Logic and the Constitution
by Jon Rappoport
January 30, 2018
Note: I include a basic logic course in my collection, The Matrix Revealed. I present an 11-hour audio section, “Analyzing Information in the Age of Disinformation,” in my collection, Power Outside The Matrix.
Yesterday, my article, Logic and the Declaration of Independence, traced the structure of Thomas Jefferson’s formal argument for breaking away from England.
Today’s college students would have a very difficult time perceiving that argument, since they rarely study logic at any depth.
But it would be nearly impossible for them to probe the Constitution and find the basic underlying premises.
The preamble to the Constitution contains rhetoric that gives no warning of what is to come.
Preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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.”
To exhume the purpose of the Constitution, one would have to read it and study it, and then decide what the document is driving at.
But since logic is no longer taught as a required subject in schools, the door is open to all sorts of bizarre reactions to the presence of ANY information.
Here are four favorites:
One: grab the headline or the title of a document, make up your mind about how you “feel,” and ignore everything else.
Two: Actually read the document until you find a piece of information that appeals to you for any reason; latch on to it, and run with it in any direction. In all cases, the direction will have nothing to do with the intent of the document.
Three: From the moment you begin to read the title of the document, be in a state of “free association.” Take any word or sentence and connect it to an arbitrary thought or feeling, associate that thought with yet another arbitrary thought…and keep going until you become tired or bored.
Four: Ask the most aggressive person you can find what the document is about and accept whatever he says.
You might be surprised at how many people use these four “methods of analysis.”
The very idea that the author of the document is making a central point doesn’t really register. And certainly, the notion that the author is providing evidence for the central point and reasoning his way from A to B to C is alien.
A college liberal education? These days it could be imparted in a matter of weeks, simply by hammering a small set of values into students’ skulls—along with requisite guilt and fear at the prospect of wandering off the reservation.
Logic as a subject is viewed with grave suspicion, as if it might involuntarily take a person down the wrong track and dump him in a politically incorrect ditch—a fate to be avoided at all costs.
Therefore, the practice of rational analysis is on the way out. Too risky. Besides, the preferred method of dealing with opponents is screaming at them, shoving them off stage, and whining about “being triggered.”
Studying the Constitution reveals that its driving force is: the limiting of centralized power.
Checks and balances, separation of powers, enumerating federal powers and yielding all other powers to the individual States and the people—it’s all there, but today’s students would have a hard time seeing it, much less understanding WHY.
Today, the centralized federal government (and its corporate collusions/partnerships) is an awesome colossus. Most people take that as a given.
Unlike the Declaration of Independence, which announces every move it makes and explains why, the Constitution reveals its purpose and method from the inside, so to speak, after analyzing it.
The Constitution was a pact among the former colonies, the newly formed States. The States were not eager to submit to a central government.
The abusive experience of Europe, behind the new citizens, was Rule From Above, by tyrants. Individual rights and private property had been hard won. They had to be protected at all costs.
So: bind up the central government; set one branch against another; allow only certain specified centralized powers; leave the rest to the States; permit as much individual liberty as possible. In fact, individual liberty was at the heart of the document.
Naïve students, demanding purity and perfection in the document, will never find it. For example, the Constitution was fully ratified in 1790, and slavery was formally abolished in 1865.
The logic of the Constitution was a two-step: limit federal power; these are the ways to accomplish it.
One could argue for or against each piece—but first he would have to recognize the pieces were there. These days, attaining that recognition is a serious problem.
Who would want to teach logic to students? What a waste of time. The purpose of education these days is injecting values and slogans and attitudes; and associating those values with attractive images. For that, you don’t need a mind. You only need mush that can be shaped.
And after what passes for a high school education, the mush is there. It has no clues about processes of thought.
Nevertheless, just suppose a teacher wanted to go where no one has gone for a hundred years or so. How would he start? Where would he start?
At the bottom.
Find a coherent newspaper article about politics. Have the students read it. Then ask them: what does the first paragraph state? What is it saying?
You may be surprised at the variety of opinion.
“It says Martians will be here soon.”
“It says President Obama was born in Hawaii.”
“It says cooking rice is easy.”
“It says I’m triggered and vulnerable.”
Carry on a discussion for as long as it takes, until most of the students know what the first paragraph actually states. This may be a half-hour, a week, a month. Who knows?
Repeat the process with each paragraph of the article. If that takes a year, so be it, because you can’t move further until students understand the text. I know that is a mystical and esoteric notion, but accept it on an experimental basis.
Next step: ask the students whether the author of the article is trying to make an overall point. Ask them what that point is.
“His point is he doesn’t like working-class people.”
“He loves cats.”
“He wants everybody to move to Mars.”
“He’s political.”
“He’s asking us to give money to Marco Rubio.”
Your work is cut out for you. Keep going until the fog clears. Have the students read the article over and over until most of them see the actual point the author is trying to make.
Then—how did the author try to convince you his point was correct?
Then—did you see a hole in his attempt to convince you? A gap? A wrong move?
This is the general sequence of steps. Basically, you’re sticking the students’ noses in the text. Again and again. You’re focusing them on specifics. You’re showing them the difference between their own opinions and random associations and what the author is saying.
You’re doing the one thing they’ve avoided doing. You’re standing in for every incompetent teacher they’ve ever had. You’re reversing years of desultory derangement in classrooms.
You’re making students more intelligent. That’s a very tall order. It takes commitment. If you don’t have it, get out of the business.
Mainstream news is a wonderful source for non-logic.
Logic topples arbitrary authority.
Logic allows you to move inside a complex argument. Once inside, you can give the argument a haircut and see its essence.
The interesting thing is: once people actually know what an author is saying; once they know what conclusion he’s reaching; once they know how he’s getting there; they can see the flaws and the omissions and the insupportable inferences.
They can see the line of reasoning, from beginning to end.
The lights go on.
A heretofore mysterious territory comes into focus.
The differences between fact, lie, assumption, argument, polemic, and propaganda emerge and the mind begins to breathe.
Perhaps for the first time.
Beginning in ancient Greece, coming up through the Middle Ages, and into the 19th century, logic was one aspect of education called the Trivium (“the three”): in sequence, a student learned grammar, then logic, then rhetoric.
Except in scattered places, where people have consciously instituted a revival of the Trivium, that integrated method of teaching is gone now.
Instead, in primary and middle schools, we have superficial coasting through many academic subjects, minus the necessary exercises and drills to ensure that students grasp material. In other words, we have imposed ADHD.
Finally, studying logic gives a student an appreciation of consequences. For example, a politician announces a high-flying generalization, as a plank of his platform. Two things ought to follow. The student does his best to translate that generality into specific terms which actually mean something. Then he traces what would happen if the plank were, in fact, put into effect; what would the consequences specifically entail? There are always consequences—it’s just that most people never see them or think about them, because they haven’t the foggiest idea about how to flesh them out and map them.
Logic: one of the great contributions to civilization, left to die on the vine.
It needs to be resurrected, in full flower.
(To read about Jon’s collection, Power Outside The Matrix, 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 this was excellent and I hope to read many comments in the positive
I believe that Trump understand your Constitution.
Tonight, in his State of the Union address, he closed his speech:with these words:
Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never forget: The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.
As long as we are proud of who we are, and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve.
This is excellent rhetoric, but I have learned not to believe a word Trump says; unfortunately, he is no different than most other politicians.
Trump is not a politician, maybe that’s why you view him the way you do. You measure him with the wrong stick. Only note his deliverables and if they harm you, not what hasn’t been delivered yet or you wish for. .
The [Malundi] President said. “I question why we have schools. If I were to take a child of six or seven and have them sit at a table in a factory for seven hours a day and then make them work two more hours at home, sewing buttons on shirts or labels into trousers, the world would, quite rightly, be up in arms. But force them to spend that amount of time in memorising some dates about ancient battles and to repeat the dubious claims of the victors, and such abuse is lauded as being ‘Education’.
Every child I ever met is intensely curious and wants to know everything, but trying to get 30 children of differing abilities to want to learn about the same thing at the same time in the same place is the problem.
I had thought of cutting the school day for children to three hours, with a morning and afternoon session for teachers, let the child choose one or the other. 10 to 15 children per class and teach a single subject for the whole session. That way the child has time to participate and become enthusiastic. ‘Enthusiastic’ as in inspired or possessed by a god.
…..
What I envisage is training and education, teaching our children to read and write and sing, but more importantly teaching them to think. A classical education, where Sophocles and Jefferson are the reading material, not Batman and the Simpsons. Where lessons are debates and discussions, not memorisation and mindless repetition, and if the whole day or week is devoted to contemplating why Caesar was prohibited from crossing the Rubicon, and why he did it anyway, then perhaps we will maintain a society where civility and good manners rule, rather than fear and greed.
It is a dream, but a worthwhile dream.”
Saddam’s Sister
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/749207
Set price to $0 if you want to read for free
“Logic, logic, logic! Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end.”
Logic (the foundation of mathematics), does not and cannot distinguish between correct and incorrect assumptions. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
The Constitution, like the Declaration, begins with certain assumptions:
“We the People…” Who were the “People” and did they have any input into the document? Did they even want it?
“…of the United States” Were the States united? Did any presumed unity arise before or because of a constitution?
“…a more perfect Union” MORE PERFECT? How is that even possible? What does that mean?
“Establish Justice” There was not Justice before the Constitution?
“…Insure Tranquility” What was the nature of prior domestic disturbances? Who or what caused them?
“…establish the common defence” The war of Independence had been formally concluded four years before the Convention, the Articles fully ratified two years before that. Why was this even mentioned?
“…provide for the General Welfare” Whose general welfare needed providing for? The inhabitants had carried out commerce and common defense without a constitution, so then what was the purpose of it–qui bono?
“…secure the blessings of Liberty” Can Liberty be secured by a Constitution? Can a Constitution secure Liberty for posterity? Can a Federal government do such things?
“To exhume the purpose of the Constitution, one would have to read it and study it, and then decide what the document is driving at” says Jon.
By asking questions about the assumptions underlying the Constitution’s preamble, it is readily apparent studying the Constitution will NOT reveal the intent of those who concocted it. A knowledge of the history of English political thought is necessary. Hence, the numerous books published attempting to ascertain reasonable answers to this matter, such as “The Mind of the Founder” (James Madison). Here again, in the title, we ascertain an assumption that turns out to be a false attribution. Madison was NOT the Founder of the Federal Constitution. An investigation into the Convention’s driving political thought reveals that if any one man was responsible for it, it was Alexander Hamilton.
Upon examining the train of English political thought, can such an idea as “We the People” within its tenets work as a function of binding contract (an English value)?
Logic is a necessary tool, yes. A study of the Constitution, the thinking and arguments of its proponents reveals that those individuals were no better at logic nor possessed of wisdom than any other man. The Anti-Federalists exposed the errors repeatedly.
An examination of the Declaration reveals many of the same kind of errors, such as the founding assumption that all men are created equal. Neither men nor women are equal among their respective genders or between genders. There is no equality among men in intelligence, skill, capacity, and most especially not in opportunity or outcome. The Holy Grail of Equality is what is destroying the fabric of natural society.
Is this word magic supporting deception?
In an effort to determine who were the “We the People” in the Constitution you must first note the meaning of the words in the preamble vs the words we are told to repeat when taking the oath.
Is it FOR or OF the United States, or is it FOR or OF the United States of America.
Then attempt to find which words/statement are In Law or At Law as a part of the oath taken. You will find that the words repeated when taking the oath of office do not exist anywhere in any legal document on earth.
Words mean everything, yes – no?
I submit in the future all taking the oath of office repeat the words in the context for meaning – We the People – Sovereign People of the united States of America are giving this document to the elected representatives of each State for the demands and guidance’s that SHALL be followed and enforced.
We the People should be building another type of wall the starve the swamp of potential evil doers.before any of the people’s representative can place their name on a political ballot they must submit to a city, State, DOD and FBI background investigation same as a private person must to work in the government space.Because We the People are the employer of said candidate the results of the background investigation SHALL be made public.
If this were in place for our representative when it was deemed necessary for the private sector employees, We would not know of many currently serving in Congress and the Senate including a Senator calling himself Barack H. Obama, II.
As the employer we have the authority to do theses things. But only if We the People are educated. All politics starts at the local level. Their is no need to have Capitol Hill in the District of Columbia be the decision maker on this vetting of those to represent We the People..
Whilst it is true that only one in a thousand can begin to analyse and comprehend the Constitution, the writers wisely put in place a mechanism of one in ten million to do so. Called the Supreme Court.
What is missing is not the intellectual awareness of the failings but the moral courage to do something when you see it fail.
“Fortunate is a nation which in the moments of trials and tribulations doesn’t stand round waiting for someone else to tell her what to do, but instead with simplicity and ease picks up a nearest wooden club and starts nailing her abusers, until in her soul the sense of injustice and fury is replaced by contempt and pity.”
Lev Tolstoy
Trying to find blogs or discussions where intellect and learning are in evidence is extremely difficult. I used to love ‘The Free Republic’ in the 1990s when every topic was an exercise in law and history and ethics, then came Bush and the blog descended as do 99% of the blogs into ;
‘Yes it does’
‘No it doesn’t’
‘Yes it does’
‘No it doesn’t’
‘Yes it does’
‘No it doesn’t’
“you suck’
‘no you suck’
‘no you suck.’
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
Isaac Asimov, Newsweek, 21 January, 1980.
George Carlin nailed it.
‘There is a reason that education sucks’.
https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=ILQepXUhJ98
“1984
Proletarians, in practice, are not allowed to graduate into the Party. The most gifted among them, who might possibly become nuclei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated.
From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is
since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important, the level of popular education is actually declining.They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect.”
It is incurable without a revolution and a new land. The founders got away with it because they ‘Got away’.
In England they would not have survived, the nobility, the oligarchs had complete control and would have crushed not only the people but the thoughts as well.
Cromwell and the Commonwealth had a brief moment of glory, but the ‘Deep State’ returned and threw them down.
Democracy and the American Republic has been an interesting experiment, but you do not really think that it can survive do you?
The ‘Song of angry men’ has been replaced by Jay Z’s ‘Big pimpin’
May God have mercy on our souls, we allowed it to happen.
Politicians (Most of them) have proven they are not citizens of the US, but citizens of their own regime and act accordingly. No longer representing the constitution or the people, but their own will and whatever benefits them. It would better to have no government at all, than to be an object under complete control of such evil and vile creatures.
I did not consent to the rules and regulations and laws forced upon me, and refuse the “Applied Consent” status we are all put under- (A clever choice of words the creatures adopted to benefit themselves and to try and circumvent their criminal acts).
I doubt not one of them could quote even the simplest terms of the constitution which they take oath to uphold (With fingers crossed behind them).
I believe you are on point and this maybe exactly why particular words are changed from the
Constitution’s preamble when they orally swear their oath of allegiance.
They never say the words FOR the United States of America, That would mean We the People give these set of rules and guidance to those that are our representatives.
They only repeat the words as instructed “Of the United States”…
They never say the words United States of America because they don’t recognize that the states are united by a sovereign people..They say only the words of United States which is the corporation that resides in the District of Columbia which is not a part of the United States of America.
They know that within the 1st Article of the trilateral agreement for the Treaty of Peace that sovereignty was only given to the States and/or the State Corporations CEO as it is today..
If you pull D&B reports on all State agencies you will find they are all incorporated businesses for profit. Same applies for all federal agencies in Washington DC.
Is this the game called snooker.
Hmmm
You are correct in asserting that logic, reason, critical thinking and not forgetting plain old common sense is sadly lacking in young people today.
The problem with your complaints regarding the failings of contemporary “analysis” and subsequent rebuttal is that often propaganda doesn’t employ a unified central theme. Therefore, in order to uncover the underlying intent, you often have to quite literally pick it apart. Seperate the wheat from the shaft as it were. And in case you haven’t been paying attention of late, “fake news” which is the overwhelming majority of what is read theses days, is just a Euphemism for plain old fashioned propaganda. And it bears noting that today, no country in the world employs more resources in this area, particularly on the internet, relative to their economic size, than Israel. And the overwhelming majority of those forces have been directed at American since day one.
The real message you are trying to sell here is that the current situation is really our own fault. To which I say baloney. The Republic is on the verge of collapse because the forces of Zionism have driven it there.
What was that again you were saying about selective analysis Jon?