The U.S. Constitution On-Line

(images& transcript below from:  http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/declara4.html)

Thomas Jefferson was too ill to make the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, so he wrote this letter to express his regrets, support, and vision for the new nation, and from it, the world.

Yes, certain people couldn’t vote then and weren’t in the original plan.  But as it says below,

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains. . . . . 

He understood the power of ideas and knowledge.  It took one hundred years more for women to be able to vote, they were excluded as a gender from the first round of expanded voting rights

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote.

“15th Amendment”

To former abolitionists and to the Radical Republicans in Congress who fashioned Reconstruction after the Civil War, the 15th amendment, enacted in 1870, appeared to signify the fulfillment of all promises to African Americans. Set free by the 13th amendment, with citizenship guaranteed by the 14th amendment, black males** were given the vote by the 15th amendment. From that point on, the freedmen were generally expected to fend for themselves. In retrospect, it can be seen that the 15th amendment was in reality only the beginning of a struggle for equality that would continue for more than a century before African Americans could begin to participate fully in American public and civic life.

African Americans exercised the franchise and held office in many Southern states through the 1880s, but in the early 1890s, steps were taken to ensure subsequent “white supremacy.”

**I’ve been told that this is the first place the word “males” occurs in the Bill of Rights / Amendments.  Was there already an understanding that if women, too, were granted more liberty, the sky would fall?

It is always going to be a fight to obtain and retain liberty.  Sleep at your own risk.

And remember these sentiments:

Timely, Eloquent Expression  — from 1826,

on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman)

Monticello, June 24, 1826

Respected Sir-

The kind invitation I receive from you, on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as one of the surviving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and the fate of the world, is most flattering to myself, and heightened by the honorable accompaniment proposed for the comfort of such a journey. It adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a personal participation in the rejoicings of that day. But acquiescence is a duty, under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted to control [age/infirmity]. I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. [para.break added here…]

That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

I will ask permission here to express the pleasure with which I should have met my ancient neighbors of the city of Washington and its vicinities, with whom I passed so many years of a pleasing social intercourse; an intercourse which so much relieved the anxieties of the public cares, and left impressions so deeply engraved in my affections, as never to be forgotten. With my regret that ill health forbids me the gratification of an acceptance, be pleased to receive for yourself, and those for whom you write, the assurance of my highest respect and friendly attachments.

Th. Jefferson

A few points:

SUBMISSION OR THE SWORD — THEY CHOSE, even if it seemed then a “BOLD & DUBIOUS” choice.

THE UNBOUNDED EXERCISE OF REASON AND FREEDOM OF OPINION — this form of Goverment is to RESTORE those qualities.

this is the natural state of mankind, they declared . . .   by contrast with:

MONKISHIGNORANCE AND SUPERSTITION PERSUADE (MEN) TO BIND THEMSELVES

The word “monkish” speaks loudly — he is talking about religion.

Below, because it came up as part of Richard C. Weightman’s identity, I have some texts on freemasonry.  Weightman and several other founders were freemasons.  I already knew that several were Deists, and that the “Enlightenment” was a factor previous to this constitution.   My (basic) site says:  “By the 1700s, the Freemasons had evolved from a trade guild into an organization of men with a very distinct philosophy. They favored religious tolerance over the strict dictates of the Catholic Church, and they enjoyed intellectual discourse with their brothers.”

Although the Freemasons were very pleased with the society they had created, not everyone shared their enthusiasm. Both the government and the church were suspicious of the organization’s secrecy and liberal religious beliefs. In 1737, King Louis XV banned the Freemasons in France. A year later, Pope Clement XII forbade Catholics from becoming Freemasons on penalty of excommunication, and the Portuguese government made Freemasonry punishable by death

Most religion is forced on people; it has to be; reason doesn’t persuade them to adopt it  freely for masses of people.  Those who have altered or liberalized the religious-state dominance were often persecuted and outlawed.   Despite Jefferson’s claim above that SELF-GOVERNMENT (individual and in association with others) leads to both SECURITY & BLESSINGS, traditionally, it goes the other day.

In the 1600s, and of course previous centuries in England and elsewhere, being of the wrong religion could result in torture & death, far later than most of us believe.  Born in 1494 , at the turn of the 16th century William Tyndale, fluent in EIGHT languages, was martyered at age 39 in Belgium where he’d fled to continue translating the Bible into English: 

William Tyndale

Tyndale holds the distinction of being the first man to ever print the New Testament in the English language. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius, so fluent in eight languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, and German) that it was said one would think any one of them to be his native tongue. He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the English Language”, (even more so than William Shakespeare) as so many of the phrases Tyndale coined are still in our language today.

(Tyndale’s) literary activity during that interval was extraordinary. When he left England, his knowledge of Hebrew, if he had any, was of the most rudimentary nature; and yet he mastered that difficult tongue so as to produce from the original an admirable translation of: the entire Pentateuch [1st 5 books of the present Bible], the Books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, First Chronicles, contained in Matthew’s Bible of 1537, and of the Book of Jonah, so excellent, indeed, that his work is not only the basis of those portions of the Authorized King James Version of 1611, but constitutes nine-tenths of that translation, and very largely that of the English Revised Version of 1885.

In addition to these he produced the following works . . . [probably not of interest to this audience….]

All these works were written during those mysterious years, in places of concealment so secure and well chosen, {{speaking 8 languages probably helped him blend in …!}} that neither the ecclesiastical nor diplomatic emissaries of Wolsey and Henry VIII., charged to track, hunt down, and seize the fugitive, were able to reach them, and they are even yet unknown. Under the idea that the progress of the Reformation in England rendered it safe for him to leave his concealment, he settled at Antwerp in 1534, and combined the work of an evangelist with that of a translator of the Bible.

The Betrayal and Death of William Tyndale

Tyndale was betrayed by a friend, Philips, the agent either of Henry or of English ecclesiastics, or possibly of both. Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Vilvoorden for over 500 days of horrible conditions. He was tried for heresy and treason in a ridiculously unfair trial, and convicted. Tyndale was then strangled and burnt at the stake in the prison yard, Oct. 6, 1536. His last words were, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” This prayer was answered three years later, in the publication of King Henry VIII’s 1539 English “Great Bible”.

I also suspect (though won’t research today) that given who he was and how much time he spent in the scriptures, translating them from Hebrew & Greek (not Latin), he probably was not too big on the Trinity.  Again, for those less interested in doctrinal matters, it’s also accuracy & political matters.   After all, a young man (39 yrs old) was sent to jail (over a year), tied to a stake, strangled at the stake til dead, and then his body was burned.  You KNOW there’s some religious fervor in such behavior somewhere.  This is why we NEED that First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be preserved, and we NEED judges that respect that constitution.

Trinitarians (obviously I”m not one) are big on using John 1:3-4.  The word was with God in the beginning, Jesus was the word, ergo Jesus = God, or at least with him in the beginning, not just born of Mary.

This site The Historic Translation of John 1:3-4, while obviously it has a point of view, it is a one-page synopsis of the translations of the English Bible, and some history in translation battles, including Queens that banned printing it in England, leading to people relying on another version — it also talks about whether translation was from the Latin (not known by common people at this time, hence the province of Catholicism) or Greek (which Wycliff didn’t have, but Tyndale, later, did.)  This has in part to do with how one translates pronouns!

Our English Bible gradually developed over the last six hundred years.  John Wycliffe is credited with the first English translation of the New Testament which was completed about 1380 C.E.  Until that time the Word of Yahweh was locked up in the Latin tongue which was unknown to the common people.  The Latin Vulgate translated by Jerome about 400 C.E. was the standard Bible used in the Catholic Church.

. . . for about 1,000 years……

Wycliffe’s translation is based upon the Latin Vulgate, not the Greek.  It is therefore a “version of a version.”  In Wycliffe’s version, John 1:3-4 use the word “him” in reference to the “Word” of verse 1 and is a translation of the Latin “ipsum” and “ipso” (he, she, or it).

. . . . so it would be Trinitarian…..  The holy spirit is a person in the Godhead, Jesus is a person in the Godhead, and the Father is a person in the Godhead.  (Blurred boundaries, much?).    From this site:

The next great English translator was William Tyndale.  He was an excellent Greek scholar who had access to the Greek text of Erasmus which Wycliffe did not have.  The hand of the Almighty was upon Tyndale as He used him to give us our first English translation based upon the Hebrew and Greek.  His New Testament was published in 1526 and revised to its final state in 1534.

Tyndale’s translation of John 1:3-4 reads,

John 1:3,4 – All things were made by it, and without it, was made nothing that was made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men.

As you can see, Tyndale used “it” instead of “him.”   “It” is a translation of the Greek “autou” meaning he, she, or it.  What this tells us is that Tyndale did not read Messiah into the “logos” or “word” of verse 1 and he was not influenced by the Latin Vulgate or Wycliffe.

The IT/HIM chronology according to this summary rests, with a few historic interjections on the state of Bible translations and the fate of those who translated them.  Clearly, the Catholic church did NOT appreciate being questioned:

• ca. 1380 Wycliffe, from Latin (all he had to translate from….)– “HIM”  

• 1526 Tyndale, from Greek “IT” – –
• 1535 Coverdale, Tyndale contemporary & friend,  first complete Bible in English, some from the Latin some from Tyndale:   “HIM.”  
• 1537 (John Rogers’?) “Thomas Matthew” version mostly from Tyndale & Coverdale — “IT”  Popularized as the “Matthew’s Bible.”

• 1539, the Great Bible — “The first edition was prepared by Miles Coverdale.  For some reason Coverdale decided “it” was more correct than “him”  and left John 1:3-4 as it was in Matthew’s translation, “it” instead of “him.”  — COVERDALE switches (or leaves prior version) — “IT”

The Great {it was large!} Bible was the first authorized English version and was ordered to be placed in every church.  (just a little reminder:  England was then, is now, a monarchy — and has an official state religion, including today.  Today it is the Anglican church.  It’s less dangerous now to confront this authority than it was then, obviously.  Instead, England is struggling in the courts with how to handle Islamification — do they allow sharia law? etc.).

 A bit more on this one:

Coverdale’s “Great Bible”, called that because of its size, was published in 1539 and had over 21,000 copies printed in seven editions in only a single year. Working under the patronage of Thomas Cromwell, Coverdale had submitted his Bible via the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, and it was published with the authorization of King Henry VIII, whose likely motivation was the realization that the Bible was an effective means of combating papists. Amazingly, at the end of the book of Malachi were the initials W.T., covering half a page, standing for William Tyndale. Beginning with the second edition, the Great Bible included a preface by Thomas Cranmer, and so it is also called Cranmer’s Bible.

British History 101 (not my long suit!):  CRANMER became clergy as a younger son out of necessity; later was attracted to some Lutheran tendencies, married a barmaid who died in childbirth, he went back to school & became a priest? in 1523; was noticed by the King and went to Rome to argue the case to allow this king to divorce.  He was sent to Germany to learn about Luther, became interested in the Reformation (and a certain reformer’s niece) 1533, becoming Archbishop  of Canterbury, he had to conceal his own marriage.  Once his appointment was verified, he quickly nullified the king’s marriage and in short, helped King Henry VIII form the Church of England, including multiple divorces and marriages.  Despite his political connections, the winds changed, and he was later killed under a Catholic Queen Mary.

http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/Bibles/OtherBibles/ExhibitObjects/TheGreatBibleorCranmersBible.aspx  The Bible in Englyshe. London: Richard Grafton and Edward Whitechurch, 1540. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress  Call number: BS160 1540

“The availability of an English Bible caused controversy during Henry’s reign. He grew concerned about the consequences of allowing the lower classes to read the Bible and later placed restrictions on its editions and uses.”   {Seems like all rulers are concerned about the behaviors of the lower classes, and letting them get too educated on the legislation or religious institutions that are ruling them… This includes USA, today….This concern about behaviors and morals is notably less urgent when it comes to said “upper” classes)…

• 1543.  “Govt says to religion:  Let’s get organized and authorized.”… it seems that as to John 1:3-4, the “IT’s” held sway for a while….

The English parliament in 1543 passed a law forbidding the use of any English translations other than the “Great Bible”. Tyndale’s New Testament was specifically prohibited, and later Wycliffe’s and Coverdale’s Bibles were also banned. It was decreed a crime for any unlicensed person to read or explain the Scriptures in public. Many copies of Tyndale’s New Testament and Coverdale’s Bible were burned in London, though ironically, the authorized “Great Bible” contained the work of both men.

What was the fear?  Exercise of unbounded reason and expression of opinion by the common man?

POINT:  another way to clamp down and control information is to restrict it to only certain licensed “professionals” — here, clergy…I’m not talking about the practice of medicine here,

Fahrenheit 451, in 1546:

1546   A woman was tortured and burned at the stake, and the king’s decree went out, including the book ban of English books and on certain imports which would encourage pernicious behavior.   The site speaks for itself: (hover on link for a sample) of “A Proclamation for the abolishing of English Books, after the Death of Anne Askew, act forth by the King, AD. 1546, the eighth day of July”…”Anne Askew, daughter of  Sir William Askew of Lincolnshire, was charged with heresy and despite a sustained and brave defence (writing her own replies to charges, defending herself before the King`s Council and corresponding with the Lord Chancellor etc) was inevitably found guilty. She was tortured on the rack in the Tower, and refused to accept an offer of the Kings pardon. She was burnt at the stake in 1546,“

The king’s most excellent majesty understanding how, under pretence of expounding and declaring the truth of God’s Scripture, divers lewd and evil-disposed persons have taken upon them to utter and sow abroad, by books imprinted in the English tongue, sundry pernicious and detestable errors and heresies, not only contrary to the laws of this realm, but also repugnant to the true sense of God’s law and his word, by reason whereof certain men of late, to the destruction of their own bodies and souls, and to the evil example of others, have attempted arrogantly and maliciously to impugn the truth, and therewith trouble the sober, quiet, and godly religion, united and established under the king’s majesty in this his realm; his highness, minding to foresee the dangers that might ensue of the said books, is enforced to use his general prohibition, commandment, and proclamation, as followeth:

The benevolent ruler knows what’s best for his people, hence, a nationwide book ban, hand them over!, starting with……Tyndale….

First, That from henceforth no man, woman, or person, of what estate, condition, or degree soever he or they be, shall, after the last day of August next ensuing, receive, have, take, or keep in his or their possession, the text of the New Testament, of Tyndale’s or Coverdale’s translation in English, nor any other than is permitted by the act of parliament made in the session of’ the parliament holden at Westminster in the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth year of his majesty’s most noble reign; nor, after the said day, shall receive, have, take, or keep, in his or their possession, any manner of books printed or written in the English tongue, which he, or shall be, set forth in the names of Frith, Tyndele, Wickliff Joy, Roy, Basil, Bale, Barnes, Coverdale, Turner, Tracy, or by any of them . . .

Whatever it was that angered them, it came from Tyndale.  Ironic, because the authorized Great Bible had a lot of Tyndale’s material anyhow.  I imagine some of them had to do with translating “Ekklesia” more as “called” than as “church”….  
1556 — AFter Edward VI comes the Catholic Queen known as “Bloody Mary” Cranmer tried for treason, forced to publically recant Protestantism; when he was executed, allegedly (this site) he stuck his hand, with recantation, in the fire, and recants his recantation of Protestantism:

One person struggling with why Tyndale had so little to say on this topic noted:

The Trinitarian Covenant (Ralph S. Ferrell:  “Little Known Facts About William Tyndale’s Theology: The Trinitarian Covenant and the Fall)

Tyndale did not write a theology and only by extracting and collating from his writings everything he wrote about each doctrine was it possible to formulate his theology. There was one important gap in his writings—that is the Trinitarian Covenant—although there are some statements that are part of it. However, it was the only solution that made sense (sic), and made a coherent whole with the rest of his theology.

and then, trying to validate his OWN attempt to grasp the concept (Note:  the word is not in the texts):

When I first thought about the Trinity I could not see the validity of any of the explanations meant to help us understand the concept of Three Persons and One God. I could only make sense of the Trinity if I looked at it as a family. The family name is God, and in that family there are three Persons— the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—but it is one Family. Although Tyndale does not have much teaching about the Trinity his stress on the family and his theology of the covenant makes me think he would not disagree with that definition.

(link is to a Church of England (i.e., Anglican) website proclaiming “Church Society exists to uphold biblical teaching and to promote and defend the character of the Church of England as a reformed and national Church. The Society is strongly committed to the supreme and final authority of the Bible as God’s Word written.”  Logo reads, “for Bible, Church & Nation”)

So what’s that got to do with us, and Independence Day?

I bring this up, including for atheists & agnostics, because those now in on the grants system, “HEALTHY FAMILY” promoters, where they ARE religious, come from traditions that would agree with this.  It’s all about Family — see? isn’t God himself one big happy family — father, son holy spirit?  Anything else is contrary to nature, and must be heretical — like the feminazis, etc….  Just to be aware of it.

Here, for our reading amusement (?) is a Catholic version of what a bad boy, and priest, Tyndale was — and how even “his own bishop” didn’t approve his translation.  From “CatholicCulture.org”:  Obviously, this is a different point of view:

“Swarming with textual corruptions . . . . .

 Tyndale was an English priest of no great fame who desperately desired to make his own English translation of the Bible. The Church denied him for several reasons.

First, it saw no real need for a new English translation of Scripture at that time. In fact, booksellers were having a hard time selling the print editions of the Bible that they already had. Laws had to be enacted to force people to buy them. (??)

Second, we must remember that this was a time of great strife and confusion for the Church in Europe. The Reformation had turned the continent into a volatile place. So far, England had managed to remain relatively unscathed,** and the Church wanted to keep it that way. It was thought that adding a new English translation would only add confusion and distraction where focus was needed.

**unscathed, i.e., by the scandalous ideas of the Reformation, including that common folk could be trusted to read the Bible without expert clerical help….

Wow.  This is starting to sound like our AFCC’s protest at “conflict.”  Above all, nothing “high-conflict” — such as the Reformation! — (Martin Luther — see Martin Luther King, Jr. named after him!) should be allowed to disturb the tranquil holy family and it’s domination over the squabbling flocks….

Lastly, if the Church had decided to provide a new English translation of Scripture, Tyndale would not have been the man chosen to do it. He was known as only a mediocre scholar and had gained a reputation as a priest of unorthodox opinions and a violent temper. He was infamous for insulting the clergy, from the pope down to the friars and monks, and had a genuine contempt for Church authority. In fact, he was first tried for heresy in 1522, three years before his translation of the New Testament was printed. His own bishop in London would not support him in this cause.

Finding no support for his translation from his bishop, he left England and went to Worms, where he fell under the influence of Martin Luther. There in 1525 he produced a translation of the New Testament that was swarming with textual corruption. He willfully mistranslated entire passages of sacred Scripture in order to condemn orthodox Catholic doctrine and support the new Lutheran ideas.

…His translation of the Bible was heretical because it contained heretical ideas   [Note website author converted to Catholicism at Easter 2000 and writes from North Carolina.]

Well, choose your sources.  The man spoke 8 languages and his translation stands, basically today, or he was just one bad, rebellious, priest and upstart… Part of his offence to King Henry VIII appears to have been opposing his divorce.  Wikipedia:  

“While a number of partial and complete translations had been made from the seventh century onward, particularly during the 14th century, Tyndale’s was the first English translation to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, and the first to take advantage of the new medium of print, which allowed for its wide distribution. This was taken to be a direct challenge to the hegemony of both the Roman Catholic Church and the English church and state. Tyndale also wrote, in 1530, The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII‘s divorce on the grounds that it contravened scriptural law (.. and was a plot by Cardinal Wolsey to get Henry entangled in the papal court)

THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE PRINTING PRESS HELPED HIM CHANGE POLITICS.  THOSE WHO CONTROL THIS ARE ALERT TO SUCH CHALLENGES

OTHER HERETICS (non-Trinitarians): — Isaac Newton & Locke:
.

   ISAAC NEWTON (1643-1727) rejected, as did John Locke,  what even now, 2011 mainstream Christian belief in the Trinity; as late as his time, in England, failure to acknowledge this was punishable by imprisonment.  I wonder, did Thomas Jefferson?  As an example of such thought processes as rejected this orthodoxy, Newton:

…an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher and alchemist,1 regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and argued that light is composed of particles. In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus. Newton’s laws of motion and universal gravitation are taught in every physics classroom. He said, “Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion.”

…”Newton wrote to John Locke, who was a kindred spirit in the dangerous area of anti-Trinitarianism, the subject treatises on the “corruptions of Scriptures.”7

Re:  corruption of scriptures; many people (moreso, atheists and agnostics) do know — whether or not they often think of it — that the mainstream Christianity of today was a factor of (among other things) wars over control of the Roman empire.   Heretics were simply ousted.

John LOCKE (1632-1704) influenced the Americans who wrote the Constitution and lived during treacherous and turbulent times, before and after him — over religion.  In the century before him, men had begun to translate the Bible into various languages, including English.  Tyndale had to flee England to do so, translating and publishing on the run, he was caught in Belgium and killed.   Kings were being beheaded, Cromwell ran a Puritan “military protectorate” — Locke himself fled England during the reign of King James II.  Catholic, Anglican, Puritan — it could spell life, or death to the common person.

A schoolchild’s version of “Life in England under Cromwell, who had signed the death warrant for King Charles.   A military background and a Puritan, this exemplifies the worst? of theocracy.  The article implies that his burial, withother kings and queens in Westminster Abbey, had to be escorted by thousands of soldiers lest the common people do violence to his body.  King Charles the II later had his body dug up, tried for “regicide” and trashed….

1645	The New Model Army created. It was lead by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Cromwell was appointed a lieutenant-general in it. The New Model Army fought the Royalists at the Battle of Naseby in June
1647	In June, after failing to reconcile the king, Charles I, Parliament and the army, Cromwell puts his full support behind the army.
1648	Cromwell’s army defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Preston in August. In December, Cromwell pushed for a full trial of Charles I who was to be charged with treason
1649	January 30th, Charles was executed. Cromwell’s signature was third on the death warrant. The Council of State of the Commonwealth replaced the monarchy.
1650	In June, Cromwell was appointed Captain-General of the Commonwealth
1653	Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament. In December, Cromwell was appointed Lord Protector of the Commonwealth
1654	Cromwell sent a naval force to the West Indies which seized Jamaica
1655	In May, the process started of dividing England into groups of counties under the command of a major-general. Their task was to enforce local government

A(nother) dark blot on British history, Puritan — this is the sanitized version too, no doubt:

He was a highly religious man who believed that everybody should lead their lives according to what was written in the Bible. The word “Puritan” means that followers had a pure soul and lived a good life. Cromwell believed that everybody else in England should follow his example.

One of the main beliefs of the Puritans was that if you worked hard, you would get to Heaven. Pointless enjoyment was frowned upon. Cromwell shut many inns and the theatres were all closed down. Most sports were banned. Boys caught playing football on a Sunday could be whipped as a punishment. Swearing was punished by a fine, though those who kept swearing could be sent to prison.

Sunday became a very special day under the Puritans. Most forms of work were banned. Women caught doing unnecessary work on the Holy Day could be put in the stocks. Simply going for a Sunday walk (unless it was to church) could lead to a hefty fine.

To keep the population’s mind on religion, instead of having feast days to celebrate the saints (as had been common in Medieval England), one day in every month was a fast day – you did not eat all day.

He divided up England into 11 areas; each one was governed by a major-general who was trusted by Cromwell. Most of these generals had been in Cromwell’s New Model Army. The law – essentially Cromwell’s law – was enforced by the use of soldiers

.NOW HEAR THIS!  I’ll SAY IT AGAIN

HHS STAFF REGIONS, USA:

Regional Offices

That’s MANY areas of life to be control of.  Under ACF comes the OCSE, Office of Child Support Enforcement:

ACF:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

David Hansell
Acting Assistant Secretary Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

David Hansell is the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Mr. Hansell most recently served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at ACF from June 2009 to July 2010. From 2007-2009 he served as Commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), the state agency charged with oversight of support programs and economic assistance for low-income New Yorkers. From 2002-2006, Mr. Hansell served as Chief of Staff of the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA). From 1997-2001, he was the Associate Commissioner for HIV Services at the New York City Department of Health, and subsequently served as Associate Commissioner for Planning and Program Implementation.

Prior to his government experience, Mr. Hansell served in a range of positions at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, including Director of Legal Services and Deputy Director for Government and Public Affairs. From 2000-2006, he was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the New York University Wagner School of Public Service. He has also been a consultant on health policy and social services issues to a wide range of governmental and non-profit organizations.

Mr. Hansell is a graduate of Haverford College and Yale Law School. Among other honors, he is a recipient of an Outstanding Public Service Award from the New York County Lawyers’ Association, and a State Leadership Award from the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

Mr. Hansell is very active in promoting the fatherhood organizations and grant systems, Iearned about him reading about the grants:

the site lists Services, including the “Healthy Marriage Initiative”

:

Under here:  Listed as “

• Emerging Findings from the Office of Family Assistance: Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Grant Programs

clicked, leads to the Logo:   “Take Time to be a Dad Today”  (Suddenly the “marriage” part, the only part under which the females/mothers — who don’t get a separate noun or pronoun — could be inclusively included, vanishes. What’s labeled “Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood — on clicking — is now about fathers, only.  Where is the “motherhood.gov” if it’s a “Marriage” matter?  Are we, as mothers, not a special-interest group too in a positive sense? )  

 Fatherhood.gov – National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse

MARRIAGE MANAGEMENT — by the Federal Government here, HHS — acting secretary and secretary being TWO individuals — REGIONAL MAP:

Regional Map of ACF Healthy Marriage Grantees

I cannot drag the map icon — but (as with above map) it has broken down the United States into ten (10) Marriage Grantee Regions, several states per region.  Oddly, the list below omits to list the Region V (great lakes area) states.  Please click and see.

Marriages are being centrally administrated, with the U.S. broken into larger chunks — not 50 states, but 10 regional areas.

Fathers & Families Coalition’s Close Association with HHS/ACF and Mr. Hansell (2011)

I can’t drag the spiffy logo from the private nonprofit Arizona-based “Fathers & Families Coalition of America” but here is David Hansell, March 2011, San Francisco, sucking up to this organization (marriage takes two, remember?  Where has he addressed women’s groups?) and, on behalf of the Federal Government here, promising them goodies.  LOTS of goodies:

Message from David Hansell, Acting Assistant Secretary, Adminstration for Children and Families

Keynote Speech March 9, 2011 | San Francisco, CA at the 12th Annual National Fatherhood & Families Conference

Subject: Message from David Hansell

To:       ACF Colleagues

From:   David Hansell

Last week I was in San Francisco to address the 12th annual national fatherhood and families conference.  I thought you may be interested in reading my remarks:

“We meet at a time of great transition both in this country and in the rest of the world.  Sometimes it’s a challenge just to maintain your equilibrium.   In view of this, your conference theme strikes me as particularly apt. ***  In this moment of transition, we certainly need to renew, restore, rebuild and reflect on our commitment to strengthening families and supporting fathers.  
Over the next couple of days you’re going to be hearing from some of my ACF colleagues and a panoply of service providers who are very involved in a range of programs to promote responsible fatherhood.   ….Our entire mission is about reducing poverty and empowering families to reach their goals.

*** I (as a mother) think it’s particularly INapt — when by “Families” is obviously meant, Mostly Fathers….That is a RELIGIOUS conception, created by Govt-sponsored research, reminds me of 15th century England fine-tuning which versions of the Bible were acceptable for the current monarch’s purposes, and clobbering anyone who disagreed, burning their books, and/or them, and blustering against the upstarts, squelching free debate and “unbounded reason.”

There must be something “in on it” for the administration as well as for the fathers’ groups, for such a busy person to fly out to SF to acknowledge a private nonprofit which expresses its beliefs that strong Dads = strong families, and fights women’s rights to say NO! to abuse, including economic abuse and other kinds.  Which gets paid in some states to TRAIN the child support professionals.

Normally, grants applicants go to the grantsmaker.  Here is the grantsmaker organization (HHS/ACF) flying across the continent (DC to SF, California) to present and recruit people into these grants programs.   

Our programs touch fathers and strengthen families even when they’re not specifically called fatherhood programs

In otherwords, like Puritan England under Cromwell’s public-forced religion, all areas of (grants) can be made “fatherhood-promoting.”  

…Of course, it’s well established that children need the emotional and financial support of two parents.** At this point, there is ample evidence that families fare better economically and socially when fathers are engaged in their lives. Stable parental relationships confer many benefits on children:

**it’s well-publicized (and US taxpayers have paid for the publicity) which is not the same as well-established.  This type of dogmatic statement needs to e re-examined in the light of successful individuals who did NOT have the support of two parents, but found their support and succeeded stunningly well in life.

So here, in March, 2011, he says this to a bunch of fatherhood practitioners gathered in SF.  This is the conservative, traditional, anti-feminist activists.  Writings of fathers’ groups often complain about child support machinery and about how the “nanny state” has usurped their roles as men and heads of household.  Yet when it comes to sucking some more of the government nanny’s teat, they’re quite ready and in fact it seems to me this west-coast coupling between HHS and FAF was a very rewarding one – there was even some afterglow, as posted on the FAF site above.

Two months later (links above) Mr. Hansell talks about recruiting parents from the LGBT community, meaning either two fathers (men) or two mothers (women) could be involved and function well as parents.   In other words, which philosophy IS it?  Or is this just switching promotional rhetoric for the audiences at hand?  If they REALLY believed that a kid needs a father, then why promote adoption for two women?  If they are really LGBT tolerant, why are they running around to solicit business from one of the less tolerant nonprofits around with an agenda?

Children who live with two biological or adoptive parents do better academically and in relationships with their peers compared with children from one-parent households;

This is repeated like a catechism throughout the land, often without cites.   Half the cites or more end up being sponsored ones, anyhow.   Even if it WERE true, is this the area that the federal government should be addressing?  How about reducing and ELIMINATING the fraudulent practices by privatized child support companies (maximus, etc.) until it’s GONE and no one dares steal from kids again — and THAT will definitely help single-household kids do somewhat better.  Besides, it’s the right thing to do — we shouldn’t be paying taxes and having our gov’t hand them over to crooks in the private sector!

Then he switches back to Fathers– not just “parents.”

The two main ACF components involved in fatherhood are the Office of Child Support Enforcement [“OCSE”]and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. [“TANF”]  OCSE’s able leader, Vicki Turetsky, will address you tomorrow and Dr Charles Sutton from OFA is on the panel today.  In line with ACF’s great emphasis on interoperability among our programs, Child Support and TANF are working closely together to make sure fathers have every possible opportunity to contribute to their own and their families’ well-being

I’m happy to report that top-level support for responsible fatherhood is alive and well.  Congress recently not only provided $150 million for the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Initiative, but it also made several significant changes in the law:

·         Previously, funding for fatherhood activities was limited to a third of the total allocation; now fully one-half can be used for fatherhood. That’s an increase of $25 million for fatherhood programs.

The Fiscal Year 2012 budget includes several new legislative proposals that reflect the President’s emphasis on supporting responsible fatherhood.  It includes new investments of $305 million the first year and $2.4 billion over ten years for a new Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative, as well as continued funding for the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood program.

My main point being that with programs of this extent, the US is divided up by this federal department into “priority areas” and “demonstration areas” and administration of them is given to those on the “right” track with this theme — trusted allies.  Cromwell’s 11 counties reminds me of this also.  The difference being, the control is less visible when it’s administered via internet and via existing programs (child support, TANF) which are not supposed to be gender-biased.

HERE is Mr. Hansell’s 2010 eloquent testimony — in front of a House Ways and Means subcommittee — on the Responsible Fatherhood Programs, and why, despite the economic downturns MORE money should be appropriated and delegated to them.

Testimony of
David Hansell 
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Children and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Before the

Income Security and Family Support Subcommittee
Ways and Means Committee
United States House of Representatives

On
Responsible Fatherhood Programs

June 17 , 2010

Chairman McDermott, Mr. Linder and Subcommittee Members, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the role of responsible fatherhood programs in increasing financial support for children and strengthening the ties between non-custodial parents and their children.  We recognize the Subcommittee’s long-standing interest in strengthening America’s families, including Congressman Davis’s leadership on responsible fatherhood issues. ** All of us know that children need the emotional and financial support of both parents.  In the best of circumstances children are raised by their parents in a healthy, supportive environment, and never experience disruptions in their parents’ emotional and financial support. *** Unfortunately, all too often children do experience these disruptions through divorce or separation of their parents, or because their parents never formed a stable family in the first place.

**yes, Congressman Davis of the famous let’s crown Rev. Sun Myung Moon in a Senate building fame; a non-US Citizen (right?) whose organization the Unification Church is known for:  tax evasion, money-laundering, and being a CULT and who originated the concept “Parents Day,” seeing as this man and his wife claim the one-upped Jesus Christ and channel dead U.S. Presidents for advice…  Congressman Davis has done many other things, I’m sure they are wonderful, but that action (plus continuing to push for fatherhood funding) do tend to call his judgment into question, in my eyes at least.  The Unification Church’s $$ are also, as I understand, strongly tied to ultra-conservative right-wing Christians and the Heritage Foundation.    

***Who says that children cannot learn from how their own parents handle conflict, including if it challenges for periods of time, the emotional and financial support?  They learn by example; watching parents overcome can help children learn how to overcome.  Moreover this address under-plays the severity of abuse in the home by one parent towards another, which is ONE cause of why the marriages or partnerships aren’t sustained.

Many statistics underscore the importance of addressing fatherhood in America:

• In 2007, 40 percent of all births in America were to unwed women (1)
• 1 out of every 3 children in America lives apart from his or her father (2)
• 1 out of every 4 children in this country, and 1 in 2 poor children, participates in the child support program (3)
• In 2008, 43 percent of children living in single mother families were poor (4)

President Obama, who grew up without his father, has spoken eloquently about the critical importance of responsible fatherhood.

More properly, “President Obama, who grew up without his father, whose mother raised him, has spoken eloquently about the critical importance of responsible fatherhood.”  MORE TO THE POINT:  as President of the United States, President Obama is sworn to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution, including the rule of law.

The fatherhood and marriage grants bend those laws by funding one side of a custody challenge (the father’s side) and by failing to disclose to the other party that they are.   The access and visitation grants system is offensive to the principles of government because it allows ONE person — head of the HHS — to approve (and requires them to approve)demonstration social sciences projectson populations entangled in the custody, child support, and welfare programs.  These grants are then further expanded into the “Section 1115 waiver” programs for MORE social science projects on the same populations.  (See my recent post on “90FD” grants).

“Section 1115 Waiver“:

Section 1115 Demonstration Projects
These grants provide matching Federal funds for demonstration projects that expand and improve the operation of child support programs. The projects are funded as follows: 29% Federal grant award; 5% matching State funds; and 66% Federal Financial Participation (FFP) through the IV-D child support enforcement program. The projects are authorized by Section 1115 of the Social Security Act. Although varied, each of the projects approved in FY 2005 emphasizes the importance of healthy marriage to the child’s well-being; the projects also attempt to achieve increased paternity establishment and child support collection rates.

2005 1115 Grants

• Maryland Department of Human Resources (Baltimore, MD).
  “Baltimore Healthy Marriage Project.” Maryland’s Community Services Administration and Child Support Enforcement Administration have partnered with the Center for Fathers, Families, and Workforce Development (CFFWD) in Baltimore to implement a project that is intended to strengthen the relationships of low-income, unwed parents. This will be accomplished through the provision of eight-week training seminars for unwed parents with young children and based upon a culturally-appropriate curriculum developed by CFFWD entitled “Examining Relationships and Marriage with Fragile Families.” Project Period: August 8, 2005 to July 31, 2008.

So, Mr. Hansell is waxing eloquent in front of the House Ways and Means Committee, (one of its subcommittees) last June on this topic, and probably is again this past June, 2011.

(Yada, yada, yada).  I remember the June 2010 events because some noncustodial mothers were alerted less than a week in advance that this bill was up for passage — and we managed to get some of our PROTESTS against this funding in  just under the wire.  Actually for some reason I happened to notice it and send out an alert.  Why wouldn’t any of the many activist groups for mothers who like to complain about the “fathers rights’ movement have noticed, or mentioned this, I wonder? Are we just supposed to pretend this grant series does not exist?

Many of the people testifying for more money were already on the grants faucet.   It’s tough times, so we need milliion$ more to help parents EMOTIONALLY support their kids:   (“Economic downturns, such as the one we are now experiencing, make it even more difficult for parents to provide the emotional and financial support that their children need.  “)  Because we all know that single-households headed by Mothers are poorer (wage discrepancies have anything to do with this?  Or the fact that they can’t do creative solutions to the childcare situation?) (Put them in Early Head Start programs where they can be taught more about fatherhood, I guess).

Back to CROMWELL’s ENGLAND, SCHOOLCHILD web version:

Cromwell believed that women and girls should dress in a proper manner. Make-up was banned. Puritan leaders and soldiers would roam the streets of towns and scrub off any make-up found on unsuspecting women. Too colourful dresses were banned. A Puritan lady wore a long black dress that covered her almost from neck to toes. {{REMIND YOU OF SHARIA LAW YET/ BURQAs?  Just one step away?}} She wore a white apron and her hair was bunched up behind a white head-dress. Puritan men wore black clothes and short hair.

Cromwell banned Christmas as people would have known it then. By the C17th, Christmas had become a holiday of celebration and enjoyment – especially after the problems caused by the civil war. Cromwell wanted it returned to a religious celebration where people thought about the birth of Jesus rather than ate and drank too much. In London, soldiers were ordered to go round the streets and take, by force if necessary, food being cooked for a Christmas celebration. The smell of a goose being cooked could bring trouble. Traditional Christmas decorations like holly were banned.  {{AFTER ALL< THIS WAS THE RIGHT RELIGION, RIGHT???}}

Despite all these rules, Cromwell himself was not strict. He enjoyed music, hunting and playing bowls. He even allowed full-scale entertainment at his daughter’s wedding.  {{TYPICAL HYPOCRITE…}}

Despite being a highly religious man, Cromwell had a hatred for the Irish Catholics. He believed that they were all potential traitors willing to help any Catholic nation that wanted to attack England (he clearly did not know too much about the 1588 Spanish Armada). 

During his time as head of government, he made it his task to ‘tame’ the Irish. He sent an army there and despite promising to treat well those who surrendered to him, he slaughtered the people of Wexford and Drogheda who did surrender to his forces. {{i.e., trucebreaker – great person to have running a government}} He used terror to ‘tame’ the Irish. He ordered that all Irish children should be sent to the West Indies to work as slave labourers in the sugar plantations. He knew many would die out there – but dead children could not grow into adults and have more children.Cromwell left a dark stain on the history of Ireland.

By the end of his life, both Cromwell and the 11 major-generals who helped to run the country, had become hated people. The population was tired of having strict rules forced onto them. Cromwell died in September 1658. His coffin was escorted by over 30,000 soldiers as it was taken to Westminster Abbey where he was buried. Why so many soldiers? Were they there as a mark of respect for the man who had formed the elite New Model Army? Or was there concern that the people of London, who had grown to hate Cromwell, would try to get to the body and damage it in some way ?

There will come a time when the US gets tired of the Marriage-mongers, too and sees them for what they truly are — hypocrites, cronies on the federal faucets, and people trying to impose a state religion on everyone, but not at their own expense — at others’.   Not having a rational religion, they have to FORCE it on poor people to start with, and on others through deception.  I believe that if mothers and fathers got their act together (mothers need to learn more about the child support factors; fathers need to deal with the fact that we vote, and do NOT tolerate being beaten up to keep us in submission, and both mothers and fathers need to be diligent about what people ALLEGEDLY helping their gender are REALLY doing with the loot (the grants and fees, etc.) and confront it, demanding honesty.

If women in Saudi Arabia could protest the no women driving alone law — what courage does that take?  — we, if we value UNBOUNDED REASON AND FREEDOM TO EXPRESS (and live out) OPINION — we can burst of the chains of MONKISH SUPERSTITION we have allowed ourselves to be bound by!  Among the “MONKISH SUPERSTITIONS” is that those in authority always know best what’s good for the rest of us — and again returning to the more heretical viewpoint that — quite honestly — they DON’T!   They are in no way innately superior in person, reason, logic, temperament, ethics, or anything.  And as such, they have not right to continue changing the forms of government away from anything which would keep such people in check.   

    

Cromwell was buried in Westminster Abbey. This is where kings and queens were buried. His son, Richard, took over leadership of the country. However, Richard was clearly not up to the task and in 1660 he left the job. In that year, 1660, Charles II was asked to return to become king of England. One of Charles’ first orders was that Cromwell’s body should be dug up and put on ‘trial’ as a traitor and regicide (someone who is responsible for the execution/murder of a king or queen). His body was put on trial, found guilty and symbolically hanged from a gallows at Tyburn (near Hyde Park, London). What was left of his body remains a mystery. Some say the body was thrown on to a rubbish tip while others say it was buried beneath the gallows at Tyburn. His head was put on display in London for many years to come.

John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher, medical physician, epistemologist,8 political philosopher, Christian and friend of Isaac Newton.

Now I am going to talk about John Locke, because he influenced the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

“Real men don’t eat quiche,” and some very notable men have rejected mainstream religion as practiced today, and in prior centuries, as practiced then — INCLUDING as practiced, thanks to OFCBI, in many of the Faith-Based and Community Organizations” on the federal grants faucet which our former president George W. Bush saw fit to get all inclusive about in 2001, and which are now central to the fatherhood & marriage movement.   Amazingly, I have been learning, tis movement has even grown rapidly and worked to suck any “Domestic Violence” issues under its wings, including in legislation now pending in the U.S. Senate, HR. 2193 Julia Carson Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood.  The solution to domestic violence is now often portrayed as marketing more fatherhood trainings.  Responsible fathers don’t beat up their spouses, therefore, rather than establishing and enforcing the criminal sanctions against this criminal behavior, the theory is — go for relationship and marriage training instead.  That is what the grants and the alliances tell me.    Two opposing sides collaborating to change the discussion into promoting relationships….Sure, right….

So I hope you see why I am taking time to put forth the question of Religion and how a FORM of our constitution — only — MUST be understood and agreed upon IF we wish to retain “the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of expression” mentioned in 1826, in America, 50 eyars after the Declaration of Independence from a British King who was interfering with this!  Enough people must agree to this to be willing to DO something about it, and respond when it’s been encroached upon.

I assure us associations such as the “Association of Family and Conciliation Courts” (AFCC)  and its related “Children’s Rights Council” are indeed asserting their moral superiority based on gender and assumed mental/.emotional superiority.  When you get right down to it, this is what most offends me about the whole deal.  People have been literally hoodwinked into letting their own wages be used to promote personal religion and beliefs through their own governments (local, federal).   “Fatherhood” is a rhetoric about ONE HALF (or just less) the population, but sold to all of it, and billed not to the top tier, but the lower (middle/lower) classes of society, meaning wage-earners.  Those strongest adhering to it seem to be working in (a) government posts; (b) for university-based institutes privately and publically funded to produce literature justifying more of this.    The closer I look at the literature, the legislation being pushed, and the associations running these programs, the less respect I have for them.    

Centralizing monetary systems like this, and giving appropriate information & control to those only at the top, and ‘Technical assistance” grants to keep those already so positioned at the top of the heap — are going to lead, like MONKISH SUPERSTITION — back into slavery.   Meanwhile, the public welfare programs are then outsourced to private profiteers, whether or not they are repeatedly caught in fraud or some very “egregious” practices.

As to LOCKE:

Locke, as a political philosopher, fled to the Netherlands from 1683 to 1688 to avoid the rule of (Catholic) King James II. Upon his return to England, after King James II was dethroned, he wrote the “Two Treatises of Government.” His writings influenced the American Revolutionaries, such as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers. This influence is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence. “He believed that in a natural state all people were equal and independent, and none had a right to harm another’s “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” Locke also advocated governmental checks and balances and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have a profound influence on the Constitution of the United States and its Declaration of Independence.”9 John Locke also wrote, “The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures” in 1695 and “A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul” in 1707. John Locke, a man of reason, was a devoted believer in the Divine Inspiration of the Scriptures, as was Isaac Newton.

John Locke and Isaac Newton both lived through turbulent and dangerous religious times.

A little more on “LOCKE” whose father was an attorney, and as it happens, a Puritan.  The link is from Temple University:

The Life of John Locke (1632-1704)

John Locke was born on August 29, 1632 and lived through one of the most tumultuous periods of English history. Locke was a child and teenager during the English Civil War, in which Parliamentary forces battled King Charles I over matters of taxation, political power, and the true religion.

Locke’s father was a small landowner and attorney in western England. The father fought with the Parliament and had Puritan religious views. Locke’s family was well-enough off to send him to Oxford University, where he was “ever prating and troublesome and paid little attention to his lecturers.”1 He read a lot, though.

John Locke was a young man in his late twenties when the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and the Anglican Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660. After his studies, Locke went on to be a professor of philosophy at Oxford from 1661 to 1664.

In 1667 Locke became the physician, adviser, and friend of the English statesman Anthony Ashley Cooper, the First Earl of Shaftesbury. Through Shaftesbury, Locke held a number of minor government posts and was embroiled in the continuing political and religious turmoil.

In 1669, Locke had the opportunity to write the constitution for the proprietors of the Carolina Colony in North America. Though the plan was never implemented, Locke’s political philosophy would latter become the intellectual blueprint for the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution.

…Locke is recognized not only as an important political philosopher but also as the founder of empiricism, which eschews intuitive speculation and sees sensation and experience as the root of all knowing.

When religious truth is settled by force, wars — then there is no liberty.  Hence, Jefferson et al. drafted a FORM of government, the Declaration of Independence giving the basis, and the Constitution, its further form.  THE FORM IS ESSENTIAL.  These men knew all about where religious fanaticism could take a country:

The religious and ethnic variety within the Colonies & America, noted here:

Large numbers of persons not of British stock inhabited the original Thirteen Colonies. Though often only seen on the frontier, some Native Americans already lived under the protection of various colonial governments. African-Americans, both slave and free, lived in each of the colonies. Within both racial groups, considerable ethnic and tribal differences further added to the cultural complexity of British North America. Swedes, Dutch, German (“Pennsylvania Dutch”), and other non-British Europeans composed significant portions of the populations of Middle Atlantic states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Catholics concentrated in Maryland, while Jews and French Protestants preferred the major seaport cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston. Within the British population, important cultural differences existed. At least four groups, each with a distinctive “folkway,” thrived in America. Roughly centered around one of four major Protestant denominations, Congregationalism, Anglicanism, Quakerism, and Presbyterianism, each group had its own dialect, architecture, family system, marriage customs, sexual mores, child naming conventions, child care beliefs, educational institutions, dress, favorite foods, attitudes towards aging and death, sports and leisure activities, and socioeconomic practices.

LOCKE’s Two Treatises of Civil Government, and context:

Locke’s Two Treatises of Civil Government were published after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 brought William of Orange and Mary to the throne, but they were written in the throes of the Whig revolutionary plots against Charles II in the early 1680s. In this work Locke gives us a theory of natural law and natural rights which he uses to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate civil governments, and to argue for the legitimacy of revolt against tyrannical governments.

Locke wrote on a variety of other topics Among the most important of these is toleration. Henry VIII had created a Church of England when he broke with Rome. This Church was the official religion of England. Catholics and dissenting Protestants, e.g Quakers, Unitarians and so forth, were subject to legal prosecution. During much of the Restoration period there was debate, negotiation and manuevering to include dissenting Protestants within the Church of England. In a “Letter Concerning Toleration” and several defenses of that letter Locke argues for a separation between church and state.

By allowing abusive and domineering rhetoric and theory to commandeer the grants and favors system (Federal to States) as to “fatherhood,” and also to structure the workforce centrally along with this (i.e., Center for Fatherhood and Workforce Development….) is to permit various forms of intolerance and tyranny — it is a form of state religion, and it is wrong.  I am a Christian, but I am NOT in favor of combining church with state, especially mainline traditionalized beliefs about family, reproduction and the role of women (barely mentioned as to nouns when it comes to the marriage movement) — when it comes to funding.

A quote from Locke:

“…he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it…must of necessity find another rise of government, another original of political power…”
—from The Second Treatise of Civil Government

He is saying, there has to be another way than brute force.  This includes as to religion. ….

a TIMELINE of (some) political ideas late 1500s – late 1700s  reminds me that I forgot to mention Galileo.  Click or hover over cursor.

Galileo was facing the Inquisition for asserting, with Copernicus, that the universe did not revolve around the earth — rather, the earth revolved around the sun.  There were plagues in 1592 and the Bubonic Plague in 1665, killing 68,000 Londoners….Shakespeare was around (d. 1616), King James dissolves Parliament (twice) and publishes the “King James Bible” 1611; 1615, Galileo on trial with the church; 1620, the Pilgrims head off for America; 1629, King Charles dissolves Parliament, it doesn’t meet for the next 11 years; 1632, John Locke born; 1633 Galileo forced to recant!; 1642 – Civil war, Galileo dies and Isaac Newton is born; 1649 – Charles I beheaded, England becomes a Commonwealth; 1653-1658, Cromwell becomes and expands his power as “Lord Protector” til his death (1658); Cromwell’s son lasts one year, and by 1660, England is a Monarchy again (Charles II, the king who exhumed Cromwell? if I remember which person this was right..  Maybe it was CRANMER…)   1665 plague….1668-69, Isaac Newton designs a reflecting telescope (age, 26), and South Carolina accepts? Locke’s constitution; 1678 now it’s Catholics being persecuted and they can’t hold office in Parliament.1684, Locke flees England;  1687: James II promulgates Catholicism and ‘Divine Right’. Receives Papal nuncio. Newton [age 45] publishes Principia Mathematica 1688: James II forced to abdicate and flees to France. Protestant William of Orange invited to England by seven prominent English Lords – ‘Glorious Revolution’ and first constitutional monarchy. 1689: Parliament confirms James II’s abdication and proclaims William and Mary King and Queen for Life. Locke’s Two Treatises of Government; 1696: Locke and Newton collaborate in establishing new coinage for England; 1701: Act of Settlement provides for Protestant succession in English monarchy. 1704: Death of John Locke. 1707: Union of England and Scotland; 1715: First Parliament of George I. Jacobite rebellion in Scotland to restore absolute monarchy; 1727: George I succeeded by George II. Quakers demand abolition of slavery

1598, from a King:

By the Law of Nature the King becomes a naturall Father to all his Lieges at his Coronation: And as the Fatherof his fatherly duty is bound to care for the nourishing, education, and vertuous gouernment of his children; euen so is the king bound to care for all his subiects. As all the toile and paine that the father can take for his children, will be thought light and well bestowed by him, so that the effect thereof redound to their profite and weale; so ought the Prince to doe towards his people. As the kindly father ought to foresee all inconuenients and dangers that may arise towards his children, and though with the hazard of his owne person presse to preuent the same; so ought the King towards his people. As the fathers wrath and correction vpon any of his children that offendeth, ought to be by a fatherly chastisement seasoned with pitie, as long as there is any hope of amendment in them; so ought the King towards any of his Lieges that offend in that measure. And shortly, as the Fathers chiefe ioy ought to be in procuring his childrens welfare, reioycing at their weale, sorrowing and pitying at their euill, to hazard for their safetie, trauell for their rest, wake for their sleepe; and in a word, to thinke that his earthly felicitie and life standeth and liueth more in them, nor in himselfe; so ought a good Prince thinke of his people.

My Administration has made supporting fathers and their communities a priority.  Last year on Father’s Day, I announced the President’s Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative, a nationwide effort to support organizations that foster responsible fatherhood and help re-engage fathers in the lives of their children.  We have bolstered community and faith-based programs that provide valuable support networks for fathers.

We are also promoting work-life balances that benefit families, and partnering with businesses across America to create opportunities for fathers and their children to spend time together.  And military leaders are joining in our efforts to help families keep in touch when a dad is deployed overseas, so the fathers who serve to protect all our children can stay connected to their own.

Fast forward to Jefferson’s 1826 letter, from top of this post, FORM COUNTS!

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman)

THIS FORM OF GOVERNMENT, allowing EXERCISE OF REASON & FREEDOM OF OPINION — is a signal to BURST those (self-imposed) CHAINS.

“the mass of mankind were NOT born with saddles on their back, nor a favored fewbooted & spurred”– is a palpable truth.   “Palpable”  – obvious; so obvious as to be 

ROGER WEIGHTMAN:

Who was Roger C. Weightman?  Well, Jefferson was writing him as the Mayor of Washington, but Wikipedia’s summary shows he was a printer,  a soldier in the war of 1812 who was caught by the British invading Washington, a businessman, alderman and eventually mayor of Washington D.C., a banker, and a (disturbingly), a freemason….  FYI;

Roger Chew Weightman (born, 1787 – died, February 2, 1876) was an American politician, civic leader, and printer. He was the mayor of Washington, D.C. from 1824 to 1827.

Weightman was born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1787, moving into the new capital in 1800 and taking an apprenticeship with a local printer. Weightman bought the printing business in 1807^[1], making him a congressional printer. He maintained a number of shops on Pennsylvania Avenue, about ten blocks from the White House, from about 1813 onward.

In August 1814, Weightman (by now a First Lieutenant in D.C.’s Light Horse Cavalry^[2]) was apprehended by the British troops descending on the White House during the Siege of Washington, a battle in the war of 1812, and made to march with them to the Executivxe Mansion. Admiral George Cockburn taunted the upstanding Washingtonian, forcing him to choose a souvenir (albeit one of no monetary value) to remember the day the American capital was defeated^[3].

After serving seven one-year terms as an alderman on Washington’s city council, the council elected Weightman in 1824 to serve out the remainder of the late mayor Samuel N. Smallwood‘s term. In 1826 he ran against former mayor Thomas Carbery; four years prior, Weightman had run against Carbery for mayor and lost by a narrow margin, but had then pressed the matter in court in a legal battle that lasted until the end of Carbery’s term. In 1824, Weightman won more decisively by the use of blustery promises and insults against his opponent. One handbill from the era reads,

NOTICE EXTRAORDINARY. R.C. Weightman, a man of known liberal principles; all those who vote for this gentleman at tomorrow’s election, will have general permission to sleep on the Benches in the Market House, this intense warm weather. May the curse of Dr. Slop light on all those who vote for Tom Carberry^[4].

During his time as mayor, Weightman headed the 1825 committee for the inauguration of John Quincy Adams, then the following year chaired the national memorial committee for the president’s deceased father and his successor Thomas Jefferson^[5].

In 1827, Weightman became cashier of the Washington Bank, and resigned his position as mayor. He would run again, unsuccessfully, against Walter Lenox in 1850. In the years following his mayoralty, Weightman would be curator of theColumbia Institute; a founding member and officer of the Washington National Monument Society; Grand Master of the Freemasons of the District of Columbia; chief clerk, and later librarian, of the United States Patent Office; and a General in the Union Army during the Civil War — not to mention the center of Washington’s social activity.^[1]

In addition to his busy social and professional life, Weightman was a noted and generous philanthropist — generous enough that his sizable fortune had dwindled to very little by the 1870s, when Weightman was living on his pension as a soldier and employee of the Patent Office. However, upon his death in February, 1876, his funeral was one of the best attended and most remembered of the era.

FREEMASONS, in re:   Authority, Theocracy, Heirarchy, (and what else, excluding women):

Not the main topic today, but as these founders WERE freemasons, I will weave it in here, without taking any stand on conspiracy theory or none, or whether the group is “Satanic” or philanthropic, “Godly” etc.   I’ll only look at two (superficial, granted) sources; the interest in the early American ones being that one could see their predecessors in Europe setting themselves against the VERY heirarchical Catholic church, and spurned by it.  Now that gets interesting…

http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/awards-organizations/freemason.htm

George Washington was one. So were Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and Henry Ford. All of these illustrious and influential men were Freemasons (or Masons) — privileged members of the world’s oldest and largest fraternity.

Though it boasts 5 million members worldwide, the Freemasons are an enigmatic society. Freemasons say they are nothing more than a brotherhood of like-minded individuals who meet regularly for spiritual and intellectual enlightenment. Conspiracy theorists see them as a secretive underground movement bent on world domination.

In this article, we’ll take a look inside the world of the Freemasons. We’ll discover where they originated, separate the truth from the conspiracy theories and find out what really goes on during their rituals.

Legends of Knights and Kings
Ask five different people for the origins of the Freemasons and you may get five different explanations. Some say they descended from the ancient Druids. Others link them to the Isis-Osiris cult in ancient Egypt. Still others claim they were an order of Jewish monks called the Essenes, who formed in the 2nd century B.C.

According to some Masonic scholars, the Freemasons trace their roots to the building of King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem in 967 B.C., an event which was described in the biblical Book of Kings. In the story, the builders of the temple were the original stonemasons, and the forefathers of today’s Freemasons. The legend centers on the master builder—a man named Hiram Abiff—who claimed to know the secret of the temple. One day, three men kidnapped Abiff and threatened to kill him if he didn’t reveal that secret. When he refused to talk, Abiff was murdered. After learning of the killing, King Solomon ordered a group of Masons to search for Abiff’s body and bring back the secret of the temple. The men were unsuccessful, so the King established a new Masonic secret. His secret is believed to be the word “Mahabone,” meaning “the Grand Lodge door opened,” which is now the password used to enter the third degree of Masonry.

@@Now, let’s talk about their pre-Declaration of Independence era matters:

MANY of the people involved in structuring this country were freemasons, and/or Deists — and not traditional Christians, although many believed in a Supreme Deity, and some believed probably in Jesus Christ.    Considering what had occurred in England in the 1500s and 1600s, it would be obvious (especially given Locke’s influence) that there would be a desire to protect against a monarchy, a theocracy, or any state religion.

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin are all quoted, and were clearly NOT traditional Christians — in this article:

The Founding Fathers, also, rarely practiced Christian orthodoxy. Although they supported the free exercise of any religion, they understood the dangers of religion. Most of them believed in deism and attended Freemasonry lodges. According to John J. Robinson, “Freemasonry had been a powerful force for religious freedom.” Freemasons took seriously the principle that men should worship according to their own conscience. Masonry welcomed anyone from any religion or non-religion, as long as they believed in a Supreme Being. Washington, Franklin, Hancock, Hamilton, Lafayette, and many others accepted Freemasonry.

 This document, signed by President Adams in 1797, in Article 11, declared that the US was not a Christian nation.

“The Constitution reflects our founders views of a secular government, protecting the freedom of any belief or unbelief. The historian, Robert Middlekauff, observed, “the idea that the Constitution expressed a moral view seems absurd. There were no genuine evangelicals in the Convention, and there were no heated declarations of Christian piety.”

Listen up — and lay these men alongside the likes of Isaac Newton, John Locke, I am going to speculate, William Tyndale (he wrote nothing on the Trinity, and spent the most energy of his brief life in translating scriptures from the Greek & Hebrew), Joseph Priestly — and others.  These were committed men, they were rational, reasoning men — and they were DEDICATED men.  But they were not religious in temperament and certainly not carried away with their own religion, but if they wished to “enshrine” anything in the Constitution, it was that NO MAN should be ruling another’s conscience as to religion, or to as Jefferson said in 1826, assume the belief that they were innately born “booted and spurred” to ride the rest of humanity, for its own sake.   Although they did not stop slavery in their lifetimes, they wrote a reasoned document and form of government REJECTING the “divine right of kings” — which would eventually be used to do so.

If anything was going to be enshrined in this document (I mean, now not the Declaration, but the Constitution and various Amendments) it would, along the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence follow the “Laws of nature and nature’s God” — to assure that Congress would NOT make any law to establish a religion.

We have come VERY far away from this in the series of financial bounties and grants administered through the HHS and the DOJ to promote certain derivatives of religion, and to allow the Executive Branch of government to of its own accord, employ the carrots and sticks approach to exactly what the founders did NOT want the government to mess with — their private lives, and their homes and families.

Thomas Jefferson

Even most Christians do not consider Jefferson a Christian. In many of his letters, he denounced the superstitions of Christianity. He did not believe in spiritual souls, angels or godly miracles. Although Jefferson did admire the morality of Jesus, Jefferson did not think him divine, nor did he believe in the Trinity or the miracles of Jesus. In a letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787, he wrote, “Question with boldness even the existence of a god.”

Jefferson believed in materialism, reason, and science. He never admitted to any religion but his own. In a letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, 25 June 1819, he wrote, “You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.”

John Adams

John Adams

Adams, a Unitarian, flatly denied the doctrine of eternal damnation. …  He was no Calvinist, and he wrote of this government:

“In his, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” [1787-1788], John Adams wrote:

“The United States of America have {{note the plural — “the states….have, not the US “has.” }} exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

James Madison

Called the father of the Constitution, Madison had no conventional sense of Christianity. In 1785, Madison wrote in his Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments:

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”

I will PERSONALLY validate that one, when it comes to any intervention in wife-beating, or even expressing opposition to it, in the time period before I legally evicted [filed in court, and through a court order] my husband for that habit, and years of them and making what was to be a marriage, a hell — and doing so in the name of his version of the Christian God the entire time.

Benjamin Franklin

Although Franklin received religious training, his nature forced him to rebel against the irrational tenets of his parents Christianity. His Autobiography revels his skepticism, “My parents had given me betimes religions impressions, and I received from my infancy a pious education in the principles of Calvinism. But scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself.

“. . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them;the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a through Deist.”

In an essay on “Toleration,” Franklin wrote:

“If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here [England] and in New England.”

By “primitive Christians” he may have been referring back to the Nicene Creed, i.e., third century A.D., I DNK.

Thomas Paine

This freethinker and author of several books, influenced more early Americans than any other writer. Although he held Deist beliefs, he wrote in his famous The Age of Reason:

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church. ”

“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. “

As this site (i’m quoting here) has a passage from Joseph Priestley, lamenting that Mr. Franklin was not a believer, here is Wikipedia on Priestly’s work — which Jefferson cited as influencing him…

Summary

An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, published by Joseph Johnson in 1782, was the fourth part of 18th-century Dissenting minister Joseph Priestley’sInstitutes of Natural and Revealed Religion (1772–74).^[1]

Dissenters broke off from the Anglican Church… (click on the link for more).

Priestley’s major argument in the Institutes is that the only revealed religious truths that can be accepted are those that also conform to the truth of the natural world. Because his views of religion were deeply tied to his understanding of nature, the text’s theism rests on theargument from design. Many of Priestley’s arguments descended from 18th-century deism and comparative religion.^[2]The Institutes shocked and appalled many readers, primarily because it challenged basic Christian orthodoxies, such as the divinity of Christ and the miracle of the Virgin Birth. Priestley wanted to return Christianity to its “primitive” or “pure” form by eliminating the “corruptions” which had accumulated over the centuries. The fourth part of the Institutes, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, became so long that he was forced to issue it separately. Priestley believed that the Corruptions was “the most valuable” work he ever published.^[3]

Schofield, Priestley’s major modern biographer, describes the work as “derivative, disorganized, wordy, and repetitive, detailed, exhaustive, and devastatingly argued.”^[4] The text addresses issues from the divinity of Christ to the proper form for the Lord’s Supper. Thomas Jefferson would later write of the profound effect that Corruptions had on him: “I have read his Corruptions of Christianity, and Early Opinions of Jesus, over and over again; and I rest on them . . . as the basis of my own faith. These writings have never been answered.”^[5] Although a few readers such as Jefferson approved of the work, it was generally harshly reviewed because of its extreme theological positions, particularly its rejection of the Trinity.^[6]

This unusual summary of Priestley’s life & works (purple print) has an unusual url:  “islam4all.”

Priestly’s Birth, Parentage, Brought up with Anti Trinity Thoughts:

Joseph Priestly was born in the little hamlet of Field (England) head six miles south-west of Leeds in 1733.  He was the eldest child of a domestic cloth maker. His mother died when he was six years old.  At home he was given a strict Calvinist upbringing, but at school his teachers were dissenting ministers, that is to say, priests who did not agree with all the doctrines of the Church of England.  With a view to becoming a minister, he became well-grounded in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.  The Elders of the Quakers refused to admit him, as he did not demonstrate sufficient repentance for Adam’s sins.  (:      The universities refused to accept anyone who did not subscribe to all the doctrines of the orthodox church.

Hard to get work with unorthodox beliefs….

Instead, he was sent to a well-known academy where the teachers and students were divided between the orthodoxy of the established church and the “heresy” of belief in One God.  Here he began to doubt the truth of the fundamental dogmas of the Christian church in earnest, especially that of the Trinity.  The more he studied the Bible, the more convinced he was about his own views. The writings of Arius, Servetus, and Sozini left a profound impression on him. Like them, he also came to the conclusion that the scriptures provided meager support for the doctrines of the Trinity and Atonement. The result was that on completion of this studies he left the Academy as a confirmed Arian.

He was appointed as an assistant to a minister on the salary of thirty pounds per annum. When it was discovered that he was an Arian, he was dismissed. ….   He used to visit London during the vacations, and it was on one of these visits that he met Benjamin Franklin for the first time.  In 1767 he came nearer his old home, becoming the minister in Mill Hill in Leeds.  He stayed there for six years.  In Leeds, Priestly printed a number of  tracts and soon became well-known as an outstanding and authorative spokesman of unitarianism.  In his spare time, he began to study chemistry with considerable success. He won recognition from the Royal Society, and in 1774 he made his crowning discovery of oxygen which made him famous.  In the research which followed, he discovered more new gases than all his predecessors had done before him. However, he was more interested in religion than in physical science and regarded these discovries as a theologian’s pas-time. In his personal memoirs, he passes over these achievements in the space of about a page.

Priestly not only affirmed the humanity of Jesus, but also denied the immaculate conception.  He thus laid the foundation of the new thinking which resulted in unitarianism becoming like a voyage in a boat without a rudder riding on a turbulent sea.  (smile…. It is alive and well, now….) A sense of direction is totally missing in the movement known as Unitarian Universalism.  This denial of the immaculate conception led to a “totally unnecessary and bitter controversy that did more harm than good to those who affirmed the Divine Unity.” {I added the quotes} A similar movement had contributed towards the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror.  These events on the other side of the Channel had unnerved many people in England.  The orthodox church made it appear that the teachings of Priestly would result in the same kind of tragedy in England.  Countless insulting and threatening letters began to arrive at his doorstep, and his effigy was burned in different parts of the country. 

On July the 14th 1791, a group of people were celecrating the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille in a Birmingham hotel.  A mob, whose leaders were the justices of the town, gathered outside and, thinking Priestly was taking part in the celebrations, smashed the hotel windows. Dr. Priestly was not there. The mob then went to his house which, Priestly writes in his memoirs, was “plundered and burnt without mercy.”⁵⁶ His library, his laboratory and all his papers and manuscripts were destroyed in the fire.  Priestly, who had been forewarned by a friend, barely escaped with his life.  The next day, the house of all the important Unitarians were burnt, and in the two days which followed the mob began to burn the houses of those people who were not professed Unitarians, but who had given shelter and protection to the Unitarians who had been made homeless.  During this time the people of Birmingham were in a panic.  All the shops were closed, and people cried out and wrote on their houses “Church and King” to escape the fury of the mob.  It was not until the army was called in that the rioters melted away.

 It was now too dangerous for Priestly to remain in Birmingham, and he left for London in disguise.  

In 1794, Priestly sailed for America with Bengamin Franklin.  There they opened some of the first Unitarian churches in and around Philadelphia.  In the years that followed, the situation in England became more relaxed.  In 1802, Priestly’s old congregation opened a chapel, and Bilsham, a leading Unitarian, was invited to preach the opening sermon.  Priestly, however, was content to remain in America where he died in 1804.

 Joseph Priestly’s main contribution to the unitarians in England was a comprehensive argument, both historical and philosophical, in support of the Unity of God.  It was drawn from the Scriptures and the writings of the old Christian fathers, interpreted by reason, and rigorously applied to the religious and political problems of his day. “Absurdity supported by power,” he wrote, “will never be able to stand its ground against the efforts of reason.“⁵⁸  Of all his religious works, the most influential was his “History of the Corruptions of Christianity”, written in two volumes, in which he sought to show that true Christianity, embodied in the beliefs of the early Church, was unitarian, and that all departures from that faith were corruptions. The book infuriated the orthodox and delighted the liberals in both England and America.  It was publicly burned in Holland.

When Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774, he answered age-old questions of why and how things burn. An Englishman by birth, Priestley was deeply involved in politics and religion, as well as science. He emigrated to America when his vocal support for the American and French revolutions made remaining in his homeland untenable.

The American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, designated Priestley’s Pennsylvania home a National Historic Chemical Landmark in 1994. 

Priestley (1733-1804) was hugely productive in research and widely notorious in philosophy. He invented carbonated water and the rubber eraser, identified a dozen key chemical compounds, and wrote one of the first comprehensive treatises on electricity. His unorthodox religious writings, and his support for the American and French revolutions, so enraged his countrymen that he was forced to flee England in 1794. He settled in Pennsylvania, where he continued his research until his death.

But the world recalls Priestley best as the man who discovered oxygen, the active ingredient in our planet’s atmosphere. In the process, he helped dethrone an idea that dominated science for 23 uninterrupted centuries: Few concepts “have laid firmer hold upon the mind,” he wrote, than that air “is a simple elementary substance, indestructible and unalterable.”

In a series of experiments culminating in 1774 — conducted with the kind of equipment on display in his Pennsylvania home — Priestley found that “air is not an elementary substance, but a composition,” or mixture, of gases. Among them was the colorless and highly reactive gas he called “dephlogisticated air,” to which the great French chemist Antoine Lavoisier would soon give the name “oxygen.”

It is hard to overstate the importance of Priestley’s revelation. Scientists now recognize 92 naturally occurring elements-including nitrogen and oxygen, the main components of air. They comprise 78 and 21 percent of the atmosphere, respectively.

ALL rulers and leaders understand the power of the press, the PR factor the educational systems and who controls the finances and the legal systems.  That’s their job.  IN AMERICA — it is OUR job, who are not such leaders, to keep them in check, and keep them on target.

How soon we forget what others died for.

The invention of the printing press (Gutenberg) and the eventual translation of the Bible into the common language eventually enabled, practically, the challenge to the Catholic church regime; eventually that pen proved mightier than the swords — but a lot of people still died in the struggle.  There are different technologies and systems of control today — let’s be aware of them and use them along the same lines.

One of the major issues , as I understand it, was PrOPErtY and the right to own it, and the right to the fruits of one’s own labor (John Locke used this reasoning to counter “the divine right of kings”).   The IRS system counteracts this.   The system of allowing churches as nonprofits, and nonprofits as favored entities in government, based on the alleged services they are providing (see “Phoebe Factoids” article on nonprofit hospital system in Georgia!) — is contrary to ownership of the fruits of one’s labor.  So is that child support system, as it is now. It’s irrational, illogical, temperamental, PRIVATELY managed for profit, huge in scope, and full of fraud.  It’s also having funds diverted for Non-Constitutional purposes such as designer families.

I acknowledge that Domestic Violence field, like fatherhood field, is now a mainstream industry, and increasingly the family courts are a “privatized” industry.  Some serious thinking has to take place in how to change this, and a willingness to say to the entrenched personnel — “Don’t take it personally but this will not work for this country anymore.  Join the job market your systems have repeatedly put the rest of us in.”

A centralized economic system with policy being set in closed-door (or, far-off) places — takes control out of the individual’s hands and repeatedly oppresses the spirit and will to produce, create, and build.  Why should parents — either gender — continue building and producing and creating when the system which is going to transfer wealth away from their kids, and/or themselves — is so fundamentally dishonest and capricious?

And then, years later (in my case) — the cause of this is indeed “monkish ignorance and superstition”    ???

(NOTE  — on July 5th, I expanded this post; may take it down in a few days if it looks too embarrassing).

Yep, still Around — the  are — like so many of the programs I blog on, and many other religious, allegedly —

“making the world a better place”

It is a society restricted to men; the first requirement is a Y chromosome:   About Us

How to become a Mason

Membership is open to men age 18 and older who believe in a Supreme Being and meet the qualifications and standards. Men of all ethnic and religious backgrounds are welcome.

One of Masonry’s traditions is that we do not solicit members. Men must seek membership on their own initiative.

They promote:   “Ethics, tolerance (except of female membership), personal growth, philanthropy, family & freedom.”

Under “freedom”:   Masons value the liberties outlined in the U.S. Constitution and continually promote freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship a Supreme Being in an individual way,** and other important liberties. We believe it is our duty to vote in public elections and to exercise all of our liberties within proper bounds.    (**those who don’t believe in one, obviously wouldn’t qualify for becoming a mason.)

Under “family”:   We strive to be better spouses, parents, and family members. We are committed to protecting the well-being of members and their families, especially when they are in need.  [why not just say “husbands, fathers & grandfathers, uncles, brothers, cousins” etc.?]

Mission:  Masonry is the world’s first and largest fraternal organization. It is a body of knowledge and a system of ethics based on the belief that each man has a responsibility to improve himself while being devoted to his family, faith, country, and fraternity.

= = = = == =

I have spent my Independence Day mostly on this post.  I’m happy enough to (although there were other fun things to do) because these IDEAS are important and critical to survival — individually and certainly collectively.

I didn’t finish looking up the heirarchy of the Masons — there was a section indicating some of the Americans  came over me to get out from underneath the thumb of some Grand Lodges.  But my curiosity was caught by the concept that the ‘freemasons” themselves were standing against the Catholic Church, and overall, the background of some people that led up to Thomas Jefferson et al. EVEN THOUGH they owned slaves, the IDEAS helped eradicate this — IF enough of us will continue to be dedicated to these goals.

The corruptive influence is the constant training and education.  The exaltation of “mental health specialists” to privileged status in the courts (and elsewhere) has to be STOPPED.  It is simply the supposedly nonspiritual endorsement of a specific worldview; and we always need room for heretics.  There are indications we already ARE a “gulag nation”we are the world’s largest jailro adn the jails are overcrowded, and the prison industry privatized (see 5/19/2010 or 2010, Corrections Corporation of America) I cannot subscribe to such practices.

= = = = = = =

The Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, for reference:

• Amendments
  • Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression
  • Amendment 2 – Right to Bear Arms
  • Amendment 3 – Quartering of Soldiers
  • Amendment 4 – Search and Seizure
  • Amendment 5 – Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings
  • Amendment 6 – Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses
  • Amendment 7 – Trial by Jury in Civil Cases
  • Amendment 8 – Cruel and Unusual Punishment
  • Amendment 9 – Construction of Constitution
  • Amendment 10 – Powers of the States and People
  • Amendment 11 – Judicial Limits
  • Amendment 12 – Choosing the President, Vice President
  • Amendment 13 – Slavery Abolished
  • Amendment 14 – Citizenship Rights
  • Amendment 15 – Race No Bar to Vote
  • Amendment 16 – Status of Income Tax Clarified
  • Amendment 17 – Senators Elected by Popular Vote
  • Amendment 18 – Liquor Abolished
  • Amendment 19 – Women’s Suffrage
  • Amendment 20 – Presidential, Congressional Terms
  • Amendment 21 – Amendment 18 Repealed
  • Amendment 22 – Presidential Term Limits
  • Amendment 23 – Presidential Vote for District of Columbia
  • Amendment 24 – Poll Taxes Barred
  • Amendment 25 – Presidential Disability and Succession
  • Amendment 26 – Voting Age Set to 18 Years
  • Amendment 27 – Limiting Changes to Congressional Pay

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