“Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” – Thomas Jefferson (1781)
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First Principles: Truth Can Stand By Itself. Subject Opinion To Coercion: Whom Will You Make Your Inquisitors
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Bad Passions, Coercion, Desirable, Face and Stature, FallibleMen, First Principles, Inquisitors, Opinion, Private, Public, Reasons, Stand, Subject, Thomas Jefferson, Tuth, Uniformity
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A Huntington Beach Memory
A Huntington Beach Memory
by Michael Doyle
The sand in my shoes
Holds a Midas shadow
Over time passages and windows
Of all these memories and blues
My eyes rise to the timeless skies
When certain songs on the radio play
This, then, is no real disguise
For the coming of the ending of our days
Al Stewart was always present on my mind
Like an old song that never gets left behind
Arpeggiated into their own crescendo
My daydreams play into their continuing echo
Straightened as it were on the wheels of confusion
I wonder about how much of our certainty
Will turn out to be simply a passing illusion
And how much of this is accurate in its history
Do you remember driving down Highway One
Our jams were blasting out as another day was done
About those girls, did we ever truly regret
Or lose the verses to songs we'd forget
The songs that we'd make up and played
As we lived out that sunshine charade
That we'd one day make the radio charts
Closer to the heart, we held our arts
We'd brought our clinker guitars to play
Out on the sands at the end of that day
It turned out we didn't have a lot to say
And then the girls? Well, they got away..
(c) March 5, 2024 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Accurate, Al Stewart, Appreggiated, Arts, Blues, Certainty, Charade, Clinker, Closer To the Heart, Coming, Crescendo, Daydreams, Days, Disguise, Done, Echo, Ending, Eyes, Forget, Girls, Got Away, Guitars, Held, Highway One, History, Huntington Beach, Illusion, Jam, Left Behind, Lot To Say, Memories, Memory, Midas, Mind, Old Song, Play, Poetry and Poems, Present, Radio, Radio Charts, Regret, Remember, Sand, Shadow, Shoes, Songs, Straightened, Sunshine, Time Passages, Timeless Skies, Verses, Wheels of Confusion, Windows, Wonder
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First Principles: If the Public Are Bound To Yield Obedience To Laws To Which They Cannot Give Their Approbation, They Are Slaves To Those Who Make Such Laws and Enforce Them
“If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” – Samuel Adams (1772)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Approbation, Bound, Enforce, First Principles, Law, Obedience, Public, Samuel Adams, Slaves
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Thought For the Day: There Is Great Joy In Helping People, But No Joy In Doing It At Gunpoint
“People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we’re compassionate we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.” – Penn Jillette
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Clothed, Compassion, Educated, Fed, Gunpoint, Helping People, Joy, Moral Credit, Penn Jillette, People, Right, Sheltered, Thought For the Day
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Always Worthy of Praise
Always Worthy of Praise
by Michael Doyle
The faith of the Church saves
Uplifting us from our graves
Let those who see plainly sing
About God's victory over everything
Satan has come to know his defeat
Gained, for us, as Jesus took His seat
We were given the keys to Heaven above
When Jesus taught us the ways of love
No depression nor any tortured anxiety
Can stand before the Lord's intensity
As Jesus stands firm as our shield
We know that all of our infirmities will yield
We fight this on our knees and in this hour
Knowing the battle is won through His power
With joy, we stand and start to sing
In a hallelujah choir in praise of our king
In our happiness, we gladly give
Our thankfulness that we freely live
In praise, we sing at the top of our breath
We know that Heaven has defeated death
Our hands are raised up on high
Lifted in praise toward the Father's sky
Filling our hearts full of praise
Our hearts join in hallelujah for all our days
(c) March 4, 2024 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged All Our Days, Always, Anxiety, Battle, Church, Defeat, Depression, Faith, Fight, Fill, Firm, Gain, Glad, God, Grave, Hallelujah, Happiness, Heart, Heaven, Hour, Infirmities, Intensity, Jesus, Joy, Keys, Knees, Poetry and Poems, Power, Praise, Satan, Save, Seat, See, Shield, Sing, Taught, Thankfulness, The Lord, Tortured, Uplift, Victory, Ways of Love, Won, Worthy, Yield
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First Principles: A Feeble Execution Is…A Bad Execution; and A Government Ill Executed…Must Be…A Bad Government
“A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.” – Alexander Hamilton (1788)
Thought For the Day: Creativity – Like Human Life Itself – Begins In Darkness. We Need To Acknowledge This. All Too Often, We Think Only In Terms of Light
“Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. All too often, we think only in terms of light: “And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!” It is true that insights may come to us as flashes. It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding. It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary.” -Julia Cameron, artist, author, teacher, filmmaker, composer, and journalist (b. 4 Mar 1948)
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Acknowledge, Begin, Bright Ideas, Creativity, Darkness, Gestation, Human Life, Interio, Julia Cameron, lLight, Murky, Necessary, Thought For the Day
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A Trinity Moment Revealed
A Trinity Moment Revealed
by Michael Doyle
The church's smile has been met
Never missing a generation yet
It's okay to share the laughter
As we prepare for the here ever after
The yoke we put on, we must recall
Gives us more than it takes after all
Even the scriptures has it own dream team
Abraham, Moses, Elias, Elijah, and others it seems
Of all born from women, John the Baptist came
Before Christ, proclaiming in prophetic fame
And relaying the message that did foretell
The coming messiah's approach in great detail
Coming from a holy, priestly line
God set this out to quietly define
What it was that God would do
Attested to from a testimonial point of view
Rough around his edges, he prophesized
The ending game that God had devised
Standing firm against the vipers' deceit
His unquenchable fire would burn down Main Street
John baptized Jesus below the heavens torn
The spirit of God is given and easily worn
The Holy Spirit entered from this ceremonial cleaning
With all repentance and belief gleaming
Normally, repentance shines as a changing of mind
And leaving our wicked ways far behind
It happens as we look at our character wanting change
And change we do as our lives start to rearrange
With Jesus, there was no such sense of need
His baptism was simply a signal of Godly nature freed
To bring humanity's path to salvation
And a signal of Jesus's relentless dedication
No longer willing to hold back God's heart
For humanity, this is where our fractured souls start
And every single day, we come to embrace God's ways
We learn to fulfill God's intended best in our days
The coming of Christ changed the path of our history
Shaking the world's foundation without great mystery
Questions raised provide platforms for us to teach
Taken patiently, these provide a means of outreach
Mesmerizing in building bridges for all of mankind
Jesus came to restore giving sight even to the blind
At the River Jordan, the truths of Trinity spoke
Bringing holiness and all healing to repair the broke
Creating new life for the good of wounded humanity
And in so doing, echoed creation beyond all certainty
Jesus as the second Adam then went to defeat temptation
And in so doing, He brought man's needed redemption
God looked on well pleased with what was done
The father provided protection and praise for His Son
In this one moment, God bridged the gap to make us family
It's God's restorative love that redeemed our dignity
This is the second creative moment that we must not forget
When the goodness of grace sought to erase man's regret
Allowing us to put on the patterns of God's holy ways
We are to live in His love all of our remaining days
(c) March 3, 2024 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Abraham, Approach, Baptized, Bible, Born From Women, Ceremonial Cleaning, Change of Mind, Character, Christ, Church, Deceit, Define, Devise, Dream Team, Elias, Elijah, Ending Game, Fire, Freed, Generation, Give, God, Here Ever After, Holy Spirit, Jesus, John the Baptist, Laughter, Main Street, Message, Messiah, Moment, Moses, Others, Poetry and Poems, Priestly Line, Prophesized, Prophetic, Rearrange, Recall, Repentance, Revealed, Rough Around the Edges, Scripture, Share, Smile, Testimonial, Torn, Trinity, Vipers, Worn, Yoke
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Thought For the Day: If You Tell the Truth, You Don’t Have To Remember Anything
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Anything, Mark Twain, Remember, Thought For the Day, Truth, You
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First Principles: Truly I Tell You, Among Those Born of Women There Has Not Risen Anyone Greater Than John the Baptist; Yet Whoever Is Least In the Kingdom of Heaven Is Greater Than He
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” – Matthew 11:11 (NIV)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Born of Women, First Principles, John the Baptist, Kingdom of Heaven, Least, Matthew 11:11 (NIV), Riseen, True
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ALOHA PROMISES FOREVER 