This morning, Josiah Fornof called home at 9:50 AM EST and spoke with me, his mother Kimberly A. Blevins for 15 minutes. Josiah spoke of the right to self-defense, “The Great Natural Law of Self-preservation” which cannot be taken away from anyone.

Josiah Fornof had spoken to me about those things in a conversation yesterday too. After he did so, I expressed that I wished I had everything he had told me “in my hand” for use in my own writing, both my blog posts and books. That is when Josiah reminded me that near the beginning of his unlawful incarceration, he has asked me to record our conversations. Josiah knows how overwhelmed I have been, and so we had not discussed that for a while, but yesterday he said that with such recording, I would have it in my hand and we both could save a lot of time and avoid needless redundancy of our efforts.

That was a gentle rebuke, such as I receive from time to time from each of my children, all adults now. I told Josiah that I had dropped the ball, but that I was finally feeling enough peace to be able to follow through on that. Yesterday, after we talked, I finally figured it out. The audio recording of the entire conversation is included hereinafter, at the bottom of this blog post. The call this morning was our first use of the new system, which is why Josiah Fornof was saying “testing” at the beginning and is also why we were a little bit giddy before becoming more serious.

During the conversation, Josiah Fornof talked about the right to bear arms within the context of the natural right to self-defense that everyone has and that cannot be taken away. He was quoting from a book that I had sent to him in prison at his request: The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms (Independent Studies in Political Economy)

When I mentioned “irrecusable” in the conversation with Josiah Fornof, that was familiar to him, but may not be to others. That term is from the definition as given in: Black’s Law Dictionary: Definitions of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modern, 5th Edition 5th (fifth) (1979) Hardcover

Josiah Fornof and I prefer to use that edition, as did my father, Josiah’s grandfather, Robert F. Blevins, whose December 7, 1997 letter of some 40 pages to the United States Department of Justice is included on this site. In more recent editions of Black’s Law Dictionary, the editors allowed the meaning of basic terms relevant to contract law to become needlessly clouded and overly biased in favor of the adult/professional/wrongdoer, to the disadvantage of the infant/novice/wronged party. We reject that change and leverage our lawful advantage to hearken back to the earlier edition.

We reserve the right to leverage any and all other such lawful advantages, not only for ourselves, but in the public interest, for the People, our fellow citizens, our countrymen and countrywomen, our fellow Americans.

There is a place in the conversation where I mention the relevance of what the Lord is doing, and Josiah does not respond to what I said, but instead after a pause, picks up where he had left off on what he was talking about. This morning, during a later conversation starting at 11:17 AM EST, Josiah and I discussed that, and the fact that it may seem awkward to others listening.

My children and I all have our own way of communicating with each other, and it is different with each of them, including with Josiah Fornof, who is my next-to-youngest son. Others listening in to our conversations may or may not know how to take us, and I do not apologize at all for that. I said what I said in order to “plug in” that information, which I know very well firsthand is relevant. At that moment, Josiah was preoccupied looking up what he was going to say next and fit into the very limited time allowed for the call, just 15 minutes.

Beyond that matter of being preoccupied, while Josiah Fornof respects very much and listens to everything I say, he does not overreach in either agreeing or disagreeing, but simply speaks from his own experience. That is all that anyone can do. As a family, we are hardly in lockstep with one another, as has been absurdly suggested, including in open court. He and I laughed about that during our later call this morning.

Hanukkah at the White House

Flowing along with the thought of us not all agreeing in lockstep fashion, that is also one reason why I was so amused by the words of Rabbi Rachel Isaacs of Colby College and Temple Beth Israel in Waterville, Maine about Hanukkah and the reason why it is celebrated, “Of course, since Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday, we don’t all agree on a singular reason why we celebrate.”

Those comments were made during the White House 2016 Evening Hannukah Reception, an event I mentioned in the recorded conversation with Josiah Fornof. Although I did not find a written transcript, I did watch the video again and transcribed what was relevant to this blog post. Rabbi Isaacs’ comments, in context, are included below:

Hanukkah is a festival that teaches that teaches us it is always darkest before the dawn and that it is not foolish or naive to hold on to hope.

Of course, since Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday, we don’t all agree on a singular reason why we celebrate.

The Maccabees refused to accept tyranny, and were willing to sacrifice everything, in order to retain their integrity as faithful Jews. They knew the injustice of dictatorship, and the danger of one human sovereign undermining the primacy of our laws. As Jews, our faith is rooted in a legal system based on the foundational belief that all human beings are created equal and created equally in the divine image.

Please note that it will be necessary to click the large arrow in the middle, then the smaller one at the left in order to activate the audio recording below. This was Josiah Fornof’s and my first use of this technology, so we were in a testing mode. 🙂