After the posting this morning over the controversy involving former Indiana Deputy Attorney General Jeff Cox, I had an opportunity to discuss the allegations with him in detail. Cox makes an interesting free speech case over his treatment and later termination for comments that he made on Twitter and on his blog. I wanted to share some of those details and the concern over a termination based on a lawyer’s statements in his private life.
Here are the salient facts that Jeff Cox revealed in our conversation:
First, Cox confirmed that he never connected his statements to his position at the Indiana Attorney General’s office. After he created his blog, he corresponded anonymously. Later, he added his name but never identified himself with his office. Indeed, he told me that Adam Weinstein from Mother Jones first contacted him at his work e-mail. He responded to that e-mail from his personal e-mail. When Weinstein again replied using his work address, Cox said that he answered his questions using his personal account.
Second, Cox says that his superiors knew that he had the blog and did not discourage him. Indeed, he said that he started the blog Pro Cynic in 2004 as an experiment for the Indiana Attorney General’s Office, which was still unsure of how to use blogs. He began to use his real name only after he was assured that he could not be punished for blogging so long as he did not associate his office or his position with the blogs. He recounted how, sometime in 2006, he had discussions with senior staff and was told that there was no need to keep his blog posts pseudonymous. He said that he viewed the blog as personal, not representative of the office, because he never identified it with the office, blogged on his own equipment and time and did not talk any issues that related to the office or state matters. The office simply asked him to avoid discussing local or state issues. Ironically, that meant that Cox focused on international issues like Afghanistan and out of state issues like that of the strike in Wisconsin.
Third, Cox insists that many of these comments are taken out of context. He said that he made a great number of comments designing to start debates and often meant in jest. He is not anti-union and actually comes from a union family (his father is a union member and his family is composed of steel workers and coal miners). He said that he was bothered by reports that the Sergeant of Arms told legislators that he could not guarantee their safety but that the reference to live ammunition was meant as hyperbole. He insisted that he liked to spar on the blog and often used incendiary language to spur debates. That is why, he insists, his site was called “Pro Cynic.” “Pro Cynic” was short for “Professional Cynic” and was “always intended to be a mixture of seriousness and humor, ‘cynic’ being a synonym for satire, sarcasm or irony.” He stated that the office was aware of his often off-the-wall commentary on the blog, which would sometimes be the subject of office joking. He says that he would make fun of himself on the site, such as proclaiming that the site was “one small step for man …”
Fourth, Cox did not work in any area remotely associated with the Wisconsin controversy. He handled eminent domain cases and was a member of the transportation practice group.
Fifth, he was terminated by the Attorney General’s office after a brief discussion with his superiors. He was told that he could be fired for simply bringing discredit upon the office — even due to statements made as an individual.
Sixth, Cox had a good record with the office. In fact, in 2010, he earned the “You Rock” award – a painted rock – for going above the call of duty in serving the people of Indiana. He had worked with the office since 2001 when he began as a law clerk and continued after his graduation.
In my view, these facts (if proven) would make for a strong free speech claim. We have been discussing the trend toward increasing discipline for public officials based on actions or statements occurring in their private lives. We have seen this regulation of private speech in cases that involve disciplinary actions against students (here, teachers (here and here and here and here and here and here), police officers (here and here and here) and other public employees (here).
The connection made in this context to the office was not apparently made by Cox but by Mother Jones magazine. Cox has since closed his blog and regrets causing the controversy. The question is why he was not simply given a warning about such comments and how they reflect upon the office. Now that his name has been associated with the office, he would likely have curtailed or stopped such comments.
There is obviously a great deal of anger over these comments, but the real question is whether a public employee like Cox has any protection for comments made as a private citizen.
In 2006, the Court decided the case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, in a close 5-4 decision against a public employee. In this case, Justice Kennedy ruled that the First Amendment does not protect “every statement a public employee makes in the course of doing his or her job.” However, this was a case where the assistant district attorney was making the comments are part of his duties and the Court ruled that “when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline.” In this case, Cox made no association with his office. Notably, even in a matter involving statements made in the course of one’s duties, the vote was a close call with Justice Alito deciding the case as the fifth vote.
In Pickering v Board of Education (1968), the Court ordered the reinstatement of a teacher who wrote a letter to a newspaper critical of the local school board. The Court found that a public employee’s statements on a matter of public concern could not be the basis for termination without more of a showing, such as knowing or reckless falsehoods or the statements were of the sort to cause a substantial interference with the ability of the employee to continue to do his job.
I have great problems with the scope of the Garcetti opinion. Yet, Kennedy did note that:
At the same time, the Court has recognized that a citizen who works for the government is nonetheless a citizen. The First Amendment limits the ability of a public employer to leverage the employment relationship to restrict, incidentally or intentionally, the liberties employees enjoy in their capacities as private citizens. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597 (1972) . So long as employees are speaking as citizens about matters of public concern, they must face only those speech restrictions that are necessary for their employers to operate efficiently and effectively. See, e.g., Connick, supra, at 147 (“Our responsibility is to ensure that citizens are not deprived of fundamental rights by virtue of working for the government”).
This case would appear to involve matters of public concern and comments made as an individual citizen.
What do you think?
Jonathan Turley
Additional source: ABA Journal
RE: J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E., February 28, 2011 at 4:34 pm
As I never use adversarial ways in the presence of dispute and as I always use self-help methodologies, any representation that the one and only alternative to “adversarial due process” is
self-help adversarial dispute resolution is rendered an absolute falsehood by the mere fact of my not having an adversarial relationship, whether of dispute or else, with you?
Was written, if it gets through correctly this time:
As I never use adversarial ways in the presence of dispute and as I always use self-help methodologies, any representation that the one and only alternative to “adversarial due process” is
rendered an absolute falsehood by the mere fact of my not having an adversarial relationship, whether of dispute or else, with you?
Mistakes happen. We live a ways out in the country, and a cellular modem is our only useful Internet access, and It is coming to my mind that there are more packet errors at some times than at others, and words may be lost or repeated, depending on the damaged-packet repair process?
RE: Buddha Is Laughing, February 28, 2011 at 4:12 pm
1) legal dispute resolution via adversarial due process is the alternative process to personal self-help adversarial dispute resolution which results in the tyranny of the strong over the weak and often violence and
######################################
As I always use personal self-help to resolve disputes foisted upon me and as I never use adversarial ways to resolve such disputes, not even in this comedy we are scripting without any resultant prior script, I merely affirm your view as being in contrast with my view when such contrast appears to me to exist, and lo and behold, you seemingly misinterpret every such affirmation on my part as yet another dispute of whatever?
The difficulty your despotic method contains, the one I keep finding you sharing more about with me, is of the absurdity sometimes named “theory of mind”?
As I never use adversarial ways in the presence of dispute and as I always use self-help methodologies, any representation that the one and only alternative to “adversarial due process” is
self-help adversarial dispute resolution is rendered an absolute falsehood by the mere fact of my not having an adversarial relationship, whether of dispute or else, with you?
It is as though you know me as well as, or better, than you know yourself; an absurd notion if ever there were one?
And I have no intention of stopping in exposing the lies, illogic and antisocial damaging nature of what you suggest. So as long as you spout your bullshit without a defense? Well, a valid defense anyway, not your usual evasion and crap like “it’s not ready”, “it’s unethical to defend my postulate” or “you just wouldn’t understand”? I’m going to keep tearing down every thing you say.
As to winding me up? That is funny. Actually, I find pointing out that you’re a liar propagating destructive memes out of a professed and demonstrable sense of vendetta both amusing and relaxing. I argue for sport, sport.
Now . . .
Your postulate about the a negative value of legal dispute resolution via adversarial due process is both irrational and destructive as
1) legal dispute resolution via adversarial due process is the alternative process to personal self-help adversarial dispute resolution which results in the tyranny of the strong over the weak and often violence and
2) that such an alternative to self-help dispute resolution somehow creates adversity (adversity which in fact is caused simply by human nature, human interaction and circumstance) when what legal dispute resolution via adversarial due process does is remove the potential for violence from adversity and is thus a cornerstone of maintaining civilization over anarchy and tyranny.
Defend your postulate from the above criticism.
If you cannot, then the criticism is valid and your idea that doing away with dispute resolution in the adversarial mode is good for civilization is proven once again to be a load of antisocial propagandist crap. Refusing to, trying to obfuscate or attempting to evade or otherwise change the subject will constitute a stipulation that you cannot defend your postulate.
Which as a matter of logic and proof, you can’t.
I look forward to seeing how you try to avoid defending your idea this time, since you’ve about run out of tactics and have started to repeat yourself.
Enjoy!
I know I will.
“I find that you are powerless to give me more and more data regarding plausible socialization-induced-trauma forms of latent psychosis?”
is better put
“I find that you are powerless to avoid giving me more and more data regarding plausible socialization-induced-trauma forms of latent psychosis?”
When I make a mistake and recognize it, I correct it and make amends as best I can?
Sorry?
Is there a bit bucket somewhere? Bits or binits sometimes seem to vanish?
“The joke is, I have no intention of wearing you down?”
Once in a while, a sleep-walking person wakes up in the midst of a sleep-walking episode?
The joke is, have no intention of wearing you down?
I find that I am winding you up?
I find that you are powerless to give me more and more data regarding plausible socialization-induced-trauma forms of latent psychosis?
For as long as you continue to improve my data collection effort, I will continue to facilitate your giving me ever more data, not all of which is redundant?
One indicator of latent psychosis is a voracious appetite for countertransferences?
You seem to me to be wolfing down countertransferences like a starving hyena might? I don’t know? Too soon for me to tell?
The answer is simple, troll.
I am quite self-aware, have no latent psychosis nor childhood trauma.
And none of what you said is a cogent defense of your garbage idea.
Just an attack on me, Mr. I Don’t Confront People.
And a rather weak half-assed attack at that.
If you should have figured out anything by now, it’s that this tactic makes me laugh.
Again, your postulate about the a negative value of legal dispute resolution via adversarial due process is both irrational and destructive as
1) legal dispute resolution via adversarial due process is the alternative process to personal self-help adversarial dispute resolution which results in the tyranny of the strong over the weak and often violence and
2) that such an alternative to self-help dispute resolution somehow creates adversity (adversity which in fact is caused simply by human nature, human interaction and circumstance) when what legal dispute resolution via adversarial due process does is remove the potential for violence from adversity and is thus a cornerstone of maintaining civilization over anarchy and tyranny.
Defend your postulate from the above criticism.
As to your theories about me? Again, a load of shit. If it makes you feel better to project your own child abuse upon others, be my guest, but the truth of the matter in my case is I had a perfectly happy childhood free from abuse and trauma.
I’ve already told you my motive in exposing your nonsense.
“I seek the truth by which no man was ever harmed.” – Marcus Aurelius
So far the truth is that you lie, make up history, make up definitions to words, obfuscate, evade, have no proof, rely upon religious based wishful thinking, and make multiple formal logic errors like circular logic, composition errors and false equivalences.
And if you think you’re just going to “wear me down” with your perpetual string of crap and evasion?
You’re a fool in addition to being a liar.
I love to argue. Truly, it’s a gift. I live to expose lies. Truly, that is my natural disposition and motivation. You provide the opportunity to do both, windbag.
So let’s have that non-existent proof you say “isn’t ready yet” or that “we’re not smart enough to understand”.
I love a good laugh.
Especially at the expense of a propaganda troll.
My work is only “hostile” to the error regarding mistakes which is terribly corrupting the profession of law?
I have mentioned the late Sidney M. Perlstadt, Esq., the husband of the late Bessie Lendrum with whom I worked for many years at Cook County Chilren’s Hospital? The concerns which are associatred with my biophysics-grounded inquiry into the nature of mistakes and the effects of unpreventable (while they remain unpreventable) mistakes stems from strong concerns Sidney M. Perlstadt shared with me, starting circa 1965 and extending into the late 1980s?
The issues on which I focus my research efforts are those which Mr. Sidney M. Perlsadt told me about which were the most troubling to him in his professional work as a partner in the Sonnenschein, et. al. Law firm in Chicago? I was given the concerns of my research, as appurtenant to Law, by an Attorney-at Law, and did not concoct them of my (non-existent) anti-social value system; as such anti-social value system absolutely does exist and has never existed?
From C. G. Jung, “The Undiscovered Self,” translated from the German by R. F. C. Hull, Little, Brown and Co., 1958, page 5:
“Rational argument can be conducted with some prospect of success only so long as the emotioanality of a given situation does not exceed a certain critical degree. If the affective temperature rises above this level, the possibility of reason’s having any effect ceases and its place is taken by slogans and chimerical wish-fantasies. That is to say, a sort of collective possession results which rapidly develops into a psychic epidemic. In this state, all those elements whose existence is merely tolerated as asocial under the rule of reason come to the top. Such individuals are by no means rare curiosities to be met only in prisons and insane asylums. For every manifest case of insanity there are, in my estimation, at least ten latent cases who seldom get to the point of breaking out openly but whose views and behavior, for all their appearance of normality, are influenced by unconsciously morbid and perverse factors. There are, of course, no medical statistics on the frequency of latent psychoses — for understandable reasons. But even if their number should amount to less than ten times that of the manifest psychoses and of manifest criminality, the relatively small percentage of the population figures they represent is more than compensated for by the peculiar dangerousness of these people. Their mental state is that of “collective possession” they are the adapted ones and consequently they feel quite at home in it. They know from their own experience the language of these conditions and they know how to handle them. Their chimerical ideas, upborne by fanatical resentment, appeal to the collective irrationality and find fruitful soil there, for they express all those motives and resentments which lurk in more normal people under the cloak of reason and insight. They are, therefore, despite their small number in comparison with the population as a whole, dangerous as sources of infection precisely because the so-called normal person possesses only a limited degree of self-knowledge.
Most people confuse “self-knowledge” with knowledge of their conscious ego personalities. Anyone who has any ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows himself. But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents. People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself, but not by the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them. in this respect the psyche behaves like the body with its physiological and anatomical structure, of which the average person knows very little too. Although he lives in it and with it, most of it is totally unknown to the layman, and special scientific knowledge is needed to acquaint consciousness with what is known of the body, not to speak of all that is not known, which also exists.”
Do you, BiL, have “The Undiscovered Self” as among the books close at hand and referred to as needed? Do you have Heinz Kohut, “Analysis of the Self,” and “How Does Analysis Cure,” and have you studied them diligently and critically? Have you studied, critically, the field of object-relations, such as in the work of W. R. D. Fairbairn?
Or, is it possible that you are intent on proving beyond rational doubt that you are among those described by Jung, people who have latent psychosis which they use to dominate others?
Sad to say, I find that you are weeding out, for me, virtually every practical alternative to the latent-psychosis, socially-very-well-adapted personality model Jung described with formidably terrible accuracy over fifty years ago?
I have perused my library of case-study literature without finding any case even remotely similar to your overt conduct which hints at anything other than a form of innocent-child-socialization trauma of such nature as to have resulted in the sort of latent psychosis described by Jung?
Because I observe that you refute every sort of “statement” I make which has any content posing a challenge to your world view, I have chosen to post all my comments with question marks at the end of every sentence I write? That way, I a neither claiming anything whatsoever?
You will respond to this in one way if a latent psychosis resulted from socialization trauma when you were a small child and you will respond quite differently if you have within you no such latent psychosis? If your childhood experiences generated such a latent psychosis, you will tend to be unaware of it, because of its being latent?
What will your response be? No response is also a response?
What you are is dishonest.
“So, you have given me useful insight into why, after our son and daughter were killed when their car exploded, James O. Ebbeson, Esq. deemed it wise and proper to work to financially destroy my family.
Unlike those who retaliate, James O. Ebbeson was safe from me because I do not retaliate regardless of harm done to me.”
You may not be retaliating directly against him, but your postulate is hostile to his profession. Your detrimental statements about the legal system are a projection of your animus towards this James O. Ebbeson person. The problem is that your clearly misplaced hatred of the legal system leads you to attempt to propagate an even bigger lie – that society would be better off without courts (i.e. legal dispute resolution in the adversarial mode).
You’re also big on projecting and projection as the above demonstrates. In addition, because you allegedly suffered abuse as a child, you try to project that upon others and then accuse them of projecting that like hurt back on you if they disagree with your ridiculous idea. The fault with that when you make those claims about me or others is simply this fact: I was never abused as a child.
The liar and the projector here are you, Brian. You lie to yourself about being vengeful. Your postulate and statement show you a most certainly trying to take your vengeance against one man out upon a necessary but imperfect social system – the courts and their role in law. You lie to yourself about what motivates others to make yourself, I don’t know, feel better about yourself? Quite frankly, I don’t care why you lie to yourself, but lying you are and to others as well.
What I do care about is that you lie to others when you make your claims that legal dispute resolution in the adversarial mode is bad for society and that you cannot and have not disproven the logically valid criticism of your antisocial postulate.
Your postulate is a Big Lie. The success in propaganda of the Big Lie rest upon unchallenged repetition. As long as you repeat your lie here, it will be challenged.
The conundrum of having sufficiently internalized time-corrupted learning to such extent that it becomes an apparent personal and social asset is the manner in which it deceives those who sufficiently internalize it into seemingly nearly perfect oblivion with respect to the nature and function of deception as process?
To such extent as I am operating out of “vendetta,” I am operating out of vendetta because the vendetta out of which I am operating is totally out-side me and my life?
Deception deceives those it deceives, and deceives not those it deceives not?
I am operating outside of vendetta?
I observe any claim to the effect that I retaliate in any form to be a dishonest and deceptive claim?
I am being as though “spoon fed” all anyone could ever hope to learn about how really good and decent people can be deceived into believing that atrocity is good?
I am being as though “spoon fed” all anyone could ever hope to understand about how indoctrination of the Adversarial Principle makes those so indoctrinated their own adversaries?
I am being given a clear view of the infant-child discontinuity and its proclivity to wreak havoc in the lives of those who survive the discontinuity-trauma into adulthood?
The burden of proof rests with you, the one who posits the theory, to prove your theory valid.
I’ve proven what you say is both formally illogical and antisocial nonsense based on made up history and no valid proof whatsoever.
You’ve stipulated you are operating out of vendetta.
I don’t have to do anything other than keep pointing out the flaws in your assertion and proof (or lack thereof) to accomplish my goal.
RE: Buddha Is Laughing, February 27, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Null hypothesis: One or more mistakes actually made could have been avoided through some achievable neurological process such that the mistake made, upon having been avoided, never happened.
Alternate hypothesis (dichotomous with respect to the null hypothesis): No mistake actually made could have been avoided through some achievable process such that the mistake made was not avoided because it was actually unavoidable.
To validate the null hypothesis, and thereby invalidate the alternate hypothesis, simply do as the Adversarial Principle allows, describe a mistake actually made and describe the actually achievable process through which the mistake made could actually have been avoided, such that the mistake actually made was not actually made.
Validate my null hypothesis, and I will allow that I do not understand the work I claim to have accomplished.
You, BiL, have done me one real favor. You are demonstrating to me why defendants in court cases when the opposing attorney act and thinks as you apparently act and think sometimes go and get a piece and give an attorney who acts and thinks as you do acess to eternal peace.
So, you have given me useful insight into why, after our son and daughter were killed when their car exploded, James O. Ebbeson, Esq. deemed it wise and proper to work to financially destroy my family.
Unlike those who retaliate, James O. Ebbeson was safe from me because I do not retaliate regardless of harm done to me.
I wonder why, with all your (hostile?) comments sent my way, you persist in the foolish belief that I will ever deem your beliefs about the adversarial system other than a tragic trauma response on your part.
Every time you toss more of “your prejudice” my way, I learn a little more about the trauma I find has plausibly taken partial control of your life.
Oooo.
More “I know you are but what am I”.
That’s cute.
When you’re four.
Come on now.
Compare yourself to Galileo again.
That too never ceases to be funny.
Not a chance since you make up history and “facts” to suit your faulty premises which you “defend” with fallacious logic, evasion and obfuscation.
Real science is based on empirical facts, valid logic and verifiable testable hypothesis. Other than providing a falsifiable hypothesis? You have met none of the other criteria.
There are a couple of things you manifestly haven’t learned.
Some people are going to demand proof because they are bullshit resistant and aren’t simply willing to take you at your word because you strap some alphabet soup on to the end of your name. Those same kinds of people also require logic that is valid. Those kinds of people are known as critical thinkers. Critical thinking is a requisite skill for both law and science.
You have tried to peddle your bullshit in a forum replete with such critical thinkers.
Too bad for you.
RE: Buddha Is Laughing, February 27, 2011 at 9:10 pm
You still haven’t defended the valid logical criticisms of your postulate.
#########################################
In the logic system ruled by the Adversarial Principle, which I am guessing is the only logic system you, BiL, know, my work simply vanishes identically for the simple reason that my work is of an alternative logic system in which the logic system you seem to be commanding me to use is on in which my work identically vanishes because of the self-contradictory nature of the logic system which I am guessing you are using and this is so because I found the self-contradictory nature of any and every logic system which is based on the self-contradiction of the Adversarial Principle.
It has long been perfectly obvious to me, that, within your foundationally defective self-contradictory Adversarial-Principle based logic system my work vanishes because I did all of my work entirely outside what I find to be your logic system.
It is impossible to demonstrate an error by using a system of logic which erroneously defines the error as not error.
Is anyone really as apparently obtusely deceived as to comment as I find you to be commenting?
Deception deceives people into believing deception is not deception, else deception would be unable to deceive.
Or, what if there is something I have learned sooner than some others will learn it?
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/27/threes-the-charm/#comment-207456
“I find that the Religion of the Adversarial Principle is demonstrably responsible for every possible war and every possible form of child abuse.”
You’ve demonstrated nothing of the sort.
“I comment on this blawg, fully recognizing that much of what I write may be deemed absurdly psychotic by some people, and I welcome learning of their views as they write them in comments. I also welcome every other comment regarding my posted comments.”
There’s no “may” to it, sport.
“I have been commenting here with the possibility in mind that it might be possible for me to learn something of the beliefs of the people of the “top tier” of contemporary society, and why “top tier” people, such as perhaps Bernie Madoff, are as though willing to destroy everyone else in the vain hope of keeping their illusory “top tier” notions intact.”
No you haven’t. You’re a troll propagating an antisocial and irresponsible meme because you have a personal vendetta against the legal system. And you love false equivalences too. Bernie Madoff? Awwww. That’s so cute. Sorry, but if that’s what you mean by “top tier” then you are also in the wrong place. To a one, every regular poster here thinks Madoff is a criminal and got what’s coming to him. Because he’s a criminal. The “top tier” you find here – present company excluded – are in the top tier of intelligent critical thinkers but they come from all walks of life and range of socio-economic brackets.
You still haven’t defended the valid logical criticisms of your postulate.
Ergo, your sanity aside, your idea is still proven to be antisocial destructive crap.
I find that the Religion of the Adversarial Principle is demonstrably responsible for every possible war and every possible form of child abuse.
I find that the Religion of the Adversarial Principle is the basis of the Church of Evil in the Form of the Cult of the Anglo-American Adversarial System of Jurisprudence.
And I have studied the core methods of the Church of Evil, the methods strongly resemble the methods deacribed by Joe Girard, with Stanley H. Brown, in, “How to Sell Anything to Anybody, and, with Robert L Shook, “How to Close Every Sale”; with the sole possible exception that I find that Joe Girard was actually capable of being honest with self and others.
From Johann Christoph Arnold, “Why Forgive?” copyright (c) 2000 by the Plough Publishing House of The Bruderhof Foundation, from page 7, “Believe in Miracles” (what follows is a book review):
The chapter begins with a quote:
“Hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
–Seamus Heaney”
“Gordon Wilson held his daughter’s hand as they lay trapped beneath a mountain of rubble. It was 1987, and he and Marie had been attending a peaceful memorial service in Enniskillen, Norther Ireland, when a terrorist bomb went off. By the end of the day, Marie and nine other civilians were dead, and sixty-three had been hospitalized for injuries.
Amazingly Gordon refused to retaliate, saying that angry words could neither restore his daughter nor bring peace to Belfast. Only hours after the bombing, he told BBC reporters:
‘I have lost my daughter and we shall miss her. But I bear no ill will, I bear no grudge…That will not bring her back…Don’t ask me, please, for a purpose…I don’t have an answer. But I know there has to be a plan. If I didn’t think that, I would commit suicide. It’s part of a greater plan… and we shall meet again.’
During the time, evidently from around 1:15 pm to 1:55 pm, on March 15, 1960, while my body was on the bottom of the Carleton College swimming pool, I found myself (not my body, which is not me) as though in the presence of all the power there ever be, in what might appropriately be named the eighth heaven, the one from which the previously known “seven heavens” and all else “below” were made. The Fundamental Error of Social Reality is as though of a mistake made within that eighth heaven, before the rest of existence was formed. I know that the Prophet Mohammad really did experience the Night Journey and the Night Ascension.
I comment on this blawg, fully recognizing that much of what I write may be deemed absurdly psychotic by some people, and I welcome learning of their views as they write them in comments. I also welcome every other comment regarding my posted comments.
Among my books is one by Carolyn Miller, Ph.D., “Creating Miracles: Understanding the Experience of Divine Intervention,” H J Kramer Inc, Tiburon, California, 1995.
The publishers include the following note on the page facing the first page of the Contents:
“To Our Readers
The books we publish
are our contribution to
an emerging world based on
cooperation rather than competition,
on affirmation of the human spirit rather
than on self-doubt, and on the certainty
that all humanity is connected.
Our goal is to touch as many
lives as possible with a
message of hope for
a better world.
Hal and Linda Kramer, Publishers”
From page xi of said book,
“What is the nature of the invitation that elicits divine intervention? My research suggests that it is a shift in consciousness into a peaceful, fearless, unconditionally loving state of mind in which one follows intuitive promptings without question.”
In the world in which I actually live, I experience what is, to me, spiritual, as vividly more real than the physical world, and the physical world as vividly more real than the world of human society which it appears to me as though very many people regard as the only real world. To such extent as a person regards the physical world as more real than the spiritual and/or the world of human society as more real than the physical world, I do not share life experiences as such people may.
Having been in what I guess may be told in English words as in the immediate presence of Almighty God, my body medically dead, and having been allowed to return with unbreakable faith in Almighty God, by what effort can anyone believe it possible that any sort of threat can ever reach my faith in the creative process of existence.
I have been commenting here with the possibility in mind that it might be possible for me to learn something of the beliefs of the people of the “top tier” of contemporary society, and why “top tier” people, such as perhaps Bernie Madoff, are as though willing to destroy everyone else in the vain hope of keeping their illusory “top tier” notions intact.
Tomorrow, I will be telephoning AFSCME, the better to learn when I can begin reporting my being a Union member.
Union Solidarity Forever!
Not QED.
Religion is not a counter argument nor is it a defense of your manifestly destructive postulate. Religion had its chance to prove its value to society running concurrently throughout history with the development of secular law. At best, they are apples and oranges.
At worst?
Religion is responsible for more wars and hideous crimes against humanity than any other aspect of human behavior and their social constructs.
The Crusades.
The Muslim Conquests and various Jihads.
The Taiping Rebellion.
The Thirty Years War.
The French Wars of Religion.
And that is hardly a comprehensive list either.
“If, as I am readily able to demonstrate, it is a fact that the Anglo-American Adversarial System of Jurisprudence is an ancient-origin, superstitious religious establishment, then all who have been deceived into believing otherwise are absolutely and totally excused because of having been ignorant of the fact that there is no limit to the excuse of ignorance.”
Except the facts are that you can’t readily demonstrate a goddamn thing, Brian.
The origin of secular legal traditions is innately, inherently and historically not based in religion. Secular legal systems formed as an alternative parallel structure to ecclesiastical or canon laws. Civil legal systems can trace their direct lineage back to the Code of Justinian – the basis of Roman civil law. Their laws based solely upon codifications, these systems traditionally used inquisitorial modes of dispute resolution where judges served as both adjudicative authority and primary developers of cases and discoverers of evidence – a system with obvious potential for abuse. The Anglo-American tradition of common law is based upon using case law – precedent – as a guide to applying laws to decisions in a consistent manner. By contrast to civil systems, the common law operates differently in regard to dispute resolution with the judge sitting as a neutral third party while the prosecution and defense bars make their respective cases – a format that is less prone to abuse than the inquisitorial mode of dispute resolution for obvious reasons. Namely that it removes potential conflict of interests for the judge by making him a neutral party and it insures that both sides of the dispute get an equal hearing as both the prosecution at bar and the defense at bar get to present their full cases and supporting evidence. Because this better system recognizes the adverse relationship and interests of prosecution and defense, it is called an adversarial system. Again, the adversity is inherent in the dispute, not in the system to adjudicate the dispute.
The ignorance here is yours and it is purposeful ignorance. You need to propagate this lie about the origin and history of laws and other lies about the origins of law to make your circular logic sound palatable. You are simply lying and ignorant about the history of law.
Religion is not a replacement for legal dispute resolution in the adversarial mode. Religion starts conflicts because the majority of religions are divisive in nature: either you’re “special/chosen” and “in the club” or it’s fair game to kill you or to attempt forced conversion.
In contrast, no war was ever started because people had the option to peacefully settle the matter of a dispute in a court of law.
The only thing you keep demonstrating Brian is that you have no defense for your postulate that doesn’t resort to religious thinking – which would make you a theocrat on par with any Islamic or Christian fundamentalist extremist, faulty and fallacious logic, false equivalences, lies and obfuscation.
If you want to use religion as your rationale for doing away with legal dispute resolution and the function of the courts?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Keep your religion off of the Constitution.
Unfounded and unproven beliefs have no proof and are prime facie irrational.
Secular laws are the realm of reason and proof. Courts and the adversarial process including discovery are methods to ascertain the truth before applying appropriate law to render a solution to a dispute in question – a final adjudication. If you don’t like that and it conflicts with your personal vendetta against legal systems?
Too bad.
You still haven’t proven that the criticisms of your postulate – namely that it is inherently destructive to society because removing the function of courts would encourage tyranny of the strong over the weak and anarchy – are not valid criticisms. This is an argument you cannot win no matter how many time you try to misdirect your way out of the logic and historical facts that stand against your assertion.
Because at its core, your assertion is illogical crap with no valid proof whatsoever to back it up.
Logic and proof are King.
I have no issue with putting you in checkmate every time you want to spout your antisocial propaganda.
Sincerity is not truthfulness, while, absent sincerity, there can be no pragmatic truthfulness.
Sincerity is a necessary and not-sufficient condition for pragmatic truthfulness.
The work which has intrigued me since infancy is of the necessary and sufficient conditions of pragmatic truthfulness.
Pragmatic truthfulness is not a function of reality as defined by social and/or societal consensus.
Within the human phenomenon, the unit of action is inescapably the individual human person.
No group of humans, regardless of number, ever does anything except as the superposition of the doings of the individual members comprising the group.
“If everyone is doing it, it is okay,” is, to me, the most plausibly blatant form of the operational presence of The Evil One within the group of all humans whom The Evil One has successfully deceived which I have yet been able to recognize.
What I have been doing on this Turley blawg is of an effort of researching the scientific validity of that which I understand to be the philosophical-religious ultimate principle of Bahá’i.
The book, “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era” (J. E. Esslemont, Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, IL) was among the most essential of the books I read in my parents library during my traditionally chronological-childhood time. First published in 1928, the version I read during “my childhood” was the 1937 first revised edition that is the edition I first read. I have now in hand the 1950 second revised edition.
To me, the philosophical-religious ultimate principle of the Bahá’í faith tradition is simply that the ultimate organizing principle of existence is collaboration as superposition of the totality of extant existence.
The website of Hope United Church of Christ, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin is:
www(dot)hopechurchdc(dot)org
I am a among the members thereof; I have served on the Board of Deacons and the Board of Trustees, and was co-chairman of the Open and Affirming Committee at the time Hope United Church of Christ voted to become one of the Open and Affirming congregations of the United Church of Christ.
I became a member of Hope Congregational Church on June 28, 1953.
While some may claim that religion and science are of perfectly and eternally separate domains, others, including myself, both know and understand that religion and science share being essential aspects of the unity of all possible existence.
At the limit, it requires only three things to be a member of Hope United Church. The first is being willing to become a member. The second is becoming a member. The third is being adequately capable of avoiding abusing self and others.
There are no established creeds, doctrines, or dogmas.
As is written on the sign outside the church building, near the southwest corner of Michigan Street and 12th Avenue, in Sturgeon Bay, “ALL ARE WELCOME” and that is the essence of the covenant which is the central organizing principle of Hope United Church of Christ.
On the “About Us” page of the Hope Church web site is found:
We began as the Society of Hope Church in 1881 and became Hope Congregational Church in 1883. Our current, beautiful church home was built in 1967.
We come to Hope Church…
To worship God
To promote personal and spiritual growth
To develop a religious community which encourages tolerance and openness of thought and accepts diversity of thought and action
To search for meaning in life and for understanding of ourselves through the teachings of Jesus and other great teachers
To understand how all things are related to each other and to learn how we may best serve our local community and our world community
To celebrate with joy the richness of ourselves and our religious community.
What about that three word “To worship God” thing at the beginning? Does one need to believe that “God” exists? Of course not! At Hope Church, a person is free to decide what “To” means and what “worship” means and what “God” means in terms of the individual person’s life, with no other person having any trace of authority as to what those words, or any other words, mean to anyone other than with respect to the individual self.
The only authority recognized at Hope Church is the authority uniquely within each individual member.
The notion that the adversarial principle can have the slightest authority over my life constitutes a violation of my Wisconsin Constitution, Article I, Section 19, right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience.
This is an absolute and pure dichotomy. Either I have the right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience or I have no such right. If the Adversarial Principle has the slightest trace of authority over me and/or over my life, then I have absolutely no right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience, because my conscience dictates to me that the Adversarial Principle has no authority over me and/or over my life.
Welcome to a the fallacy of an intractable double bind, wherein the Adversarial Principle is become its very own intractable Adversary.
From John. S. Hatcher, “Close Connections: The Bridge between Spiritual and Physical Reality,” Bahá’í Publishing, Willmette, IL, copyright (c) 2005 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States.
From page 5, in the fair use book review sense:
[begin quote from “Close Connections]
A Rational for Employing the Bahá’í Perspective
I am predisposed to compare the theories about reality to those presented in the Bahá’í teachings because the very means by which i became a Bahá’í was to test rigorously the foundational tenets of the Bahá’í Faith with whatever questions I could conceive and then compare the solutions it offered to those of any other theological, philosophical, or scientific explanation I could discover. That was forty-five years ago, and I am still employing this same approach to my various ventures into the realm of creative investigation of reality, most especially about the nature of physical reality.
Though the Bahá’í Faith is known primarily for its assertion that the world’s revealed religions are part of a single systematic attempt on the part of a Divine Creator to instruct humanity, of particular relevance to the subject of this study is the Bahá’í axiom that there is no inherent contradiction between science and religion. This verity is not intended to imply that there aren’t contradictions between individuals studying in these two areas of interest or between theories about reality that they propose — the ongoing debates about such vital issues as the theory of evolution or the question of abortion are but two examples that suggest that no reconciliation between science and religion seems imminent. Rather, the Bahá’í teachings affirm that all study of reality can be valid if pursued with the logical tools with which human beings have been endowed, particularly when these faculties are employed in a well-conceived regimen such as the so-called “scientific method”:
God has endowed man with intelligence and reason whereby he is required to determine the verity of questions and propositions. If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science, they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for the antithesis of knowledge is ignorance, and the child of ignorance is superstition.
[end quote from Close Connections]
A noted world religion is thus shown to refute the claims made by those who claim that the Anglo-American Adversarial System of Jurisprudence is not of the form of a superstitious religious establishment, and the superstition is thus:
from Black’s Law Dictionary, Eighth Edition, page 1721:
“Ignorantia facti excusat, ignorantia juris non excusat. Ignorance of fact excuses; ignorance of law does not excuse. – Every person must be considered cognizant of the law; otherwise, there is no limit to the excuse of ignorance…”
If, as I am readily able to demonstrate, it is a fact that the Anglo-American Adversarial System of Jurisprudence is an ancient-origin, superstitious religious establishment, then all who have been deceived into believing otherwise are absolutely and totally excused because of having been ignorant of the fact that there is no limit to the excuse of ignorance.
It being a fact of law that ignorance of fact of law excuses, ignorance of the fact of law that the Adversarial Principle is itself, as fact, a violation of fact of law; all who have been deceived by the Adversarial Principle are, as fact of law, absolutely and totally excused.
That fact of law does not deconstruct except into itself.
Tell me that science and religion are of separate dominions and I will disprove that by the fact of the existence of a world religion of differing understanding.
Because the view, expressed in the quote from “Close Connections,” of “the Bahá’í axiom that there is no inherent contradiction between science and religion” is of the form of an axiom and not merely as yet another testable hypothesis, I am constrained to the freedom of the United Church of Christ because I find therein no axioms and no dogmas and no doctrines and find instead only that which people learn through the way of direct observation as direct observation is given to each and every person as, and only as, an individual person who, as an individual may share or not share what is directly observed according to individual conscience.
Conscience is the only existing alternative to authoritarian passive-aggressive tyranny that I find is ever likely to exist.
Conscience is the only possible basis I am able to recognize for the practicable authoritative-reciprocity of humans within human society in which all persons, regardless of situation, circumstance, socio-economic status or any other divisive categorization schema, are truthfully of equal actual worth.
Quod erat demonstrandum?