Has the Lively Experiment Failed

Monetary chairs is the Rhode Island solution to its economic problems. Who will be the last standing? Casinos are not the economic development machines they are portrayed to be, they are re-distributional mechanism dependent on Massachusetts players leaving more money here than the owners and operators take out of the State.

Pay to play schemes are an invisable tax that benefits the politician at the expense of tax payers. Before we lower taxes and cut programs, maybe we should stop the pay to play taxes extorted by our politician and their Zombies.

A good place to start would be the sweet heart deals with Union Leaders that help to insure both the leaders and politicians re-election while condemning the next generation of tax payers and union members on pensions to poverty from underfunded pension programs.

Prison would be a good place to send those who use alleged ballot interference tactics to influence the Providence election process. True or not it, such publicity only helps to reenforce that the public's perception that the Good Old Buddy Days are back. And frighten off prospective investors.

Moral obligation bonds are a contradiction in terms. They are fiction approved by a legislature that has no morals and which feel their only obligation is toward themselves not the tax payers. This is no way to build an economy. I guess that they feel because when the Heritage Bank failed they got all their money back at tax payer expense that the tax payers will be willing bail out any private company they approve,  regardless where they are from or how the deal was made.

The Bishop, who thinks he is Pope of Rhode Island, forgets that Roger Williams founded this state on the principle of separation of church and state. The Bishop seems to feel that this entitles him to declare his church's dogma should rule over all matters of personal conscious for everyone in the state to the exclusion of all points of view. He and his Tea Party allies would love to see a Constitutional Convention be given the opportunity to overturn the principle established in the Charter and the Federal Constitution.

Rather than hold a Constitutional Convention to change things in the state, we might be better off just trying to play by the rules we have. The first step for such  change to elect honest representatives who represent the best of the state and throw out the insiders who lie and cheat to get your vote by promising everything and leaving you and us with nothing..

Has the lively experiment failed? Maybe we will see in this election.

How the Governor opposes the Lively Experiment

Rhode Island was founded on the basic principle of a separation of church and state. This was, and is, the foundation for the Lively Experiment which is Rhode Island.

There is a supreme irony that Roger Williams who fled Massachusetts Bay Colony to avoid religious persecution at the hands of the Puritans and founded Rhode Island on this principle of separation, would find today that Massachusetts has taken the lead in recognizing the separation. Three years ago, Katie Zezima reported in the New York times: Rhode Island Couple Wins Same-Sex Marriage Case

Since then Rhode Island has yet to recognize the validity of any same sex union. It is both disappointing and insulting, as a Rhode Islander and a follower of Roger Williams' principle, to see the following headline in the national news.

R.I. Gov. Vetoes Same-Sex Funeral Rights, Bill Allows Same-Sex Partners Same Right as Spouses to Plan Funerals

There are strong religious arguments for and against homosexuality. But there is no justification for a political partisan state official to ban or support an activity by a citizen on solely religious grounds. This is especially true here in Rhode Island where the constitution and tradition are founded on acceptance and tolerance of diversity,

When the Governor, elected by all of the people, denies the basic civil rights of some of the people based on a personal religious prejudice, isn't he violating his oath of office. Or is he acting as a tool of a particular church or religious body? That is what Roger Williams fled from in the Bay Colony. Now RI gays must go to Massachusetts to find the freedom that Roger Williams sought to establish here.

In a time of economic crisis such as Rhode Island faces today, petty bigotry is not helpful in promoting economic recovery, nor creating a business friendly environment. Would the Governor ban an employer bringing in much need jobs from moving into the state, if he knew that the owners of that family business happen to be a committed gay couple?

Is there any difference here between "high taxes" and "don't ask, don't tell" as a disincentive to business. Isn't the very ownership of the "family" company placed in legal limbo, if one or the other gay partners die??

The purpose of marriage is twofold: Procreation and nurturing. Sex and sexual orientation apply only to the former. Humanity is the test for the latter.

Marriage is a religious and civil act. Let religion decide what the procreative purposes of marriage for its followers. But let's make certain that the State supports the social and public purposes of marriage as a nurturing institution for individuals regardless of their beliefs.

The Lively Experiment is based on the concept of religious liberty, or, in Roger Williams' terms, "soul liberty."

The Oldest Experiment

A new epoch is about to begin. It is an epoch when we, Americans, may return to the center where basic human rights and dignity may be respected and differences accepted and tolerated.

The opening of the 21st Century and 3rd millennium of the Christian calendar, witnessed an attempt to over throw the principles that are the foundation of the “American dream.” Both here and abroad the rights of mankind and ideal of government based on the principles of basic human rights have been and are being challenged by dogmatic, religious fundamentalism of all stripes.

America was not born with the principles of human rights in place. America was born with a set of flawed ideal but with a faith in humanity’s potential to learn through correcting its failings. America has been and is a great experiment. It is an experiment in human relations based on a simple idea of the value of the individual. The purpose of government is foster, protect and mediate individual interests to form an environment that enables everyone the opportunity to realize his or her potential.

These principles are set forth as a goal in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776:

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. …” http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

And later the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States adopted on September 17, 1787, affirmed them when it states.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
http:// www.usconstitution.net/const.html

More significant, the enlightened leadership that formed the United Nations after World War II enshrined these ideals in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights which were adopted by the General Assembly, 172 years later, on 10 December 1948. (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html).

Unfortunately, we have seen the raise of forces of fundamentalism in religions and ideologies that desire to overturn these rights. These rights have been achieved through a long struggle by people of conviction. Millions have fought, suffered and died to build a world that respects the rights of every human being. The time has come for everyone who values these principles of human rights to take a stand and oppose those with narrow sectarian agendas. The question is: “How can this be done without one becoming the enemy itself?”

Three hundred and twelve years earlier in 1636, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the official name of “Little Rhody” was established with these principles in mind. Over the centuries, since 1636, when Roger Williams was forced to flee from the Massachusetts Bay Colony or face religious persecution, Rhode Island has been a haven for those who seek freedom of worship based on the principle of soul liberty. Williams recognized that the only way to achieve freedom of worship was to establish a government that was based on the separation of the spiritual world from the political world. He recognized the inherent tension between the sectarian and secular life. He set forth his ideas in his book: The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for the Cause of Conscience, Discussed in a Conference Between Truth and Peace published in London in 1644. http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/31-wil.html

These principles were put into words and given authority when England's King Charles I issued Rhode Island's colonial charter to Roger Williams in 1663 and which states that the colony is established

"To hold forth a lively experiment that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained with full liberty in religious concernments."

Soul Liberty is the founding principle that establishes the Rhode Island Legacy. That legacy has played a prominent part of both Rhode Island’s and later the American experience. At the core of the concept of soul liberty is the ideal of separation of church and state, religion from politics. A simple concept that has been the basis of the longest running “lively experiment,” -- Rhode Island.

This Blog is dedicated to the discussion and evaluation of how this “living experiment' has evolved. It will explore the inherent conflicts between human ideals and human performance as seen through the lens of Rhode Island’s Legacy.

You, dear reader, are invited to join the discussion. Help to frame the questions. Help provide the answers.

And let us have a LIVELY EXPERIMENT.