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GOVERNORS ISLANDPark-to-Tolerance, TOLERANCE IN TOMORROW (2) |
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GOVERNORS ISLANDPark-to-Tolerance, |
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TOLERANCE IN TOMORROW |
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The precepts of Tolerance and Liberty are const**uent parts inthe conception of American Freedom - Where intolerance grows (e.g., racial supremacy or religious coercion/compulsion), Tolerance fades and liberty-for-all withers when silent. (2) |
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— (2) |
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The United States of America came together as a secular nation |
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Congress |
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freedom from religion |
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religious commandments and strictures became subordinate to the primacy of secular law whichnow set the limits of citizens' liberties. |
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Composing a triad of America's fundamental values as National Symbols in New York Harbor—Tolerance, Liberty and Welcome as embodied by Governors Island, Liberty Island and Ellis Island—by recognizing each island’s unique facet of history: the “ |
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National Heritage Triangle |
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” as an allegory of harmonious virtues. |
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Jamestown |
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New Plymouth |
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Governors Island, New York |
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the island's 1624 historic legacy |
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Governors Island, Lifeblood of American Liberty |
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Governors Island Preservation and Education |
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Project |
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Tolerance Monument (2) |
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precursor to its 1777 Const**ution and the 1791 First Amendment in the Bill of Rights |
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PEt**ION |
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YouTube |
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Tolerance is an active dynamic entailing reciprocity and reciprocal respect. Always bilaterally demanding, it forges “American” freedom by relentlessly transforming plurality into constructive pluralism as a never-finished product of American culture. |
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Tolerance defines and gives meaning to an otherwise undemanding “generic” or “static” freedom. It is the indispensable dynamic component in American freedom and Western civilization. Without conscious vigilance and broad awareness of that vital, fundamental notion of tolerance, there will be times when there will be no freedom in the sense that Americans recognize that term today. |
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Left unnurtured and unprotected, simple liberty invites and facilitates the "friends" of intolerance and extremism — complacency, carelessness, apathy, pa***ivity and insipidness —foretelling looming disaster or opening the door to insidious |
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a***aults on civil liberties with voices in the name of disingenious slogans like "freedom" or rhetoric like"American values." |
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The Park will thereforepreserve Governors Island's historic symbolism, be an enduring beacon for humanity and extol America's vital role in advancing liberty through the moral force of tolerance. |
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eternal consciousness andvigilance through an ICONIC STRUCTURE |
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click here (2) |
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officially |
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In his Chapel Hill Commencement Address of May 13, 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proclaimed that "If government can deny freedom to one, it can deny freedom to all...More than any other generation that has walked the earth, you are free to pursue your dreams - unbounded by limits placed on your race, gender, ethnicity, orientation or lineage...Exclusion and equality are mortal enemies - and in America, every time they have met in battle, equality has ultimately triumphed...I have no doubt that in your lifetime, liberty's light will allow us to see more clearly the truth of our nation's founding principles, and allow us to see all people, and all couples, as full and equal members of the American family." In his Inaugural Address of January 1, 2011, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said that "Only the people's voice can silence the calls of the special interests in the halls of the Capitol...In truth the partners***p between the Executive and the Legislature has not been working well for years and that must change...The potential [real] powerof the Governor is to mobilize the people of the State of New York." Inhis State of the State Address of January 5, 2011, he proclaimed: "We currently have a government of dysfunction, gridlock and corruption - we have to transform it into a government of performance, integrity and pride...The New York State Legislature is the best legislature historically in the nation, the most talented people, that's, that's who we are...We want a government that puts the people first and not the special interests first." On June 6, 2009, President Barack H. Obama said: "As we face down the hards***ps and struggles of our time and arrive at that hour for which we were born, we cannot help but draw strength from those moments in history when the best among us were somehow able to swallow their fears and secure a beachhead on an unforgiving sh****." In |
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his Inaugural Address of March 17, 2008, Governor David A. Paterson proclaimed: "Let us put personal politics, party advantage and power struggles aside, in favor of service, in the interests of the people...Let me introduce myself...I am the governor of New York State." |
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Earlier, at the January 1, 2007,Inaugural Address, Governor Eliot Spitzer declared “New York created the model for the kind of society that would be duplicated throughout the country and around the globe: Our state was born as an island at the center of the world (Governors Island).” (For 34-slide presentation in pdf CLICK |
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Governors Island Legacy, New York's Ident**y |
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.)Governors Island, Nooten Eyland (in pidgin language Nutten Island) until 1784, is the place of origin of American tolerance as the basis for cultural diversity and pluralism and, as such, it embodies aMessage ofProfoundNational Importance. |
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Therefore, theisland’s cultural and national heritage has outstanding universal value which could qualify it as a potential World Heritage Site. |
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Together with liberty, the notion of tolerance serves to define the cultural and juridical construct to which American personal freedom refers. In the face of intolerance, tolerance is a vigilant dynamic — it is neither uncritical acceptance, complacency, appeas*****t or submission, nor laxity, sloth or indifference.Embedded in Governors Island—New York State’s legally recognized, historic birthplace—tolerance is the quintessence of New York’s cultural patrimony since 1624 ( |
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CLICK HERE (3) |
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for Legislative Resolutions 5476 and 2708 which recognize this heritage).With the arrival of the first settlers to the New York Tri-State region on Governors Island in 1624, the legal and cultural traditions of the Low Lands, including the basic human virtue and jurisprudence of toleration (= religious tolerance) as the basis for ethnic diversity, were first implanted by law upon North American soil (unlike the first landings in New England and Virginia). |
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This plurality, for instance, was recorded in a census of 1639 and portrayed on a Manhattan map which shows a large farm owned by America’s first Muslim planter, Antoni du Turck, a Moroccan from Fez. After sixty years as New Netherland (1614-1674), the region – now the New York Tri-State area – came under definitive English authority.The virtuous conception of tolerance, thus introduced in the Western Hemisphere and rooted in New York State’s very birth in the year 1624, can be consideredNew York’s first and unique contribution to American culture. Governors Island is therefore the nation'soldest natural symbol of primary value. Its message is America's ultimate virtue. |
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One hundred fifty two years later, in 1776, New York’s birthfather’s fundamental precept of political freedom (and with regard to individual freedoms, in 1791, by way of the First Amendment) was to become the crucial underpinning of the American Republic with the adoption of the "Right-of-Man-Doctrine" that formed the basis for the statement that "The United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States."That doctrine stated, in 1776, that "whenever any form of government (the English Crown) becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to inst**ute new government."One hundred ninety five years prior to that Declaration of Independence, in 1581, the samedoctrine was the basis for the United States of the Netherlands when it stated that "when a ruler of the people (King Philip II of Spain) does not behave thus, but on the contrary oppresses them...they may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another ruler for their defense."It was therefore no happenstance that John Adams wrote, in 1781, that "the originals of the two republics are so much alike that the history of one seems but a transcript from that of the other...the great characters the Dutch Republic exhibits...have been particularly studied, admired and imitated in EVERY American state." Later Adams wrote: "I modestly blush for my nation when I consider the low estimation in which we have held the importance of the [Netherlands] connections with us. Their separation from England, union with France and Spain and their treaty with us was THE EVENT which ultimately turned the scale of the American Revolutionary war and produced the peace in 1783."The analogous republics—the United States of America and the United States of the Netherlands—were not coincidental. The latter’s DNA and precepts, implanted on Governors Island in the year 1624 and the building block of America’s earliest childhood, were responsible for the traits that shaped America's like-minded personality and deeply felt commitment to political freedom and individual liberty.The right to rebel against tyranny, the right to seek redress of grievances and freedom in religion and of the press, all can be traced to the New York Tri-State region when it was known as New Netherland with New Amsterdam (now New York City) at its center.In summary, Governors Island—as the place of first settlement between 38 and 42 degrees lat**ude, sandwiched between Virginia and New England, and as the legally recognized birthplace of New York State on which the jurisprudenceof toleration (= religious tolerance) as a precept in the conception of American freedom was planted in 1624—is a historical archeological landmark of 21st-century thematic relevance and enduring value to future generations.For the above mentioned reasons, the island is a natural historic NationalSymbol while representing the uniquely-shared Mutual Heritage of two nations . |
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PLEASE FORWARD THIS SITE AND, WHERE APPROPRIATE, PROVIDE US WITH A LINK ON YOUR WEBSITE TO |
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Governors Island National Symbol OR |
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Governors Island Tolerance Park OR |
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Governors Island Tolerance Monument OR |
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National Heritage Triangle OR |
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Tolerance WalkOR |
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Lifeblood of American Liberty |
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through att**ude and by example |
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without, on the other hand, to p*****cute someone by reason of his religion and to leave everyone the freedom of his conscience |
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that everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be p*****cuted or investigated because of religion |
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EXPLORER ADRIAEN BLOCK AND HIS CAPTAIN HENDRICK CHRISTIAENSZ WERE THE FIRST PERSONS EVER TO SURVEY AND CHART THE COAST LINE BETWEEN THE 38th AND 45th PARALLELS AND NAMED THE TERRITORY NEW NETHERLAND IN 1614. THIS MAP IS THE RESULT OF FOUR VOYAGES STARTED IN 1611. |
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the Atlantic arena |
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legally and culturally |
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State and City politicians would need to |
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Accept and understand the meaning of New York State's thematic patrimony to America. |
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acknowledge the delivery onto Governors Island of New York State's jurisprudence of toleration (= religious tolerance) in the year 1624 as the source of American pluralism |
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embrace New York State’s priceless, thematic inheritance of tolerance |
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unveil a currently concealed national symbol |
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concede that the founding of the sovereignty of New York State (originally the juridical ent**y of New Netherland) in the year 1624 provided the legal-political and cultural underpinnings for the conception of American freedom |
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transformGovernors Island into an enduring national symbol |
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Thanksgiving |
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Governors Island's Legacy, New York's Ident**y, |
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Lifeblood-of-American-Liberty |
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Joep de Koning (Click here.) |
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GovernorsIslandToleranceMonument.com |