Citizen Appreciation Quotes

Don't promote negativity online and expect people to treat you with positivity in person.

Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, 'the United States of America.' But it is hardly strange. Paine's teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind. We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen. Washington himself appreciated Paine at his true worth. Franklin knew him for a great patriot and clear thinker. He was a friend and confidant of Jefferson, and the two must often have debated the academic and practical phases of liberty. I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. Although the present generation knows little of Paine's writings, and although he has almost no influence upon contemporary thought, Americans of the future will justly appraise his work. I am certain of it. Truth is governed by natural laws and cannot be denied. Paine spoke truth with a peculiarly clear and forceful ring. Therefore time must balance the scales. The Declaration and the Constitution expressed in form Paine's theory of political rights. He worked in Philadelphia at the time that the first document was written, and occupied a position of intimate contact with the nation's leaders when they framed the Constitution. Certainly we may believe that Washington had a considerable voice in the Constitution. We know that Jefferson had much to do with the document. Franklin also had a hand and probably was responsible in even larger measure for the Declaration. But all of these men had communed with Paine. Their views were intimately understood and closely correlated. There is no doubt whatever that the two great documents of American liberty reflect the philosophy of Paine. ...Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession. In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again. It must be remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour... Certainly [the Revolution] could not be forestalled, once he had spoken. {The Philosophy of Paine, June 7, 1925}

It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man, as it was in a great part of its long history and as it is in a great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to view life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting. It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing—atoms with curiosity—that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders. Well, these scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate. Some will tell me that I have just described a religious experience. Very well, you may call it what you will. Then, in that language I would say that the young man's religious experience is of such a kind that he finds the religion of his church inadequate to describe, to encompass that kind of experience. The God of the church isn't big enough.

... General Petraeus recognized the sacrifice made by two soldiers who had planned to become naturalized citizens at the ceremony, and were now represented by two pairs of boots on two chairs, having been killed in action two days before. "They died serving a country that was not yet theirs," Petraeus observed... I wish every American who out of ignorance or worse curses immigrants as criminals or a drain on the country's resources or a threat to our "culture" could have been there. I would like them to know that immigrants, many of them having entered the country illegally, are making sacrifices for Americans that many Americans would not make for them.

Tocqueville concluded that “the strength of free peoples resides in the local community. Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they put it within the people’s reach; they teach people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment and accustom them to make use of it.”26 He stressed that it was the nearness and immediacy of the township that made its citizens more likely to care and take an active interest not only in their own fates but in the shared fates of their fellow citizens. By contrast, he noted a striking lack of attentiveness to more distant political centers of power, including both state and an even more distant federal government, where only a few ambitious men might govern but which otherwise was of little concern to the active citizens within the township. Tocqueville would have regarded a citizenry that was oblivious to local self-governance, but which instead directed all its attention and energy to the machinations of a distant national power, not as the culmination of democracy but as its betrayal.

We all know many people who come from hard-working families, where they had to grow up with a bare minimum and become self-sufficient and independent at a very young age. We look at them now and see responsible citizens, self-reliant adults, successful members of the business community, outstanding performers, and just happy people. Yes, they’re happy, because they know the meaning of labor, they appreciate the pleasure of leisure, they value relationships with others, and they respect themselves. In contrast, there are people who come from wealthy families, had nannies to do everything for them, went to private schools where they were surrounded with special attention, never did their own laundry, never learned how to cook an omelet for themselves, never even gained the essential skills of unwinding on their own before bedtime, and of course, never did anything for anyone else either. You look at their adult life and see how dependent they are on others and how unhappy they are because of that. They need someone to constantly take care of them. They may see no meaning in their life as little things don’t satisfy them, because they were spoiled at a very young age. They may suffer a variety of eating disorders, use drugs, alcohol and other extremes in search of satisfaction and comfort. And, above all, in search of themselves.

She blew a strand of hair from her face. “I don't normally invite a near-stranger into my apartment. I'm trying to work up my courage to do that.” He reached out a hand to cover hers. “I appreciate it. I can assure you that I am a law-abiding citizen. As a cop, I have to have a clean record.

For instance, while writing this, I was summoned to attend jury duty. Throughout the jury selection process, coordinators and judges reminded us how important our presence was, and how deeply they and the State of Oregon appreciated our service. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Oregon and several judges who may or may not have been actors thanked us via video. The big joke of it was that attending jury service is mandatory and my summons threatened me with the possibility of being held in contempt of court for non-compliance. That pretty much sums up how the state “appreciates” its citizens. “We

Babylon became the wealthiest city of the ancient world because its citizens were the richest people of their time. They appreciated the value of money. They practiced sound financial principles in acquiring money, keeping money and making their money earn more money. They provided for themselves what we all desire . . . incomes for the future.

Now we see Christendom likewise sinking. But the true point is this: that Christ's kingdom remains. Indeed, it can be seen more clearly and appreciated more sharply by contrast with the darkness and depravity of the contemporary scene. (...) A wonderful sign (...) is the amazing renewal of the Christian faith in its purest possible form in, of all places, the countries that have been most drastically subjected to the oppression and brainwashing and general influence of the first overtly atheistic and materialistic regime to exist on earth. (...) Soviet citizens had no access to the Gospels, few religious services available, no literature of the mystics, no devotional works, no religious music, and an education brutally atheistic and secular.

But whatever the academic debate on the topic, Nixon was correct that black Americans “don’t want to be a colony in a nation.” And yet he helped bring about that very thing. Over the half-century since he delivered those words, we have built a colony in a nation, not in the classic Marxist sense but in the deep sense we can appreciate as a former colony ourselves: A territory that isn’t actually free. A place controlled from outside rather than within. A place where the mechanisms of representation don’t work enough to give citizens a sense of ownership over their own government. A place where the law is a tool of control rather than a foundation for prosperity. A political regime like the one our Founders inherited and rejected. An order they spilled their blood to defeat. THIS

What must underlie successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus. This, too, contradicts some of the most ingrained assumptions we hold about ourselves and each other. We like to think of ourselves as autonomous and inner-directed, that who we are and how we act is something permanently set by our genes and our temperament. But if you add up the examples of Salesmen and Connectors, of Paul Revere's ride and Blue's Clues, and the Rule of 150 and the New York subway cleanup and the Fundamental Attribution Error, they amount to a very different conclusion about what it means to be human. We are actually powerfully influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of those around us. Taking the graffiti off the walls of New York's subways turned New Yorkers into better citizens. Telling seminarians to hurry turned them into bad citizens. The suicide of a charismatic young Micronesian set off an epidemic of suicides that lasted for a decade. Putting a little gold box in the corner of a Columbia Record Club advertisement suddenly made record buying by mail seem irresistible. To look closely at complex behaviors like smoking or suicide or crime is to appreciate how suggestible we are in the face of what we see and hear, and how acutely sensitive we are to even the smallest details of everyday life. That's why social change is so volatile and so often inexplicable, because it is the nature of all of us to be volatile and inexplicable.

Reading history is good for all of us. If you know history, you know that there is no such thing as a self-made man or self-made woman. We are shaped by people we have never met. Yes, reading history will make you a better citizen and more appreciative of the law, and of freedom, and of how the economy works or doesn't work, but it is also an immense pleasure ~~ the way art is, or music is, or poetry is. And it's never stale.

We have built a colony in a nation, not in the classic Marxist sense but in the deep sense we can appreciate as a former colony ourselves: A territory that isn't actually free. A place controlled from outside rather than within. A place where the mechanisms of representation don't work enough to give citizens a sense of ownership over their own government. A place where the law is a tool of control rather than a foundation for prosperity.

But I will say this. Donald Trump would not know the men and women of the FBI if he ran over them with the presidential limo, and he has shown the citizens of this country that he does not know what democracy means. He demonstrates no understanding or appreciation of our form of government. He takes no action to protect it. Has any president done more to undermine democracy than this one? His “I hereby demand” tweet in May 2018, ordering Department of Justice investigations of the investigators who are investigating him—I can barely believe that I just wrote that phrase—is a clear example. His demand for documents identifying confidential informants does harm to the men and women of the FBI on a fundamental level. It undermines their ability to build the trust that allows law-enforcement investigations to take place, in ways that, I want to believe, he does not comprehend. To think that he could recognize what constitutes a good thing for the men and women of the FBI does not deserve comment. As for my own firing and the ostensible reasons behind it, the demands and risks of an ongoing legal process put tight constraints on what I can say, although I would like to say much more. I am filing a suit that challenges my firing and the IG’s process and findings, and the unprecedented way DOJ handled my termination. I will let that action speak for itself.

Aldo Leopold had a dream. He dreamt of a time when people accepted their roles as citizens of the natural world rather than its conquerors, a time when the land was not viewed as a commodity to be exploited but as the source of our continued existence. He longed for a time when people appreciated and respected wilderness, not just as a hunting ground or a recreational playground, but as a truly awesome and unimaginably complex machine that required all of its parts to function well.

It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man, as it was in a great part of its long history and as it is in a great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to view life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting.

In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly bestowed on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage of the whole community. Experience overturns these airy fabrics, and teaches us, that in a large society, the election of a monarch can never devolve to the wisest, or to the most numerous part of the people. The army is the only order of men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of a legal, or even a civil constitution. Justice, humanity, or political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted with in themselves, to appreciate them in others. Valor will acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase their suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the expense of the public; and both may be turned against the possessor of the throne, by the ambition of a daring rival.

At the first World Fantasy Convention, in 1975, the mayor of Providence gave me a key to the city. I appreciated the gesture, but it wasn’t necessary. My welcome to Providence had come almost half a century earlier, in 1927, from the hand of its distinguished citizen, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. His was the hand penning the stories which enthralled me when I first encountered them in the pages of Weird Tales magazine. And early in 1933 it was through that same hand I was ushered into Lovecraft’s private world as we began a personal correspondence. Thus he opened the gates of his cherished Providence to me long before I ever actually arrived there.

Military dictatorships love their tanks, don’t they? They appreciate the spectacle of rolling them through the center of cities. It’s great optics for control. Countries like ours, Western democracies, on the other hand, we don’t have a taste for tanks. It gives citizens the jitters, makes them feel like they’re being invaded, conjures up China or the Soviet Union. We prefer the spectacle of air and sea. Hell, we salute jets when they’re flying overhead. Those are optics of freedom, not oppression.” Kurt rolled a pen between his fingers. His voice grew thoughtful. “It’s ironic. You should be far more afraid of missiles than tanks, but there’s a lot of showmanship in this business. I think countries find the defense that fits their character.

Rather than encouraging a greater understanding of how these disparities came to be or a framework for compassion for fellow Americans, political discourse has usually reinforced prevailing stereotypes of a lazy, inferior group getting undeserved handouts, a scapegoating that makes the formal barriers all the more unjust and the resentments of white working-class citizens all the more tragic. The subordinate caste was shut out of “the trillions of dollars of wealth accumulated through the appreciation of housing assets secured by federally insured loans between 1932 and 1962,” a major source of current-day wealth, wrote the sociologist George Lipsitz. “Yet they find themselves portrayed as privileged beneficiaries of special preferences by the very people who profit from their exploitation and oppression.” Once labor, housing, and schools finally began to open up to the subordinate caste, many working- and middle-class whites began to perceive themselves to be worse off, by comparison, and to report that they experienced more racism than African-Americans, unable to see the inequities that persist, often in their favor.

Truth is universal, we all want assurance. Knowledge is universal, we all want awareness. Identity is universal, we all want acknowledgement. Liberty is universal, we all want choice. Dignity is universal, we all want respect. Peace is universal, we all want harmony. Equality is universal, we all want justice. Tolerance is universal, we all want understanding. Humanity is universal, we all want compassion. Freedom is universal, we all want independence. Recognition is universal, we all want appreciation. God is universal, we all want love. Smile African brother, you are a jewel, you own a piece of the sky; we are all children of the stars. Rejoice European sister, you are a gem, you own a piece of the sun; we are all children of light. Glory Asian mother, you are a treasure, you own a piece of the land; we are all children of the soil. Delight American father, you are a diamond, you own a piece of Earth; we are all children of Mother Nature. Exalt Middle Eastern child, you are a pearl, you own a piece of Heaven; we are all children of the world. Dance citizen of Earth, you are a masterpiece, you own a piece of the cosmos; we are all children of the universe.

{The final resolutions at Robert Ingersoll's funeral, quoted here} Whereas, in the order of nature -- that nature which moves with unerring certainty in obedience to fixed laws -- Robert G. Ingersoll has gone to that repose which we call death. We, his old friends and fellow-citizens, who have shared his friendship in the past, hereby manifest the respect due his memory. At a time when everything impelled him to conceal his opinions or to withhold their expression, when the highest honors of the state were his if he would but avoid discussion of the questions that relate to futurity, he avowed his belief; he did not bow his knee to superstition nor countenance a creed which his intellect dissented. Casting aside all the things for which men most sigh -- political honor, the power to direct the futures of the state, riches and emoluments, the association of the worldly and the well- to-do -- he stood forth and expressed his honest doubts, and he welcomed the ostracism that came with it, as a crown of glory, no less than did the martyrs of old. Even this self-sacrifice has been accounted shame to him, saying that he was urged thereto by a desire for financial gain, when at the time he made his stand there was before him only the prospect of loss and the scorn of the public. We, therefore, who know what a struggle it was to cut loose from his old associations, and what it meant to him at that time, rejoice in his triumph and in the plaudits that came to him from thus boldly avowing his opinions, and we desire to record the fact that we feel that he was greater than a saint, greater than a mere hero -- he was a thoroughly honest man. He was a believer, not in the narrow creed of a past barbarous age, but a true believer in all that men ought to hold sacred, the sanctity of the home, the purity of friendship, and the honesty of the individual. He was not afraid to advocate the fact that eternal truth was eternal justice; he was not afraid of the truth, nor to avow that he owed allegiance to it first of all, and he was willing to suffer shame and condemnation for its sake. The laws of the universe were his bible; to do good, his religion, and he was true to his creed. We therefore commend his life, for he was the apostle of the fireside, the evangel of justice and love and charity and happiness. We who knew him when he first began his struggle, his old neighbors and friends, rejoice at the testimony he has left us, and we commend his life and efforts as worthy of emulation.

Society cannot afford to forget the lessons of the past—nor to learn the wrong lessons. But there is a third danger—and it is the greatest threat of all, if only because it is the least well recognized. Humanity can no longer afford to have only a handful of its citizens and leaders understand the lessons of history. We cannot count on a select few to be the caretakers of knowledge. The elite guardians of wisdom will be rendered useless if the masses are incapable of understanding their language, unable to appreciate their concerns, or uninterested even in considering their advice. This danger is not new, but it is always magnified during those times when a population is empowered at a faster rate than it is educated. And it is worst in societies where the value of any idea is measured only after it is filtered through the lens of politics, partisanship, or ideology. Of the diabolically complicated Schleswig-Holstein affair—as pertained to Denmark and Prussia in the mid-19th century—Lord Palmerston is said to have remarked: “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead, a German professor, who has gone mad, and I, who have forgotten all about it.” We can no longer rely only on princes, professors, and lords to understand the affairs of the world. The professors and Palmerstons of the world must educate—and hence enable—the rest. And they must do it soon. The time will come when the masses no longer listen to their advice—when expertise is unrecognizable because the gulf between those who know and those who don’t is too wide to bridge. That day is almost upon us.

How exactly the debt should be funded was to be the most inflammatory political issue. During the Revolution, many affluent citizens had invested in bonds, and many war veterans had been paid with IOUs that then plummeted in price under the confederation. In many cases, these upright patriots, either needing cash or convinced they would never be repaid, had sold their securities to speculators for as little as fifteen cents on the dollar. Under the influence of his funding scheme, with government repayment guaranteed, Hamilton expected these bonds to soar from their depressed levels and regain their full face value. This pleasing prospect, however, presented a political quandary. If the bonds appreciated, should speculators pocket the windfall? Or should the money go to the original holders—many of them brave soldiers—who had sold their depressed government paper years earlier? The answer to this perplexing question, Hamilton knew, would define the future character of American capital markets. Doubtless taking a deep breath, he wrote that “after the most mature reflection” about whether to reward original holders and punish current speculators, he had decided against this approach as “ruinous to public credit.”25 The problem was partly that such “discrimination” in favor of former debt holders was unworkable. The government would have to track them down, ascertain their sale prices, then trace all intermediate investors who had held the debt before it was bought by the current owners—an administrative nightmare. Hamilton could have left it at that, ducking the political issue and taking refuge in technical jargon. Instead, he shifted the terms of the debate. He said that the first holders were not simply noble victims, nor were the current buyers simply predatory speculators. The original investors had gotten cash when they wanted it and had shown little faith in the country’s future. Speculators, meanwhile, had hazarded their money and should be rewarded for the risk. In this manner, Hamilton stole the moral high ground from opponents and established the legal and moral basis for securities trading in America: the notion that securities are freely transferable and that buyers assume all rights to profit or loss in transactions. The knowledge that government could not interfere retroactively with a financial transaction was so vital, Hamilton thought, as to outweigh any short-term expediency. To establish the concept of the “security of transfer,” Hamilton was willing, if necessary, to reward mercenary scoundrels and penalize patriotic citizens. With this huge gamble, Hamilton laid the foundations for America’s future financial preeminence.

You are a totally pathetic, historical example of the phallocentric, to put it mildly." "A pathetic, historical example," Oshima repeats, obviously impressed. By his tone of voice he seems to like the sound of that phrase. "In other words you're a typical sexist, patriarchic male," the tall one pipes in, unable to conceal her irritation. "A patriarchic male," Oshima again repeats. The short one ignores this and goes on. "You're employing the status quo and the cheap phallocentric logic that supports it to reduce the entire female gender to second-class citizens, to limit and deprive women of the rights they're due. You're doing this unconsciously rather than deliberately, but that makes you even guiltier. You protect vested male interests and become inured to the pain of others, and don't even try to see what evil your blindness causes women and society. I realize that problems with restrooms and card catalogs are mere details, but if we don't begin with the small things we'll never be able to throw off the cloak of blindness that covers our society. Those are the principles by which we act." "That's the way every sensible woman feels," the tall one adds, her face expressionless. [...] A frozen silence follows. "At any rate, what you've been saying is fundamentally wrong," Oshima says, calmly yet emphatically. "I am most definitely not a pathetic, historical example of a patriarchic male." "Then explain, simply, what's wrong with what we've said," the shorter woman says defiantly. "Without sidestepping the issue or trying to show off how erudite you are," the tall one adds. "All right. I'll do just that—explain it simply and honestly, minus any sidestepping or displays of brilliance," Oshima says. "We're waiting," the tall one says, and the short one gives a compact nod to show she agrees. "First of all, I'm not a male," Oshima announces. A dumbfounded silence follows on the part of everybody. I gulp and shoot Oshima a glance. "I'm a woman," he says. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't joke around," the short woman says, after a pause for breath. Not much confidence, though. It's more like she felt somebody had to say something. Oshima pulls his wallet out of his chinos, takes out the driver's license, and passes it to the woman. She reads what's written there, frowns, and hands it to her tall companion, who reads it and, after a moment's hesitation, gives it back to Oshima, a sour look on her face. "Did you want to see it too?" Oshima asks me. When I shake my head, he slips the license back in his wallet and puts the wallet in his pants pocket. He then places both hands on the counter and says, "As you can see, biologically and legally I am undeniably female. Which is why what you've been saying about me is fundamentally wrong. It's simply impossible for me to be, as you put it, a typical sexist, patriarchic male." "Yes, but—" the tall woman says but then stops. The short one, lips tight, is playing with her collar. "My body is physically female, but my mind's completely male," Oshima goes on. "Emotionally I live as a man. So I suppose your notion of being a historical example may be correct. And maybe I am sexist—who knows. But I'm not a lesbian, even though I dress this way. My sexual preference is for men. In other words, I'm a female but I'm gay. I do anal sex, and have never used my vagina for sex. My clitoris is sensitive but my breasts aren't. I don't have a period. So, what am I discriminating against? Could somebody tell me?

She had an old friend from the vaudeville days named Buck Mack who lived with her. Buck had been part of a vaudeville team called Miller & Mack and had been an extra in Citizen Kane. In modern terms, he was a personal assistant: he ran the house, kept everything running smoothly, and watched over her. At first, Buck regarded me as an interloper, but it wasn't long before he saw that Barbara and I genuinely loved each other, and he and I became good friends. Because of the age difference, neither of us wanted to have our relationship in the papers, and with the help of Helen Ferguson, her publicist and one of her best friends, we kept it quiet. There were only a few people who knew about us. Nancy Sinatra Sr. was one of them, because she and Barbara were close friends. I didn't tell anybody at Fox about our affair, although Harry Brand might have known, if only because Harry knew everything. Likewise, I always assumed that Darryl Zanuck knew, although he never said a word about it to me. That might have been because Darryl and Barbara had something of a history, a bad one: Barbara told me that Darryl had chased her around his office years earlier, and I got the distinct impression that she hadn't appreciated the exercise.

Kant offered his students the world-wisdom (Weltweisheit)6 necessary for becoming a good world citizen in such a way that “elegance and appreciation of the beautiful in nature and literature were more important…than dry book knowledge.”7

Kant offered his students the world-wisdom (Weltweisheit)6 necessary for becoming a good world citizen in such a way that “elegance and appreciation of the beautiful in nature and literature were more important…than dry book knowledge.

Research suggests that diversity initiatives are doomed to fail among Christian groups that idolize their cultural identities. Due to this idolatry, minority group members are not invited as valuable members of the all-inclusive we and their cultural perspectives are not seen as valuable and necessary. Rather, they are seen as threatening and wholly inaccurate simply because they are different from our idolized cultural perspectives. As a result, if they are invited to participate in the organization at all, they are invited to participate as them—subordinate "others" and second-class citizens who are bound to be dissatisfied. This is no good. Until we relativize our cultural identities and adopt an inclusive group identity, our diversity initiatives are doomed to failure because we will never fully appreciate our diverse brothers and sisters and they will not feel appreciated.

The last bit of work he did, usually at some hour past midnight, was to read letters from American citizens. Since the start of his presidency, Barack had asked his correspondence staff to include ten letters or messages from constituents inside his briefing book, selected from the roughly fifteen thousand letters and emails that poured in daily. He read each one carefully, jotting responses in the margins so that a staffer could prepare a reply or forward a concern on to a cabinet secretary. He read letters from soldiers. From prison inmates. From cancer patients struggling to pay health-care premiums and from people who’d lost their homes to foreclosure. From gay people who hoped to be able to legally marry and from Republicans who felt he was ruining the country. From moms, grandfathers, and young children. He read letters from people who appreciated what he did and from others who wanted to let him know he was an idiot. He read all of it, seeing it as part of the responsibility that came with the oath. He had a hard and lonely job—the hardest and loneliest in the world, it often seemed to me—but he knew that he had an obligation to stay open, to shut nothing out. While the rest of us slept, he took down the fences and let everything inside.

He did have some small advantage, though. He knew the truth about surveillance. Ever since the dawn of GWOT the nations of the West – apart from the United States, where civil libertarians tended to carry rifles and use them on closed-circuit cameras as an expression of their freedoms – had put their faith in creating a paranoid state, one where every move of every citizen was recorded and logged and filmed and fuck you, if you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to worry about. Whether this had had any great influence in the course of GWOT was a moot point, but there was one thing not generally appreciated about the paranoid state. It was incredibly labour-intensive. There were simply not enough people to monitor all the cameras. Every shop had one, every bus and train and theatre and public convenience, every street and road and alleyway. Computers with facial recognition and gait recognition and body language recognition could do some of the job, but they were relatively simple to fool, expensive, and times had been hard for decades. It was cheaper to get people to watch the screens. But no nation on Earth had a security service large enough, a police force big enough, to keep an eye on all those live feeds. So it was contracted out. To private security firms all trying to undercut each other. The big stores had their own security men, but they were only interested in people going in and out of the store, not someone just passing by. So instead of a single all-seeing eye London’s seemingly-impregnable surveillance map was actually a patchwork of little territories and jurisdictions, and while they all had, by law, to make their footage available to the forces of law and order, many of the control rooms were actually manned by bored, underpaid, undertrained and badly-motivated immigrants.

Every hope and every fear of his fellow citizens, almost every aspect of their wealth and activity, falls within the scope of his concern—indeed, within the scope of his duty,” Harry Truman said. “Only a man who has held the office can really appreciate that.

People who have attended Concealed Carry classes, and those already licensed, typically seem to demonstrate a higher degree of courtesy, responsibility and respect. Interestingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, those citizens who carry, tend to also be more tolerant, if not better drivers. Perhaps because they appreciate, more than most, the responsibilities and ramifications involved.

In the midst of World War II, Quincy Wright, a leader in the quantitative study of war, noted that people view war from contrasting perspectives: “To some it is a plague to be eliminated; to others, a crime which ought to be punished; to still others, it is an anachronism which no longer serves any purpose. On the other hand, there are some who take a more receptive attitude toward war, and regard it as an adventure which may be interesting, an instrument which may be legitimate and appropriate, or a condition of existence for which one must be prepared” Despite the millions of people who died in that most deadly war, and despite widespread avowals for peace, war remains as a mechanism of conflict resolution. Given the prevalence of war, the importance of war, and the enormous costs it entails, one would assume that substantial efforts would have been made to comprehensively study war. However, the systematic study of war is a relatively recent phenomenon. Generally, wars have been studied as historically unique events, which are generally utilized only as analogies or examples of failed or successful policies. There has been resistance to conceptualizing wars as events that can be studied in the aggregate in ways that might reveal patterns in war or its causes. For instance, in the United States there is no governmental department of peace with funding to scientifically study ways to prevent war, unlike the millions of dollars that the government allocates to the scientific study of disease prevention. This reluctance has even been common within the peace community, where it is more common to deplore war than to systematically figure out what to do to prevent it. Consequently, many government officials and citizens have supported decisions to go to war without having done their due diligence in studying war, without fully understanding its causes and consequences. The COW Project has produced a number of interesting observations about wars. For instance, an important early finding concerned the process of starting wars. A country’s goal in going to war is usually to win. Conventional wisdom was that the probability of success could be increased by striking first. However, a study found that the rate of victory for initiators of inter-state wars (or wars between two countries) was declining: “Until 1910 about 80 percent of all interstate wars were won by the states that had initiated them. . . . In the wars from 1911 through 1965, however, only about 40 percent of the war initiators won.” A recent update of this analysis found that “pre-1900, war initiators won 73% of wars. Since 1945 the win rate is 33%.”. In civil war the probability of success for the initiators is even lower. Most rebel groups, which are generally the initiators in these wars, lose. The government wins 57 percent of the civil wars that last less than a year and 78 percent of the civil wars lasting one to five years. So, it would seem that those initiating civil and inter-state wars were not able to consistently anticipate victory. Instead, the decision to go to war frequently appears less than rational. Leaders have brought on great carnage with no guarantee of success, frequently with no clear goals, and often with no real appreciation of the war’s ultimate costs. This conclusion is not new. Studying the outbreak of the first carefully documented war, which occurred some 2,500 years ago in Greece, historian Donald Kagan concluded: “The Peloponnesian War was not caused by impersonal forces, unless anger, fear, undue optimism, stubbornness, jealousy, bad judgment and lack of foresight are impersonal forces. It was caused by men who made bad decisions in difficult circumstances.” Of course, wars may also serve leaders’ individual goals, such as gaining or retaining power. Nonetheless, the very government officials who start a war are sometimes not even sure how or why a war started.

Generally, critics feel that by embracing novel ecosystems, we are abandoning hope of undoing the damage done by humans, or offering a free pass to companies or governments that damaged them in the first place. Still, with around a third of all ice-free land now thought to be covered by novel ecosystems, it grows increasingly important to wrestle with what these mongrel, immigrant communities mean for the future of our planet as a whole. And it is in abandoned places, where human-impacted land is not being managed—where non-native species and native species alike are left to their own devices, without heavy-handed but well-meaning intervention—that we might begin to view alien invasions over a longer period of time, and perhaps come to to appreciate that, in time, an ecosystem might start to adapt to its new citizens and find a new sense of balance.

To destroy another country’s army or government in war was one thing. But to destroy the very identity and history of the citizens themselves was akin to cultural genocide. For Hitler, killing millions of innocent victims was not enough. He also wanted to destroy their culture and the very souls of those who might survive. To plunder and confiscate human history itself. And destroy it if need be. Saved by approximately sixty overweight and out of shape volunteer soldiers who laid their lives down to find and protect it all. It was an extraordinary effort that few alive today fully appreciated or even understood. And yet it was one that ironically left Rickards with a strange feeling

Mr. Zelenskyy thinks he was assigned a movie project, titled "Foolish Brave President ". Shooting has started but it has no pack-up date, devastated cities, villages are the artificial movie setup, producer's money, so he doesn't care. There are no refugees also. 3 million citizens who fled are actually junior artists. millions of junior artists. There are working in this movie, 3 million have already returned home after playing their role. Shooting is also going live on telecast. He's glad to feel happy as the world media appreciates his acting, so throughout he's enjoying playing this role. And he's damn sure he will be entitled to each and every award. His character has deep emotions, touching drama, great actions, but the very important thing is completely missing, which is the main character of the leader. Diplomacy and citizens' safety policy !!!

Good teachers make good citizens.

passionate followers of Christ; 2. great citizens; 3. holders of commendable livelihoods; mindful workers; 4. choosers of good friends; 5. ready to appreciate life; 6. physically modest; comprehension of male sexuality; staying away from the perils of erotic entertainment; and 7. admirers of their spouses; allies of their marriages.

But the thing that I remember most about our first meeting was the discussion about marijuana and the changing attitudes about its use and regulation. We speculated about why there hadn’t been appreciable movement toward legalizing recreational cannabis in the southern portion of the United States. At the start of 2016, weed was legal for adult use in four states: Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. By the end of that year, four more states had legalized the drug: California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada. None of these states had a black population as high as the national average of 12 percent. By contrast, the proportion of black citizens living in many southern states is larger than the national average, and cops in these regions routinely cite the smell of cannabis as justification for stopping, searching, or detaining black people. Judge Schneider speculated that the law-enforcement community and their supporters would vigorously oppose any legislation seeking to liberalize cannabis laws because they were acutely aware that claiming to detect the weed’s odor is one of the easiest ways for officers to establish probable cause, and judges almost never question the testimony of cops. What’s worse, there have been countless cases during which officers cited the fictitious dangers posed by cannabis to justify their deadly actions. On July 6, 2016, in St. Anthony, Minnesota, officer Jeronimo Yanez shot and killed Philando Castile, a defenseless black motorist, as his girlfriend and young daughter watched helplessly. Castile informed the officer that he had a firearm on him, for which he had a permit. But within a matter of seconds, Yanez had fired seven slugs into Castile for no apparent reason. The smell of weed, Yanez claimed, constituted an apparent imminent danger. He was acquitted of manslaughter.

to produce. As John Adams wrote, “Property monopolized or in the Possession of a few is a Curse to Mankind. We should preserve not an Absolute Equality.—this is unnecessary, but preserve all from extreme Poverty, and all others from extravagant Riches.”1 Here are ten steps that I think might help put us more on the course intended by the Revolutionary generation, to help us move beyond where we are stuck and instead toward what we ought to be: 1. Don’t panic Did the founders anticipate a Donald Trump? I would say yes. As James Madison wrote in the most prominent of his contributions to the Federalist Papers, “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”2 Just after Aaron Burr nearly became president, Jefferson wrote that “bad men will sometimes get in, & with such an immense patronage, may make great progress in corrupting the public mind & principles. This is a subject with which wisdom & patriotism should be occupied.”3 Fortunately the founders built a durable system, one that often in recent years has stymied Trump. He has tried to introduce a retrogressive personal form of rule, but repeatedly has run into a Constitution built instead to foster the rule of law.4 Over the last several years we have seen Madison’s checks and balances operate robustly. Madison designed a structure that could accommodate people acting unethically and venally. Again, our national political gridlock sometimes is not a bug but a feature. It shows our system is working. The key task is to do our best to make sure the machinery of the system works. This begins with ensuring that eligible citizens are able to vote. This ballot box is the basic building block of our system. We should appreciate how strong and flexible our Constitution is. It is all too easy, as one watches the follies and failings of humanity, to conclude that we live in a particularly wicked time. In a poll taken just as I was writing the first part of this book, the majority of Americans surveyed said they think they are living at the lowest point in American history.5 So it is instructive to be reminded that Jefferson held similar beliefs about his own era. He wrote that there were “three epochs in history signalized by the total extinction of national morality.” The first two were in ancient times, following the deaths of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, he thought, and the third was his own age.6 As an aside, Trump’s attacks on immigrants might raise a few eyebrows among the founders. Seven of the thirty-nine people who signed the Constitution were themselves born abroad, most notably Hamilton and James Wilson.7

Abrams—as Olson before him had been—was careful to distinguish between limits on contributions and limits on expenditures. Indeed, throughout the argument of both advocates for Citizens United, the questions from the liberal bloc of Justices—Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Stevens—focused on whether there was in fact a practical distinction between the corrupting potential of corporate contributions to candidates—which had been illegal since 1907 and were not being challenged—and the purchase of advertising that a candidate would surely notice and appreciate. If there was in fact no difference, precedent would seem to suggest that corporate spending could be restricted to advance the government’s interest in preventing corruption, as the Court had held in Buckley. However, Abrams pointed out that the precedents in Austin and McConnell were not all that old (at 19 and 6 years, respectively), so if the Court held that expenditure was a different act than contribution, a ruling for Citizens United did not necessarily have to overturn well-established precedents.

In this book, I therefore invite readers to engage in what might seem to be a contradictory exercise: to consider what societies governed by the rule of the clan can teach citizens of modern liberal democracies. I believe that by examining the rule of the clan and understanding its legal and cultural architecture, including its many positive and compelling features, liberals can gain critical insights for liberalism (by “liberal” I refer to people committed to the values of individualism and the principles of liberal democratic government, regardless of party affiliation). This ancient form of social organization can sharpen our appreciation of the institutional and cultural values necessary to sustain our individualist way of life. We can also learn how best to assist native legal reformers abroad in turning their societies toward more liberal legal arrangements.

Just a simple premise, back in San Diego DUI Lawyer arrested for drunk Style, this time in the direction of DUI and DWI generally unwanted, then little effect of alcohol is considered a leading progressive life. Americans in the second half of the US states, the sin just because the rules and stricter drunk driving laws more quickly hold. In addition, the results of all DUI lawyers in reality very difficult drive under the influence towards an unattainable production, to begin in San Diego that idea. The crime of DUI evaluation Provide always stops short of energy, but in reality because of traffic law enforcement to detect beautiful website, or you attack affects themselves can take to throw noted "checkpoints drinking water.” In some cases, the federal government said, but if you can do it in your own direction. Perhaps many car hit the rear part of the food as a result, the impact is recorded, your visit to show you the direction of your wine. Sometimes, someone reported an unstable support. Testing and observation around the federal government s decision in the same direction, it is not possible because most almost certainly to predict a jump back in their element. One or suspected poisoning at an affordable price set is designed to bring cases, their own rules and objectives, and with violation of traffic rules and the management style of the design more I can do for others the problem of selection that. They probably own the actual direction of their own drug, think about the purpose of the implementation of a user, then the friendly and with respect to speed, self-revealed the reason behind the purple party, appreciate it is also possible to DUI . San Diego right outcome for prison several internal unique opportunity, California expert is passed on to its customers and the code of .08% blood only a small car in California 23 152 (B) to answer good article Content (BAC) Assumption. Some of the inspiration for a special person for a month was necessary direction behind a person s mood, depends on you in the direction 23 § 152, may continue to be withheld because (). But in general, if not more, the sales people and just keep moving to stay DUI by police and they are removed direction or enough I began to feel, "personal involvement" is more than if under strict bail. Own all presentation of their work is to show. It s just maybe you just conditions, it is deposited in jail until eventually show itself may not be able to move allows. Expenses and income are affected by lead you affects costs, which child to leave behind, if not more than 0.08 per cent BAC does. Orientation, under the influence of the value of his research, the car broke into the possibility that some 23 152 have been found still proof (s). This is a normal move, and then the authority to suspend the system 6 is due to the fact that - 10 weeks, including perceived importance. Speaking of the court will have to apply for leave to the invention apparently drunk over in his address. Need him inside, a number of situations, the judge called a good time without alcohol can be. It is a matter, as long as the direction before the costly DUI do not experience a period of several weeks is legal. Worse, if there is only a repeat show that only a lawyer in San Diego drunk orientation. Too many of the legal rights of citizens under such guidelines as privatization and arms, vote. You own run for the benefit of all to make the removal of the time, which likely cost drivers behind the repeat drink. It is strong enough to get to San Diego recommends a good DUI is for that reason that the domestic legal experts. Obviously, the motivation many cases immediately, in simplest terms, is not swallowed. Self re direction is not the same thing, so you really recommended maximum future problem is to apply to yourself. This is a perfect example of the court had been found.

«At last I found you,» began the boy, bowing simultaneously mocking and respectful. Hurrichein snorted, planting his large eyes upon him. «Why this reverence, Prince? A little while ago you've pointed your sword at my throat,» she teased him. Galadir smiled, trying to restrain himself. He wanted to teach her a lesson, but his father had one last card to play. «The citizens of Thera are preparing a feast with dancing and food to celebrate the rescue of the Princess. My father would appreciate your presence.» «Your father or you, Prince Galadir?»

Our work is appreciated, of that I am certain. There isn’t a town or a city I visit where people do not convey to me their great pride in what we do. But I fear they do not know us. I fear they do not comprehend the full weight of the burden we carry or the price we pay when we return from battle.”[10]

I served our country in its military for a total of 40 years 6 months and 7 days. At a time when we have fake news and people have accepted that lies are as valid as the truth all I can say is that my DD-214 shows that I served and retired from the United States Naval Reserve, before joining the United States Army in its Military Intelligence Corps, and served as such until retiring in 1987. I personally don’t know of anyone else that actually served in two branches of our military and retired from each, and although I frequently receive thanks for my service it is appreciated but not necessary. What is however necessary, is that we as citizens give a long hard look at where we are going as a nation. Yes, our infrastructure needs repair and our people need good jobs. We certainly want to feel secure but we definitely don’t need one man to fix our Constitution, which by the way is not broken! We do not need a crude iron fist to run our country! What we do need is a clear understanding of where we are going and what our country stands for…. “The pursuit of happiness” for “We the People!” Our government is based on a system of checks and balances, not the blind following of an autocrat. That’s been tried before and failed each time. Let’s not go down that “Rabbit hole!” Stand up and protect our democracy and cherish our freedom! What we have is priceless! Don’t let anyone take that away from us…. “Stand up for what is right!

People living in democratic republics should know not only of its origins but also of the imperfect democratic struggle it spawned. Such appreciation might alleviate the taking of one’s way of life for granted.

What is real help to mankind? There are three types of negative people in this world, and they make up the vast majority of humans. Those that are selfish. People that live their lives without considering the needs of others, and live solely for their own personal gains. Those that are destructive. People that live their lives and consciously bring pain upon the lives of others, and or destroy the environment for their benefit. Those that are beggars. People that live their lives and expect to be given things without giving anything in return, and who do not appreciate what they are given. They see what they are being given as a just a salary. These people are worthless human beings. They do not contribute to the betterment of mankind. There is absolutely no point to their existence. If you help these people by giving them food, shelter, clothing, etc., you are only increasing the standard of living in which they negatively affect the world from. If you help these people by providing them with health care, you are only prolonging their existence and prolonging the suffering and destruction in which they inflict upon humanity. These people do not deserve either type of help. However, you can give them one type of help that is beneficial, and can be considered a true way of helping mankind. You can provide them with the knowledge to properly and virtuously live their lives in a positive way. Then and only then can you help them with their standard of living or the prolongation of their life. Otherwise you are simply aiding in the destruction of mankind yourself. I will give you a two personal and practical examples from my own life. When I hire someone I will gladly pay them an excessive salary if they are a good hearted person and truly deserve it. I could find someone else to do the job, to the exact same standards as them for less money. Even if they do a worse job than another person because they are physically handicapped, have poor health, or have family responsibilities, I will still gladly pay them an excessive salary. This is not at all because of my kindness. It is because a good-hearted person truly deserves it, they have the value of what they are being given. Furthermore, if an upper-class citizen approaches me to buy some of my products, and I do not need the money. I will not sell it to them. If I sell them my products I am only enabling their negative and destructive lifestyle. I would rather not make money, than have my products contribute, and help people further their path of negativity.

Thirteen Recurrent Domains of Human Concerns: Possible Breakdowns 1. BODY: health, sickness, injury, availability and unavailability for meetings and appointments. 2. PLAY or AESTHETICS: entertainment, recreation, art, and appreciation of art. 3. SOCIABILITY: opening new conversations, making new friends, maintaining friendships, breaking friendships, trusting what others say, establishing trust for yourself. 4. FAMILY: having children, education of children, marriage. 5. WORK: completing actions you have committed to take, doing your job. 6. EDUCATION: gaining competence, skill in some area. 7. CAREER: choosing a direction to take in life, choosing a career or profession to prepare for and follow. 8. MONEY or PRUDENCE: having sufficient money to support yourself, your salary, reputation among others you deal with. 9. MEMBERSHIP: participation in club, professional, organizational, or government institutions; gaining membership in societies, clubs, or other organizations; becoming a citizen. 10. WORLD: politics, the environment, other countries or cultures. 11. DIGNITY: self-respect, self-esteem, lack of self-esteem, conflicts between your standards of action and your actions. 12. SITUATION: disposition, temperament, outlook, emotions, judgments about “how things are going.” 13. SPIRITUALITY: philosophy, poetry, religion, humor (laughing about our nonacceptance of the facticity of life, not being burdened by it).

Our fundamental rights for both citizens and persons can be best appreciated if they are read conjointly with the fundamental duties mentioned in Article 51A of the Constitution. Therefore,

Go visit any of the presidential libraries or the National Archives. Watch or better yet sit in on a committee hearing of Congress or your state legislature. Go to the local school board meeting. Attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Walk a Civil War battlefield. Do not skip out on serving on a jury. You will come away with a new appreciation of how we got to where we are and why what is best about this country is worth preserving.

A related idea is simply to spend some time over coffee or a meal with someone you know who holds very different political positions. The goal is not to persuade them to come over to yours but to come away with a better appreciation of one another’s views and to build a foundation of respect and trust that allows both of you to spend time with one another despite your disagreements.

We succeed if you succeed ... so succeed. Nothing would please us more than for those who have appreciated our work to exceed it, to excel, to be marvels. Our success is your success. Your success is our success. We are all in this together. We are here to provide the path. We want you to walk it and be all you can be.

But if we ask whether there was not sonic madness about him, whether his naturally just mind was not subject to some kind of disturbing influence which was not essential to itself, then we ask a very different question, and require, unless I am mistaken, a very different answer. When all Philistine mistakes are set aside, when all mystical ideas are appreciated, there is a real sense in which Blake was mad. It is a practical and certain sense, exactly like the sense in which he was not mad. In fact, in almost every case of his character and extraordinary career we can safely offer this proposition, that if there was something wrong with it, it was wrong even from his own best standpoint. People talk of appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober; it is easy to appeal from Blake mad to Blake sane. When Blake lived at Felpham angels appear to have been as native to the Sussex trees as birds. Hebrew patriarchs walked on the Sussex ])owns as easily as if they were in the desert. Some people will be quite satisfied with saying that the mere solemn attestation of such miracles marks it man as a madman or a liar. But that is a short cut of sceptical dogmatism which is not far removed from inipu- dence. Surely we cannot take an open question like the supernatural and shut it with a bang, turning the key of the n►ad-house. on all the mystics of history. To call a man mad because lie has seen ghosts is in a literal sense religious persecution. It is denying him his full dignity as a citizen because lie cannot be fitted into your theory of the cosmos. It is disfranchising him because of his religion. It is just as intolerant to tell an old woman that she cannot be a witch as to tell her that she must be a witch. In both cases you are setting your own theory of things inexorably against the sincerity or sanity of human testimony. Such dogmatism at least must be quite as impossible to anyone calling himself an agnostic as to anyone calling himself a spiritualist. You cannot take the region called the unknown and calmly say that though you know nothing about it, you know that all its gates are locked. You cannot say, "This island is not discovered yet; but I am sure that it has a wall of cliffs all round it and no harbour." That was the whole fallacy of Herbert Spencer and Huxley when they talked about the unknowable instead of about the unknown. An agnostic like Huxley must concede the possibility of a gnostic like Blake. We do not know enough about the unknown to

Upstanding citizens openly used drugs to feel nice, to alter their consciousness. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was a long-term, avid drug user. He particularly appreciated the opium-based drugs for their mind-altering as well as medicinal effects.

The apprehension of music’s beauty has the effect of a certain “ordering of the soul,”2 (what Augustine refers to as ordo amoris) and that ordering leads to further and deeper appreciation. Roger Scruton refers here to Pythagoras’ understanding of harmony as the rational relation of physical pitches to one another. Plato also wrote about how important it was to introduce young children to beautiful music before they were able to reason because the heart attaches itself to beauty. Then, as maturity grows, the child looks for harmony in other things as well, such as the harmony of visual art, good business transactions, the harmonious marriage, and eventually in the application of justice in the city. Justice is the harmonious relation of reward and penalty to a citizen’s action.

Philosophers involved themselves intimately in debate about what society should be like and how it should govern itself. Some did this through deliberately aggressive and paradoxical distancing from everyday life, brutally to present reality to their fellow citizens, particularly the complacently wealthy. So Diogenes of Sinope, whom the philosopher Plato nicknamed ‘Socrates gone mad’, became a wandering beggar and, when infesting Athens with his presence, he slept in a large wine jar (he was sufficiently appreciated by the citizenry that when a teenage vandal broke his jar the ekklēsia is said to have bought him a replacement and to have had the boy flogged). His lifestyle was an enacted reminder that although human beings were rational animals, they were still animals – he was nicknamed ‘the dog’, from which his admirers and imitators took the name Cynics (‘those like dogs’).

Through running and meditating, we become better citizens of the world. Our appreciation, discipline, and energy benefit a much wider circle. These qualities are fuel for windhorse, the heart of the final phase of training. The Tibetan word is lungta. Lung means “wind,” and ta means “horse.” Windhorse is the life force energy that naturally arises when we train on the path of tiger, lion, garuda, and dragon. The wind represents the complete awakenment of the human mind. The horse represents expedience, success, and swiftness.

Today “mankind” included many types … all citizens, so long as they showed fealty to human law, and could appreciate the most basic human ways. Take your pick: music, a sunset, compassion, a good joke. In a future filled with unimaginable diversity, Man would be defined not by his shape but by heritage. A common set of grounded values.

Many people in the United States don’t appreciate that on almost all measures of quality or efficacy of healthcare, their country is in the last quadrant while having the most expensive care of all industrialized (first-world) countries and the least satisfied patients. What is also not appreciated is that every other industrialized country in the world offers universal healthcare to all of its citizens with better outcomes and much lower costs.

To have attempted to bribe the Army to support a revolution would have been treason, and rightly resented by all patriotic citizens, but to signalise the advent of the new Constitution by a bonus in cash to the Army is an act of grace and generosity, and will be rightly appreciated.

This essay is not a protest against selfishness, which, well done, can be a beautiful thing. There is nothing I envy, and appreciate, so much as a life led with genuinely unconscious, uncomplicated self-absorption. It’s a sort of karmic performance art. Isn’t that quality why some people so love observing cats? And I do not begrudge my fellow travelers’ enthusiasm for glamour; there’s nothing I like more. The right dress worn by the right starlet on Oscar night probably does as much to feed the soul as a perfect haiku.

IF THIS CONCLUSION had signaled the end of Arendt’s thinking on the subject, American readers of On Revolution could close the book basking in a feeling of self-satisfaction, offering a hymn of praise to their country’s exceptionalism, singing a chorus of “God Bless America” and retiring to their beds secure in the conviction that theirs was a nation unlike all others. But this was not the German-Jewish immigrant’s complex understanding of the United States, where gratitude was inevitably tempered by ambivalence and pessimism. Arendt was not one to close on so optimistic a note. The book’s last chapter, bringing the narrative up to the present, takes a sharp turn toward the ominous. It exhibits what one commentator calls a “particularly bleak and embattled tone.” It is a bucket of cold water thrown on the warm glow of the earlier exuberance. Political freedom, Arendt insisted in the book’s final pages, “means the right ‘to be a participator in government,’ or it means nothing.” The colonial townships and assemblies, building pyramidally to the constitutional conventions, were paradigms of citizen participation, but the popular elections that Americans today consider the hallmark of their democratic republic are hardly the same thing. Voting is not what Arendt meant by participation. The individual in the privacy of the voting booth is not engaged with others in the public arena, putting one’s opinions to the test against differing views and life experiences, but instead is choosing among professional politicians offering to promote and protect his or her personal interests through ready-made formulas, mindless banalities, blatant pandering, and outlandish promises cobbled together as party programs. (And heaven help the elected official who, in the manner of Edmund Burke, tries to argue against the personal interest of his or her constituents or to communicate bad news.) Leaders are selected on the basis of private, parochial concerns, not the public welfare, producing a mishmash of self-interested demands, or what Arendt called “the invasion of the public realm by society.” This was almost the opposite of genuine participation. Instead of the kind of intimate interchange of views and the deliberation that might be expected to resolve conflict, which was the practice of the townships and assemblies, isolated voters left to their own devices and with no appreciation of any larger good or of people different from themselves demand an affirmation of their particular prejudices and preconceptions. They have no opportunity, or desire, to come together with the aim of reaching mutual understanding and agreement on shared problems. Centrifugality prevails. American democracy, Arendt writes, had become a zero-sum game of “pressure groups, lobbies and other devices.” It is a system in which only power can prevail, or at best the blight of mutual backscratching to no greater end than mere political survival, lending itself to lies and demagoguery, quarrels and stalemates, cynical deal-making, not public exchange and calm deliberation.

There is no old age like anxiety,” said one of the monks I met in India. “And there is no freedom from old age like the freedom from anxiety.” In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place. Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement. You don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Without seeing Sicily one cannot get a clear idea of what Italy is. “No town can live peacefully, whatever its laws,” Plato wrote, “when its citizens…do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love.” In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real. The idea that the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one’s humanity. You should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. They break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life. The Zen masters always say that you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water. Your treasure—your perfection—is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. Balinese families are always allowed to eat their own donations to the gods, since the offering is more metaphysical than literal. The way the Balinese see it, God takes what belongs to God—the gesture—while man takes what belongs to man—the food itself.) To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile. The word paradise, by the way, which comes to us from the Persian, means literally “a walled garden.” The four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and (I love this one) poetry. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. Once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.

To fully appreciate what we’ve lost, we need to begin with a deeper understanding of the egalitarian capitalism that the West once had—and how it eroded. The system created at the end of World War II was, of course, incomplete. Women were not equal citizens, nor were blacks. Much of the West still had colonies. But compared to any version of capitalism before or since, the three decades after World War II were remarkable. The postwar system squared a circle. It achieved the improbable feat of combining dynamic capitalism with near-full employment, increasing income equality based on rising wages, and expanding social benefits. Such a convergence was unprecedented in the history of capitalism. Core elements of the system were the tight regulation of private finance, the offsetting empowerment of organized labor, and the activist role of government.

Shortly after Ryan and I broke up, I returned to the solitude I normally enjoyed, appreciating the simplicity of my life because I no longer had to walk on eggshells around a man. But now that time had passed, the loneliness had started reappearing like a growing tidal wave in the distance. I could feel it building and when it finally reached me, I would spend the rest of the day or night restless and fighting tears. It would eventually pass, but the episodes were becoming more frequent. I tried to fill my days with more social interaction, but that only left me feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. A personal connection with someone was what I craved the most. Someone who understood my needs and was willing to speak my language. Someone like Jonathan. I avert my eyes as I answer him. "I don't mind spending time alone, but sometimes I do get very lonely." Jonathan leans over and puts his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close as I fight back tears. "Not everyone can look past their own hang-ups to see what I see. It's their loss." When Jonathan said things like that, it propped me up and took away a little of the sting from the people who'd tried to tear me down or make me feel like a second-class citizen because I viewed things differently than they did. Ten years ago, I might not have been clear on what Jonathan was saying, but that had changed. Tina had taught me that it was important to surround myself with people who understood me. People who were secure about their own place in the world. It wasn't always easy to identify who those people were, but I was much better at it now than I had been in the past.

Planting the US flag at the site of the Twin Towers did presage a war. Tom Franklin said that when he took his shot he had been aware of the similarities between it and another famous image from a previous conflict –the Second World War, when US Marines planted the American flag atop Iwo Jima. Many Americans will have recognized the symmetry immediately and appreciated that both moments captured a stirring mix of powerful emotions: sadness, courage, heroism, defiance, collective perseverance and endeavour. Both images, but perhaps more so the 9/ 11 photograph, also evoke the opening stanza of the American national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, particularly its final lines: O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? At a moment of profound shock for the American people, the sight of their flag yet waving was, for many, reassuring. That the stars of the fifty states were held aloft by men in uniform may have spoken to the streak of militarism that tinges American culture, but to see the red, white and blue amid the awful grey devastation of Ground Zero will also have helped many ordinary citizens to cope with the other deeply disturbing images emerging from New York City that autumn day.

Donald Trump would not know the men and women of the FBI if he ran over them with the presidential limo, and he has shown the citizens of this country that he does not know what democracy means. He demonstrates no understanding or appreciation of our form of government. He takes no action to protect it. Has any president done more to undermine democracy than this one? His "I hereby demand" tweet in May 2018, ordering Department of Justice investigations of the investigators who are investigating him--I can barely believe that I just wrote that phrase--is a clear example.

A French observer of early America, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote that the greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than other nations, but rather in our ability to repair our faults.x Through amendments to our Constitution and court decisions applying those amendments, we abolished slavery, prohibited racial discrimination, and recognized men and women as people of equal citizenship stature. Though we have made huge progress, the work of perfection is scarcely done. Many stains remain in this rich land. Nearly a quarter of our children live in poverty. Nearly half of our citizens do not vote. And we still struggle to achieve greater understanding and appreciation of each other across racial, religious and socio-economic lines. We sing of America, “sweet land of liberty”. Newcomers to our shores . . . came here, from the earliest days of our nation to today, seeking liberty, freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be you and me. A great American jurist, Judge Learned Hand,xi understood liberty. He explained in 1944 what liberty meant to him when he greeted a large assemblage of new Americans gathered in New York City’s Central Park, to swear allegiance . . . to the United States. These are Judge Hand’s words: Just what is this sacred liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the rootless, unbridled will, it is not freedom to do as one likes. I cannot define the spirit of liberty, I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which weight their interests alongside its own, without bias.10 May the spirit of liberty, as Judge Hand explained it, be your beacon. May you have the conscience and the courage to act in accord with that high ideal, as you play your part in helping to achieve a more perfect union. From “Remarks at the New York Historical Society”, 10 April 2018

In many traditional societies, the political head is also a spiritual leader, and in others the secular leader is limited by ancient religious teachings. We Americans pride ourselves on separating church and state, rightly worried that citizens may lose freedoms if politicians mix their religious beliefs with their political agendas. But as a result we have created a wholly secular state that can't truly govern a people, because its activities ignore the needs of the soul and play out as if a human community were a mere aggregate of inanimate bodies. How could we run a country according to the most recent reckoning of pollsters unless we considered citizens as mere numbers?...If we could distinguish between a basic religious attitude and a system of beliefs, we might bring to our civic lives a spirit of reverence, an acknowledgement of mystery, and an appreciation for ritual, all in an atmosphere of tolerance.

Members of a democratic public will not do well if they are unable to appreciate the views of their fellow citizens, if they believe “fake news,” or if they see one another as enemies or adversaries in some kind of war.

Being a global citizen means appreciating our shared humanity no matter what nation you call home.

The Catholic Church’s policy of blaming women and sex for the ills of the world came to full fruition in the late Middle Ages and on into the Renaissance. At minimum, hundreds of thousands of innocent women and men were hunted down, tortured horribly, reduced to physical, social, and economic wreckage, or burnt at the stake for being “witches”. The Catholic Church, so obsessed with it’s paranoid, irrational, illogical, and superstitious fantasies, deliberately tortured and executed human beings for a period of three hundred years. All this carnage, due to the Church's fear of learning, kept Europe in the throws of abysmal ignorance for a thousand years. What has been lacking in the world since the fall of the ancient world is a logical view of the godhead. To the Greek and Roman mind the gods were utilitarian; that is they offered convenient place to appreciate human archetypes. Sin and redemption from sin had nothing to do with the gods. The classic Greek and Roman gods did not offer recompense in life nor a heavenly afterlife as reward. Rather morality was determined by your service to humanity whether it was in the form of philosophy, science, art, architecture, engineering, leadership, or conquest. In this way humanity could live up to great potential instead of wasting their energy on worship, and false promises For almost a thousand years after the fall of Rome the Catholic Church’s control of society and law guaranteed that woman’s position was degraded to that of a second class citizen, far below the ancient Roman standard. Every literary reference depicts women as inferior, unworthy of inheritance, foolish, lustful and sinful. The Church ordained wife beating and encouraged total obedience to fathers and husbands. Women generally could not own land, join a guild, nor earn money like a man. Despite all this, a series of events unfolded; the crusades, rebirth of classical ideas, the printing press, the Reformation, and the Renaissance, all of which began to move womankind forward. VALENTINES DAY CARDS The Lupercalia festival of the New Year became an orgiastic carnival. A lottery ceremony ensued where men chose their sexual partners by choosing small bits of paper naming each woman present. Later the Christians, trying to incorporate and tame this sexual festival substituted the mythical saint Valentine; and ‘the cards of lust’ evolved into the valentine cards we exchange today.

During the 1920s Tata had tried hard to practice what Mahatma Gandhi preached. He met with failure at every corner: trying to sell handspun khadi to villagers who did not want it, trying to convince labourers that the drink they enjoyed at the end of the day was an evil to be shunned, and preaching eternal celibacy to girls in communities that traditionally turned them into consorts of rich men. Tata was turning into a rationalist, atheist and a modernist. He appreciated the benefits that science, technology and medicine had gifted to society. He found Gandhi’s anti-economic growth arguments, sex-denying prudery and god-fearing piety largely irrelevant to improving the lives of Indian citizens.