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Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’: A Coalition of the Constitutionally Willing

6/21/2021

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin': Constitutionally

Part VII of XIII

“… Something is happening Gus.”
“Tell me more Reb.”
“There doesn’t appear to be any resistance.”
“No one will defend the 435.”
“Correct.”
“Have the usurpers surrendered to the Constitution?”
“No.”
“I remember that feeling.”
“What do you remember?”
“Well, as Gus Kotka, I didn’t know about the thirty Thousand.”
“Right.”
“But as Gus Yank, well lots of Yanks knew, just like Jefferson Davis knew.”
“I hear ya.”
“Since we didn’t surrender to the Constitution until later …”
“… It makes sense they are feeling what we felt.”
“What would George say?”
“Political theory: George would ask Madison.”
“James would say?”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin': Willing

“Build a coalition of the constitutionally willing.”
“Sounds like us Reb.”
“Madison said there is a peculiarity in the Constitution.”
“What peculiarity?”
“With the Senate designed to represent states, and the House population, the peculiarity is that the largest populated states will align against the smallest concerning representation.”
“California vs. Delaware you’re saying Reb.”
“Texas vs. Rhode Island.”
“I understand.”
“That’s what’s happening Yank.”
“The formation of a coalition of the constitutionally willing.”
“In support of constitutional representation and the Seventh Amendment.”
“America’s been doing We the People wrong for 230 years.”
“Time to do We the People right.”
“Let’s visit a Reb.”
“Over here Yank, and up close …”

Next Up: 21 July and part VIII of the series Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’: Greenland Gap.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Truths

9/26/2019

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Tell

Part 6 of 13

“… Here we are Reb.”
“Perfect.”
“Almost.”
“What Yank?”
“No goddess.”
“Like before.”
“Slab’s still there.”
“And Thunderbolt’s in the shadows.”
“Reb – what were you gonna say about Tell-Lie-Vision and the thirty Thousand?”
“That Tell-Lie-Vision is now our ally.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No.”
“Why now Reb?”
“It needs the truth.”
“It tells lies with visions.”
“Yet lies need truths.”
“An example.”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank: Lie

“Camp life Gus.”
“Rife with rumors.”
“Twenty-four seven.”
“Things that disturb.”
“And entertain.”
“With nonsense.”
“Those are Tells Gus.”
“The camp takes on the Tells.”
“Everyone gets all Telled-up.”
“And then?”
“The Tell becomes real.”
“The Lie becomes real Reb.”
“Correct.”
“Camp gets mutinous.”
“Sound familiar?”
“Does Johnny.”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Vision

“Then the Vision.”
“Like fire you said.”
“Spreads like that Gus.”
“And?”
“The whole camp gets to believing the Lie.”
“A correction coming.”
“That’s how Tell-Lie-Vision will help us in the future.”
“Sounds like a fulcrum.”
“Nice.”
“And the Lies have the Truths stuck in the air.”
“And all constitutional questions begin and end with the thirty Thousand.”
“It’s We the People Reb.”
“It’s the Electoral College Yank.”
“The Seventh Amendment.”
“Article the first of the Bill of Rights.”
“The first veto and Usurpation Day.”
“And 17 September.”
“Good thinking Reb.”
“Thanks Yank.”
“Where’d our sign go?”
“The goddess?”
“Yeah …”

*Next Up: 27 September and part 7 of Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Daniel Morgan.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

United We Stand 2020: Part 2 of Hannah Arendt, American Greatness and Constitutio Libertatis

7/20/2019

George Hammer and Ida Schiekoff's Wedding Day

Celebrate the Seventh Amendment on 7/20

Whatever great means, it includes the idea of something worth passing on.

George Hammer, my maternal great-grandfather, was born American from German immigrants.

George’s mother was born in Massbach, Bavaria, Germany and immigrated to the United States and Illinois’ Jo Daviess County with her family as a teenager in 1865.

George’s father came here as a five-year old from Zeitfeld Province, Germany (which is hard to find on a map) in the early 1850s as part of an immigrant family of five; they stayed with fellow Mennonites in New York for three years before homesteading in Jo Daviess County.

The land both families homesteaded was available because of the end of “Indian” hostilities in Illinois after the Black Hawk War. I’ve published a pamphlet that excerpts an Illinois history book (1878) with some details on how that war started and ended: see Fire-Water Ignites Black Hawk War of 1832 (and other things).

George, Ida and family (around 1920)

George wrote a few letters to a German woman in Canada named Ida Schiekoff; Ida was born in Arnhausen, Germany (in 1945 the village became Lipie, Poland) and immigrated to Canada as an 18 year-old in 1891. The two met by reading the same German newspaper and became pen pals. George then went to meet Ida and her family in Canada a couple of times; they soon got engaged, married, and moved to the family farm in Illinois. They lived a simple farm life, nothing fancier than good shelter and plenty of food, as there wasn’t any extra coin. Money showed up later, in the next generation, when their son and my grandfather, Willis (the child in the picture without a jacket), told me they started making money off the farm by selling surplus milk.

Maybe right there is a glimpse of the constitutional right within the Seventh Amendment and why it is there; it isn’t written for the rich in coin, or they would have used it: it’s there for the poor. It’s also constitutionally connected to the thirty Thousand, as the usurpation has organized the judiciary and our American sense of justice; the time to review (and amend) the Seventh Amendment, thus bringing to life its constitutional social justice bearing, is when We the People are represented according to numbers (say in 2021 or ‘22).

The same commentator that noted Arendt’s Constitutio Libertatis and honoring of the founders, also pointed out that she only thought the founders were a partial success; that is because, according to the commentator, the founders didn’t create space for We the People to participate. I don’t agree and think the evidence, our Constitution, shows otherwise; the thirty Thousand, the Enumeration, and the Seventh Amendment do provide ways for citizens to participate in their government at a “local” federal level via small districts augmented every ten years. It’s the usurpers fault, not the founders, who are keeping We the People from our constitutional greatness: us too, the people, as we haven’t shown vigilance until now.

Great means that something is worthy of being passed on, of giving to others as a legacy. The former Germans Hannah Arendt and Ida Schiekoff, and the children of German immigrants, like George Hammer, left us an American legacy. American immigrants are greater than the usurpers, and the usurpation of our right to representation, according to numbers, keeps us from our constitutional legacy … and that ain’t great America.

*Next Up: 17 September, US Constitution Day 2019, and Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

In Honor of the Seventh Amendment: A Usurper’s Preamble

7/20/2018

Amendment VII.

7/20

Usurped States! Today we honor the Seventh Amendment to the US Constitution (and its “twenty dollars” right) with a Usurper’s Preamble:

We the People of the Usurped States,
in Order to form a more perfect disUnion,
establish inJustice,
insure domestic unTranquility,
provide for the common offence,
promote the general nonWelfare,
and insecure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Usurped States of America.

Next Up: Part 10 on 1 August of the summer series Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb Somewhere On Our Way: Equals.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

2020: In High Spirits, a Seven-Twenty Preamble

7/19/2017

The twenty dollar right in the US Constitution, Amendment VII

One gathers what another spills /
We the People /
Show some spirit /
For constitutionalism /
For the law that makes We the People We the People /
Every ten years

If you care to, ask yourself what you are doing for We the People? What part are you playing?

If the answer is nothing (no part) and that’s okay with you, then okay.

If the answer is nothing and that’s not okay, then do something to support the Constitution, our supreme law and the thing that makes us We the People, constitutionally reborn every ten years (enumeration / census).

Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 and the 7th Amendment are numerical avenues of approach for those of constitutional spirit ~ a spirit for constitutionalism. One could start by asking representatives (at all levels) if they support the US Constitution; they’ll say yes, of course, so then ask them the next question, the one about representing We the People by the “thirty Thousand” ratio or the one about the twenty dollars in the 7th Amendment: that will begin a conversation. If they support constitutionalism they are obliged (by citizenship and law) to help; if they don’t help, then they aren’t supporting the Constitution. If you don’t support the US Constitution, are you even still American? If so, how?

The representation usurpation ends when We the People want it to: if not now, what more do We need to see?

The Preamble, where our ideals are shown in high spirits and fulfillment waiting, is a We the People rally point; it reads like a dream, perhaps a dream we need to dream again …

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.

Tomorrow is 7/20; perhaps make a moment for Amendment VII, establishing Justice and insuring domestic Tranquility; read something, share something, or discuss with someone the implications of such a right hiding in plain sight (in the US Bill of Rights) and nearly 100 percent ignored.

For ourselves and our Posterity.

*Next Up: Friday 11 August and some receptor science ~ The Neurotransmitter Acetylcholine: Tobacco (Nicotine) Soldiers Soldiering.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Whiskey222: American Power and Hannah Arendt

10/29/2016

Hannah Arendt, American

The Human Condition
Action, section 28: Power and the Space of Appearance
Pages 199-200

“That civilizations can rise and fall, that mighty empires and great cultures can decline and pass away without external catastrophes – and more often than not such external ‘causes’ are preceded by a less visible internal decay that invites disaster – is due to this peculiarity of the public realm, which, because it ultimately resides on action and speech, never altogether loses its potential character. What first undermines and then kills political communities is loss of power and final impotence; and power cannot be stored up and kept in reserve for emergencies, like the instruments of violence, but exists only in its actualization. Where power is not actualized, it passes away, and history is full of examples that the greatest material riches cannot compensate for this loss. Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal, where words are not used to veil intentions but to disclose realities, and deeds are not used to violate and destroy but to establish relations and create new realities.”

*Next Up: A phenomena pamphlet, What if Vietnam Never Happened? Foresight and Hindsight in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, on Friday 11 November.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

2020: Update for Clinton, Trump and Constitutional Enumeration (Census)

10/8/2016

US Constitution, Article I

An Update

The Donald Trump campaign response to my email query:

Re: Thank you for your submission
Thank you for your email. We appreciate your support! A member of our team will be contacting you soon to discuss your inquiry.

Sincerely,
Team Trump

No one from Team Trump has called yet.

The Hillary Clinton campaign response to my email query:

Re: Your message about Hillary’s platform
Dear Bryan:

Thank you for your message about Hillary’s policy agenda.

Since announcing her campaign for president, Hillary has laid out a comprehensive policy agenda for the future we want to build together. To read more about her plans, visit www.hillaryclinton.com/issues—and sign up for The Briefing to stay up to date on the latest news and announcements, and get the facts on Hillary’s record.

Thank you, again, for taking the time to reach out. This campaign is fueled by the energy and ideas of the American people, and we hope you will continue engaging in the issues that matter most to you.

All the best,
Hillary for America

The Issues page lists lots of issues, though there’s no mention of ending the usurpation and representing We the People according to our numbers.

Inauguration Day is 20 January 2017, the day the new president takes the oath to support the US Constitution; two numbers must be addressed to fulfill that oath, the thirty Thousand for representation (which is George Washington’s number) and the twenty dollars for justice (which is part of the Bill of Rights).

*Next Up: Fire-Water Ignites Black Hawk War of 1832 (and other things), a pamphlet announcement on Saturday, 15 October.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

2020: Defining a Conservative-Liberal Via John Kass and Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune

8/4/2016

To see the political space of our times, one must breach the conservative and liberal bipolarity, as there is only one US Constitution and there is no conservative or liberal interpretation of the numbers in it.

John Kass and Eric Zorn write/work for Bruce Dold and the Chicago Tribune: Kass writes as a conservative and Zorn as a liberal. Both writers support the usurpation, the anti-republic, and use the notions of conservative and liberal as political markers (distinctions) without any founding reference; they write within the confines of usurpation and not the numbers of the Constitution.

Perhaps new language is needed for 2020. A conservative-liberal (CL) would support the US Republic and not the laws of usurpation. A CL, for example, supports Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, Article the first of the Bill of Rights (which moves the “thirty Thousand” to “not more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons), and the 7th Amendment and its twenty dollar justice clause.

CL, as an idea, resolves the conservative liberal bipolarity of our times and creates media space for constitutional representation and our sense of who we are: We the People.

*Next Up: The Union 2016 summer series continues on Sunday 7 August with part 7, Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Nowhere Hey You.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

2020: 7/20 Bill of Rights Participation Day, Do Due Diligence

7/19/2016

20 minutes for $20

Do due diligence.
If not now, when?
If not when, why?

Amendment VII

Next Up: The Union 2016 summer series continues on Sunday 31 July with part 6, Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Nowhere Moon Dark Side.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

2020: Part Two of the 7/20 Bill of Rights Participation Day Preparations, Jesus and Caesar

7/14/2016

Amendment VII

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,
And unto God the things that are God’s.

Give Caesar Caesar’s things, Jesus of Nazareth said.

The US Constitution is our modern metaphor for Caesar, temporal power.

When Caesar isn’t rendering (giving) what is the law, and instead diligently reigns via usurpation by ignoring the representation ratio, one Representative for every thirty Thousand people, and the 7th Amendment with its twenty dollar justice clause, then what are Caesar’s things?

Certainly, constitutional law, our Caesar and temporal power, is legitimated when followed (see John Locke); just as certainly, it is delegitimated when ignored (see current polity).

We the People matter.

Next Up: The Union 2016 summer series continues on Sunday 17 July with part 5, Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Nowhere Feather Birds.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner