Our Time.
10 random takeaways.
1.
Article summary:
From union leaders standing up to the boss to modern-day NO KINGS protests, the timeless struggle to limit power is about defending individual rights and freedom against the will of any king, boss, or crowd.
2.
Quote:
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
- 1755.
Understanding social constructs well, allows you to abide and perhaps even mold many powerful parts of your life. These shared agreements are not raw nature. Things like money, laws, and roles are traditions that shape reality only because people act as if they matter.
3.
From History: 6 Dec 1865
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, but it left one major exception: forced labor could still be used as punishment for a crime after conviction. That exception mattered. It ended chattel slavery, yet it also left a legal opening that shaped prison labor and later systems of coercion. Today we sill have forced prison labor including chain gangs.
4.
The Founding generation lived in a complicated time. Older Protestant moral instincts were still in the air, but they also pulled from Enlightenment reason, political realism, and growing pluralism. Their great achievement was not perfection. It was building a republic broad enough to soften older extremes and hold disagreement together.
5.
From History: 1903 to 1950, aged 46.
Orwellian Thought
Born Eric Arthur Blair in British India, George Orwell wrote in English about how corruption starts when language is twisted, facts are manipulated, and authority demands loyalty over reality.
6.
Government should act like we all do on a ship. When on a ship out at sea, the captain is in charge and primarily concerned with a safe trip across the ocean. On any given ship will be a mix of religions, races, and worldviews. The captain must be concerned about safety and should allow all to practice whatever traditions they want so long as they don’t hurt others.
7.
Article summary:
The story of early religion from Roger Williams’ groundbreaking multi-faith colony to the intricate beliefs of seekers, agnostics, and believers is the story of modern secular multi-religion society.
8.
Think well by judging movements by their actions, not their slogans. A party can hold legitimate conservative views and still fail ethically if it excuses lies, intimidation, election denial, or authoritarian methods. Under pressure, personal morality surfaces; with power, group ethics surfaces. That is the test.
9.
Before Newton, we observed falling things, weight, and the heavens. Newton unified those observations into the universal force of gravity. Einstein came along and broke Newton’s law and redefined gravity as the fabric of space-time, but his idea of smooth space failed at the sub-atomic. Quantum mechanics, a collection of our best ideas about the small-realm, came along and quantized space. It says space comes in small packets.
10.
The USA began as a white-power oligarchy with white land-owning males ruling the herd. However, the genius of the Founding Fathers was in the details: their support of democratic values, the framing of an evolving system as in “a more perfect union,” and the Federalist Papers which promote their true intent for equality for all.
The End. Refresh for another set.