Bryan William Brickner
  • Blog
  • Interviews
  • Articles
  • Books
  • Photos and Video
  • Links

Usurpation Day 2020: Jesus, George and Tyranny

4/9/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture












​
Grace is an attribute of Jesus.
 
The I Ching describes grace as: inside, the strength of simplicity and self-knowledge, outside, the beauty of acceptance and gentleness.
 
On 9 April 1792, the US House of Representatives couldn’t override President Washington’s veto, so they usurped a right of We the People.
 
On 9 April 2020, the usurped right to representation according to numbers effects all We the People.
 
If one uses sex, females are the most underrepresented in the House, composing 51 percent of We the People and only 23 percent representation.
 
If one uses economics, the middle and lower classes are the most underrepresented.
 
If one uses constitutionalism, representatives of We the People supporting President Washington and the thirty Thousand are the most underrepresented.
 
We are no longer a republic: this is tyranny.
 
End the representation usurpation to become a republic again.
 
*Next Up: Constitution Day 2020 with Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’.
​
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

1 Comment

2020: Jesus of Nazareth was a liberal, and so was George Washington

1/3/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture


​Jesus of Nazareth, son of Marium, was a liberal.
 
Noah (Nuh) was a conservative, someone who said thou has strayed and chastisement will follow.
 
George Washington was a liberal.
 
So here We the People are: Jesus and George, our guiding liberal spirits for a blessed and constitutional 2020.
 
*Next Up: Usurpation Day.
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

0 Comments

We the People and Others: What Would Jesus Do… Deport the Catholics?

3/1/2018

0 Comments

 
PictureRomans 12:17-21, The Book of the Is (page 40)




​
Reductio ad absurdum

 
Sure, the Jesus reference in the title is absurd, but there are defining similarities between Jesus and the Dreamers: because of their parents, both were born somewhere and then live somewhere else.
 
A Roman Immigration Officer might have asked Jesus some interesting questions, like:
“Who is your father?”
“Immaculate conception?”
“Where is your papyrus showing a Bethlehem birth?"
“You say ‘Three Wise Men’ were witnesses?”
“And what kind of work are you doing in Nazareth these days?”
 
Or one could read Romans for a Jesus-inspired Christ-like teaching that a constitutional We the People might try to enact; others, Martin Luther for example, have found inspiration and reverence in Paul’s counsel.
 
There is also the parable Jesus told about The Good Samaritan: this parable supports The Great Commandment (how one should live).
 
So what would Jesus do?
 
The teachings of Jesus are a political goal not represented by usurpation. Something like “The Good ‘Merican,” given the Great Commandment, seems the logical goal of a Christian United States of America. By representing We the People in Congress according to numbers, that is, by the law, we would find out what Jesus-inspired ‘Mericans would do … good and/or otherwise.
 
*Next Up: 9 April and Usurpation Day 2018, Ex Falso Quodlibet / From a Falsehood, Anything (Follows).
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

0 Comments

2020 Update: Movement

2/1/2018

0 Comments

 
PictureMovement 2020




Movement is a noun.
 
1. An act of changing physical location or position or of having this changed.
 
2. A group of people working together to advance their shared political, social and artistic values.
 
 
*Next Up: A commentary on 1 March, We the People and Others: What Would Jesus Do… Deport the Catholics?
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

0 Comments

Thereat: Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb, On Our Way Johnny Rebs

12/3/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureGus Kotka and Johnny Reb Thereat Camped



​X of XIII
 
“Nice landing Gus.”
“Quite a trip.”
“Quite.”
“Was that Gettysburg we flew over?”
“Right.”
“You said something, but I couldn’t hear you over the noise.”
“Music.”
“If you say so.”
“You showed some footwork.”
“All that marching Reb.”
“The music varies Gus.”
“Well there’s something to look forward to.”
“I was pointing to the Gettysburg ‘fish hook.’”
“Saw that: formidable.”
“And then Washington DC.”
“Inspiring.”
“Up the Potomac …”
“We passed Harper’s Ferry.”
“… And to Shepherdstown.”
“The Johnnies? – Where are they Reb?”
“Camped a hundred yards over the tree-line.”
“Heard that before.”
“You ready Yank?”
“Sure … just jesting to calm down.”
“Say when.”
“When.”
“This way …”


PictureGus Kotka and Johnny Reb Thereat Unknowns




​“… Here Gus.”
“Camped?”
“Permanently.”
“Reb?”
“Sorry.”
“An Unknown.”
“Many actually.”
“There are people over there.”
“This is a memorial service.”
“Can they see us?”
“They’re not looking.”
“What if they did?”
“If they look, it’s not likely they’ll see.”
“Some see?”
“Some.”
“Oh.”
“How about you: did you see spirits Gus?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“Not a very good one.”
“Sounds a little like maybe.”
“Maybe … Shepherdstown is near Sharpsburg.”
“Across the Potomac, about two miles.”
“Soldiers buried here from Antietam?”
“There are.”
“Lots of Rebs Reb.”
“Parts of us.”
“Us?”
“What’s a Reb without a Yank?”
“Alive.”
“Interesting.”

PictureGus Kotka and Johnny Reb Thereat In-Formation




​
​
​“You look to be in-formation.”
“Especially up left.”
“Men at parade rest.”
“Right.”
“Are these flags always up?”
“No, just for the memorial.”
“Feels nice, the remembrance.”
“Not everyone would agree.”
“Why?”
“Contentious.”
“Why?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you see?”
“‘Mericans.”
“Most just see flags.”
“Christians.”
“What else?”
“Looks like an American and Confederate flag at the base of that monument.”
“I see them.”
“Let’s go there.”
“After you Yank.”

​
*Next Up: Sunday 10 December and Thereat part XI, Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb On Our Way Memories.
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

0 Comments

Jesus of Nazareth, Miracles and Faith in Arendt Footnotes #9

11/21/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureArendt Footnotes #9


The power of faith was the crux of the argument between Martin Luther and Rome. In this passage and footnotes from Arendt’s The Human Condition, the teacher (didaskalos) Jesus of Nazareth is honored; Arendt compares the insights of Jesus to that of Socrates: Socrates for teaching “the possibilities of thought” and Jesus for teaching that “action is, in fact, the one miracle-working faculty of man.” Arendt highlights scripture, as Luther did, to show that Jesus taught a human power (faculty) “to perform miracles in faith.”
 
Hannah Arendt
The Human Condition
Section 34: Unpredictability And The Power Of Promise
(246-7)
 
“In the language of natural science, it is the ‘infinite improbability which occurs regularly.’ Action is, in fact, the one miracle-working faculty of man, as Jesus of Nazareth, whose insights into this faculty can be compared in their originality and unprecedentedness with Socrates’ insights into the possibilities of thought, must have known very well when he likened the power to forgive to the more general power of performing miracles, putting both on the same level and within the reach of man. (footnote #84)”
 
Footnote 84
“Cf. the quotations given in n. 77. Jesus himself saw the human root of this power to perform miracles in faith – which we leave out of our considerations. In our context, the only point that matters is that the power to perform miracles is not considered to be divine – faith will move mountains and faith will forgive, the one is no less a miracle than the other, and the reply of the apostles when Jesus demanded of them to forgive seven times in a day was: ‘Lord, increase our faith.’”
 
Footnote 77
“Matt. 18:35; cf. Mark 11:25; ‘And when ye stand praying, forgive, … that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.’ Or: ‘If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses’ (Matt. 6:14-15). In all these instances, the power to forgive is primarily a human power: God forgives ‘us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’”
 
*Next Up: Sunday 26 November and Thereat part IX, Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb On Our Way Now.
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

0 Comments

2020: The Four Orders of Reality in a Baudrillardian Nativity

7/12/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture​The Immaculate Preconception







Simulations, Jean Baudrillard (1983)
Translated by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman
“The Precession of Simulacra,” pages 11-12
 
This would be the successive phases of the image:
            -it is the reflection of a basic reality
            -it masks and perverts a basic reality
            -it masks the absence of a basic reality
            -it bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.
 
In the first case, the image is a good appearance – the representation is of the order of sacrament. In the second, it is an evil appearance – of the order of malefice [evil enchantment]. In the third, it plays at being an appearance – it is of the order of sorcery. In the fourth, it is no longer in the order of appearance at all, but of simulation.
 
Baudrillard was harder to explain before our current political situation: now the first through fourth orders of the image (this is the “I m age” / ego) can be clearly discerned.
 
Imagine “We the People” as an image.
 
Is “We the People” a first order reality, one based on the constitutional representation ratio found in Article 1? Or is “We the People” a simulation of the usurpation and therefore a fake representation?
 
Perhaps the nativity scene is a useful image for understanding Baudrillard’s four orders. To begin with, to understand there is a baby Jesus missing, one has to know of the first order, of a complete Jesus nativity. Take Aspasia or Socrates, for example, individuals living 400 years before Jesus; they would have difficulty imagining the setting; even more difficult, meaning for the bottomless manger, absent baby Jesus and the third wise man represented as an ass. A Socrates might also see the angel more as a guiding spirit, a daemon, more than we allow ourselves to see directing signs and spirits.
 
Baudrillard also noted, to quote in paraphrase, that nostalgia assumes its full meaning when the real is no longer what it used to be.
 
We the People: to be or not to be first or fourth order? – To be constitutionally real or constitutionally fake?
 
The answer is on the horizon we call now.
 
*Next Up: Wednesday 19 July and a 2020: In High Spirits, a Seven-Twenty Preamble.
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

0 Comments

2020: Jesus was poor and said a few things about being rich

7/5/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureBeijing 1879






​


​Jesus, son of Mary, was a poor man overflowing with riches.
 
The Gospels, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, report Jesus being asked by a rich man what actions lead to eternal life.
 
Follow the commandments Jesus said.
 
The rich man said he did: what else?
 
Sell all your possessions and follow me Jesus said.
 
The rich man was distraught, the disciples confused.
 
Jesus continued: How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God / Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.
 
The disciples asked: Who can be saved?
 
What is impossible with man is possible with God said Jesus.
 
Possible.
 
Jews, Catholics, Muslims and Protestants agree; Jesus was a teacher of being rich in things other than worldly riches: someone poor in materialism, yet rich in material.
 
Citizens gathered in a US House according to numbers would represent our beliefs ~ the beliefs of We the People, poor and otherwise.
 
*Next Up: Wednesday 12 July and a 2020: The Four Orders of Reality in a Baudrillardian Nativity.
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

0 Comments

Republican Values: Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb On Our Way Er

2/19/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureJohnny Reb and Gus Kotka OOW Resurrection

​Part 9 of 13
 
 
 
 

“It’s a story Gus.”
“Great!”
“Shall we walk and talk?”
“On our way time ‘eh?”
“Time.”
“Okay – but what’s Er?”
“A soldier.”
“So what did Er do?”
“Lots.”
“Like what?”
“Resurrection.”
“Rise again?”
“So sayeth Plato.”
“Plato ends The Republic with a resurrection story?”
“Plato does.”
“What happened?”
“There was a battle and Er fell on the field.”
“Okay.”
“Ten days later they find the battlefield.”
“Yikes.”
“Right, ’cept Er’s body is not decayed.”
“Irrational.”
“Plato then says that two days later, while on the funeral pyre, Er comes back to life.”
“Jesus.”

PictureGus Kotka and Johnny Reb OOW Afterlife








​
​“Right Yank.”
“But before Jesus.”
“By 350 years.”
“That’s like from Columbus to our time Johnny.”
“True.”
“Does Er just scare ‘em?”
“He tells the people of his soul’s journey.”
“To where?”
“Afterlife.”
“The dead?”
“Yes, and the newly to be born.”
“Both?”
“It’s a long journey Gus.”
“What was Plato up to Johnny?”
“Order again.”
“So Er saw Judgement Day.”
“Others, not his.”
“Okay: so?”
“It was a big deal to Plato.”
“Why?”

PictureGus Kotka and Johnny Reb OOW Necessity







​“Cosmos.”
“Explaining good government wasn’t enough.”
“Plato wanted to explain it all.”
“Plato wanted to replace Athena.”
“Hey there is a goddess.”
“Where?”
“Necessity.”
“The mother of all invention is a goddess?”
“She is and she concludes Plato’s Republic.”
“I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“Goddesses.”
“They’re resilient.”
“Like fate.”
“Plato would agree Yank.”
“Go figure. Hey there’s a fork ahead Johnny.”
“There sure is.”
 
 
*Next Up: 26 February and part 10 of Republican Values: Gus Kotka and Johnny Reb On Our Way Fork.
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner
 
Just ‘cuz music: Gaga Gotsadze - Late Night Melancholy


0 Comments

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

7/14/2016

0 Comments

 
PictureAmendment 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

0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

    Brickner has a 1997 political science doctorate from Purdue University, cofounded Illinois NORML in 2001, and was a 2007 National NORML Cannabis Advocate Awardee. He is also publisher and coauthor of the 2011 book banned by the Illinois Department of Corrections – The Cannabis Papers: A Citizen’s Guide to Cannabinoids.

    Archives

    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    January 2013
    October 2012

    Categories

    All
    17 September
    22nd Amendment
    2 AG
    2-AG
    435
    502nd Infantry
    5 HT
    5-HT
    5-HT
    5 HTP
    5-HTP
    7th Amendment
    9 April 1792
    Aborigine
    A Cabal
    Acetylcholine
    Adam Smith
    Aesop
    Aging
    Akhil Reed Amar
    Albert Hoffman
    Alcohol
    Alexander Hamilton
    Alexander R. Boteler
    Alice In Wonderland
    Alzheimer's/Dementia
    Ambrose Burnside
    American Revolution
    Anandamide
    Andrew Leitch
    Antietam/Sharpsburg
    Anti Republic
    Anti-Republic
    Anti-Semitism
    Archie Lieberman
    Art
    Artemis
    Article The First
    Aspasia Of Miletus
    Athena
    Augustus Kotka
    Bastogne
    Benjamin F. Cheatham
    Benjamin Franklin
    Bivalency
    Black Hawk War 1832
    Brain Gut Axis
    Brain-gut Axis
    Bringing It Home
    Burning Man
    California
    Cancer
    Candide
    Cannabinoids
    Cannabinoid System
    Cannabis
    Carcinogenesis
    Caryophyllene
    Caudate Putamen
    Cb1
    Cb2
    CB2 GPR55 Heteromers
    CB2-GPR55 Heteromers
    CBD
    Cheatham Hill
    Chicago
    Circulatory System
    Cluster Headache
    CNS
    Colitis
    Comrades
    Confederate
    Conservative-Liberal (CL)
    Constitutio Libertatis
    Constitution
    Daimon
    Daniel Morgan
    David Bradford
    David Redick
    Depression
    Despotism
    DHA
    Didaskalos
    Digestive System
    Domestic Tranquility
    Donald Trump
    Dopamine System
    Douglas Southall Freeman
    Dubuque
    Earth Day
    Eisenhower
    Elbridge Gerry
    Electoral College
    Emperor Napoleon
    Endocrine System
    Enumeration
    EPA
    Epilepsy
    Er
    Estrogen
    Exercise
    Ex Falso Quodlibet
    FAKE News
    Federalist 57
    Florida
    Fort Sumter
    Founders
    Francis P. Blair
    Freedom
    Free Markets Cannabis Act (FMCA)
    French Revolution
    GABA
    Gallant Fourteenth
    Georges Danton
    George Thomas
    George Washington
    Georg Groddeck
    Gettysburg
    Gideon
    Gliomas
    Glutamate
    Goddesses
    Government Grown
    Gpr55
    Graham Greene
    Hannah Arendt
    Harlem Heights
    Headache
    Hedonism
    Hemp
    Henry Knox
    Henry Kyd Douglas
    Henry Lee III
    Herbaceutical
    Herbiceutical
    Heteromers
    Hillary Clinton
    Homeostasis
    Horatio Gates
    Hot-flash-reduction
    Hypothalamic-neurohypophyseal
    Ice
    Illinois
    Immigrants
    Immune System
    Indiana
    Indiana 99th Regiment
    Indole-quinuclidine-analogs
    Inflammation
    Irritable Bowel Syndrome Ibs
    It
    Jack-herer
    James Monroe
    James Rumsey
    James W. Foley
    James Wilkinson
    Jean Baudrillard
    Jefferson Davis
    Jesus
    Jim-champion
    Joe
    Johann Palm
    John Adams
    John Bunyan
    John Finley Pettigrew
    John F Kennedy
    John-jay
    John Locke
    John Mosby
    Johnny Reb
    John Roberts
    Jonathan Magbie
    Kaiser Wilhelm
    Keith Marker
    Knowbody
    Kynurenine
    Lil Man
    Liminal
    Lincoln
    Lipids
    Louis Armstrong
    LSS
    Lt
    Lysergic Acid Diethylamide Lsd
    Madison
    March-madness
    Marijuana
    Martin Luther
    Maximilien Robespierre
    Melanocortin Circuit
    'Mericans
    Michigan
    Microbiota
    Migraine
    Mitochondria
    Molly Role
    Monroe Doctrine
    Montesquieu
    Morphine
    Mt-vernon
    Muggles
    Multiple-sclerosis
    Nabiximols-sativex
    Nazis
    Nemesis
    New York
    Nietzsche
    North Carolina
    Nowhere
    Nuclear Receptors
    Obama
    Obesity
    Ohio
    Once Upon A Time
    Opioid
    Otto Snow
    Pain Relief
    Paraquat
    Parmenides
    Parthenongenesis
    Patrick-henry
    Paula Lind Ayers
    Peace Terms
    Pediatric
    Pericles
    Philadelphia
    Phototherapy
    Physiodelia
    Physiology System
    Pituitary-stalk
    Plato
    Pot
    Pregnancy
    President Taylor
    Psilocybin
    PTSD
    Publius
    Puritans
    Putin
    Quakers
    Race
    Ra Chaka
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    R. Bruce Dold
    Representation
    Reproductive System
    Republic
    Respiratory-system
    Richard Lee I
    Rick Simpson
    Robert Dahl
    Robert E. Lee
    Roman Republic
    Sarah Tonin
    Sarajevo
    Secession
    Serotonin System
    Shall
    Shivitti
    Silent Night
    Skeletal System
    Slavery
    Sleep
    Snake And Turkey
    Socrates
    Sophie Scholl
    Sophocles
    South Carolina
    Sperm
    Spermatogenesis
    Spermatozoa
    Sport
    Star Of David
    Stephen Young
    Suicidal
    Sun Tzu
    Sweat
    Tell Lie Vision
    Tell-Lie-Vision
    Texas
    THC
    The Boys
    The Cannabis Papers
    The Federalist Papers
    The-federalist-papers
    The Few
    The Lost Special Orders #191
    The Many
    The Quiet American (1955)
    The Unrepresented
    Thirty Thousand
    Thirty-thousand
    Thomas-jefferson
    Thomas Knowlton
    Thomas Sumpter (Sumter)
    Three Fifths Representation
    Three-fifths Representation
    Tom Paine
    Tory Crown
    Traumatic Brain Injury
    Trenton
    Truck Drivers
    Tryptophan
    Tsar Nicholas
    Tuscarora / Hemp Gatherers
    US Grant
    Us Supreme Court
    Usurpation
    Usurpecans
    Valkyrie
    Vanilloid-system
    Veritas
    Veterans
    Vietnam
    Virginia
    Visual-system
    Walter-benjamin
    Weed
    West Virginia
    We The People
    We-the-people
    Whiskey Rebellion
    White Rose
    William-abens
    William Findley
    William Washington
    Wine
    Winfield Scott
    Women
    Yale
    Yankee Doodle Dandy
    Zarathustra

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.