When Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. called for people to come to Selma in March, 1965 to support a Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 25,000 peoples responded.
Two were murdered, both white, both Unitarians. Rev. James Reeb of Boston was beaten to death and Viola was shot in the face by a KKK thug getting paid by the FBI and who never spent a day in jail.
Meg and her team of actors
This is a tragic and terrifying story when you realize it happened in the United States in modern times, and that there are more active hate groups now than there were in the late 1960s.
To save face, J. Edgar Hoover led a media smear campaign not only on Viola but also her husband, a union official. The FBI removed the wedding rings from Viola’s body, and refused to return them to the family until 1975 – 10 years later. Learn the full story – as you consider the current U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act.
Written and narrated by Meg Bowman, an HCSV member, with Humanist cast.
For additional thoughts on this subject see the article, Color of Law, in the New Yorker Magazine, July 8, 2013.
In her new book project, Santa Clara University Professor of History Nancy C. Unger asks: Can American morals be legally regulated? Should they be?
In 1910, the Congress of the United States passed the Mann Act—a law hailed by many reformers for its bold attempt to legislate morality. The law prohibited the interstate transport of females for immoral purposes.
In 1913, the sons of two prominent Sacramento families abandoned their wives and children to run off to Reno with two single women. On appeal, the Supreme Court confirmed that consensual extramarital affairs that involved crossing state lines were “immoral sex.” The law was hailed by many reformers for its bold attempt to legislate morality.
Amended in 1978 and 1986, the Mann Act remains in effect and has been used against against non-conformists including Frank Lloyd Wright and Charlie Chaplain, and “uppity” African American men from champion boxer Jack Johnson to rock and roll legend Chuck Berry.
Come join in an illustrated discussion of the landmark 1913 case, which put the federal government in the business of legislating morality.
Nancy Unger earned her BA at Gonzaga University, and her MA and PhD at University of Southern California. She is Professor of History at Santa Clara University and is the author of Fighting Bob La Follette: the Righteous Reformer, andBeyond Nature’s Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History.
In 2004 the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that the barrier Israel was building in the West Bank violated numerous tenets of international law. Yet construction of the wall continued to the present. What did the decision actually say, and what are the implications of that decision? How do US institutions act in view of this decision? What do those reactions say about US institutions and about the future of international law as a tool for creating a better world?
Michael provided an excellent overview of the history of the area since the mid-19th century, as well as much information about the ruling by the International Court of Justice. He, personally, has not given up on a two-state solution which may eventually evolve into a “one-state” solution with some unusual safe-guards for all the people.
Michael Batchelder is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that supports peace activists in Palestine and Israel and works in broad coalition with other Jewish, Arab-American, faith-based, peace and social justice organizations.
The 10 Commandments or the 11 Ways of Wisdom: Take your pick
Arthur Jackson
August 4, 2013
Arthur Jackson
Arthur Jackson, author of “How to Live the Good Life: A User’s Guide for Modern Humans,” and “The Humanist Chapter of the Future and the Future of Humanism,” has been a long-time participant in all levels of Humanism – local, national, and international. He will provide our Sunday Forum, “The 10 Commandments or the 11 Ways of Wisdom: Take your pick.
ELEVEN WAYS OF WISDOM – Arthur Jackson
1. Recognize that Human Beings Are the Ultimate Reference System.
2. Endeavor to maintain and develop the human species. Support efforts to develop Enlightened Communities. (Communities promoting authentic happiness for all its citizens.)
3. Seek to understand. Pursue Wisdom.
4. Recognize that all knowledge rests on faith/beliefs and must always be open to questioning.
5. Strive to make the best choices possible.
6. Know and struggle to improve yourself; work to be physically and psychologically healthy.
7. Develop and adopt a perceptual framework in which pain does not prevent the achievement of authentic happiness.
8. Help and be helped by other people.
9. Work to increase knowledge and all creative and artistic endeavors. Adopt an inspiring life goal.
10. Support efforts to ensure that every child is provided a loving, nurturing environment and all the things necessary to achieve authentic happiness.
11. Work to achieve authentic happiness. Make of your life a spiritual quest.**
**Spiritual Quest (The quest for wisdom): For Science of Ethics this involves accepting oneself as a natural being evolved in a natural world with the power of symbolic language which provides the ability to look beyond our current knowledge and experience and draw inspiration from that vision. This is a naturalistic definition of the spiritual, and the transcendent, but identifies with the eternal, with the ultimate, with the infinite, with truth/Truth.
ELEVEN WAYS OF WISDOM – Roy Speckhardt, Executive Director of AHA:
1. Recognize the Human Standard.
2. Improve society.
3. Pursue Wisdom.
4. Question and confirm knowledge.
5. Make choices deliberately.
6. Improve yourself.
7. Overcome suffering.
8. Facilitate people helping people.
9. Set aside space for creativity to thrive.
10. Ensure every child has a chance.
11. Pursue authentic happiness.
Arthur writes that this program is meant to examine the Ten Commandments in a way most Humanists and other freethinker rarely do, and present a science-based alternative for providing moral guidance in today’s world. You can view the uncensored Ten Commandments here.
As intended, Arthur’s presentation initiated much discussion and research for alternative “Commandments.” Below are a few examples.
Bertrand Russell’s “Commandments” in 1951:
1: Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2: Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3: Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
4: When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5: Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6: Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7: Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8: Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9: Be scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
1. Resilience. Keeping going even when things are looking dark.
2. Empathy. The capacity to connect imaginatively with the sufferings and unique experiences of another person.
3. Patience. We should grow calmer and more forgiving by getting more realistic about how things actually tend to go.
4. Sacrifice. We won’t ever manage to raise a family, love someone else or save the planet if we don’t keep up with the art of sacrifice.
5. Politeness. Politeness is very linked to tolerance, the capacity to live alongside people whom one will never agree with, but at the same time can’t avoid.
6. Humour. Like anger, humour springs from disappointment, but it’s disappointment optimally channelled.
7. Self-Awareness. To know oneself is to try not to blame others for one’s troubles and moods; to have a sense of what’s going on inside oneself, and what actually belongs to the world.
8. Forgiveness. It’s recognising that living with others isn’t possible without excusing errors.
9. Hope. Pessimism isn’t necessarily deep, nor optimism shallow.
10. Confidence. Confidence isn’t arrogance, it’s based on a constant awareness of how short life is and how little we ultimately lose from risking everything.
Citizens United v. FEC (2010) may be the most infamous Supreme Court ruling of the past decade. In this case, the Court struck down two provisions of federal law which limited corporate and union expenditures to advocate the election or defeat of candidates for federal office, holding that the provisions violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Martin Carcieri will explain that although this ruling rests firmly on earlier Court rulings, not only is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution invalidating Citizens United the most likely amendment that could be ratified in the next ten or twenty years, but also that such a recalibration of the balance between private and public power would be a highly appropriate use of the amendment process of Article V of the Constitution. To learn more before the presentation on Sunday, you can read the Handout.
Martin Carcieri is an Associate Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, where he teaches courses and seminars on Constitutional Law and Political Theory. He holds a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California, and has published twenty-five journal articles and book chapters. He is a long time humanist, skeptic, and rationalist.
