Logic and the Declaration of Independence
—What are your premises? State them. What implications flow from your premises? State them. What conclusion do you draw? State it. In a bygone era, this used to be called a formal logical argument—
by Jon Rappoport
January 29, 2018
Note: My collection, The Matrix Revealed, contains a basic logic course. And my collection, Power Outside The Matrix, contains an extensive 11-hour audio presentation, Analyzing Information in the Age of Disinformation.
Logic, these days, has been replaced in schools with a mind-control apparatus that involves the following:
EVERY POINT OF VIEW IS EQUAL.
EVERYBODY HAS TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE WHOLE.
TRUE CRITICAL THINKING, WHICH IS THE EXCLUSIVE TERRITORY OF THE INDIVIDUAL, LEAVES PEOPLE OUT OF THE GROUP AND IS THEREFORE PREJUDICIAL.
If you favor this new formulation and think it’s useful, I have condos on Jupiter for sale.
The point of modern education, more and more, is:
“Good people belong to the group.”
“The Group is everything.”
“If you don’t belong to the Group, you have a mental disorder.”
Why is all this emphasis put on the Group?
The answer to that question also gives you the reason logic isn’t taught in schools anymore:
The independent self-sufficient individual is being phased out.
The independent individual who knows how to think and make lucid judgments on his own is a threat to the EMERGING RELIGION OF GLOBALISM.
Some people think education has been hijacked for the purpose of training children to become robotic workers for the State. That’s partly true, but education is also the proving ground for the religion of the Group.
This religion doesn’t need or want logic. Logic would be disruptive. It would differentiate one student from another.
A few years ago, I spoke to a teacher who was introducing his class to logic. He told me, “These are very bright kids. They’re all going to college. They said they couldn’t learn logic. They couldn’t do it. They had some kind of mental block.”
As we talked further, it became obvious that the mental block was an idea of THE GROUP. These kids had already been indoctrinated into “cooperative thought.” They instinctively realized that, if they studied logic, the Collective would break apart. Each student would have to stand on his own, and that prospect was frightening.
A person either wants to think for himself—and knows how to—or he prefers the hazy hive-like existence of belonging to something that is less than he is.
It’s that simple.
Several years ago, I came across a letter to the editor of Commentary Magazine, from its January 1979 issue. The author was a Thomas Jefferson scholar, Wilbur Samuel Howell.
Howell made several key points. As a college student, Jefferson studied philosophy and logic under Professor William Small, at William and Mary. Small had come to the college from Aberdeen, Scotland, where he had studied under William Duncan, a renowned logician and author of Elements of Logick. Indeed, Jefferson later remarked that Professor Small had gone a long way toward shaping his life.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that the Jefferson-authored Declaration of Independence would adhere to a logical structure. Indeed, the Declaration is a kind of argument from first premises, through to a conclusion.
I went back and read the Declaration, and I’ll open up its logical structure.
It begins with this:
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Jefferson, in this prologue, indicates that the people should state their reasons for separating from a ruling power. Before he goes on to do that, he enunciates his first premises.
All men have rights, and to secure them, they create governments.
Second, the people have the authority to abolish any ruler that tries to destroy those rights, and, in its place, the people should institute a new government.
Third, when a long history of tyrannical abuse proves that the old government cannot be corrected, the people have a duty to overthrow it.
Here is the relevant text:
“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. 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But 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. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. 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.”
What remains is for Jefferson to list the abuses of the British Crown; to prove, in other words, that the King has, in fact, brought on such a stream of tyrannical actions.
Well, here are the abuses—the first 20 of a longer list:
“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…”
At this point, Jefferson makes it clear that the colonists have tried, without success, to correct these tyrannical abuses through peaceful means. They are not acting in haste:
“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.
“Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.”
Jefferson then announces his conclusion, based on the prologue, the original premises of his argument, and the examples he has cited to show that the heart of these premises is true:
“We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
—Fire, passion, even poetry, held within the flow of a logical progression.
Jefferson was not only a devoted student of logic, he wanted to make the great case for freedom and independence by using its power.
In his mind, freedom and logic were connected.
If in our schools, in 2017, logic as a distinct subject has been reduced to paltry terms, how are students able to grasp the majestic nature of freedom, as expressed in the Declaration? How are they able to understand that living in freedom is more than vaguely drifting from one slogan to another, one addled piece of political rhetoric to another?
Note: James Madison, thought of by many as the father of the Constitution, studied logic intensely at the College of New Jersey. The course followed the pattern laid down in a famous 17th-century book, Logic or the Art of Thinking.
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Jon, if study the way people were living in America prior to the War of Independence in regard to commerce, trade, banking and land ownership, they lost the war of so called independence.
Plus if you read the 1st article of the trilateral agreement “Treaty of Peace” sovereignty was not given to the people only to the States.
Jon. PS: You may also consider what legal/lawful justice system was in place before the War of Independence that was also lost to the Royal Crown. As my Jesuit teacher asked – So who really won the war? When you know that answer position yourself to be on the winning side not to be a subject.
Sounds like you’ve been indoctrinated by Jesuit teachings. America very much gained freedom from tyranny by achieving independence. Did you know the death penalty applied for more than 100 crimes before this? Death for stealing. Is this right? There are only a handful of crimes that should be punished by death. This is one change made in the new America. this is one freedom.
Again they no longer could own their land free and clear=TAXES
No longer could practice or enforce Common Law, God’s Laws, Natural Laws of do no harm to another, the air, waters, soil, and all of the Creators creations. They got what the squires dished out from the Queen now called the BAR system of justice with man-made laws.
No local banking unless it was a part of their international banking.
No more contracting/bartering between two men without a legal paid for contract by the squire rules and on their paper..
And if you steel my horse (my livelihood) back then I would make sure you received the death penalty by my gun or rope.. You are to do no harm, but if you steel and hurt and make others suffer you must go away. You are evil and self-serving by your actions. Prisons are industries for profit, not rehabilitation.
No the Jesuits tell the truth, no indoctrination needed just debriefing. What most Jesuit student know are things government run or supported schools wouldn’t dare teach.
And for you. It’s hard to respond because you probably believe Washington DC is a part of the united States of America – You may also believe the Vatican is part of Italy and London is part of Brittan.
Here is another tid-bit I learned. No one has ever taken the oath the Constitution repeating the words of the organic title/preamble of the U.S. Constitution.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
They never say “this Constitution FOR the United States OF AMERICA”
They only swear to the corporate United States which does not represent the people of America.
By the way haven’t you notice, you can now get lock up for years even though did no harm to another or property. There are millions of people locked up in the prison industrie$ that did no harm to anyone..But the BAR said so and the one that was to represent you was also of the BAR Membership.
We hold these truths to be self-evident…
The problem is that when that text was codified, the truths WERE self evident. In 250 years they are no longer self evident but in fact a functional right of the state to determine what is.
Had it not been self evident but in fact been defined in detail because in the future people would forget, the flip of turning people into corporations would never have happened. Government was created to control commerce, decent idea in fact, but over time humans were turned into corporations which allowed the government to regulate them. Then over time they just accepted it.
Logic requires us to have a baseline of accepted premise’s and sadly the current baseline looks nothing like the Jeffersonian one.
Damn Jefferson, he should have anticipated the people in the future would be dumber, not smarter as he presumed.
You’re exactly right, Doctor; in time, Jefferson’s words in the Declaration eventually would fade as time passed; mainly, because the majority of teachers in the school systems within the expanding nation didn’t pass this fact on to their student bodies.
By the end of the the 18th Century .. especially in the northern states .. the Industrial Revolution was beginning to negatively affect farmers in those states, and young boys were put to work in the mills and other factories, thus. cutting into their education. This was rather tragic in many ways .. The wealthy were the only ones that went on to higher education, such as colleges and universities; the poor students never got beyond primary school level, because they had to work somewhat long hours in the factories. By that time, they weren’t learning much about the American Revolution and the reasons for it.
Even in the southern states, those who weren’t wealthy and didn’t own slaves to do the work on the farms, had their sons out working with them when they were old enough. Also, a good number of them started heading westward, out in the frontier wilderness, to start new lives.
You’re quite right in stating that Jefferson should’ve anticipated the future of the people would be dumber, not smarter as he had presumed .. However, none of America’s founders anticipated that trend; Within 30 years, the British would be back to try gaining back their former colonies in what would be the War of 1812.
Those were all seemingly good pretexts for breaking away. But they still were a pretext led by Freemasons. we paid far more in taxes after becoming “free.” Shay’s rebellion was about the USA government and courts steal farms from farmers to pay for the war. in the long term, we might have only gained a temporary stay of execution. We have fought many wars since, all very bloody and expensive. To quote the Eagles from “Desperado:”
Freedom, Oh Freedom
That’s just some people talking
Jon
Jefferson lied, and it is a glaring lie.
All men never had rights, beyond those they coveted and defended.
Governments pretended they operated for all men and imposed their “corporate” views. governments pretended these views were reasoned and holistic, but arguments defended the “many” in deference to individuals, so society has predictably become what it is today. Society is what IT IS TOLD TO BE. Governments are dictatorships and heads of government are dictators, regardless of due process.
There’s my LOGIC.
Best
OT
All the Squires (impersonators) that signed the Constitution or Independence docs lied. They all knew what was done by the Crown and Vatican prior to these documents being signed. The Papal Bulls and Treaty of Peace were well known to the Squires.
To “imply” means to make a direct statement to make an assertion. To “infer” means to provide statements from which may be drawn an inference, a logical syllogism, a conclusion.
Euclid’s Elements is Geometry. Geometry is not algebraic formulae describing two and three dimensional figures. Geometry is not mathematics. Geometry is a theory of eternal truths of number and proportion.
Euclid’s Elements teaches deduction and induction. Deduction is forming a conclusion from premises.
Induction is forming a conclusion as a generalization based upon repeated evidence.
Geometry is not taught in public schools. They have textbooks with the word “Geometry” written on the cover but they do not contain Euclid. Instead they contain algebraic formulae. Children are told that memorizaton is learning. When you study real geometry you know what constitutes a coherent rational argument. Real Euclidian geometry teaches you to recognize when you are being lied to.
Might there be a book you’d recommend, to learn more about true Euclidian geometry?
America’s problems are not to be blamed on our Founders or our documents. They are to be blamed on we-the-people for failing to “keep” our Republic by taking an active role in preventing and objecting to federal, state and local tyranny as it occurred stealthily over these many decades. And by not knowing or defending our Constitution when it was being violated. And by electing and re-electing smooth talkers we know nothing about instead of researching their politics, position, and behavior.
But what Constitution are you speaking of? The one that says OF or FOR the people of the UNITED STATES or the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? Seek the meaning of the words FOR and OF in the context they are used. Also, what is the United State vs United States of America.
Many of us believe that the constitution we are to have is actually a dormant doc until all take a new oath to the organic title of the Constitution. Until then it is SOS different day – we remain subject citizens.
Words mean everything, even word magic.
The words repeated by every President, Military personnel, Police & Peace officers, Civil Servants, Attorney/Lawyer when taking the oath do not exist In Law or At Law.
Yes, and I maintain all the public school books are lies and/or partial truths at best, plus there are outright omissions by design as the Bible is.
We are not to know nothing is new as all has happened before. Anunnaki at min were responsible for the knowledge of the sciences including math, geometry, physics, astronomy, first written language, and the structure of government. Then came the people of Sumeria. Gilgamesh told us of the Great Flood and the Ark thousands of years before the Hebrew Noah flood story.
If we wanted to truly educate our children have them read of Gilgamesh, Enoch, and Jasher as a starting point to encourage them explore the possibilities for who they are, where they came from and how to identify real evil on their own, not what they are told to know.
There are multiple Genesis accounts about the culling of evil for a new reset and restart. However, the fallen ones, the seed of them and the followers of them that covet this knowledge for their self-serving needs. I believe there has been a war on our DNA/Genetics by the abuses of the Tree of Knowledge. We are not to know of the Tree of Life choice that should have been taught first to limit the abuse of the knowledge for doing no harm so it may benefit all mankind.
Knowledge is powerful, only when it is shared with the masses so they may act on it to reduce the burdens on mankind by being our brothers keeper..
Allow me to simplify.
‘Group’ is hive mind. Psychopaths operate on hive mind and want to inflict their diseases on the would-be normals and use them as a cloaking device so they can surface as ‘normal’.
Psychopaths are parasites and hive feeding is EZ. Independent individuals do not submit to ‘feeding’ and are therefore wasters/culls ( the Orwellian reverse of normal )
It’s global psychopathy Jon. They have to cloak and feed – that’s what it’s all about. Submission to the hive mother. Easily fed apon/manipulated.
Thank you Jon!
The subject matter is certainly important as individual freedom & ability to think completely through a logical sequence can be critical! However there is a limit to logic. I offer the following from the Gene Keys:
[…]
To read about the Siddhi and this key more in-depth please read 63rd gene key in Rudd, Richard’s Gene Keys
Excerpts from: Rudd, Richard (2013-05-01). Gene Keys: Unlocking the Higher Purpose Hidden in Your DNA (Kindle Locations 3937-3939). Watkins Publishing LTD. Kindle Edition.
Good post Jon! Thanks.
It is submission to the hive mother at the cost of your honesty to yourself. When you do this you are on the path of self- betrayal and spiritual downfall.
Why have we as a society disregarded our Founding Documents?