Why Do We Believe The Things We Cannot Know

What matters most to you as an individual?

What do you have real and meaningful control or influence over in your life?

The conflict between these two simple questions is driving modern mankind insane. Why would we believe we should take action regarding assertions we have no way of confirming on issues we have absolutely no control over while—and as a direct result—floundering in the areas that are of great importance to us personally and that are under our control and/or influence?

We see this everywhere and at all times. I see it in myself quite regularly. All of us have things to do that would be to our great advantage that we let lapse and we use that time to form and internalize hardened opinions on something we can't possibly know a thing about. It does not help that our leaders are busy voting on legislation that they have not read and do not understand. We must feel that since our leaders do it, we should too. Now that is #@!&* insane. It's just the craziest thing ever if you think about it. We insist on putting forth propositions based on premises with no evidence. And we do this because we think we have evidence—because we saw it on TV, read about it on an internet news site, or heard about it from people who have similar biases, some of whom are so evil that they commission "studies" to support previously reached conclusions. The energies we put into the thoughts and consideration of things we have absolutely no control over, as the stuff we can influence/control falls apart as it stares us in the face, boggles the mind.

I am starting to think that this is not just phenomenon. I am becoming convinced that some kind of fairy or pixie or mini-drone or gremlin is flying around our heads and when we are not looking they are blowing sh#! in our face that we breathe in and this stuff causes us to self-destruct.  Or maybe the fluorescent lighting is telling our bodies to secrete a hormone that causes hypocrisy (just in case: tongue firmly in cheek!). Whatever it is it seems to make us want to take on the misfortunes of billions of strangers—as if we could do anything about it—by hiring tens of thousands of government thugs with guns, dogs, clubs, and jail cells, when we should be concerned about the expanding blob taking shape in the mirror, or the sullen kid taking up space at the kitchen table furiously thumbing away at the distraction device he has been provided with to help pass the time of his sentence in suburbia, or if you want to get really heroic by becoming good and real neighbors.

We see this nonsense all the time. We are castigated to do something about the homeless by a person who binge-watches Netflix but who have never strapped on a tool belt, or to do something about the environment by people who have not put up a &^%$# clothesline, or having to listen to someone breaking their arm patting themselves on the back because they are helping save the earth from exceeding its carrying capacity by not having children (while their social interests have no possible risk of conception). We are all guilty.

The truly nutty take it a step further. They get "active", i.e. doing things that now cause actual harm—things like protests and marches or engaging in deception—rather than just being pathetically ineffective and hypocritical. These folks have stepped it up to criminal and haughty. That's a heck of a combination.

But there is good news. At any time of our choosing we can stop the drama of pretending to matter on some national or international issue—becasue we don't—and get "active" (goodness, I hate that word) locally: Have a FAMILY! Run for dog catcher, volunteer to put up a neighborhood vegetable garden, or organize transportation for elderly neighbors to go grocery shopping or to have some company. Whatever. Anything is better than social justice warring and virtue signaling. There are lots to do. In our community, it happens all time with no organizational effort required. On a regular basis, there is someone at my door who needs a ride to town, has a calf stuck in a cow, or needs help loading a deer onto a field wagon (we get some strange opportunities engage in real community in my 'hood). And I find myself at least as often knocking on my neighbors' doors to help me get the hay in, or catch an errant horse, or hold up the other end of whatever broke that day—but that's the way it is in small communities. It might take a little more effort to actually accomplish something—rather than virtue signal—in the city or in a suburb, but with a little effort, and if we completely ignore national and international politics, I think some measure of "community" can be had. Certainly more than is had now.

Of course, there is a huge difference between politics and policy and ethics and morality. Discussing ethics and morality are incredibly important for human development. And while confusing the inherent violence of politics and policy for ethical and moral conduct, and the conflicts and social miasma that error creates is the crux of the problem, we do not have to participate in any of this as individuals. The power structure that wishes to consume the energies of our lives to further their agenda can best be defeated by ignoring them, by refusing to fund them, and spending all of that wasted energy and resources "locally". I place that in quotes because most of us do not have a "local" anything anymore, and it was this power structure that stole that from us. We have been convinced to migrate to large population centers so that we can live without family or children, stacked up on top of each other like cordwood while remaining strangers, taxed into submission, breathing the air of traffic jams and office chemicals, in search of "elite employment"—all the while  operating in a complex and nefarious social environment that has as one of its imperatives a need to convince us that we are immortal. (No one sends us a note when we have "aged out"—and we will all "age out" (if we are lucky). This hits some people harder than others going by the demographic data on anti-depressant and anti-psychotic meds).

To date, most of the "localism" propaganda we have been hit with has come from aging hippies (and other aging deviants) in deep regret of a misspent youth—but I have come around to thinking that they are really onto something, in much the way that I think the recent regathering in Quaker philosophy is on to something. But there is a key ingredient missing—a path to the future for the generations to come. No children = no future. People can—and will—argue from the margins: "Lots of children at our Meeting!" But any rational examination of this will only show that we are busy going extinct—again. Aging out. Dying off. By rejecting reality we sow the seeds of our own demise. Condemned to online "retirement communities" of virtue signaling in an effort to compensate for earlier failures. But we have credentials and approvals from the self-destructive power structure, so it's all good!

The cities can flourish temporarily via immigration (well, until they run out of immigrants) from the countryside—but local communities must be self-reinforcing. They must provide their own building blocks of "Community"—children. The evidence is all around us: Well adjusted children and functioning adults come from a culture of respect for family and private property (the accumulation and maintenance of "capital" or "surplus" to be passed on to future generations). Feminism/collectivism and the rejection of family and private property yield empty nurseries, obesity/tattoos/piercings/opioids (self-harm/mutilation), and lots of "crazy aunt in the attic" syndrome—before causing the culture to die out altogether. This is not a rejection of their humanity. It is a rejection of the philosophies and sensibilities that always leads to oblivion. Of course, the individual should be free to pursue oblivion. Now, if only misery did not just love company. But misery does love company, and the examination of this falls under ethics and morality and not dreaded national and international politics and policy.

More soon,

QIASL

















#Simplicity #Integrity #Localism #Community #Feminism #Authoritarianism #PrivateProperty #Liberty #Family #Abortion #Collectivism #Authoritarianism #Family #Quaker #Philosophy #Libertarian

Tis the Season for Reason

Thousands of years ago Bronze Age scribes and intellectuals attempted to engage in a universal philosophical explanation of existence, political science/organization, and the control of labor and agricultural production in an agrarian civilization that evolved into the foundational texts of the great religions of the Middle East. There is a long and ever-growing list of discoveries about existence that dwarfs the ideas promulgated and contained in the totality of these ancient texts and almost entirely in contravention of them—and yet they endure.

People seem to need tradition and continuity, so much so that when confronted with new and better evidence regarding our existence, people choose tradition and continuity over the evidence. This conflict will eventually be settled in the bedroom by human sexuality and in the kitchen around the family table—not in a political body or on a battlefield or in a pulpit.

Conflict has been a universal human experience. We exist in a constant struggle for primacy—for resources, for sexual partners, and for descendants. Obviously, our desire and passion for procreation have consistently won out over conflict. When cultures clash, first they fight—then they have sex and produce children. Individual survival of conflict, whatever the conflict is, always manifests itself in the next generation. If it had not, I would not be writing this and you would not be reading this.

Large swaths of the body politic of the West deny this, but they are going extinct—even as they rage. Biology and mortality are completely indifferent even to its own errors, which nature cures every 70 years or so. “Those who breed, succeed (at least politically)” (original to me; feel free to use it early and often).

A friend sent me a video of one of the morning TV shows (we don’t have commercial TV in the home and he thought I would find this worth seeing) in which several aging/middle-aged talking heads were ringing their hands about the latest propaganda battle in the Gender War and wondering out loud, “How are we going to come back from this?” Such mind-boggling arrogance! “How are we going to come back from this?” From where? Two people, who had consensual sex while working together at the same company?  Mankind "came back" from nuclear bombings, the Holocaust, the Ukraine famine, the Killing Fields, the slaughter in the Congo... and these people are wondering "How we are going to come back from this?"

Leaving that silly idea alone for the moment: it all really depends how one defines “we.” Since most of the people talking on that show, its writers, producers, and executives, will either be pushing up daisies in a cemetery or be drooling in a nursing home within 20 years (7,305 days, 1,044 Saturday nights) or so (and maybe a lot sooner), I don’t know why they are so concerned or why they should include themselves in this “we” thing. Do they think that their children—if they bothered to produce any—are even remotely concerned?

Blinded by the lights of the cameras, these media “players”—and the people enthralled to them—have entered into the terminal phase of their cultural existence, completely unaware that the grim reaper is standing right behind them. They have spent their existence as “moralists with a stick” (also original to me). People who do not actually live themselves, spending their existence watching other people living on TV/computer screens and intently internalizing the belief systems that the media producers infect them with, and beating the people who do actually live about the head and shoulders for not conforming to a morality that the moralists cannot even articulate. A morality that completely denies the biological imperative and life-giving force of (hetero) human sexuality, and which has lately contrived to convince the common man that there is no difference between the ideas of Malem In Se and Malem Prohibitum. And they are willing to sacrifice our joy in life at the sacred alter of their temporary sense of self-importance. But Mother Nature, including biology, always bats last.

These are people who Creation was not kind to. Creation infused them with confusion. Creation crossed and shorted-out their wires and deformed their structure. For some strange reason these poor souls feel they can get even with Creation via the destruction of Life itself, of our culture and history, of our intellectual, personal, and artistic achievements, and anything and everything that might possibly contradict their narrative and by doing so give comfort and support to their feelings of inadequacy and sense of persecution. Such people rarely have children and so have more time to politically agitate and radicalize in their efforts to destroy—to “get even” with—Creation. Of course, that is never going to happen. The universe is going to do what it was set in motion to do. What will happen is that these people are going to pass from existence, as every man who has ever died has done and every man who has not died as yet is going to do. The earth and Creation will swallow them up and break down the errors made in their DNA into ashes and dust, and a new crop of human beings, people who, like every other human being, came into existence at the point of an aroused male attracted to and temporarily objectifying the incredible beauty of a nubile feminine female, will come of age completely unaware and unconcerned with the sensibilities of these lost souls. And not so much as a faint echo of their enraged—and deranged—existence will endure.

All people are born with an unlimited capacity to experience joy, passion, pleasure, achievement, love, and the virtue of integrity expressed in the care of their children before their life ends. For reasons that will likely never be fully understood—not because these reasons cannot be understood but because the sensibilities of these people are not worthy of being understood—some people choose to spend the time they were allocated expressing outrage at existence. Such people are never celebrated. They are never mourned. They are never missed. Not even by their compatriots or those they claim to champion. The rugby scrum of humanity will continue down the path of evolution and will wink out of existence just as every other mammalian species has done or will do, and in the same inconsequential timeframe on the cosmic existence scale.

The enraged, the frightened, and the neurotic are incapable of Reason. They are incapable of producing children as well as raising well-adjusted children into functioning adults. They seek to destroy that which they themselves cannot participate in, but in the final analysis, these people simply do not matter. They are dead-ends and a cautionary tale waiting to be reduced to fictional stories for future generations—an “Aesop’s Fables” for the anti-social deviants who experience anger rather than joy and passion and procreation.

In the “Devine Comedy”, Dante places the angry and the sullen in the “Fifth Circle of Hell”. How prescient of Dante! If Reason allowed for Hell I think that is right where the angry and sullen of this time belong.

Best,


QIASL























 #Simplicity #Integrity #Localism #Community #Feminism #Authoritarianism #PrivateProperty #Liberty #Family #Abortion #Collectivism #Authoritarianism #Family #Quaker #Philosophy #Libertarian  #MeToo # Liberals # Progressive # Democrat #RightToLife #MeNeither

Building a Community That Lasts

I was exchanging correspondence with authors, philosophers, mathematicians, and engineers Rob O'Grady (150 Strong: A Pathway to a Different Future) and Dmitry Orlov (Communities That Abide) on the subject of "Community". Their comments to me shall remain private. Herewith is my reply to one exchange:

(Quote)

Hey Rob and DO, thanks for the reply.

I focused in on your "community-lite" remark (naturally). Of course, I think that is the right way to go about this.

Community, as I grok it, simply cannot be "communal". I visited "The ****", the largest and oldest commune in the U.S.—and it was a shocking disgrace. The population consisted of feckless and mentally ill aging male hippies, few women, and no children. I was appalled. I had planned to stay for a week but realized that by day 2 that I had seen the entire abasement, and so we left. It should be mentioned that my wife and the younger children had seen enough by lunchtime of the first day (we arrived late the night before on our converted school bus that we use as an "RV"; the "welcome" we got is a story in and of itself). I am still traumatized by the experience. This was the moment that I fully grokked Dmitry's railing against the distraction of politics. The place was one *huge* political distraction of protest where nothing got done—but they were extremely proud of their solar array, so they had that going for them (snicker). I asked them where their dairy was, or their hen (eggs) house, or the grain mill, or the livestock—things a self-sufficient "community" needs either individually or communally— and was informed that they were all vegetarian and that they did not keep livestock. So I assumed that they would have massive gardens and fruit patches and orchards to make up for the absence of animal calories. What I saw sickened me. It seemed to me that their socio-economic model was to collect government "disability" checks and to rent space to park dilapidated trailers upon where they might "live"—if one can call what I saw there "living".

What I propose is to encourage young couples/families who have the ability to finance the purchase of a functioning homestead in our community (there are several Amish farms for sale and a number of parcels large enough to homestead on), and then "lend" them equipment/tools/implements if they cannot afford them (they may keep the implements if they succeed; and if they fail the equipment belongs to the community and can be used by other community members in a similar fashion) and help them get started in a marketable trade or artisan business. Because, as I continue to noodle this, unlike the Amish and the Mennonites, these people will need several years to learn how to make themselves productive in this way of living. They have no knowledge of this way of life, having spent their existence moving bytes around on a screen and occasionally talking on a telephone. Worse, they may well have spent time listening to crazy people on the Web (or reading "homesteading" books) and have internalized opinions very much like the way many of them have internalized political belief systems. I have a solution for this: For not a great deal of money, our organization can hire a Mennonite or Amishman to teach newcomers with a hands-on example, almost an apprenticeship, at his farm. There has to be redundancy. I am not getting any younger. The key is to get to critical mass. At least 10 families with children. With that, between newcomers and children coming of age, we can get our community to model after the typical Amish or Mennonite "church group community" of 25 families—coincidentily enough, roughly 150 souls; a "Dunbar number" community—in short order.

I have had lots of interest from "whoofers" (they actually call themselves this). I would tend to call them "loafers" and have taken to discourage them from visiting given the poor experience we have had with them in the past. A community cannot survive single and uncommitted transients any more than it can survive childless middle-aged couples. The former consumes time and resources and then leave, making absolutely no contribution to the community whatsoever, and I fear that the latter would consume time and resources and then, infinitely worse, might stay and consume more and more community resources and turning the community into an old age home that young families would flee from. Families will take care of their own their own, but it is unreasonable to ask young families to accept into the community people who have not made a lifetime of contribution but who will now require end of life support and comfort.

(For my upcoming book I coined the term “The Feminist paradox” to describe this. Feminists may well hate men, marriage, family, and children—but elderly Feminists will happily consume the resources and efforts of families and other people’s offspring. They will also happily consume inheritances from their own parents and ancestors while making no personal sacrifices and providing nothing to future generations. (Here, read what Kant, the Left's favorite philosopher, has to say on the subject.)

Feminists were complicit in the murders of millions of unborn babies and now, in the Feminists’ old age, they want to hold a gun to the head of the babies they didn't kill—the now-adult offspring of their contemporaries and seize resources by (government) force. This is also true of the LBGTVQR community. I am not denying the humanity of any human being; I am pointing out the economic realities of using government extracted resources to fund social programs for what has always been—and will soon be again—family and personal responsibility. It is not a coincidence that childless people are less interested in private property and inheritance and find collectivism appealing. They have no family to command their loyalty and have no difficulty justifying the confiscation of resources from others by government force (mob rule).)

Imagine the Mayflower or one of the early settlement ships coming to North America from Europe. Did they send single men? Or couples too old to have children? Of course not. Too, most settlers of new communities in the past had the benefit of a lifetime of actual and useful skills. Can you imagine a shipful of today's recent college graduates being set ashore in New England in the 17th century? In any event, any new settlement, community, or nation for that matter cannot be formed around people who do not produce children.

In any event, I am thrilled to hear that you have four families in your community. You are getting closer to the critical mass needed for success.

Regards,

Greg


(Unquote)

The Complexity Trap

Mankind has enjoyed tremendous benefits as a result of industrialization and the subsequent advances in infrastructure, science & technology, and antibiotics, surgical technique, and anesthesia.

(Please note: I placed infrastructure first because it was the delivery of clean water and the removal of disease-causing waste, and sanitation in general, that benefited mankind most in terms of health and lifespan—not "healthcare". I placed science and tech next and include in that space things like the advances in nutrition, food production, and refrigeration. And notice I did not even say “healthcare” or “medicine”? In the absence of antibiotics (a medicine, of course), I think all of the positive input from “healthcare” as a practical matter when measured in lifespan evaporates with the distinct exception of the management of pain and vaccines.)

We enjoy far longer lifespans here in the industrialized West than our preindustrial ancestors did, and our lives are far more comfortable. There. I have given the devil his due. Too bad that wasn’t enough for the devil because, in addition, the devil has taken our emotional and physical wellbeing from us. We are incredibly unwell physically and emotionally. And the people who (think they) benefit from our condition do not want us talking about it. Our complex lifestyle and the resultant obesity and anger epidemic has ravaged our physical health and our peace of mind—and the diets, health insurance(!), government programs, psychotherapy treatments, hormone therapies, gym memberships, diet pills and medications, bariatric surgeries, personal trainers, antidepressants/antipsychotics, exercise programs, and every other expensive and specious patch-fix the intelligentsia have slapped on this wound has only increased Complexity and has not brought us (back) to good physical and mental health—and they never will!—because the cause is the universally complex nature and essence of our lives.

Screw “The Matrix” and all of the movie special effects.  The problem is “Complexity”—and it is very real and it really is all around you. This Complexity thing has done a number on us. I don’t need to “fat shame” us. We have already done that by acknowledging how truly ill we are when we coined and used that phrase to defend the indefensible in the first place. We are enraged; walking time bombs of social-justice-warring vitriol. Saaammmokin’ mad do-gooders out for our 15 minutes of virtue signaling fame as we sit exhausted from the Complexity of our lives in front of the TV and listen closely as it tells us what to think while stuffing our face full of high carb take-out alone in our childless homes convinced of our immortality because Complexity made sure we have never had the inconvenience of having to witness and accept death. And it is our belief in our immortality that gives us the room to do all of the mental gymnastics we do that result in a population of enraged, obese, and childless lunatics.

I mean, really! Would any rational person who knew—not feared, but knew—they were going to die at "three score and ten"—and would be irrelevant a decade or even two before that—construct a system where they take on a mountain of debt to stay “in school” until almost 30? Would they commute 2 hours per day to a fluorescent-lit dungeon for 8, 9, 10 or more hours per day to work with people who can’t wait to eviscerate them if they find someone attractive or if they say something that offends someone (regardless of how emotionally unstable and overly sensitive that someone might be)? Would a rational and reasonable person who understood the limited nature of time and their own mortality load up on 30 years worth of debt for houses and cars and nannies (or childcare if you are poor) in exchange for a few idle years in old age?

Of course not! We’ve obviously gone stark, raving mad. Driven insane by (the unholy trinity of) soul-crushing, body-bloating, and mind-numbing Complexity. Worse, we are completely addicted to it. We can't help ourselves, though deep down inside we know we should be making other arrangements. We know that being 50 or 100+ pounds overweight has turned the volume knob on our life down to where we can no longer hear ourselves live, reduced to screen-watching others live and critiquing their conduct. We know we should be marrying and having children when we are young enough to see our offspring through to adulthood and maybe enjoy a grandchild or two. We know we are wasting the beautiful moments of our brief existence in anger and rage, protesting over the unfairness of the world or human nature itself. Deep down we know, even as we deny, that we will soon be as dead as fried frogs legs and the world and the universe will go right on existing as it is. We just haven’t done anything about it yet. But we do know we should get a move on.

The solution to the problems born of Complexity is to remove the Complexity. No "Red Pill". No drama. Many of us use the phrase, “practice (or practicing) Simplicity”. I have used it myself. But of course, that’s just silly. We don’t have to “practice Simplicity”. All we need do is reject/remove Complexity and Simplicity follows. Simplicity is the default; the factory-setting of the human condition, if you will. You were born Simple. Complexity happened to you along the way.

Simplicity is not a vow of poverty. Mankind was given Reason, and the ability to experience joy and pride in our accomplishments. You can still work hard, and achieve fantastic professional, personal, intellectual, or artistic success while living simply. But by doing so you will never be trapped by your own success, wasting the precious moments of your mortal existence doing something that you no longer wish to do but having no other choice precisely because you are trapped where you are because the self-inflicted Complexity of your life has removed all other options. And if you are fortunate enough to live long enough there will come a time in your life where you have a firm grasp on your mortality (some are slower than others on the uptake on this) and will wish to pursue different objectives.

Often we confuse Complexity with freedom because we believe that our stressful and complex lives are the sacrifice we must make for other rewards, many of which we associate with freedom. If that were true why are we waddling about looking like Humpty-Dumpty, enraged, and slurping meds just to cope? Complexity often manifests itself as a form of arrested development. Complexity is life in a rut. It is Simplicity that provides freedom and flexibility, well at least according to me and Ben Franklin, Henry D. Thoreau, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, et al. At the very least I am in good company here.

OK, here is where I must depart. I don't know what your chief purpose in life is. I can’t tell you how to go about rejecting Complexity or what to do next. I know how I handled it (and you could read the book I wrote about my experience in rejecting Complexity, "Prosperous Homesteading"), but I can’t tell you how to go about it. I can tell you that it is a process that goes back and forth and that requires extreme vigilance and diligence to keep Complexity at bay. I can tell you that you can always back up a step if you think you went too far and I can tell you I have never met anyone who went too far (yet).

How about this: Keep removing Complexity from your life until you are fit and trim, medication free, and no longer angry—and for the average American or Western European that is going to be quite enough of a shock because the zeitgeist, for reasons beyond my comprehension, wants you obese, angry, and medicated and has worked tirelessly to get you there. By the way... Happiness is too much to ask for—because, as Søren Kierkegaard said, no matter what you do, you are going to regret it. Fit and trim, medication free, and not angry is easier to accomplish than happiness. It is best to keep our goals modest and reasonable.



 Actually, Kierkegaard said it this way:

Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.

Had enough of signaling your virtue online? Feel the need to engage in some real and measurable do-gooderism? Reach out to me at: greg at quuchurch dot org and I will be happy to fill that need.

Our Peace Testimony (and the premises that support it)

The Quaker testimony of Peace goes to the very heart of our way of Life. The Peace testimony defines us, identifies us, and secures us. It is also one of the most counterintuitive ideas that spring forth from our philosophy of rejecting the use of force, violence, or coercion to achieve any goal—moral, political, personal, or material—and is universal. And it was this philosophy, this testimony in particular, that inspired William Penn to create the Frame of (colonial) Pennsylvania (actually, there were three Frames), and I would assert as the greatest political achievement in the history of civilization (and certainly since the Magna Carta).

“William Penn was the greatest lawgiver the world has produced, being the first, in either ancient or modern times who has laid the foundation of government in the pure and unadulterated principles of peace, reason, and right.” —Thomas Jefferson

Without the Quaker testimonies, there is no "Holy Experiment" of Pennsylvania, no Philadelphia, no "Virginia Declaration of Rights", no American Revolution—and no French Revolution!—no Benjamin Franklin, no Freedom Hall, no U.S. Constitution, et al for it was the philosophy of the Quakers and William Penn that the individual had rights that existed prior to the establishment of the State and which were not subjugated by the establishment of the State that gave birth to all of those developments. For the previous 12,000 years of civilization (or so), Man had no say in his government. This was the gift of the Quaker testimony of Peace to mankind—the creation of the United States and the U.S. Constitution, the only political achievement to rival Penn's Pennsylvania. Or should I say really just the expansion of Penn's Pennsylvania?

(Of course, Man did not get the (universal) vote for another 100 years; Woman for another 240 years. Feminists make a great deal of noise about this but any critical thinking works out something like this: Men did not have universal suffrage for 98% of the history of civilization. Women did not have universal suffrage for 99.2% of the history of civilization. In exchange for that 1.2% time privilege men died in droves and within a relatively short time handed that privilege over to Women without a shot being fired. Think about that for just a moment.)

Unfortunately, the Peace testimony became adulterated, diluted, infected, and compromised at every turn by the State and those who support authoritarianism. The Peace testimony never suggested that the individual is not entitled to his life and his property and that it was a violation of the testimony to protect oneself. It then follows, and this is going to be hard for some, that Our Peace testimony does not draw a distinction between what we may do ourselves and what we may hire others, including employees of the State, to do. Conversely, if we find it acceptable and in keeping with our Peace testimony for the government to protect us then it follows that it is not a violation of our testimony to protect ourselves.

Here is the critical issue: An action that violates our philosophy does not become an acceptable action merely because we have hired a government force agent to do our dirty work; to do things and take actions that we would not do ourselves. I refer to that as violence by proxy (original to me, but feel free to use it early and often). Importantly, it does not matter if that government force agent wears a military uniform or a police uniform. Might, even the might of a majority (mob rule), does not make right. And yet we have voted away the rights of our fellow man and have committed violence (by proxy) upon him for political, moral, and personal belief systems and agendas. By accepting this we have disgraced ourselves.

The War on Drugs is a violation of our Peace testimony! Arresting a woman (or a man) for prostitution (customer or worker) is a violation of our Peace testimony! Abortion is a violation of our Peace testimony! Stealing the production of another is a violation of our Peace testimony! If you doubt any of this I invite you to support your position in an open dialogue under the rules of logic in a reasonable and rational co-examination of the facts.

We, as individuals, have rights to live as we choose free from the violence of those—or the violence of their proxies—who wish to impose their own moral, political, or personal belief systems or agendas upon us. These were the premises our entire ethical foundation was constructed upon. So why is our fellow man willing to shoot, beat, use dogs, torture, and imprison us in violation of these premises for actions that are neither violent nor a crime against property? For "crimes" where there is no victim?

At our founding, We, The People and the government, did not engage in such violence. What changed? Well, more on that later. The first step is to get back to the practice of our testimony to Peace. And to do that we must thoroughly examine our premises and then abide by them.

Virtually Alive (or Almost Living)

Do you remember that 1990's (or was it 1980's?) dish soap commercial that proclaimed that it had the effect of making your dishes "virtually spotless"? I know what "spotless" means. Spotless does not require qualification. Dishes are either spotless or they are not spotless. If they have been washed and are only "virtually spotless", doesn't that mean that they are "almost clean"?

I think this advertising slogan transports well to the current state of affairs here in America, Canada, and much of Europe. We are very much like the dish soap. Only we have come to be "Virtually Alive". Our experience with life comes at the receiving end of a computer or TV screen (says the blogger as he writes on his laptop. Oh well, I would have used a typewriter, or maybe even a quill pen, but the upload is a pain in the neck with these writing instruments) and the steering wheel of an automobile.

I belong to a number of "Groups" on Facebook. I have come to an unpleasant conclusion. The homesteader group members don't homestead, the car enthusiasts never turned a wrench, the cooking group members order takeout, and the horse group members never shoveled manure out of a barn. Any rational examination would lead any reasonable person to conclude that we are virtually alive. Almost living. Almost helping our friends and family like a real community would (we are too far away and far too busy.) Almost maintaining a healthy weight (not really). Almost happy (with the help of our meds). The one thing we are not "almost doing" is being angry. We got that one.

When Jack Lalane, America's first fitness guru, was 90 years old, he told an interviewer that he had sex "almost every day: almost on Monday; almost on Tuesday; almost on Wednesday..."

Today, our young people can't have sex without a signed legal form and a video shoot of the event. As a result, they are almost having sex (porn). Culturally, we had a "safe harbor" for sexual relations. It was called "marriage". Certain political special interest groups hated the idea of marriage and of any responsibility for the sexual needs of one's partner—but outrageous divorce settlements, alimony, and "child support" that is not earmarked for the children are OK, coal miners being nearly 100% male and 92% of workplace fatalities being male are OK, too—but we need more females in leadership roles. And, predictably, now we have no real "marriage"—and no children. As a result of this and some other disastrous inputs, we have simply stopped producing children. Forget the Feminist political battles. Forget the gender war. Without children, there is no future. In 30 years childless Feminists are going to be stacked up like cordwood in nursing homes—guess who is going to pay for that—and no one is coming to visit. No one is going to care about them because the only people who care about old people are their family. When they (the government) finally plants these gender warriors in the ground (more likely they will be cremated) no one is going to mourn them or miss them. It will be as if they never existed at all. Perhaps it is better that way.

Pity the only children of the one-and-done and divorced—they have no idea what family even means. But pity their mothers more. The Old Lady gave it a shot, but fell into the Feminist trap and filed for divorce, only to find that replacing the Old Man was not as easy as it once was, and there is no substitute for family. Old age is awfully lonely without family, clan, and community—even when the government takes over the role of the man of the house. And that corporate gig? Corporations (and your co-worker "family") are not interested in people over 50 any more than anyone else is.

I wrote an article over a decade ago where I pointed out to my contemporaries (I am now in my late 50's) that many of us are not going to have grandchildren because we drank the kool-aid and raised our children to be good corporate drones/angry Feminists/virtue signaling do-gooders rather than well-adjusted, productive, and fecund adults. At least once a month I speak to an old friend, many of whom were distressed by that article, who are now confiding in anguish that their youngest daughter just turned 30 without a grandbaby in sight. I guess when we are in our 60's and 70's we can put our kids' business cards or their prestigious college diplomas in frames over the fireplace.

Recently, I challenged a number of Liberal philosophers to conduct a thought experiment:

Take 150 childless Feminists or LGBTVQRS people and *give* them a tropical island paradise. Give them everything they could possibly need and in exchange they will keep a detailed daily diary. Come back in 40 years or so, or upon the death of the last surviving member and read the diaries of the last 15. What do you think the last several years of entries have to say?

All of the political nonsense we are enduring will pass just as surely as these gender warriors will pass. Don't drink the kool-aid. Misery loves company. (Have you ever met a happy, well-adjusted Feminist?) Live—not virtually live—while you can. Have children. Be a good parent—that is a real virtue. Your parents want and deserve grandchildren—and you will too. There are seasons in life, and when they pass, there is nothing to be done about it. It is much later than you think.

And if it is too late for you personally, you could always invest in the future of someone near and dear to you.

Community: The Final Chapter Guest Post by Dmitry Orlov

This is guest post was written by the irrepressible Dmitry Orlov and is being used by permission. Here is a link to the original article at his website. Orlov has a fine mind but does not suffer fools well.

Community: The Final Chapter

If you filter out from the common, mainstream uses of the word “community” all of the obviously non-community-related ones, such as “international community” (a lame euphemism) or “community relations” (a synonym for “public relations”) or “community center” (a synonym for “neighborhood center”) pretty much all that remains is “retirement community.” There are well over two thousand of them just in the US, with close to a million residents. In comparison, “intentional communities,” including ecovillages, monasteries, communes, survivalist retreats, kibbutzim, ashrams and so on are rather boutique, being mainly aspirational and ideological rather than practical in nature. But added together they present more or less the entire landscape of “communities” within the developed world. And all of them are degenerate cases.

The first cause of this degeneracy is a fundamental internal contradiction. Setting aside for the moment the various “intentional community” experiments, the reason people join retirement communities is because they essentially want to have their cake and eat it too. It usually costs quite a bit of money to buy into one, and the people who can afford to do so are in general those who have been active in the world at large, being for most of their lives a part of society rather than part of a community, and have amassed a bit of a fortune in the process. If they had children, then they have pushed them out into the world at large as well, or became largely alienated from them in any case by having little to offer to them once they reach adulthood.

And then, at some point, they realize that they can no longer fend for themselves in the world at large, that they are becoming increasingly lonely and isolated as their peers age out and die, and it is at that point that they decide to trade “society” for “community.” In essence, they have spent their productive years competing in the individualistic dog-eat-dog world of private business and pubic bureaucracy [sic], undermining and destroying community, but when they become old and frail they attempt to buy their way into community, which is to be synthesized ex nihilo using their purchasing power.

In turn, the purchasing power of their retirement savings has to be maintained by making the younger generations continue to undermine and destroy community by being active in the individualistic dog-eat-dog world of private business and pubic bureaucracy [sic], generating economic growth and asset appreciation that underpin the value of retirement savings.

I very much doubt that this basic point, that it isn’t possible to create community by undermining community values through individualism, would make sense to too many of them. Some of them do realize that their entire economic scheme is unraveling—economic growth has largely stalled (except for some ongoing financial bubbles)—and that their retirement savings are in increasing jeopardy. But they have no idea what to do about it, and it’s probably too late for them to try to do anything about it in any case. (Or is it? That is a question worth pondering.)

The second cause of this degeneracy is the degenerate nature of the communities in question. In order to be sustainable over the long run, a community has to include multiple generations and specifically make room for children born into them; it has to provide for the needs of its individuals, including room and board, upbringing and education, companionship and entertainment, and security; and it has to have a sense of its own unique identity, history and destiny, separate from the surrounding society. I have described these properties in detail in the book Communities that Abide. A retirement community is essentially a conveyor belt that takes old people and carries them to the grave, and is definitely not viable; nor is any community that fails to reproduce and keep up its numbers by having enough children and by retaining them within the community.

Viable communities cannot be formed without a key ingredient: people who are capable of doing so. They need to be generally capable, and enough of them should be of childbearing edge and willing to give birth to and bring up children. This is already a tall order. Success in society is usually predicated on being confined to some professional silo, and this does not produce people who are generally capable. Also, by the time most people realize that perhaps being part of a real community would be a good idea they have already “aged out.”

But that’s not all. They should also specifically be capable of a certain profound act of submission—of subordinating their individual interests to those of their community—and those brought up on the myth of rugged individualism are rarely capable of such a deed even in the context of marriage, never mind within a larger group.

They also have to be capable of putting their trust in people rather than in impersonal, bureaucratic institutions. This, it turns out, is difficult too: most people would rather put their trust in banks, which rob them every month, or in governments, which rob them every year at tax-time, than in groups of a group of people that will probably never rob them at all (unless they are all very unlucky). Some of them would rather put their trust in anonymous algorithms. (As I write this, NiceCash just got hacked and lost $62 million in Bitcoin. You’d think that this might slow down a few of the Bitcoin lemmings, but they are stampeding toward the cliff just as fast as before.)

Lastly, in order to form communities, people have to be able to overcome an image problem. Scratch a “rugged individual” and what you inevitably find is either a wage slave or a government sponge; in either case, a kept person—essentially a slave. But most people prefer slavery to the only two alternatives: being a peasant and being a nomad (peasants need land; nomads don’t).

Those are the two basic patterns of communities that abide that I have found in my research and described in my book: the Roma (Gypsies) are the nomads; the Anabaptists (Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites) are the peasants. But this is only a problem at the very outset, because those who belong to viable communities, when they consider who they are, do not see individuals; they see the community as a whole, and the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts and can be imbued with a type of dignity of which no individual, no matter how “sovereign,” is ever capable.

Returning to the question of what, if anything, can be done… Supposing that you are either too old, insufficiently versatile in your skill set, unable to part with “individualistic” habits instilled in you by the surrounding culture, unable to overcome the image problem and humble yourself to the point of becoming a peasant or a nomad, or any and all of the above… and supposing that you see the economic scheme unraveling all around you and feel that having some viable communities around would be a very good idea… what is there for you to do?

Well, supposing you have some money, then possibly the best you can do is throw money at the problem; not for your own benefit, or even for the benefit of you [sic] children, should you have any, but for the benefits of those who are capable of forming communities, and willing to give it a try. Because, after all, the starting point of any community is the act of putting others’ interests ahead of your own.

Real Community

"The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food." — Dean Ornish

Community—from the Old French "comunete"—which can be best translated as "reinforced by its source" or self-reinforcing.

What is more important for the future identity of Quakerism: The manner in which we express “worship/prayer” or the manner in which we live our lives? Can Quakerism survive if we address one aspect and ignore the other? Why is there so much writing on the subject of “Silence and Expectant Waiting” and so very little on the life practices of the Quaker Testimonies?

Why did Quakerism, one of the most popular belief systems in Colonial America, nearly die out? (Wikipedia, that bastion of the politically correct agenda editors and the AstroTurf propagandists (don’t recognize these terms? Click this link and watch) asserts that the American meetings collapsed because of internal battles over participation in the Revolutionary War. Of course, this is specious at best. Quakerism was collapsing in Europe at the same time and their members were not volunteering to fight in the American Revolutionary War). What should we do differently than my ancestors did? What is of value today, and what should be discarded given the advances and discoveries mankind has made in the realms of philosophy, politics, science, and mathematics that was unavailable to George Fox and the early Quakers?

I think “Quakerism” collapsed because Quaker communities collapsed—and I don’t think those communities collapsed because of the War for Independence. Quakerism was its people not its “leaders”. Today we recognize these “leaders” because their words and ideas survived memorialized in writing, and the life and ideas of the common man living and working within the community did not. In short, some words on paper endured. The communities didn't. 

Can we bring about the practical ideas of the Free Quaker precept of “Community” again in our time? Can a philosophy built on several precepts, the famous testimonies, endure in their absence? We are in a pickle here. Practicing Simplicity and Integrity is an individual effort. Practicing Community is not. Community requires the goodwill and cooperation of the people in a web of interconnected interdependence. Such a community must have a commonality of purpose, ethics, and acceptable behavior. No people can survive as a “house divided” (Abraham Lincoln stole this phrase from Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”. Jane Austin lifted the phrase “Pride and Prejudice” from the opening of that work, too. Paine was an English transplant to the colonies (just a little over a year before the revolution) and a Quaker and is widely recognized as the "father" of the American Revolution (while Washington is the "father" of our country). If you like quoting early Quakers who moved the world he is a wealth of material). A community cannot survive the resentment and anger of politics.

Community requires physical proximity. There is no such thing as an “internet community”. Interdependence by necessity means that there will be times when you will be in need and can depend on your neighbor and that your neighbor will be in need and can depend on you. If you are an hour's drive away you are in no position to be of any help.

Community requires a critical mass of people. Getting up to that critical mass will not be easy, and slipping below critical mass courts disaster.

Community also requires a local mindset for work, play, school, gatherings and traditions, and elder care (not only will we die, but many of us will experience the indignities of old age). It then follows that a community must produce babies, raise children, and benefit from productive young adults and productive mature adults. A community will have non-productive elderly people to care for. Like it or not, and Creation does not care what we like, relations by blood and marriage, the type of “marriage” that produces children, will dominate.  I am not going to pull any punches here: A “Quaker Meeting” of aging and childless political activists is not a community. It may give some a fleeting sense of security but in the final analysis, it is an example of failure. I understand that is a painful observation, but we must learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others.

This is not to say that everyone must produce children. There are people who, by their individual nature (i.e. LGBTVQRS), will not produce a practically significant number of children. Such people will get old and frail and will need the offspring of others to care for them in their old age. To be fair and interdependent the childless must make other contributions that are of equal value to the community during their productive years—that is the production, accumulation, and maintenance of capital. To reject this is to accept violence and coercion—the theft of resources from other people’s offspring at the point of a (government) gun (legislature or judges). Quakers do not resort to force, coercion, and violence to achieve personal, moral, or political agendas, and they do not hire other people to do such dirty work for them. Might—even a majority—does not make right. The community must not countenance its destruction from within. It is not a coincidence that collectivism is so highly valued by the childless. We need to help such people understand the realities of the situation, if possible. If not, we must cut ties with those whose voluntary actions are not in our best interest.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand. - Baruch Spinoza

Community means the rejection of outside politics and other distractions. There can be only one political agenda: The wellbeing and continuity of the community, our testimonies, and our way of life—for we are all mortal. If we want our community, our way of life to survive us, then life, and the family, must go on and children must be given life and then formed by their parents and extended family and community into functioning adults. I am not denying the humanity of people who do not wish to produce children. I am pointing out that in the context of Community such people must make compensating and equal contributions to the wellbeing of the community—or they are not part of the community at all. And they most definitely must not be permitted to destroy the wellbeing of those people who are forming the next generation of the community with their political machinations. Feminism, collectivism, and any form of authoritarianism, identity advocacy, or victim construction will be the death of the community. People who wish to have a real and intentional community must make a close and unflinching examination of this. There are no examples of successful intergenerational communities operating under these belief systems. Your Quaker community will not survive them either. Why would you go through the effort to build a real intentional Quaker community and welcome the elements that will destroy it? Families, men and women and their children, will not tolerate extortion of the production of their lives. They will depart and search for more welcoming groups—which is precisely what happened to all of the Quaker communities of my ancestors (my assertion). 

The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  — Ben Franklin.

This brings us back to: What is it about our Quaker identity that is important to us? Is it “expectant waiting” for an hour each First day? Is it the day-to-day way of life that we are called to action? If that seems to be a personal question with no right or wrong answer then you have already answered the question. Such people will not have Community because they are incapable of Community. Perhaps they cannot overcome their political frame of reference. Perhaps their internalized belief system has hardened to the point where they feel justified in using violence to abscond with other people’s life work at the point of a gun. Perhaps they are incapable of reason. Who knows? A clear sign that something is amiss is their reaction to being called on to give an account of themselves, their actions, and their belief system.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. — Baruch Spinoza

Right now as I write this, most Quakers in the U.S. seem to support the idea that people should be dependent on the government for the things they need: food, utilities, transportation, healthcare, and much else. I think this is absolutely insane. There can be no such thing as our testimony of Community in the absence of community member interdependence. People will not come to rely on each other and make the necessary arrangements to be reliable themselves if they can rely on the government for their needs. We live in some of the most fertile and productive agricultural land in North America. Why are so many of our "regular American" neighbors receiving food assistance from the government? Why don't they grow a garden and milk a cow? Many of our other neighbors are Amish, Mennonite (both old and new order), and other similar but lesser known church groups (let's call them "Plain People") that—in reality—live their day-to-day lives in the Quaker ideal of Community that we hold so dear. They don't use cars or electric, heat their home, cook, and heat domestic hot water with wood, grow most of their own vegetables and fruit, keep and hand milk cows or goats, raise livestock for meat, draw water from a well or rainwater catchment system and completely refuse any form of government "assistance". They will not participate in Social Security or Medicare, neither paying in nor collecting, and they will not purchase insurance of any kind, including health insurance. They don't believe in insurance! They believe (and practice) Community. They rely on themselves and each other. There are sorrows here as there are everywhere, but no one here ever went hungry or homeless over sickness or death in the family. Wrap your mind around that for a moment.

With no cars to get back and forth to medical care and no health insurance shouldn't these people be much sicker and die earlier than the rest of us? That is the line as to why we need health insurance, isn't it? Plain People life expectancy is equal to or greater than other Americans of Western European ancestry and their health span, the time during which they are free from chronic conditions that we think need "treatment", simply blows our average healthspan away. They are fit and thin!!! The striking difference between our "English" and "Plain People" neighbors when we see them side by side at the local hardware store is simply mindboggling. The "English" look unwell, obese, covered in tattoos and self-injury (piercings)—all of this with hardly any family responsibilities and with Big Daddy (government) taking care of them. The Plain Folk have huge family responsibilities and no Big Daddy and they appear to be flourishing, content, and healthy. It was our do-gooder social programs that have reduced the average American to a shadow of the being his ancestors were. Why are we supporting this??!!

At this moment in history, the U.S. dollar enjoys worldwide hegemony as the world’s reserve currency. Because of this hegemony, the largesse of the world’s natural resources as well as (at least a part of) the rent collection of interest on all debt flows into the U.S. (and Europe). This occurs for one reason, and one reason only: The U.S. military and its budget of 50% of world’s military spending and our endless wars (and war crimes). So why do Quakers, with our testimony to Peace, support this?

After all, and in the final analysis, we are supporting it with our rejection and failure in Community. Without the massive U.S. military budget, there would be no U.S. dollar hegemony, and without U.S. dollar hegemony and the ability to print money to pay back debt, there would be no Social Security, no Medicare, no Food Stamps (SNAP program), and no fill-in-the-blank do-gooder social programs. Eventually, perhaps sooner or perhaps later, all of this will simply vanish—and Community will no longer be an option; Community will once again be a human imperative. People will need to make different arrangements for everything we now take for granted, and that will succeed or fail based solely on the attributes of each individual community.

This is where we are as it regards our testimony of Community. We can stop our political haggling and come around to Community or we can continue on the self-destructive path of identity politics, "bearing witness" at protests, and debating the importance and manner in which we come together for all of 45 minutes per week. The Quaker Quietest period is over. Or at least it is here. We must become real and true "activists". The implications for the remaining Free Quaker precepts, or testimonies that I have not covered yet—Peace and Equality—are stark indeed. 

Our mission is to provide a locus for real, viable, self-reinforcing intentional communities (those that produce children and are largely self-reliant) to coalesce around. If any of this offends you I am completely unconcerned. Such people have nothing they are willing to contribute in any event. This is a time to lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.  If you would like to know more about how you can make a difference, we need money, volunteers, contributing members, and many other things. Email me at:

Greg at quuchurch dot org.

Our Testimony of Integrity

The Free Quaker precept of Integrity is, like all of our testimonies, a life practice. Integrity is a course of action, not a thing or an item we can carry around in our pocket, retrieving it when needed, dusting it off, and then displaying it in the worn out online virtue signal we see all around us. That is not Integrity. The definition of Integrity is often difficult to agree on, but like all of the testimonies and the universe of human virtue a working definition is necessary before we can proceed.

Where to even begin? A quick search of an online dictionary gives us:

Integrity: noun

1. The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

2. The state of being whole and undivided.

• Synonyms: honesty, probity, rectitude, honor, good character, principle(s), ethics, morals, righteousness, morality, virtue, decency, fairness, scrupulousness, sincerity, truthfulness, trustworthiness

Well, that does not help very much. The definition sounds reasonable enough until we get into the details. For us, Integrity is a set of actions—not a person, place, or thing (noun). Whitehead rocked the world with his observation, “We think in generalities, but we live in details.” No words could be more appropriate and relevant than Whitehead’s famous quote when trying to nail down the Free Quaker meaning and definition of Integrity as a life practice.

The Free Quaker testimony of Integrity is not negotiable. One can't get a little bit pregnant in an environment of absolutes. At the base of this call to action is our Creator-given reason and it is our ability to reason that is the spark of the Divine within us. To reason is to think for yourself and to come to conclusions and then take actions that are consistent with a number of ideas that when taken together define our call to action—Integrity (along with our other testimonies).

There is no amount of political censorship that will overcome this. If history has taught us anything it is that the evilest and most murderous ideologies never succeeded in killing a single idea. The cultural Marxists of our era will come to the same end as all of the other attempts at 'idea killing' in history. Every idea must be made unflinchingly available to reason, and we must accept where truth and good conscious take us. Those who refuse, those who continue to defend the indefensible, must be given every opportunity to come to reason, but there comes a point in time when we must move on and ignore such people and refuse to allow their lack of Integrity to infect us. Each of us has our own sense of when to fish and when to cut bait. Part and parcel of our practice of Integrity are taking a course of action to separate ourselves from such people. “Of the world, but not in it.” We must give the people around us an opportunity to come to reason—for our own well-being and the well-being of those we love, but this opportunity that we grant them must not be allowed to harm us. Too, the practice of Integrity is not a call to action to tell the 7.5 Billion strangers inhabiting the world and sharing existence with us how to live their lives. Just look at how poorly that strategy is turning out for the “nation-building” militarists. We are called to community, not self-destruction. We are called to action to live the testimonies; we are not called to action to protest. "Protest" is self-destructive, and we are precluded from harming ourselves by the virtues distilled in our testimony and call to action of Simplicity and any form of political belief system beyond the expression of goodwill for our individual community is antithetical to our testimony of Community. As I said before multiculturalism, political or otherwise, is simply not compatible with Community.

If you seem to want to ask, “What about the historical context of bearing witness?” I will respond by asking “Do you have any hard evidence that this “bearing witness” stuff, what I refer to as political protest, has been constructive for our testimonies?” That “bearing witness” has yielded an improvement in or the emergence of any of the testimonies? Before you insist on responding please read the remainder of this series of posts on what our testimonies mean as a practical matter. Try to keep in mind that our philosophies have always demanded substance and rejected form. That all of our testimonies were practical—hence the word “practice” in our “faith and practice”—by nature.

Is there a time and place to bear witness against the unfairness of the world? In short: Probably not, but if there was such a time and place it would certainly be after we have arranged our lives around the precept of Simplicity, lived the virtues of Integrity, achieved the cooperation and good will of Community, understood the meaning of “Peace” having examined and then rejected all violence, personal or by proxy, and experienced what it is to be equal before the Creator and the equality of expectations between each of us as individuals and the community to which we claim membership to and responsibility for. Only if and when we have accomplished and sustained all of these would we have any reason to engage in a call to action elsewhere. Given the state of Quakerism today I unequivocally assert that we must get our own house and our own community in order before we concern ourselves elsewhere. We nearly winked out of existence. Let us learn from that experience and respond accordingly.

Here is my first attempt at a working definition of the Free Quaker call to action, Integrity:

A series of actions and a set of values that brings about the well-being of those we love and enhances cooperation, interdependence, and goodwill within our Free Quaker Community (also a Free Quaker testimony) provided none of that causes harm to another.

The Quaker Universalist and Unitarian Church, Inc., and the Free Quaker Society of Friends is non-denominational and non-autocratic and was organized as a vehicle to provide a locus that real cooperative and interdependent communities might be organized around. But we cannot do it alone. We need money, volunteers, and contributing members. If you want to contribute or get involved click the link to our “Go Fund Me” page for contributions under $500 or email me at the address below for larger donations or to volunteer. All contributions are tax-deductible and will be put to real and measurable use.

Thanks.

Greg at quuchurch dot org