Category: - Bryan William Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Thomas Sumpter (also Sumter)

10/3/2019

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Thomas Sumpter (also Sumter)

Part 10 of 13

“… Cannon without carriage.”
“Battle’s over.”
“There’s another thing about 9 April 1792 Gus.”
“What Johnny?”
“Fort Sumter.”
“What about Fort Sumter?”
“The fort was named after Thomas Sumpter.”
“With a P?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s he?”
“American revolutionary.”
“Knew Morgan?”
“Definitely, as Sumpter was from Virginia and, like Morgan, fought the British in South Carolina.”
“What’s Sumpter got to do with Usurpation Day?”
“Sumpter was in the House with Gerry.”
“Representing Virginia?”
“South Carolina.”
“Go on.”
“The British general Morgan defeated at Cowpens gave Sumpter a nickname.”
“What?”
“Carolina Gamecock.”
“Fighter.”
“Thomas Sumpter voted Against the usurpation on 9 April.”
“Supported Washington’s veto.”
“And the Constitution.”
“Unlike Gerry.”
“Fact.”
“And then you rebels, ordered by Jefferson Davis, fire on Sumpter’s namesake, Fort Sumter.”
“April 1861.”
“What’s the Latin mean?”
“This is about Cowpens.”
“Duci Ex- I can’t make it out Reb.”
“Duci Exercitis … Translates as leader of armies (or army leader).”
“Who’s the native?”
“Uh … let’s step over here.”
“Why Reb? …”

*Next Up: 6 October and part 11 of Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Hellenistic.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Mischief Makers

10/1/2019

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Mischief Makers

Part 8 of 13

“… Elbridge Gerry.”
“Never heard of him.”
“You will.”
“Listening.”
“Gerry was in the House on 9 April.”
“Usurpation Day.”
“Representing Massachusetts.”
“Yank.”
“A mischief-making Yank.”
“Say more Reb.”
“Gerry was also at the Constitutional Convention.”
“With the founders?”
“Yup.”
“Did he sign?”
“Nope.”
“Why Johnny?”
“Gerry didn’t sign ‘cuz he said democracy was the worst of all political evils.”
“Evil?”
“Evil.”
“Go on.”
“Then on 9 April 1792 Gerry supports the usurpation.”
“Leader thereof?”
“Evil is as evil does.”
“Chief Mischief Maker then.”
“Correct Gus.”
“One hears the truth and does it.”
“The other hears the truth and quibbles.”
“Amen.”
“Gerry also predicted our civil war.”
“When?”
“The first Constitution Day.”
“So Gerry didn’t sign the Constitution on 17 September, said there’ll be civil war, and then led the usurpation five years later.”
“And there’s more.”
“Constitutional sinner.”
“Yup.”
“What’s with the circle Johnny?”
“Let’s look closer …”

*Next Up: 2 October and part 9 of Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Jefferson Davis.

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

We the People and Usurpation Day 2019

4/9/2019

George Washington's Textbook

Today is Usurpation Day, which first happened on 9 April 1792, when the US House of Representatives broke their word and usurped a power not granted by law.

What created that usurpation moment was President Washington’s first veto, which was also the first veto ever under our Constitution.

President Washington, being a surveyor and Freemason, knew numbers; he also knew the Constitution, which he helped write, and which clearly states: “shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand” (Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3).

What shall not exceed thirty Thousand? That would be the number of Representatives due a state for its enumeration.

In the first attempt to use the enumeration, Congress sent President Washington a bill that dropped the fraction; if a state had thirty Thousand and one, they were due, according to the phrase “shall not exceed,” another Representative. Instead, Congress dropped the fraction and did not give certain states another Representative.

Washington vetoed the bill.

The House of Representatives, unable to override President Washington’s veto, passed a new bill for representation on 9 April 1792, the first usurpation law, and used a divisor of “thirty-three” Thousand for representation instead.

President Washington also knew of the Bill of Rights and its Article the first, the one about moving said representation ratio to forty and then fifty Thousand. Washington either let the new representation bill become law without signing it, or signed it knowing he had made his point and believing this issue would be resolved with the passage of Article the first: this has yet to happen.

Washington was a creator of We the People and the idea of representing ourselves according to numbers. Twenty-twenty is the next enumeration. Why not now ‘Merica? Why not you? Time we did it, time to count the people, divide by thirty Thousand like George taught, and see what We the People really look like … according to numbers.

*Next Up: 9 May and a 2020 We the People update.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner
~.~
“Those who toy with life never attain mastery. Self-discipline and courageous contemplation are necessary steps to understanding. However, do not become overzealous and drill yourself into the ground.”

From Brian Browne Walker’s The I Ching or Book of Changes: A Guide to Life’s Turning Points (1992)

Usurpation Day 2018: Ex Falso Quodlibet / From a Falsehood, Anything (Follows)

4/9/2018

We the People

Willis and Millie

The phrase ex falso quodlibet / from a falsehood, anything (follows), is known as the “principle of explosion” because it blows-up (makes trivial) how true and false work.

The book Farm Boy by Archie Lieberman (1974) depicts my maternal grandparents, Willis and Mildred (Evans) Hammer, as they farmed and raised a family. I’m pretty sure Willis and Millie didn’t know any Latin other than what they learned in Bible study; they would have understood “from a falsehood, anything (follows)” though, and even taught a similar lesson: two wrongs don’t make a right.

There are two great wrongs involving We the People and the usurpation of representation according to numbers. The first involves the usurpation that happened 9 April 1792, when, in response to President Washington’s veto of the first bill sent from Congress regarding the enumeration (census of 1790) and representation, the House of Representatives usurped a shall; the House ignored Washington’s veto and the constitutional ratio of "one for every thirty Thousand" and passed a number more likeable to the usurpers: one for every 33,000.

Veritas

The original constitutional ex falso quodlibet may appear small and perhaps harmless, but consider this: it created the conditions for the second great usurpation, the one that began in 1920. With women getting the vote and other social disruptions within the WW1 era, the House of 1920 did something extraordinary for the second great wrong: nothing. Since the first usurpation, Congress had at least kept using a number, they just kept increasing the ratio in favor of the usurpers; instead of using the census as intended, the counting of We the People for representation, the 1920 House openly ignored Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of our Constitution. It wasn’t until 1929, with the next decennial enumeration looming, that a law was passed setting House representation at 435, regardless of number, thus counteracting the definition of We the People.

Things tend to end as they began. The original usurpation of 9 April 1792 was a fill-in-the-blank moment; the bill was prepared with a blank left for a number and then the usurpers wrote in 33,000. We the People might follow a similar plan, one of mimicry; the 1792 usurpers read the Constitution and acted with pen and paper: nowadays, it feels like We the People are beginning to do the same thing.

Veritas.

*Next Up: Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb begin a summer series on Juneteenth 2018, Somewhere On Our Way.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Thereat: Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb, On Our Way Representational Solutions

10/1/2017

Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Thereat Cat

III of XIII

“Look, a Cat.”
“Reb?”
“What?”
“Why you cattin’ Johnny?”
“Maybe Cat’s a sign?”
“Maybe you don’t want to camp talk about Virginia.”
“Could be a sign like Snake and Turkey were.”
“Yet there’s no Morgan.”
“Maybe he’s Cat?”
“Stop with the cat Reb.”
“Cat is looking at something.”
“Yes.”
“Curious?”
“Now I am.”
“Shall we?”
“Sure.”

Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Thereat Representational

“Paths Gus.”
“I see.”
“Appears to be three.”
“Indeed.”
“Constitutional paths.”
“The Ways of We the People.”
“Our paths to 2020 Yank and representing We the People according to our numbers, like the Constitution has been saying for 230 years.”
“How old is the representation usurpation Johnny?”
“That began on 9 April 1792, so that would be a 225 year-old usurpation.”
“So we’ve had five years of an un-usurped representation of We the People.”
“Infancy Gus.”
“Not so fancy Reb.”
“It’s Tory Crown fancy.”
“Sounds bad.”
“Tory Crown is the American anti-republic energy that didn’t want the US to be a republic.”
“Still don’t.”
“True.”
“The Confederacy wasn’t a republic, was it Johnny?”

Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Thereat Solutions

“No, we had a Tory Crown influence.”
“The states, like Virginia, were independent states in confederation.”
“Right Gus, so the highest power was the state and not the states united.”
“Like our first government?”
“Like that.”
“What was it called again?”
“The first US government, the one before this one, was based on The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.”
“Right.”
“It had no We the People framework Gus.”
“And it failed.”
“States had one vote regardless of how many people they had.”
“Not good.”
“Connecticut and Virginia were voting equals.”
“Odd.”
“Yet they had great differences in population.”
“Clearly a problem.”
“So the Constitutional Convention solved this problem by guaranteeing a new right: the right to one Representative for every thirty Thousand people in a state, which created the House of Representatives.”
“We the People seen as a solution.”
“And not a problem.”
“So what’s the problem now Johnny?”
“Uh …”

*Next Up: Sunday 8 October and Thereat part IV, Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb On Our Way Problems.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Thereat: Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb, On Our Way Happy Constitution Day

9/17/2017

Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Thereat Happy

I of XIII

“Here Gus.”
“This is On Our Way Reb.”
“Thereat.”
“Where’s Virginia?”
“There.”
“Ahead of us.”
“Directly.”
“So this is a threshold moment?”
“For We the People.”
“Good for us.”
“Might be what Morgan meant.”
“Our Teamster’s ‘What are you two doing?’ moment?”
“That one.”
“Asking two citizens what the hell they be fighting about.”
“Right.”
“We ‘Mericans.”
“We are.”
“We’re not … what are the people called who take rights not granted in the Constitution?”

Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Thereat Constitution

“Usurpers.”
“We’re not Usurpecans.”
“Usurpecan: an American citizen who supports the usurpation.”
“That.”
“It’s Constitution Day Gus.”
“Nice: must be about 230 years ‘eh?”
“Yes.”
“We can also call it Smudge Day.”
“That’s right, thanks to George.”
“Did he just tell’em to make the change Johnny, and they made it – changing the ‘forty’ in forty Thousand to ‘thirty’ in thirty Thousand?”
“It was a request.”
“And the vote?”
“Unanimous.”
“Then they made the change and left the smudge.”

Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka Thereat Day

“Yes.”
“Nice of George to do that.”
“Strengthened We the People.”
“That and leaving us some physical evidence.”
“The smudge is in Washington DC Gus.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe that’s where we go after Berryville?”
“Us in DC: I like your thinking Reb.”
“First though we have to get back to Virginia.”
“Threshold you said.”
“Yes I did.”
“Happy Constitution Day Johnny.”
“Happy Constitution Day Gus.”

*Next Up: Sunday 24 September and Thereat part II, Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb On Our Way ‘Mericans.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Usurpation Day 2017: Augustine, Freedom and Arendt Footnotes #8

4/9/2017

Usurpation Day 2017: Arendt Footnotes #8

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, on 9 April 1792, Congress initiated the representation usurpation we still live under, the one against We the People and our birthright, constitutional representation according to numbers.

Usurpation of representation is illegal, immoderate and unconstitutional.

Usurpation of representation is a stolen American birthright.

Usurpation of representation is an act of war against We the People.

Speak your birthright America: for those who believe in the US Constitution, let 2020 begin today.

Hannah Arendt
The Human Condition
Section 24: The Disclosure Of The Agent In Speech And Action
(177, bold added)

To act, in its most general sense, means to take an initiative, to begin (as the Greek word archein, “to begin,” “to lead,” and eventually “to rule,” indicates), to set something into motion (which is the original meaning of the Latin agere). Because they are initium, newcomers and beginners by virtue of birth, men take initiative, are prompted into action. [Initium] ergo ut esset, creatus est homo, ante quem nullus fuit (“that there be a beginning, man was created before whom there was nobody”), said Augustine in his political philosophy. (footnote 2) This beginning is not the same as the beginning of the world; (footnote 3) it is not the beginning of something but of somebody, who is a beginner himself. With the creation of man, the principle of beginning came into the world itself, which, of course, is only another way of saying the principle of freedom was created when man was created but not before.

2. De civitate Dei xii. 20.

3. According to Augustine, the two were so different that he used a different word to indicate the beginning which is man (initium), designating the beginning of the world by principium, which is the standard translation for the first Bible verse. As can be seen from De civitate Dei xi. 32, the word principium carried for Augustine a much less radical meaning; the beginning of the world “does not mean that nothing was made before (for the angels were),” whereas he adds explicitly in the phrase quoted above with reference to man that nobody was before him.

Next Up: Saturday April 15th and a 2020: Tax Day Disses Our Revolution and Abraham Lincoln.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

2020: Part One of the 7/20 Bill of Rights Participation Day Preparations, 20 Minutes for Twenty Dollars

7/1/2016

US Constitution, Amendment VII

Working on some numbers showing We the People as a collective power. Basically, I got to wondering what could happen if we all did something for 20 minutes for the “twenty dollars” in Amendment VII; sort of a what if there was a Participation Day for the 7th Amendment and its twenty dollar clause? What would that equal as participation time?

Let’s view it as a story problem.

Estimating, we can use 300 million US citizens acting for 20 minutes, so that is 1/3 of an hour and equals 100 million hours.

Take 100 million hours divided by 25-hour days (easy math) and you get four million days.

Take four million days divided by 400-day years (more easy math) and the answer is 10,000 years.

So Americans spending 20 minutes writing a letter or sending an email or talking with a friend on July 20th (or any convenient time) in support of the US Constitution and the twenty dollar clause in the 7th Amendment of the Bill of Rights, would be equivalent to 10,000 years of participation in one effort.

We the People is definitely a collective power.

Part Two of the 7/20 Bill of Rights Participation Day Preparations, Jesus and Caesar, will be posted 15 July.

Next Up: The Union 2016 summer series continues on Sunday 3 July with Johnny Reb and Gus Kotka, Nowhere Know Sympathy.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Union 2016 Winter Finale: Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb Nowhere Evermore

3/19/2016

Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb Nowhere Ever

Winter series part 13 of 13

The pain of war cannot exceed
The woe of aftermath,
The drums will shake the castle wall,
The ring wraiths ride in black, ride on.

“- What about the Union Johnny?”
“It’s not well Gus.”
“How so?”
“No balance.”
“So we bring the balance back.”
“There’s an issue with that Yank.”
“We’ve handled things before Reb – what’s the deal?”
“I’m not the only composite spirit involved in this story.”
“You don’t say.”
“Right.”

Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb Nowhere More

“Well maybe it’s time to say.”
“You won’t like him Gus.”
“I didn’t like you at first Johnny.”
“True.”
“Is this composite spirit more than you?”
“No, just older – and still active.”
“Active?”
“Actively affecting the Union in a negative way.”
“That’s war.”
“Correct.”
“Waging war on the US Republic?”
“Yes.”
“Who Johnny?”
“He goes by the name Tory Crown.”

Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb Nowhere Continues

“Tory Crown?!”
“Yes.”
“Never heard of him.”
“No one has Gus.”
“He’s a composite spirit like you Johnny?”
“Yes.”
“Composite of what?”
“Those who support the Anti-Republic.”
“That’s how you know him.”
“We teamed up for a bit.”
“Four years.”
“A few more than that.”
“Before the war Johnny?”
“You’ve heard of the three-fifths clause.”
“Yes: it’s how slaves were counted in representation.”
“And …”
“And what?”
“Free people Gus: how were they to be represented?”

~.~ The Union 2016 series continues this summer, resuming on 19 June.

*Next Up: A trip-oriented pamphlet announcement on Tuesday 22 March.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner