“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” – Thomas Jefferson (1781)
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First Principles: It Is Error Alone, Which Needs the Support of Government. Truth Can stand by itself.
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Tagged By Itself, Can Stand, Coercion, Error Alone, First Principles, Government, Inquisitor, Needs, Opinion, Subject, Support, Thomas Jefferson, Truth
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In Studying Jerzzie 101
In Studying Jerzzie 101
by Michael Doyle
In the studying of my Jerzzie 101
I think of all that you share and we've done
You are more than the sum of your parts
Though your love is the essence of my heart
When I think of all that you have shown
As day after day our connection has grown
I know that examined in its full length
Your love is the sum of our strength
Like a Disney princess that hasn't been seen
Your message given in all of its true sincerity
Is part of what makes me a better human being
And the path to this shines with your clarity
Whether you do or you don't do, it has traction
That has led me to my deepest true satisfaction
I say this with a studious sort of dedication
There is no doubt that you are my best inspiration
I don't see or feel any sort of crazy rich Asian
But in the key of love, I feel your blessed persuasion
And I know that with you always by my side
I will live each moment with a humbling sense of pride
(c) October 22, 2020 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Better, Blessed, By My Side, Clarity, Connection, Crazy Rich Asian, Day After Day, Dedication, Disney Princess, Done, Essence, Examine, Feel, Full Length, Grown, Heart, Human Being, Humbling, Inspiration, Jerzzie, Key of Love, Led, Live Each Moment, Message, No Doubt, Parts, Path, Persuasion, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Pride, Satisfcation, See, Sense, Share, Shine, Shown, Sincerity, Strength, Studious, Study, Sum, Think, Traction, True, You, You Do, You Don't, Your Love
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Thought For the Day: The Liberties of A People Never Were, Nor Ever Were, Nor Ever Will Be, Secure, When the Transactions of Their Rulers May Be Concealed From Them
“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” – Patrick Henry (1736-1799)
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Tagged Conceal, Liberties, Never, Patrick Henry, People, Rulers, Securely, Them, Thought For the Day, Transactions
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First Principles: The Great Principles of Right and Wrong Are Legible To Every Reader
“The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.” – Thomas Jefferson (1775)
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Tagged Aid, Aim, Art of Government, Being Honest, Consists, Counselors, Credit, Duty, First Principles, Great Principles, Legible, Mankind, Pursue, Reader, Require, Right and Wrong, Thomas Jefferson
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Darkness Shapes the Hearts
Darkness Shapes the Hearts
by Michael Doyle
Putin sits as another dictator in a line
Certain his autocratic rule is blessed as divine
This has been the slavery of Russia's serfdom
With brutality reigning supreme in this kingdom
For five thousand years, we've known epilepsy
As a cruel disease seated in its tragic mystery
Dostoevsky was a natural born writer and revolutionary
Who turned his rebellion and energy into creativity
Afflicted wit a thousand banes, it was in his optimism
Through which he would seek union in Godly mysticism
Robed in the very essence of the mystery of Christianity
That exceeded the questions that bordered heresy
Seeking in some way good and evil's revile definitions
When death's pain struck hard at his holy initiation
Squandered into a wastrel's vulgarity and sensuality
The protagonist of book and life was steeped in cruelty
All of the children were of somewhat dubious reputation
The Brothers Karamazov bore the soul of the Russian nation
And the Russian soul is a dark place filled with violence
As overwhelming as Russia's history in no coincidence
Fools seek to instill a mismatched Western Civilization
As though it might be super-imposed on this vast nation
Refusing to see there is little place for freedom's liberty
These are a fool's game despite all the best of sincerity
Russian's suffering enigma wraps herself in her cloak of mystery
One that challenges the best souls considering Russia's history
Father Zosima preaches that the greatest miracle is that of love
The same love laughed at by the educated as property of God above
Darkness shapes the hearts of the wicked and even those unsure
Shadowing out all of the light possible like a canker of the pure
And the demons that we all long for are those we also fight
So many preferring the deep darkness over the grasped for light
Religion is challenged as an opiate to keep the people quiet
Huddled in their ashen masses, self chained and not in riot
Love has no place in a world faking it's trappings of reason
To believe otherwise betrays the soul's greatest treason
(c) October 21, 2020 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Affliction, Ashen, Autocratic Rule, Believe, Betrayer, Blessed, Brothers Karamazov, Canker, Chained, Christianity, Civil Liberty, Cloak, Coincidence, Creativity, Cruelty, Dark Place, Darkness, Death, Definition, Demons, Dictator, Disease, Divine, Dostoevsky, Dubious Reputatin, Enigma, Epilepsy, Exceed, Father Zosima, Fight, Fool's Game, Freedoms, God Above, Good and Evil, Grasp, Greatest Miracle, Heart, Heresy, Holy, Initiation, Light, Line, Love, Masses, Mismatch, Mystery, Mysticism, Opiate, Photograph, Poem, Poietry, Preach, Protagonist, Pure, Putin, Questions, Quiet, Reason, Religion, Revolutionary, Riot, Russia, Russian Nation, Russian Soul, Serfdom, Shadow, Shape, Slavery, Super-Impose, Trappings, Treason, Unsure, Violence, Wastrel, Western Civilization, Wicked, Writer
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Thought For the Day: There Is No Religion Without Magic Any More Than There is Magic Without At Least A Trace of Religion
“There is no religion without magic any more than there is magic without at least a trace of religion. The notion of a supernature exists only for a humanity which attributes supernatural powers to itself and in return ascribes the powers of its superhumanity in nature.” – Claude Levi-Strauss
First Principles: I Know No Safe Depository of the Ultimate Power of the Society But the People Themselves
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” – Thomas Jefferson (1820)
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Tagged Control, Discretion, Enlighten, Eucation, Exercise, First Principles, Inform, Remedy, Safe Depository, Society, Take It, The People, Thomas Jefferson, Ultimate Powers, Wholesome
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From the Perspective of the Rus
From the Perspective of the Rus
by Michael Doyle
Standing on the shoulders of wisdom
By each step we build separate kingdoms
The Brothers Karamazov built on a grain of wheat
That life comes from death and death is not defeat
All the suffering that we will all have undergone
Is meant with the purpose of carrying us beyond
All of the issues of our long spent reflections
Solzhenitsyn is that middle voice of connection
Russia's history is a unique sense of nobility
Of a people withstanding despotism with capability
Releasing the forces against historical orthodoxy
To arrive at a people's own driven place in history
Autocracy and orthodoxy serve as a foundation
That most freedom lovers abhor without reservation
But in the Russian culture things are quiet different
With another set of principles held quite reverent
The division cleaved by the twin blades of power
Where one is sacred and the other temporal in appointed hour
The king rules his kingdom but the soul is supreme
And it is on this that Western civilization dreams
But not in Mother Russia, that most Viking of nations
That started with a ninth century Kievan declaration
To abide by Constantinople's one true belief
From which all other relationships know no relief
The ruler united authority as God's earthly voice
To rule above absolutely as God's ordained choice
The absolute rule of and from monarchial decree
Under which there would be no fallible talk of liberty
(c) October 20, 2020 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Absolute Rule, Authority, Autocracy, Beyond, Brothers Karamazov, Capability, Connection, Constantanople, Culture, Death, Declaration, Decree, Defeat, Despotism, Different, Division, Dreams, Driven, Fallible, Forces, Foundation, Freedom Lovers, God, Grain, Historical, History, Kiev, King, Kingdom, Kingdoms, Liberty, Life, Monarch, Mother Russia, Nation, Ninth Century, No Relief, Nobility, Ordained Choice, Orthodoxy, Perspective, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Power, Principles, Purpose, Reflection, Relationships, Reservation, Reverent, Rule, Russia, Sacred, Shoulders, Solzhenitsyn, Soul, Step, Suffering, Supreme, Talk, Temporal, True Belief, Twin Blades, Undergon, United, Viking, Voice, Western Civilization, Wheat, Wisdom, Withstand
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Thought For the Day: An Election Is Nothing More Than the Advanced Auction of Stolen Goods
“An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.” – Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Advance, Ambrose Bierce, Auction, Election, Goods, Nothing, Stolen, Thought For the Day
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First Principles: He Who Permits Himself To Tell A Lie Once, Finds It Much Easier To Do It A Second and A Third Time, Until At Length It Becomes Habitual
“There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.” – Thomas Jefferson (1785)
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Tagged Contemptible, Easier, First Principles, Habitual, Length, Lie Once, Mean, No Vice, Permit, Pitiful, Self, Thomas Jefferson
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