The Room, the Boy, the Princess and the (Temporarily) Empty Nest

From the Sublime to the Mundane...

N. did get his room cleaned up last week in time to get on the plane on Thursday.

It is still a bit cluttered.

It is full of Boy stuff, but

you can walk on the floor

to get to the windows,

and the blinds are now open!

I got him some wheeled flat steralite boxes to store things like fishing rods under the bed, and I also got him stackable milk crates for the storage of notebooks and other stuff for Kamana and his other passions.

The desk top can be seen, at least in places where the terrarium that holds the fire-bellied toad is not.

The furniture was dusted, and the room now smells more of lemon oil than of dust.

It looks good. But it is almost uninhabited for the next month.

On Wednesday, I came home from my last day of early summer term IRD teaching (the new term starts day after tomorrow) planning to get up early to put N. on the non-stop flight from ABQ to ORD (O'Hare International).

But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and airlines...

As I was entering data at the IRD teacher website, my phone rang...er, played a line from a song chorus. It was a 1-800-number, so I let it go to messages while I finished my work. When I took the message, it was United. N.'s flight had been canceled due to weather...weather? How can a morning flight be cancelled due to weather the night before the weather occurs?

Oh, and by the way, sorry for the incovenience, but the passenger has been scheduled for a later flight through Denver to O'Hare.

So there was nothing for it but to call United and see about getting N. on another non-stop to Chicago. No Dice. I worried. N. has never had to change planes alone at a major airport.

I should not have worried. He followed my advice to ask the uniformed personel at the arrival gate how to find the departure gate. He had lunch. He made a call to me and his aunt on his new cell phone. All went well.

He's having a great time in Illinois.

My house is quiet. And relatively uncluttered.

No strange, crusty dishes appear in the sink at 10 AM.

August 2 feels like a long time away.

Fortunately, my coming five week schedule for IRD has more hours than the first session did.

It will go fast.

When I go to take care of the toad, I leave the spray bottle on the desk.

It feels more normal somehow.

Oh, and did I mention that the Chem Geek Princess has made an offer on a townhouse. One that is in town. So she'll likely be moving out at the end of July.

Do mother birds mourn the empty nest even when one birdlet is coming back?

I miss my boychick!

Declaration! The Pursuit of Happiness

This is the last in a series of three posts I have been writing about the Declaration of Independence. The insights in the posts are taken from discussions we've had here at Los Pecos Homeschool that have been refined by me to bring out the important point that we arrived at from our reading and discussion of the text of the Declaration, as well as other primary and secondary sources used to aid our understanding. The first two posts can be found by clicking The Crimes of the King (1st post) and Governments Instituted Among Men (2nd post).


In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson penned this famous phrase:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The rights to life and liberty are somewhat self-explanatory, and led to specific ennumerated rights in the first ten ammendments to the Constitution. The right to life, for example, involves the right to keep and bear arms in order to defend that right on the individual level as well as the national level. Certain rights to due process are extended as well, so that the state may not take a person's life for less than a grave offense (usually involving murder in the first degree) and with more than the usual safeguards. Thus the lengthy process of appeals for criminals facing execution.

The right to liberty mentioned in the Declaration also led to specific ennumerated rights in the Bill of Rights mostly related to due process. For example, and the right to freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, as well as the right to refrain from self-incrimination. All of these rights protect the citizen from a restriction of liberty at government hands.

But the pursuit of happiness is particularly interesting because it is less rigourously defined nor is it usually directly connected to certain liberties ennumerated in the Bill of Rights, although it can be, as we shall see.

The origins of the phrase are thought to be a paraphrase of John Locke's statement that "no one ought to harm another in his life,...liberty, or possessions." Elsewhere, Locke thought of the rights as "life, liberty and estate (property)," and these are indeed the rights that ennumerated in the Constitution and ostensibly protected by the United States Code of Law.

Some historians believe that the phrase "pursuit of happiness" was introduced to replace the term "property" because of the argument over slavery that was ongoing from the very beginning of the American experiment.

However, the concept of a right to the pursuit of happiness also has its own intellectual pedigree in the English Enlightenment tradition. The concept that an individual should pursue what he or she deems to be good in life is a revolutionary idea that reinforces the value of each individual life, and the unique makeup thereof. Happiness has no universal definition; rather each person is the arbiter of what it means. Therefore, the right to pursue of happiness includes but is not limited to the right to property. It also includes the right to individual choice in vocation and manner of life for each person, limited only by the restriction on the violation of the rights of others. (Slavery was a clear violation of the right to pursuit of happiness, and the founders knew it, and this expression of the right was incompatible with it. Sadly, it still took nearly 90 years more to settle the argument and longer to enact the 14th ammendment).

Thus the ennumerated Constitutional rights to freedom of speech, press, religion, and public assembly may be derived from Jefferson's right to the pursuit of happiness, as well as the protections placed on the ownership of property that guarrantee that citizens have freedom of movement and the freedom to choose where and how to live and work. All of these choices define individual assessments of what it takes to live the good life.

Courts have referenced the right to pursuit of happiness in several court decisions: one that upheld the right of a citizen to choice of vocation (Butcher's Union v. Crescent City, 1884), the right to privacy via the 14th ammendment (Meyer v. Nebraska, 1923), and the right to marry as one chooses (Loving v. Virginia, 1967). This last struck down anti-miscegnation laws as unconstitutional. If the courts are true to precedent, it is likely that this same argument can and will be used to strike down laws prohibiting legal unions between gays.

What is so politically revolutionary about stating such a right in the Declaration of Independence is that it is a radical change in philosophy. Previous to the English Enlightenment, an individual in the west was subject to the king, church, and state; his life was to be lived in service to these entities, and his personal happiness and choices were to be sacrificed to these higher powers. The idea that a human being is property of the state or of society still exists in socialist, communist, and theocratic states. Such slavery is incompatible with American ideals.

The founding of the United States as a servant government via the Enlightenment philosophy of individual rights turned the idea that a human being lives for the state on its head. The statement in the Declaration of Independence "...that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" encoded the idea that government is the servant to the citizen and not his master is truly revolutionary. And like all such ideas, did not come to immediate fruition. The emancipation of slaves, the emancipation of women to live as full and equal citizens, and further work to ensure the freedom of all citizens to pursue the good life was and is ongoing.

As Americans, we are free to make our own choices as to how to pursue what we personally deem to be the good life. No one may dictate for us what that should be or how we should pursue it. The restriction we place upon ourselves to this purpose is that we may not dictate by coercive force how others among us choose to do so, nor may we violate the rights of others in our pursuits.

Photo Credits: 1) Declaration of Independence Image taken from Engraved version by William Stone, 1836.
2) Sailor aboard USS Constitution in Period Dress. E.Levin, July 2004.
3) Patriot, Living Historian, Boston Common, E. Levin, July 2004.

Independence Day

Happy 232nd Birthday, USA!

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania adopted the Declaration of Independence, launching the most revolutionary experiment in Liberty ever.

The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the United States. Never before had a nation been formed by an explicit declaration that outlined the reasons for the formation of a new government, and the purpose of that government.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Striking the Colors on the USS Constitution

E. Levin, July 2004

Never before in the history of human governments had a government declared that human happiness was a legitimate purpose of government. It's an amazing statement, if you truly consider the implications. Of course, no one can guarrantee a person happiness. But the right to pursue it is yours.

Happy Independence Day, Americans!

Go out there and pursue some happiness!

And here, for you listening pleasure is the Boston Pops performing John Phillips Sousa's

"Stars and Stripes Forever" at their annual July 4 concert a few years ago.

I will never forget Arthur Fiedler's passionate conducting of the Pops in this annual July 4th favorite on July 4, 1976. Alas, I have only the memory, since I had no video camera that year.

Declaration! Governments Instituted Among Men

During this past year, as part of N.'s civics education, we have been studying the founding documents of the United States. We have done this to educate him about the meaning and unique role of our nation, but also to remind ourselves of the blessings that we have inherited by our good fortune that our grandparents arrived, 'homeless, tempest tossed' upon these golden shores. In these days leading up to and including the Glorious Fourth, I am blogging some thoughts distilled from our study of the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776. This is the second in the series. The first is The Crimes of the King.


A truly revolutionary enlightenment idea that came to fruition with the founding of the United States is a concept of government never before enacted anywhere in the world.
In the Declaration it is expressed so:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

This is truly revolutionary. Prior to the establishment of the United States, nation-states were ruled by kings (and a few queens), and their peoples were subjects. The king ruled by the concept of divine right (though the Enlightenment philosophies had weakened the idea somewhat) and the subjects owed the king fealty and obedience.

Note: It is interesting and logical that these ideas that were being used to separate America politically from the British crown, since the notion of certain rights retained by the subjects were recognized by English common law and codified for the nobility in particular by the Magna Carta. The English were more free and law-governed than the European continent. In fact, the American rebellion started as an assertion of "the rights of Englishmen" and became outright revolution only after a series of progressively more tyrannous policies were enacted, culminating in the closure of the Port of Boston. The ensuing unrest was then to be quelled by the seizure of arms from the militias of Lexington and Concord, Massachussetts, by General "Grandma" Gage. The planned seizure was detected and met armed resistance, and the Revolution was "on."

The words of the Declaration turn this idea upside down. Now the government has a specific and limited purpose: to secure the natural rights of the citizens. These rights are not given to the citizen by the government, they are derived from from the nature of the human being as a human being. And this government that serves this purpose derives its "just powers from the consent of the governed." Anything that the government does that does not serve to protect the natural rights of individuals is therefore unjust and tyrannical. And since governments serve at the consent of the governed, the governed are then free to to "fire" the tyrant and establish a new government. Treason, then, is an act against the rights of the governed, not an act of disobedience. Free citizens are not required to be obedient to a government. Rather, they require themselves to the Rule of Law. This is why civil disobedience is not treasonous for citizens, as it would have been for subjects.

The Declaration thus states:

"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

This statement, together with the statement of the 'crimes of the king,' comprise the justification for the taking up of arms against the King's Redcoats, and the decision of the Thirteen (former) Colonies to declare independence and set up a goverment "in such form as...to effect their safety and happiness."

Ultimately, after the terrible war, the patriots established such a government, and with the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, sought to codify important rights that derive from the rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness." In an effort to protect these rights against a tyrannous government, the anti-federalists insisted on the Bill of Rights, which consist of the first ten amendments to the constitution. Especially important among these are the last two of the ten amendments:

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

These, in particular were meant to restrain the federal government and the states from limited rights to those ennumerated within the other eight amendments.

Although the Bill of Rights meant that the constitution was adopted, some of the founders were still skeptical of the power of government, which they correctly foresaw would become jealous of power and begin to vote in unconstitutional laws and permit unconstitutional acts against citizens; a government that began to think of itself as a ruler rather than a servant government charged with the protection of the rights of citizens.

Thus when Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, he was asked by citizens gathered outside of Independence Hall, "Dr. Franklin, what kind of government shall we have?" To which he responded, "A republic--if you can keep it."

Thomas Jefferson, also a member of the Declaration committee, and the man who penned the first draft of the Declaration of Independence truly believed that to maintain a free republic it would be necessary to hold a revolution every twenty years give or take a few.

So it is that the citizens who declare some version of "throw the bums out!" are in the grand, Jeffersonian tradition. When considering political acts of obsta principiis (resist the first advances) in this election year, it would be good for us to remember that the Demo-Republicans have no "right" to our votes, and that these particular parties have become much too wedded to power, and much too neglectful of their obligations towards the natural rights of citizens to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I am going to honor the Spirit of '76 by making a formal commitment to express my real preferences in the voting booth. As I have previously done in every election that I have voted in, I intend to resist pressure suggesting that unless I vote for either the slow or the fast train to perdition, I am "throwing away my vote." I challenge you to do the same.

Photo Credits:

1) Declaration of Independence as printed in the Pennsylvania Packet, July 1776

2) 'The Rude Bridge that Arched the Flood,' Concord, MA E. Levin, July 2004

3)Concord Memorial, Concord, MA, E. Levin, July 2004.

Rainbow Over Los Pecos

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

A rare morning rain coming in from the west, combined with a partly-cloudy sunrise brought us a beautiful sight this monsoon season.

A full arc rainbow over Los Pecos, here seen on the western sky, over the new road.

Here it arcs down and seems to rest behind the house.

Here is one limb over Los Pecos Loop.

You can see the beginnings of

a double rainbow above and to the right.

I couldn't seem to find the pot of gold, though, until I realized that owning a house in this beautiful place is all the wealth we need.

Declaration! The Crimes of the King

This year at Los Pecos Homeschool, N. and I have engaged the founding documents of the United States as part of our civics education. The study has led us to understand our nation and civilization more deeply, and has engendered in us a greater respect for the principles upon which our nation was founded. Ultimately, the study has led the adult members of the family towards a more overt libertarian political view. I say more overt because homeschooling is in some sense a politically radicalizing act, even if the original motives of the homeschooling family were not politcal. Clearly, to buck compulsary government education implies a somewhat libertarian worldview to begin with.

Today is July 1st, and as we approach the Fourth of July holiday, which is the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I thought it would be instructive to blog some of what we learned in our study. So over the next few days, I will blog about the Declaration with some focus on parts that are not ordinarily highlighted by our political leaders--perhaps with good reason given the general collectivist, anti-liberty stance of those in power.

Most of us--or at least those of a certain age--are familiar with the stirring beginning of the Declaration of Independence:

"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights..."

Stirring words indeed, and we often stop reading and quoting there, but as the Declaration is a document that explicates the reasons for the rebellion of the American colonists against their government in England, delving more carefully into the rest of the document can give us insight into the values of our nation at the founding.

The founding generation of Americans found cause to take up arms and stake their lives on the enlightenment idea that each person was endowed with certain rights not given by kings or priests, but that are derived from the nature of human beings. The body of the Declaration states that:

"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security..."

What were these "abuses and usurpations" that were so great as to to cause the embattled farmers of Lexington and Concord to fire the shot hear 'round the world?

The Declaration lists them in a section that is informally known as "the crimes of the king," listed thusly:

"The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
"He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

What is so interesting about the crimes of the king is that to most of the people living on earth then, as well as now, these actions by government were, and are, considered right and normal. N. and I continue to note how often Americans (!) talk about our government as if its objective is to rule over us and impose upon us legislation for purposes other than the protection of our natural rights.

It is an interesting exercise to consider the crimes of the king in light of the various usurpations of our liberties by our own government that we take for granted today. The examination of just a few such from the list above are instructive. Consider for example, this one:

"He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." This usurpation has to do with the multiplication of bureaucracy; unelected officialdom that can and does violate our civil rights for purposes not made plain to those whose rights are violated. Think about the IRS, which has been unlawfully given powers that even the judges of Supreme Court do not have to destroy commerce and ruin lives. Think about the increasing power of the Census Bureau, which has now been unconstitutionally empowered to harrass citizens until they surrender even the most personal information to faceless government officials. And these organizations certainly do "eat out our substance," as is demonstrated by the excuse of the Census Bureau that they are providing jobs for people otherwise unemployable. So our substance is transfered to people who cannot find productive employment for the sole purpose of violating our rights at our own expense! (Rational Jenn is definitely on to something in her discussion of the sanction of the victim).

Or what about this one?

"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation..." Has not our own government recently, in the name of 'multiculturalism' and 'citizenship in the world' been willing to forgo our national sovereignty on a multitude of issues, thus subjecting American citizens to violations of their rights that the federal goverment exists to protect? Think about it with respect to our government's acquiesence to the World Court or to foreign governments in matters of transport, trade and resource use.

I am sure that every reader could tackle one or two of the crimes of the king and find ways that we, a free people, acquiesce every day to what our founders considered tyranny.

But my point here is that those patriots were protesting behavior by governments that was accepted as appropriate then and, for the most part, now. And not only did they complain about it, the staked their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" on their right to be free of it. They armed themselves, marched out to the battlefield and were soundly defeated over and over again by a professional army quartered among them before they won their freedom.

Why? N. and I believe that it was because they understood something that we have forgotten. There is no such thing as partial liberty. Either we are free and independent or we are subjects and dependent. And in this day of the Nanny State, many of us do not protest the gradual usurpations of our independence, lulled as we are by the comfortable numbness of cradle-to-grave government meddling.

Our founders were made of sterner stuff. They understood that to be free is to be responsible for one's own life and fortune; that people cannot be coerced into freedom and righteous behavior--they must choose it, live it and defend it. They reckoned that submission to even the most innocuous of violations would lead inevitably to servitude:

"An incautious people may submit to these demands, one after another, until its liberty is irrevocably gone, before they saw the danger. Injuries small in themselves, may in their consequences be fatal to those who submit to them; especially if they are persisted in. And, with respect to such injuries, we should ever act upon that ancient maxim of prudence, obsta principiis.* The first unjust demands of an encroaching power should be firmly withstood...And oftentimes it may be both the right and duty of a people to engage in war rather than give up to the demands of such a power, what they could, without any incoveniency, spare in the way of charity..."

--Simeon Howard, Sermon Preached to the

Ancient and Honorable Artillary Company of Boston, 1773.

Obsta Principiis: Resist the first advances. That's what they did at Lexington and Concord.

I believe that lurking somewhere in the souls of a free people, there is an understanding of another maxim: "Give 'em an inch, and they'll take a mile!" So it is.

And so this July 4th, I hope that many of us will consider the wisdom of resisting the first advances encroaching on our liberties. Take some action, some small step towards an understanding of and a defense of our American ideals. I believe that lurking somewhere within us is the strength and resolve of our founders, the resolve to resist the first advances.

Photo Credits: 1) Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia.

2) Lexington Green Memorial, names of those who died, 18 April 1775. (E. Levin, 2004)

3) Living History Minuteman, On the Green at Lexington, MA. (E. Levin, 2004)

4) Minuteman Memorial, On the Green at Lexington, MA. (E. Levin, 2004)

Update: Steyn 'Hate Speech' Trial

Last week I wrote about the Mark Steyn Trial as a case in point of the danger to the Rule of Law created by so-called hate speech legislation.

It seems the trial of Mark Steyn in the British Columbia Human Rights Commission kangaroo court has been dismissed. It appears that the provincial government has not the stomach to ruin the lives of bestselling authors, only of people who have no public persona and no redress.

Steyn is a New York Times bestselling author and the case was getting unwanted (by the HRC) publicity--in the United States. You can read more about that at the Ottawa Citizen, here and here.