and everything we do can be cast in the light of our attempts as humans to deal with that knowledge, whether to bury it, to put it back, to try and absorb it unto ourselves, to try to pass it on to get rid of it or at least share the burning pain, or to just wither under it. I believe the only way to deal with this knowledge and its resulting condemnation of ourselves is to ask for forgiveness from the God who made us, and accept his offered sacrifice of his only begotten Son, Jesus the Messiah, to account for that condemnation.

I believe heaven will be literally greater than I can possibly imagine. I believe that I will be counted worthy of entering into God's glory there, not from my own merit but from him whose blood covers my iniquity.

I believe when Jesus said on the cross that it was finished, I believe he meant it. I believe that the Gospel, the good news of human salvation and restoration to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus was complete and perfect the day the curtain to the Holy of Holies was ripped, and when he walked out of the tomb on the third day. I believe that our attempts to enhance and improve upon the Gospel are far more likely to be a regression back to the pagan heritage of our culture, than to be progressive advances in our spiritual maturity.

Therefore, I believe that our civilization is not advancing to a Utopian climax, but is only reflecting the seeds of its character, in proportion to its size. As humanity grows, so we see the fruits of those seeds clearer, but their character has not changed. I believe that at the right moment, God will remove the good fruit from the earth, and destroy what is left. I believe that this judgement is for God to perform, and not our place as humans, in this age, except within ourselves against the evil fruit in our own lives. Yet, I believe that wherever possible, and with whatever strength is given to us, we should defend those around us from the evil of this world.

I believe that Israel has been reconstituted according to God's will and is fulfilling the Biblical prophecies made about that nation. I believe that the Biblically prophesied war of Gog and Magog may happen within my lifetime, and that the nations and alliances of that war are almost all nearly in place. I believe that my country, the United States of America, has created a government founded on Biblical principles in a way unlike any other in history since the ancient nation of Israel, and like that nation it will not achieve the perfection it seeks until Christ reigns on the throne.

Meta-physics Model for a World without Time

It has been posited that our universe is actually only one of an infinite number of universes comprising the Multi-Verse, in which every possible state of being is captured.

I would like to posit that these are not disconnected universes, but rather form a single matrix of static 'verses, which in and of themselves do not change. There is in fact no dimension of Time at all. Rather, what we experience as time is actually the sequential movement through an infinite series of Universes, each with a different static state, much like a finite state machine. In my model, this "Infinite State Machine" has inputs for the current state of the Universe, and our "free-will" inputs as the remaining inputs, which the infinite state machine (again, in my model, God or his Creation) then uses to point to a new Universe.

God controls the frequency at which the states are traversed, and therefore our "Time" has almost no meaning to God. A thousand years are as a day. Also, we are not just occupying a single Universe, but rather are connected to every Universe, or possibly only a theoretical connection to infinite universes, since really only one universe would need to exist at any given time.

*Speculation* (as opposed to the previous iron clad mathematical proofs)

Perhaps, with this model, we would see the results of the famous quantum physics experiment, whereby a single "interfering" molecule stream behaves as a continuous wave, since a discrete stream of particles taken at subsequent states would appear to be a continuous stream. That is, the previous state *for that stream* was the previous particle issued, and so subsequent discrete particles interfere with the previously issued particle, creating the impression of a continuous stream.