Google's censors strike again -- I am vaguely accused of "hate speech" . . .

. . .  and have a key post deleted, WITH NO DETAILS PROVIDED. 

I finally found a blogger email* in my gmail junk box, which said that nice generic smear, "hate speech."  I am of course invited to self-incriminate by changing my post to conform to whatever claims underlie the anonymous complaint. Which also neatly manages to suppress whatever viewpoints Google does not like. That reeks of poor governance, to me.

__________

* U/D, Dec 3, a "no-reply" email address, but in an attempt to communicate, I replied anyway -- including giving a link to this post; it has not bounced back, so I hope there has been some effect. I thereafter found a button to appeal on the edit page (this was apparently an update), and pressed it, eventually seeing that the edit page indicates an appeal is in process, but of course I don't even know if my reply much less this blog post has been received much less responded to; I wonder if I have had any opportunity to speak for myself in whatever process is going on, for sure I have received no specifics. All of this underscores the opaqueness and lack of two-way communication that has marked this process. I again point to Governor Festus in Ac 25:16, who showed how the Romans understood principles of natural justice and due process, 2000 years ago. The accused should have occasion to face the accuser and answer specific charges tied to sound law. Learning of a judgement, punishment and vague but tainting accusation ["hate speech"**] after the fact with a grossly inadequate appeals  process does not measure up to where our civilisation was 2000 years ago. That speaks sad volumes, but it does provide a base for reformation.

** Of course, as a self-aware conscience guided individual I know directly, that I am not acting from hate, spite, revenge, irrational fear etc., and it should be obvious that the page is an exercise in philosophical analysis on matters tied to the core warrant for the Christian Faith, to fatal cracks in the foundations of various worldviews that reject that faith and associated civilisation principles and further analysis on ways forward to reformation, down to laying out first principles of aesthetics using Mona Lisa and bad architecture as key examples.

So, what is the problem? 

(Apart from, how, when I was doxxed, smeared and subjected to attempts to rob me of employability by a whole hate-blog, I was told by Google about free speech, how the best thing would be to respond, and only a court order would move Google? Well, NCSTS U2 was -- it is deleted -- a major response. That leads me to doubt that Google's reply was an honest reply then. Yes, double-standards, Google team, free consultancy: fix your governance and customer communication systems before you face a serious lawsuit. Especially, as it has been all but impossible to find any means of communication with complaints and customer service. Of course, I have been at Blogger since 2000 and in general have not been impressed with the Google takeover was it about a decade back.)

In absence of another means of response, here is my first observation regarding alleged hate speech, something that appeared high in the blog post and should have itself triggered pondering by Google's Blogger team:

Now, specifics informed by my knowledge of culture-form, Frankfurt School Neo-Marxism, now usually styled as various critical theories:

1: Truth vs Hate: There is of course a fair comment principle and defamation defence, that principled objection -- even if not true in the end -- is not to be treated as X-phobia, irrational fear and hostility. NCSTS U2 is principled objection, from the ground up, literally, laying out the first self evident duties that guide our behaviour. Where, truth is a further defence against defamation, and for cause I believe that while obviously controversial, my remarks are credibly true also.

2: Acid, vitriolic hyperskepticism as a key challenge today: This is manifest, all around and it is not particularly noted for its genteel conduct, say in the cases of riots against those who dare to try to say the politically incorrect on many campuses. It is also appallingly destructive to the cultural buttresses that sustain a constitutional democracy against its inherent instability. (For history, kindly see how Athens destroyed itself and discredited democracy for 2000 years, through the course of the Peloponnesian War.)

3: Misanthropy and anti-civilisational behaviour of Jacobin-derived radicals: The history of the radical left in our civilisation, since 1789, has shown consistent resort to lawless ideological oligarchy, terror and mass killing. This includes, that the Communists have killed over 100 millions in assorted democides.

4: The National Socialist, German Workers' Party meant the "Socialist": As a child, I was taught the widely held view that there was a mirror-image pair of tyrannies, Communists on the Left, Nazis on the Right. When I became a man, I learned better. Nazism and Fascism were Nietzschean Superman, political messiah ideologies in which some mass victim group sought rescue in the face of allegedly unprecedented crisis, by a revolution implementing a totalitarian state led by a superman, beyond ordinary law. This is an obvious echo of Marxist thought on revolution, but nationalist (or the like, the mass base can use other bases to build identity) rather than internationalist. Marxism, from 1848 on, has always had many sects and heresies. Fascism and Nazism are right of Stalin, but left of anyone else, in a day when the hoped for international uprising of the working class failed to appear. The eschatology failed, new sects arose.

5: The Left vs Right Political Spectrum is dead, and was never a serious model: c 1789, in the Revolutionary-era Assembly in France, the traditionalists sat on the Speaker's favoured right hand and the more and more disreputable to his sinister side. Across C19, the left became Socialist, especially Social Democrats. With the discrediting of Monarchy through that blunder and catastrophe, the Great War -- the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Monarchies collapsed -- there was now no coherent framework for Right or centre, as is manifest today. In U2, I put on the table a more historically anchored spectrum (just crack and read your Bibles), Autocracy > Lawless Oligarchy > Lawful Oligarchy > Constitutional Democracy > The Anarchic, Chaotic State of Nature. I posited that this fits with the Overton Window revisioned as having BATNAS of lawfulness and Government. This is fair comment on the politics of our time, and a warning of what happened when law was effectively redefined as whatever those who control the legal presses choose to issue under robes, ceremonies and colour of law. 

6: There is a creation-order, intelligible first law, the natural law: Here, I go back to Cicero in De Legibus and others, going forward to John Finnis' recognition that in effect once one sees the cluster of things the Positivists must engage but arbitrarily deem not law, it is evident that this now dominant school is simply a defective form of natural law theory. We are morally governed creatures, with consciences and principles of justice tied to the classic, love one's neighbour as one loves and cherishes oneself. This of course cuts across many rights claims today and many distortions under colour of law. But, as a descendant of slaves in a region founded on kidnapping into slavery and working to death on plantations, I know that there must be built in laws of justice that ground reformation. That is how slave trading and slavery were finally abolished, having been a universal custom and having been entrenched under colour of law. (And, so, from Mother's Milk on, I have ben aware of issues such as that sound conscience is a law, requiring correction and heart softening to reach soundness and due reformation.)

7: The mass killing of 1.4+ billion of our living posterity in the womb since the early '70's (growing at 1 million per week) is unconscionable violation of the first right, life: Without life, there are no other rights, and we have imbibed a global mass guilt of blood beyond any other holocaust in history. It is anything but hate or oppression to point this out. It is a call to turn back from grave wrong and to seek forgiveness and healing. 

8: Exposing a false accusation of genocide as blood libel, is fair comment: Genocide, is geno + cide, a term originally coined to describe mass murder of 6 million Jews intending to erase that so often targetted people. Other yardstick cases include the Ottoman massacre of the Armenians (1.5 millions), the murder of 2 million Cambodians in the killing fields, the Rwandan mass murder in the 1990's. Arguably, Stalin's starving of was it 2 million Ukrainians in the 1930's, is another case as was the German intent to finish the Job during their invasion of Russia. Oddly, the wider mass killing of 100+ millions by the Communists is not a genocide, as there was neither racial targetting nor a cumulative toll likely to wipe out a people, the term democide has been coined for such mass killings. Genocide, then, is a sobering reality with a capital example that still reverberates around the world, it is not to be used lightly or maliciously for cases that do not measure up to the yardstick examples. When therefore I learned of how radical activists for a decade have tossed the rhetorical grenade, "trans genocide," and discovered a 2018 "report" on the Latin America and Caribbean [LAC] Region that irresponsibly accuses my home region of genocide, I called it out for what it is, blood libel that needs to be retracted and apologised for. Yes, we need to be compassionate to those suffering gender dysphoria and provide evidence based genuine help -- such as this expert testimony calls for:

In case you think I exaggerate, here is the report cover page on the LAC region -- not far short of a billion people -- the same cover featured in U2:

Now, protest at actual police brutality, or mob violence is a reasonable thing. (And, I do believe police and prison reforms are in order across this region.)

But, there is a manifest red line at libel, libel of blood. Where are the death camps, killing facilities or killing fields in my region? Nowhere. Where are the graveyards or crematoria or desert death marches with now desiccated hundred year old skeletons or rivers brimming with bloated bodies? Nowhere. Yes, there has been abuse and bullying (which I objected to). Yes, as with other serious psychosocial disorders, there is a higher suicide rate and lower life expectancy, something to be part of our sound, compassionate response. But no, blood libel is never justified. 

9: Dan Brown and others were and are out of order and are appropriately called out: I here put up my markup on Dan Brown, who was widely hailed for promoting ill-founded ill-informed assertions, making millions. My markup speaks for itself on doctrine of fair comment:

10: The London Skyline is indeed spoiled through deliberate multimillion pound violation of canons of aesthetics, and we need to restore objectivity about beauty:  I didn't even realise at first that I had found London's skyline, but the panorama speaks for itself:

11: It remains the case that for any reasonably defined topic or discipline X (including, Morality, History, Aesthetics, Theology, Philosophy etc.), it is demonstrable that the attempt to deny knowable objective truth refutes itself and is irrational: In short, "my truth/ your truth" fails. This is because, the attempt to deny such objective, warranted, knowable truth, ~k(X) is clearly intended to be objectively true regarding X, is manifestly about X and so is a truth claim belonging to X. The one who asserts ~k(X) therefore inescapably contradicts and refutes himself, which is irrational. This is fair comment, is warranted, is indeed undeniably true. It cannot be defamatory or an act of hate, though it cuts across deeply entrenched worldviews and ideologies. Of course, it also decisively undercuts many fashionable opinions, ideologies, worldviews and policy/cultural agendas in our day.

12: My adaptation of the Seven Mountains of Influence model is justified through sociology and is not extremist thought: I have found this frame of thought useful in helping people understand the relevance of the Christian Faith to all of culture, and note that it is closely connected to sociological analysis of major institutions of society:

13: Nor is it hate speech to point out the following map promoted by radical Islam: I found this map in a radical IslamIST web site on Sept 11, 2001:

14: Similarly, this assessment of two cultural tidal waves impacting the Caribbean, and of our internal weaknesses is fair comment not hate: This, is again, a reasonable, outline analysis

15: It is not hate speech to teach core Christian doctrine, or to point out that at the heart of that faith is the Lordship of Christ, a call to all men to repent from sin (including fashionable sins, cf. Rom 1), or that [cf. "sin"] gospel ethics is integral to the gospel: Indeed, this is freedom of Conscience, Freedom of Religion, and responsible fair comment:

16: It is fair comment to observe that the cosmos, D/RNA and many features of the world of life show observable signs of design: This is not anti-science or attack on principles of scientific progress, it is reasonable, empirically founded comment.

17: And, the like: In absence of specific objection, I am left to guess even as I appeal to those who have set themselves up as judge, jury and censors, limiting my right of reply. (And, couldn't matters have been simply resolved if you pointed to specific phrasing on my part that is inadvertently offensive to reasonable people?) 

To all such, I close with the remark made 2,000 years ago by the then newly arrived Roman Governor, Festus, when the Jerusalem Elites asked him to hand over Paul:

Acts 25:. 16 I answered them that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face and had opportunity to make his defense concerning the charge laid against him.  [ESV]

In other words, it seems to me that Google is in manifest and gross breach of canons of natural justice and sound governance that were well understood by the Romans, 2000 years ago. 

I suggest, the policy and procedures should be reconsidered. END

 

PS, Dec 3: I ran across a Forbes article on repeat demonetisation of the well known YouTube channel, C&Rsenal which shows that the opaqueness and strange readings of "rules" problem is Google-wide, i.e. it is a corporate-level governance (and likely, ideology) problem:

"Unfortunately there is absolutely no transparency with YouTube," said Othasis. "We've had a few months of smooth sailing but already some videos that have been up for years are being de-monetized again. We are constantly told we broke at least one rule out of a page of them, and yet when we review the matter we can't find a single point we've violated."

They also point to problematic appeals processes:

Appealing such decisions is even more laborious.

"Sometimes we manage to appeal to a guy who knows a guy and the matter just goes away without explanation or clarification," Othasis added. "It's absolutely not a reliable income source and even in the best months has not made up even the base cost of production for an episode."

So, it is no surprise to see similar problems with Blogger (even though there is no monetisation of any of my blogs). 

Notice, on fair comment, how the underlying problem is civilisation-level, precisely being one of the key analyses in the now censored blog post. Natural justice, tracing to due, transparent, accountable process, is anchored in our creation order, built-in and branch on which we all sit, intelligible, self-evident first duties and first law. Which, are therefore antecedent to parliaments or corporate boards or legal departments, and are absolutely universal in jurisdiction. Namely, the Ciceronian duties to truth, to right reason, to prudence (including warrant for knowledge claims), to sound conscience, to neighbour and so too, to fairness and justice. 

The irony is sadly telling.

Why do we have 110/120 V vs 220/240 V three phase AC (and Tungsten-based lighting)?

 An interesting history lesson on electrification and the impact of Chicago:

Food for thought. END

 

PS, an explanation of US Domestic wiring is here.

When Science is perverted into Scient-ISM

 

From legitimate field of study to domineering cult

 Watch out!

A word to the wise. END

 

The Rose Apple

 This fruit -- Syzygium jambos  (there are apparently hundreds of species in the genus) -- is a rural, somewhat rare, treat in Jamaica, it is often pink fleshed, smells of roses and tastes like sweet roses too:

An obvious relative of the Otaheite Apple we just discussed. (And yes, there are the usual claimed health benefits.) END

Thai fruit market stall, with seedless Otaheiti [= Malay] and Wax Apples

 This Thai fruit vendor's skills are amazing, starting with how he extracts a coconut's jelly and water to sell as a treat:

Quite a show, but what caught my eye is the demonstration that there are seedless Otaheiti/ Malay Apples (also known as Plumrose etc here in the Caribbean):

(On a cross check, this may be a red skinned wax apple, see just below.)

Likewise we see similar wax apples:

Could we bring these and similar fruit to our region?  END

PS, Bonus, thanks to YT's side list -- making cricket bats (it looks like, in Pakistan) -- of course, as usual, safety issues could be better addressed in this factory:

Then, there are high end cricket balls:

H'mm, could we try?

The Exodus as a model for sound reformation -- the decalogue and sound civilisation

Amenhotep II, likely Pharaoh of the Exodus

Last time, we paused to tie the Exodus in the Bible to a credible point in Egyptian and world history: Pharaoh Amenhotep II, of the Eighteenth Dynasty, c 1446 BC. 

Yes, it is not mere dismissible "religion." (Nor, is "religion" equivalent to mindless irrationality, blind following of dubious myths, hateful ignorance and oppression. That, is an inexcusable slander that needs to be rejected. God is foundational reality and it is entirely reasonable to found worldview, life and community on our relationship with our Creator. Those who would project otherwise, need to go take a sobering look in the mirror. There are two types of ignorance, innocent and willful. Pretending to know there is no God, or that one may take that as a "doubt and dismiss" default, etc is willful and artful, not innocent.)

Clearly, such is important in itself, as it helps us understand that the Exodus-Passover-Sinai event is anchored to on the ground history:

 

. . .  despite dismissiveness of the usual hyperskeptics and those who would rather forget than draw lessons from this confrontation of YHWH and his champion with arrogant, lawless oligarchy, oppressive misrule and misgovernment. 

It also helps us find a way to exercise godly, prophetically informed reforming leadership in a day where it is increasingly obvious that lawless, nihilistic, perverse, reprobate minded, anti-God, misanthropic, anticivilisational ideological domineering ideologies are on the march. 

And in a day when today's would-be Pharaohs too often wield abusive censorship and ostracism power, a valid historically anchored example becomes vital for us, to guide our own action. 

Let us begin at a certain strange, burning bush that was not consumed:

Moses at the Burning Bush,
Dura Europos Synagogue,
244-245 AD [HT: Wiki et al]

Exodus 3:1  Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 

 ³ And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”  

⁴ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” ⁵ Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

  ⁷ Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, ⁸ and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹ And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰ Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 

 ¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” ¹² He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” 

¹³ Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”^[a] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord,^[b] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

 There is much food for thought in this already:

•  This is a manifestation of God (notice, the bush burns, but does not burn up and go out), and is the point where Moses is called to his work as liberator and civilisation reformer in the face of a world turned away from God
• The result of erecting rebellious kingdoms of man is oppression under lawless oligarchs
•  God is concerned over oppression and intends to liberate, judging rebellious nations. We will see ten plagues of Egypt, ten tests of Israel and a judgement on the lands of the Amorites who have filled up the cup of their iniquity
• God identifies himself, thousands of years before we had thoroughly analyses necessary being: I AM, the self existent Creator, Lord and Rescuer
• And now, to the task of liberation and sound reformation (with the decalogue as a focal topic).
  

In that process, once the liberated nation was beyond Pharaoh's reach and was duly assembled at Horeb, the decalogue was given, pivotal guide to law (and so, sound government); indeed, a framework for refounding civilisation on sound principles:

 

 Notice, there is an anchoring to the liberation event. Lawful freedom is just that, freedom under just law framed by conscience-guided love to our Creator God and to our neighbour who is also made in God's image, with respect for marriage and family as foundational to human community. Those who disregard this, sooner or later will fall into oppression under lawless oligarchy, today's Pharaohs. So, we can freely take hostility to the decalogue as a strong sign of the wicked spirit of pharaoh at work. 

United States, I am looking straight at you. (Yes, that includes you, would-be censors who wish to put darkness for light and call light darkness. Go read Isa 5:20 and context.)

Indifference and neglect is but little better.

Caribbean, I am looking at you too.

Next, we may tie in to the endorsed core natural law testified to by sound conscience. To do so, let us look at Paul's summary exposition on the Golden Rule:

Rom 13:⁸ Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹ For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

It is interesting to compare Leviticus 19, to see how Moses built up, step by concrete, practical court room step, to that general rule of love:

Lev 19:⁹ “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. ¹⁰ And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.

¹¹ “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. ¹² You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

¹³ “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. ¹⁴ You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

¹⁵ “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. ¹⁶ You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life^[a] of your neighbor: I am the Lord.

¹⁷ “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.  

¹⁸ You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Let us note the yardstick cases:

• Leaving room for the poor and the refugee to glean, check
• You shall not steal, defraud, deceive, check
• You shall not misuse the name of God (doing evil or wrong under false colour of serving God, even before thoughtlessly using his name or turning his name into a swear word) check
• you shall not oppress or rob . . . Pharaoh, take due note, check
• you shall not take advantage of the disabled, check
• you shall do no injustice under false colours of courts of justice, worth a book in itself, check
• judge by what is right, not by who is rich or who is poor, check
• you shall not spread defamation [yes, media, this includes you], check
• you shall not persecute the innocent, check
• you shall not harbour hate or malice, check
• you may reason frankly to address grievances, check
• you may not carry out a vendetta, check
• THEN, we sum up, love neighbour as self
  

Frankly, just this list would be a major reformation in today's world.

 And, we see the clear message to the rebellious kingdoms of man:

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. END

Identifying the Pharaoh of the Exodus (yes, he is credibly identifiable!)

 

Amenhotep II, plausibly, Pharaoh of the Exodus
{HT: Expedition Bible}

Traditionally, the Pharaoh of the Exodus is a major biblical study in the folly of lawless oppressive rule, and where it ends, through the liberation of a "guest people" subjugated through fear that they were a threat. Thanks, in large part, to the predecessors who "knew not Joseph" and the blessing he had brought to Egypt. Of course, more broadly,  the Pharaoh of the Exodus is also a capital example of hard-hearted arrogant, morally blind misgovernment and where it predictably ends.

However, today, such lessons -- would that, say, Hitler, Stalin or Mao had heeded them! -- tend to be lost under a cloud of hostile skepticism and dismissive suspicion. Accordingly, a good place to begin is by dispelling such needless hostility. 

At least, for those willing to learn from history (including, sacred history).

As a beginning, Christopher Eames writes, in a recent article:

On the surface, there appear to be plenty of options for identifying the Exodus pharaoh. Dig down into the details, however, and it is evident that no other Egyptian period, dynasty and pharaoh gets nearly as close to matching the biblical text as the New Kingdom’s Thutmosid Dynasty pharaoh, Amenhotep II!  

And so, amid the multiplicity of theories about the Exodus pharaoh’s identity from scholars, ancient and modern, should it come as any surprise if the very ear-liest historians to mention his name—Egyptians, no less—got it right? More than 2,000 years ago, Manetho and Chaeremon—both Egyptian priests and histori-ans—insisted that the pharaoh of the Exodus was, as they identified him in their Ptolemaic Greek language, Pharaoh Amenophis.

Amenhotep (II), pharaoh of the Exodus.

That may seem bold, but the linked article provides substantial details, and we may find a video worth the pause to watch:

 

 Indeed, a simple timeline (clipped from the video) is suggestive, starting from the widely accepted date for building Solomon's Temple, 966/67 BC and taking the reference to 480 years since the Exodus as plausible, then using Egyptian Chronology based on Manetho:

Not to mention, the simple fact that the earliest two historians said just about that. (This should serve to counter-weight our habitual tendency to dismissiveness.)

Eames also elaborated:

Hatshepsut, plausibly Moses' step-mother

In studying Egypt’s history together with the biblical text, one can’t help but notice . . . Thutmose II’s gendercide, Hatshepsut’s lack of a son and kindheartedness for foreigners [plausibly, Moses' step-mother], and Thutmose III’s matchless power. Then there’s Amenhotep II’s cruelty [= hard heartedness], his destruction of Hatshepsut’s monuments, his wariness of foreign magicians [such as Moses and Aaron], his tubercle-riddled body [see above!] and the miss-ing latter half of his reign. Recall Thutmose IV’s surprise accession, the YHWH-worshiping nomads mentioned by Amenhotep III, and Akhenaten’s final repudiation of the very name Amenhotep and his total rejection of Egypt’s many gods (all while Canaan is being conquered by “Habiru”). All of these accounts directly parallel the bib-lical text—not only in substance but also in chronology!

 Such, should at minimum, give pause to skeptical dismissiveness. And, it should give us a modicum of confidence in pointing to and learning from the history of one of the first successful slave uprisings in history. END

So, how can we restore soundness (and sanity) to law, government and civilisation?

 First, by understanding what it takes to turn around a community dancing heedlessly on the crumbling edge of a cliff:

. . . and, what predictably happens if we go along with the suicidal "flow":

Underlying, it will be helpful to ponder who set up the Plato's Cave Shadow shows we may be confusing for sound reality, and what it takes to move the now notorious Overton Window:

Yes, ideology can lead a nation or a civilisation to ruin. After we saw the havoc wreaked by the Communists and Nazis in the last century, we should be doubly wary of today's Pied Pipers.

I like this video on Plato's parable, just ask yourselves about the spinmeisters behind the show that creates a false sense of reality:

 

This brings us back to the centrality of built in naturally evident first law, which can equip us for sound reformation. This can give us a framework of soundness that then helps us built critical mass to turn back from folly:

(And yes, given that it takes about a dozen exposures to break through the filters so we can actually hear a message in its own terms, we will see things like this chart again.)

Obviously, a first step is to begin to see things more accurately. 

 For example, we need to move beyond the outdated left-centre-right political spectrum. That was based on, champions of the traditional order sat on the Speaker's favoured right hand, and the ever more suspect sat to the left, the sinister side. In a day where the nominal centre -- the Overton Window -- is pulled this way and that and in which even the wrong words or daring to mention obvious but unwelcome truth can get one censored, that is even more outdated than it was once the American experiment in constitutional, democratic self government had clearly succeeded 150 years ago. 

Instead, we need to think in terms of tyranny, lawful government, constitutional, self government, where radical, lawless fashionably ideological oligarchy is every inch as tyrannical as any half mad colonial governor or would be absolutist king:

So, we can proceed to promote sound reformation by highlighting how we depend on cultural buttresses to support a constitutional democracy, as a corrupted public will undermine any attempt to balance freedom and lawful order. In that context, we can see how we can slide into lawless oligarchy if we forget first principles.

So, let us seek to build critical mass for sound reform. END

The Ciceronian first duties at work, starting with . . .

 In Nietzsche's The Antichrist, we may see an example of how the first duties subtly subvert the cynical, nihilistic hyperskepticism of our day:

I shall go back a bit, and tell you the authentic history of Christianity.—The very word “Christianity” is a misunderstanding—at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross. The “Gospels” died on the cross.

(It goes downhill, from there. [You may wish to compare here.])

Notice, how he claims to give "the authentic history"? How he insists that, 1900 years later, he understood Christianity better than the apostles and Evangelists, with their "misunderstanding"? Presumably, due to his skepticism?  How, he boldly tries to assert as startling fact that the Gospels "died" when Jesus was crucified? How he uses snide scare quotes to dismiss the Gospels? And so forth? Snide rhetorical stunt after snide rhetorical stunt, ad nauseam?

Yes, we here see how not even a genius level hyper-skeptic like Nietzsche cannot but appeal to our known, binding duties to truth, right reason, warrant, etc. They truly are the branch on which we are all sitting, foundational and self-evident.  As such, they then subtly subvert the attempt to cynically dismiss with a barely veiled slandering sneer. (A habit that has become all too common.)

Yes, we are back at the first principles (and duties) of reason, without which we cannot take even the first steps in rational thought, much less speech or argument:

We can then readily see how these same first principles and duties subvert similar fashionable attempts to reduce knowledge to opinion, virtues and values to indoctrination, even our own fact of coming in two sexes determined by XX and XY genes, to dozens of made-up genders, or to rewrite what marriage is, or justice, or inconvenient facts of history as we please. And no, rack notwithstanding, 2 + 2 is not reducible to whatever the party wants at the moment. All such are -- inadvertently -- forever exposed by Stalin's propagandists:

 

And yes, Yezhov, was also executed -- after he had led much of
Stalin's infamous Purge. (He was head of the NKVD.) Cf other cases

Instead, let us never forget: 

untruth, is -- and ever was -- the foundation of injustice.

So, we call to the first duties, as a beginning to return to civilisational sanity. END

Natural Law, Legal Positivism and the path of reformation

 I believe, for cause, that we need to restore the centrality of the historic view that intelligible, built-in first duties and first law are the core of law. 

If, we are to save our region and wider civilisation from needless catastrophe due to sliding into lawless, ideologically driven Orwellian oligarchy. Where, the institutionally dominant legal positivism of our day has undermined cultural buttresses that keep the state and/or ideologues in check, through the principles of lawfulness. No, law is not whatever those who control the legal presses decide to issue to effect social engineering. Yes, there is a civil peace of justice, as due -- and intelligible -- balance of rights, freedoms, duties.  Yes, as your right implies my duty, you may only justly claim a right if you are manifestly in the right.

No, might, manipulation and power games under colour, robes and ceremonies of law do not manufacture 'right' or 'rights,' 'truth' or 'justice.' Nor, do mobs baying in the street, nor de-mock-racy manifested in unsound votes: decree all you want to the contrary, if one jumps off a building he is going down, flapping hands notwithstanding.  That is true about economics and policies embedded in national budgets [e.g. inflation whether by fiscal policy largesse or ill advised money supply expansionism is an alluring but often ruinous policy . . . Jamaica, that is how your balance of payments position collapsed in just one year . . . ], and it is true for law and government in general.

Yes, when what is issued under colour of law becomes systematically corrupt, it is self-evident first law principles that empower sound reformation. Yes, it may take generations of heart softening, gradual growth in understanding and emerging critical mass to get sound reformation. If you doubt me, contemplate the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery.

Yes, there are times and places where we have become so debased in thinking and lacking in soundness that attempted constitutional reforms -- especially, if driven by ideological pressure tactics -- become doubly dangerous. 

(Jamaica, I am looking straight at you: do you not see that the manifestly poor governance of the ongoing reformation process is a self-exposing, self-discrediting, self defeating sign?)

Let us turn to a root source, here, Cicero in On The Republic:

On the Republic, Bk 3: {22.} [33] L . . . True law is right reason in agreement with [--> our morally governed, responsible, rational, significantly free] nature , it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it [--> as universally binding core of law], and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people [--> as binding, universal, coeval with our humanity], and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. [--> sound conscience- guided reason will point out the core] And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens [--> or even Jerusalem!], or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly considered punishment. . . . – Marcus Tullius Cicero, c. 55 - 54 BC [See, last time, on seven first duties: to truth, to right reason, to warrant and wider prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, so too to fairness and to justice.]

Here, too, we may ponder John Finnis, regarding legal positivism and the natural built in law Cicero points to:

[John Finnis on Natural Law Theories, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:] Natural law theory accepts that law can be considered and spoken of both as a sheer social fact of power and practice, and as a set of reasons for action that can be and often are sound as reasons and therefore normative for reasonable people addressed by them. This dual character of positive law is presupposed by the well-known slogan “Unjust laws are not laws.”

[--> that is, legal rules and rulings as issued are not merely social, observable facts of what has been issued under colour and ceremonies of "law"; cf. SEP on the now dominant Legal Positivism:

"Legal positivism is the thesis that the existence and content of law depends on social facts and not on its merits . . . [as] John Austin (1790–1859) formulated it . . . '[t]he existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another' . . . "

--> Instead, what is issued under colour and ceremonies of law is inherently, inextricably entangled with and accountable to prior canons of justice, which brings in the Ciceronian framework of first, built in duties and law of responsible reason; 

1st - to truth, 

2nd - to right reason, 

3rd - to prudence [so, warrant], 

4th - to sound conscience, 

5th - to neighbour, thus (as corollaries) 

6th - to fairness and 

7th - to justice, [ . . . ] 

xth - etc. 

Where, the civil peace of justice is the due balance of rights, freedoms and duties.]

Properly understood, that slogan indicates why—unless based upon some skeptical denial that there are any sound reasons for action (a denial which can be set aside because defending it is self-refuting) [sic] —positivist opposition to natural law theories is pointless, that is redundant: what positivists characteristically see as realities to be affirmed are already affirmed by natural law theory, and what they characteristically see as illusions to be dispelled are no [proper] part of [sound] natural law theory . . . . 

 

The point . . . is made in another way by Orrego (Orrego 2007). When the accounts of adjudication and judicial reasoning proposed by contemporary mainstream legal theories are added to those theories’ accounts of (the concept of) law, it becomes clear that, at the level of propositions (as distinct from names, words and formulations), those theories share (though not always without self-contradiction) the principal theses about law which are proposed by classic natural law theorists such as Aquinas: 

 

(i) that law establishes reasons for action [--> echoing Cicero's "highest reason"], 

 

(ii) that its rules can and presumptively (defeasibly) do create moral obligations that did not as such exist prior to the positing of the rules [--> e.g. drive on the left as a convention to order road traffic], 

 

(iii) that that kind of legal-moral obligation is defeated by a posited rule’s serious immorality (injustice), and 

 

(iv) that judicial and other paradigmatically legal deliberation, reasoning and judgment includes, concurrently, both natural (moral) law and (purely) positive law.  

 

Contemporary “positivist” theories are, it seems, [--> inadvertently!] natural law theories, distinguished from the [historic] main body of natural law theory (a) by their denial that the theory of law (as distinct from the theory or theories of adjudication, judicial duty, citizens’ allegiance, etc.) necessarily or most appropriately tackles the related matters just listed [as i to iv], and accordingly (b) by the incompleteness of their theories of law, that is, the absence from them (and usually, though not always, from their accounts of those related matters) of systematic critical attention to the foundations of the moral and other normative claims that they make or presuppose. 

 

In short: a natural law theory of (the nature of) law seeks both to give an account of the facticity of law and to answer questions that remain central to understanding law. As listed by Green 2019 (having observed that “No legal philosopher can be only a legal positivist”), these further questions (which “legal positivism does not aspire to answer”) are: What kinds of things could possibly count as the merits of law? What role should law play in adjudication? What claim has law on our obedience? What laws should we have? And should we have law at all? [BTW, this article -- as is true for ever so many SEP pieces -- would be an excellent first point of departure for academic or professional reading.]

Here, we have seen a framework that starts with first duties that are self evident, and which are therefore objective and knowable in themselves. Even the skeptical objector will find himself already appealing to such first duties in trying to object to them, to gain rhetorical traction. (What else do you think, implying inadequate warrant, suggesting fallacious logic or dubious truth are appealing to? But, as Cicero pointed out, "it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked." A word to the wise.)

Of course, Aquinas is a classic point of reference. For example, he speaks of Eternal Law known only to God, Divine Law revealed to us (presumably in Scripture), Natural Law known to us through reason, and Human Law enacted by parliaments, courts etc. Such a framework is obviously reflective of the Christian Synthesis of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome that transformed our civilisation over 1600 years ago as we may read in say, Augustine. However, in our hyper-secularist day, that is liable to be tagged religious imposition and hotly dismissed.

To which, for cause, I say: nonsensical appeal to prejudice or even outright bigotry!

As in, what part of "self-evident, branch on which we all sit first principles, first duties and so too first law" is so hard to understand?

Does it register that Cicero was a pagan stoic and Roman Statesman, summarising the inherited consensus of the Classical world -- as he explicitly says in his opening remarks in De Legibus?

Yes, these principles (not to mention the direct testimony of conscience) do point to an eternal lawgiver, source of our world and our Creator and just judge. That is an onward matter, though one we would be well advised not to brush aside lightly. 

Meanwhile, let us proceed to address what is already objectively true and knowable, rooted in branch on which we all sit first principles. 

From these, we may proceed to soundly build law and government, also finding pathways to sober, sound reformation. 

I think on balance, this is enough for now, to set out first principles without the distractions of contentious, confused, ill advised debates of our day. Apart from, of course, noting that the manifestly poor governance of the constitution reform committee in Jamaica is automatically a red flag that brings their claimed competence to reform a Constitution into doubt. 

Let us get the principles straight, then we may soundly proceed. END

 PS, I have been having weird error message loops from Google when I have tried to embed images. No, logging out and re-logging in does not work. I am wondering whether code updates by Google and/or by anti malware extensions may be at fault.