THE Founding Fathers Thread of All Founding Fathers Threads

[aCultureWarrior]

...

Alexis de Tocqueville...​

I know that it must be a coincidence, because you've stated numerous times to me in various threads that you don't identify with the ideology or political movement, but L/libertarians are HUGE fans of Alexi de Tocqueville. I've seen his name mentioned incessantly in numerous L/libertarian articles.

Why don't you use the Founding Fathers themselves as a source for promoting Christianity instead of a French Jew?

 

[Gary K]

I posted this before but it is important enough to post again. de Tocqueville has a very highly skilled observer of both cultural and political influences and the following is his observation on the role of Christianity in the US in the early 1800s. This quote comes from Democracy in America volume 1.

Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere faith in their religion, for who can search the human heart? but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation, and to every rank of society.

So, was the US a Christian nation back then? Yes, but not in the way acw tries to imply. It was Christian in that Americans back then understood it's influence in creating, and maintaining, liberty.

 

[Gary K]

I know that it must be a coincidence, because you've stated numerous times to me in various threads that you don't identify with the ideology or political movement, but L/libertarians are HUGE fans of Alexi de Tocqueville. I've seen his name mentioned incessantly in numerous L/libertarian articles.

Why don't you use the Founding Fathers themselves as a source for promoting Christianity instead of a French Jew?

You make me laugh. I've been quoting the founding fathers directly from their writings. Your insistence that I'm a Libertarian is funny. I take what I believe to be true from anywhere. If something is scriptural I'll adopt it. I take what part of libertarianism agrees with scripture and leave the rest far behind. That's why I'm an Independent rather than a member of any political party. They are all corrupt in one way or another.

I like de Tocqueville's writings. He was a highly skilled observer and a dispassionate one therefore he had no axe to grind one way or another. In other words, he had no agenda but truth. Thus his writings reflect what the US was like back then. He presented this country with it's good and it's warts and all. He pointed out the strengths as well as the weaknesses of our system of government. Therefore he is a trustworthy source.

So what if he was a French Jew? How is that even relevant? What matters is who he was, what kind of man he was. Only a racist like you would imply he was untrustworthy simply because he was Jewish. As a matter of fact some of the biggest financial supporters of the Revolution were Jews, and a few of them lost everything they had and died in poverty because they went deeply into debt in their support of the Revolution.

I also really like the writings of Moses, David, John, Matthew, Paul, etc.... In fact I base my entire life on their writings. I guess that makes me a Jew-lover in your eyes. But who cares? Not me.

de Tocqueville also pointed out the Jewish influence on this nation, but then so did John Adams and Ben Franklin.

 

[Gary K]

Here is an interesting passage from Democracy in America volume 1. Notice that de Tocqueville refers to the period of the so-called French Enlightenment and it's philosophers.

The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained the gradual decay of religious faith in a very simple manner. Religious zeal, said they, must necessarily fail, the more generally liberty is established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately, facts are by no means in accordance with their theory. There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equalled by their ignorance and their debasement, whilst in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfils all the outward duties of religious fervor.

de Tocqueville is saying that the US religious practices were defying the writings of the French enlightenment. So how could the US have been the product of the French Enlightenment? It wasn't. It was a product of the revelation from God found in the Bible.

Here is the very next paragraph.

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it I questioned the members of all the different sects; and I more especially sought the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different persuasions, and who are more especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my astonishment and I explained my doubts; I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone; and that they mainly attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of Church and State. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet with a single individual, of the clergy or of the laity, who was not of the same opinion upon this point.

Notice that this "French Jew" was a Catholic, in other words, a Christian. And notice that even though the founders did exactly what McCoy calls violating the Constitution because the founders did not understand the Constitution they wrote to mean "freedom from religion" that the even the ministers and priests of that time said there was a separation of Church and State and it was to that they attributed the freedom they had on an every day basis. I draw from this that both McCoy and acw need to rethink their agendas if truth is what they are really after.

Now comes something that is going to be even more astonishing to those who have never studied these things from the perspective of those who wrote the Constitution. This is upside down compared to what we see today, yet it is the key to understanding our founding fathers and why this nation rapidly grew to be both a world power and why it is in such severe decline today. It also explains why liberty is no longer desired by about 1/2 of this nation. This also explains why the federal government never used to interfere with the educational system. When it started doing that it changed the entire system of education that we had into something that is not friendly to liberty for it took Christianity completely out of our system of education. It also means the Department of Education is used as a means to destroy liberty and is also unconstitutional.

This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done, the station which the American clergy occupy in political society. I learned with surprise that they filled no public appointments; *f not one of them is to be met with in the administration, and they are not even represented in the legislative assemblies. In several States *g the law excludes them from political life, public opinion in all. And when I came to inquire into the prevailing spirit of the clergy I found that most of its members seemed to retire of their own accord from the exercise of power, and that they made it the pride of their profession to abstain from politics.

f
[ Unless this term be applied to the functions which many of them fill in the schools. Almost all education is entrusted to the clergy.]

g
[ See the Constitution of New York, art. 7, Section 4:— "And whereas the ministers of the gospel are, by their profession, dedicated to the service of God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of their functions: therefore no minister of the gospel, or priest of any denomination whatsoever, shall at any time hereafter, under any pretence or description whatever, be eligible to, or capable of holding, any civil or military office or place within this State."

 

[Gary K]

acw, this is for you especially for in this passage de Tocqueville is addressing exactly what you want to do and why it is always a failure.

The short space of threescore years can never content the imagination of man; nor can the imperfect joys of this world satisfy his heart. Man alone, of all created beings, displays a natural contempt of existence, and yet a boundless desire to exist; he scorns life, but he dreads annihilation. These different feelings incessantly urge his soul to the contemplation of a future state, and religion directs his musings thither. Religion, then, is simply another form of hope; and it is no less natural to the human heart than hope itself. Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect, and a sort of violent distortion of their true natures; but they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments; for unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind. If we only consider religious institutions in a purely human point of view, they may be said to derive an inexhaustible element of strength from man himself, since they belong to one of the constituent principles of human nature.

I am aware that at certain times religion may strengthen this influence, which originates in itself, by the artificial power of the laws, and by the support of those temporal institutions which direct society. Religions, intimately united to the governments of the earth, have been known to exercise a sovereign authority derived from the twofold source of terror and of faith; but when a religion contracts an alliance of this nature, I do not hesitate to affirm that it commits the same error as a man who should sacrifice his future to his present welfare; and in obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that authority which is rightfully its own. When a religion founds its empire upon the desire of immortality which lives in every human heart, it may aspire to universal dominion; but when it connects itself with a government, it must necessarily adopt maxims which are only applicable to certain nations. Thus, in forming an alliance with a political power, religion augments its authority over a few, and forfeits the hope of reigning over all.

 

[rocketman]

You make me laugh. I've been quoting the founding fathers directly from their writings. Your insistence that I'm a Libertarian is funny. I take what I believe to be true from anywhere. If something is scriptural I'll adopt it. I take what part of libertarianism agrees with scripture and leave the rest far behind. That's why I'm an Independent rather than a member of any political party. They are all corrupt in one way or another.

I like de Tocqueville's writings. He was a highly skilled observer and a dispassionate one therefore he had no axe to grind one way or another. In other words, he had no agenda but truth. Thus his writings reflect what the US was like back then. He presented this country with it's good and it's warts and all. He pointed out the strengths as well as the weaknesses of our system of government. Therefore he is a trustworthy source.

So what if he was a French Jew? How is that even relevant? What matters is who he was, what kind of man he was. Only a racist like you would imply he was untrustworthy simply because he was Jewish. As a matter of fact some of the biggest financial supporters of the Revolution were Jews, and a few of them lost everything they had and died in poverty because they went deeply into debt in their support of the Revolution.

I also really like the writings of Moses, David, John, Matthew, Paul, etc.... In fact I base my entire life on their writings. I guess that makes me a Jew-lover in your eyes. But who cares? Not me.

de Tocqueville also pointed out the Jewish influence on this nation, but then so did John Adams and Ben Franklin.

:BRAVO:

 

[McCoy]

So, in your mind, the fact that all of which you listed were universal practices in the world at that time, the fact that they existed is evidence the founders didn't really behave in a constitutional manner. What I see you doing is applying your current understanding in our culture today and judging those men who lived in a culture completely different than exists today. You're applying your standards to men who lived at a different time, and in a much, much different world. And you think that is rational and objective? It is highly subjective and as such it is irrational.

I thought I was being clear. Apparently not.

My repeated point about the founders and early American practices, is that you can’t point to de facto behavior of the time as some kind of implicit argument for their Constitutionality. The constitution was written by men who were at times wildly inconsistent in their beliefs and practices— and pointing to any of their behaviors with a juvenile, reductionist posture that essentially says,”hey, if it was good enough for the Founders, it must be OK for us today” (a type of argumentation that ACW uses ad nauseam). I shouldn’t have to point out the absurdity of this position. Just because some societal practice existed or was practiced openly at the time of this nations founding, is not a prima facie argument for its morality or constitutionality. The founders were not apostles and the constitution is not holy text— wild inconsistencies have abounded in American behavior since it’s founding.

 

[McCoy]

PS) the logic is, “Jefferson said or did X, therefore X must certainly be constitutional— or else Jefferson wouldn’t have practiced it”. The entire ministry of Wallbuilders teeters on this childish, ahistorical premise.

 

[McCoy]

At the Constitutional Convention in June 1787 Ben Franklin gave the following speech when it seemed the attendees were to fail in their job of creating a workable constitution. In this speech Franklin speaks to events in the Revolutionary War and how the founders responded to them, and that they needed to use the same approach once again.



So were these men Christians? If they weren't they were the strangest behaving secularists I've ever heard of as no secularist I've ever heard of behaves in the way the founders did during the war and Franklin was saying they needed to do at that time.

This is indeed a curious occasion in history, one given plenty of attention by scholars of Franklin and early American history. What made franklins request so unusual, was that his religious views have never been a matter of real debate— they were neither orthodox nor theistic— and so on the surface this request is an anomaly . Franklin was, by the measure of even a cursory glance, a DEIST. He was not fuzzy about his convictions.

Using Occam’s razor, the absolute LEAST probable assumption here is that Franklin was secretly a very devout evangelical Christian— the claim that Wallbuilders and people like Federer and Metaxes make. There is a very large body of evidence across Franklin’s life, revealing that he rejected the tenets of orthodox Christianity, and subscribed to something akin to “ala carte religion” as a free-thinking deist.

As to his motives in making this request at the convention, it is most likely that he was appealing to the prevailing religious idea of the time, in order to help the attendees find common ground and perchance settle the impasse at the convention (he had earlier written about appealing to human vanity in others, in order to help settle conflicts). It didn’t work. Unity, not actual divine intervention, appeared to be Franklin’s goal.,

Most importantly, Franklin’s proposal was rejected for further motion by the convention, and franklin wrote in his notes later that only 3 or 4 of the delegates supported the idea of opening the Convention with a formal prayer for divine intervention. The minutes taken, further detail how this played out: Franklin motioned for daily prayers, Sherman seconded this, Randolph wanted it to be a sermon AND a prayer and Franklin seconded that. It promptly died. No one else took up this charge.

If you’re interested, you should read both Isaacson’s and Brands’ bios of this complex man— both works representing true excellence and balance in modern scholarship. Brands’ is the more exhaustive of the two, and as such is a bit of a slog in places. Well worth the investment, regardless.

 

[ok doser]

PS) the logic is, “Jefferson said or did X, therefore X must certainly be constitutional— or else Jefferson wouldn’t have practiced it”. The entire ministry of Wallbuilders teeters on this childish, ahistorical premise.

Which is why my response, when encountering someone like Acw who deifies the founding fathers, is always "Jefferson owned slaves"

they were men, with feet of clay, who often got it wrong

 

[McCoy]

de Tocqueville is saying that the US religious practices were defying the writings of the French enlightenment. So how could the US have been the product of the French Enlightenment? It wasn't. It was a product of the revelation from God found in the Bible.

Probably because every society and culture is different, and the phenomena that accompanied some Western cultures following the Enlightenment, did not follow as predictably in the United States. Movements seemed to catch inter-culturally much quicker in Europe— and that is largely a matter of geographical proximity. The US was and still is, isolated from some of the immediacy of those things. The abolitionist movement, to cite just one example, was an enlightenment phenomena that took root first in Europe and took some time to gain real momentum in America.

The Enlightenment thinkers had a tremendous impact on our nation’s founding. Freedom of expression, freedom of speech, the safeguarding of societally “offensive” speech, freedom of the press, religious tolerance/freedom, are all directly co-opted and uniquely Enlightenment ideals. 1600 years of Christianity did NOT bring these concepts to the fore, and by and large they stand contrary to the Bible’s commands— which outlaw blasphemy, issue punitive admonitions for offensive speech and command obeisance to only ONE God— with the utmost vengeance and curses reserved for those who disobey.

 

[ok doser]

If you’re interested, you should read both Isaacson’s and Brands’ bios of this complex man— both works representing true excellence and balance in modern scholarship. Brands’ is the more exhaustive of the two, and as such is a bit of a slog in places. Well worth the investment, regardless.

They're on my reading list, thanks. Never delved into Franklin, but did enjoy THE LOYAL SON: THE WAR IN BEN FRANKLIN'S HOUSE by Daniel Mark

 

[McCoy]

Which is why my response, when encountering someone like Acw who deifies the founding fathers, is always "Jefferson owned slaves"

they were men, with feet of clay, who often got it wrong

What many Biblical literalists and dominionists do, is lift the church traditions of apostolic succession and biblical Inerrancy and lay them on top of early American history— making the Founders to be anointed prophets who held a special revelation from God and the constitution to be the infallible text of the new Kingdom. Anyone suggesting that these were ordinary men and the concept of America just a very good but still very experimental idea, are often regarded as “apostates”.

The thing that keeps these idiotic ideas afloat, is American ignorance of the complex facts of history. Americans love fast food and they love when some crackpot like Barton can sum up a nation’s entire history in magical religious explanations and bumper sticker slogans .

 

[Gary K]

While it's pretty much accepted that virtually all of the white European population in the colonies identified as Christian, it's inevitable that the number of real Christians, those indwelt with the Holy Spirit, those whose names are to be found in the Book of Life, those who are members of the Body - that number is smaller, much much smaller - as a WAG, let's be generous and say 20%.

And so, to call the United States a "Christian" nation, even in the trivial sense of being a nation of Christians, fails.

sorry

Today? Yes. Back in the formative days of this nation? No. de Tocqueville makes that very clear when he says that religion was the most powerful political institution in the US even though it took no active part in politics. de Tocqueville contradicts you multiple times.

 

[ok doser]

Anyone suggesting that these were ordinary men and the concept of America just a very good but still very experimental idea, are often regarded as “apostates”.

we used to have an active poster here, a butthead who was a worshiper of the Constitution. I often argued gun control policy with him, arguing that the second amendment wasn't written for hunting or home defense, but as a defense against governmental tyranny.

His argument was that the Constitution was perfect in its adaptability, that it provided a way to legislate tyranny away, and therefore the second amendment should be scrapped :dizzy:

 

[ok doser]

... de Tocqueville makes that very clear when he says that religion was the most powerful political institution in the US ...

Religion is the most powerful institution in Vatican City today. Would you presume that all in VC are saints?

Yes, in the early days of the nation, religion was the most powerful driver of cultural change. That doesn't mean that all of those religious leaders or followers were saved.

See Matthew 7:21-23

 

[Gary K]

Probably because every society and culture is different, and the phenomena that accompanied some Western cultures following the Enlightenment, did not follow as predictably in the United States. Movements seemed to catch inter-culturally much quicker in Europe— and that is largely a matter of geographical proximity. The US was and still is, isolated from some of the immediacy of those things. The abolitionist movement, to cite just one example, was an enlightenment phenomena that took root first in Europe and took some time to gain real momentum in America.

The Enlightenment thinkers had a tremendous impact on our nation’s founding. Freedom of expression, freedom of speech, the safeguarding of societally “offensive” speech, freedom of the press, religious tolerance/freedom, are all directly co-opted and uniquely Enlightenment ideals. 1600 years of Christianity did NOT bring these concepts to the fore, and by and large they stand contrary to the Bible’s commands— which outlaw blasphemy, issue punitive admonitions for offensive speech and command obeisance to only ONE God— with the utmost vengeance and curses reserved for those who disobey.

That is entirely wrong. The Pilgrims brought these ideas here in the early 1600s which is one hundred years before the so-called French Enlightenment. As de Toqueville points out in Americans Institutions and Their Influence, the Pilgrims were more than 100 years ahead of Europe in their thinking and political ideals. And they began setting up their laws and political structure immediately upon landing. Thus, the major influence in the political system in the colonies was established long before 1715.

The time frame of the following quote is no later than the 1650s, 65 years before the beginning of the so-called French Enlightenment, and began even before that. That form of self-government began as early as 1620 when the Pilgrims first arrived on Plymouth Rock.

The general principles which are the groundwork of modern constitutions—principles which were imperfectly known in Europe, and not completely triumphant even in Great Britain, in the seventeenth century—were all recognised and determined by the laws of New England: the intervention of the people in public affairs, the free voting of taxes, the responsibility of authorities, personal liberty, and trial by jury, were all positively established without discussion.

From these fruitful principles, consequences have been derived and applications have been made such as no nation in Europe has yet ventured to attempt.

A few paragraphs later comes this quote:

In New England, townships were completely and definitively constituted as early as 1650. The independence of the township was the nucleus around which the local interests, passions, rights, and duties, collected and clung. It gave scope to the activity of a real political life, most thoroughly democratic and republican. The colonies still recognised the supremacy of the mother-country; monarchy was still the law of the state; but the republic was already established in every township.

So, don't tell me that the US was founded on the principles of the French Enlightenment. That is a fallacy taught by those who would obscure the true origins of the US.

Here's more from de Tocqueville on this subject.

If, after having cast a rapid glance over the state of American society in 1650, we turn to the condition of Europe, and more especially to that of the continent, at the same period, we cannot fail to be struck with astonishment. On the continent of Europe, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, absolute monarchy had everywhere triumphed over the ruins of the oligarchical and feudal liberties of the middle ages. Never were the notions of right more completely confounded than in the midst of the splendor and literature of Europe; never was there less political activity among the people; never were the principles of true freedom less widely circulated, and at that very time, those principles, which were scorned or unknown by the nations of Europe, were proclaimed in the deserts of the New World, and were accepted as the future creed of a great people. The boldest theories of the human reason were put into practice by a community so humble, that not a statesman condescended to attend to it; and a legislation without precedent was produced off-hand by the imagination of the citizens. In the bosom of this obscure democracy, which had as yet brought forth neither generals, nor philosophers, nor authors, a man might stand up in the face of a free people, and pronounce amid general acclamations the following fine definition of liberty:

"Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is a liberty of corrupt nature, which is affected both by men and beasts to do what they list; and this liberty is inconsistent with authority, impatient of all restraint; by this liberty 'sumus omnes deteriores;' it is the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all the ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty, which is the proper end and object of authority; it is a liberty for that only which is just and good: for this liberty you are to stand with the hazard of your very lives, and whatsoever crosses it is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained in a way of subjection to authority; and the authority set over you will, in all administrations for your good, be quietly submitted unto by all but such as have a disposition to shake off the yoke and lose their true liberty, by their murmuring at the honor and power of authority."

That was said by an American colonist in 1650.

Here is more from de Tocqueville:

The settlers of New England were at the same time ardent sectarians and daring innovators. Narrow as the limits of some of their religious opinions were, they were entirely free from political prejudices.

Hence arose two tendencies, distinct but not opposite, which are constantly discernible in the manners as well as in the laws of the country.

It might be imagined that men who sacrificed their friends, their family, and their native land, to a religious conviction, were absorbed in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which they purchased at so dear a rate. The energy, however, with which they strove for the acquirements of wealth, moral enjoyment, and the comforts as well as the liberties of the world, was scarcely inferior to that with which they devoted themselves to Heaven.

Political principles, and all human laws and institutions were moulded and altered at their pleasure; the barriers of the society in which they were born were broken down before them; the old principles which had governed the world for ages were no more; a path without a turn, and a field without a horizon, were opened to the exploring and ardent curiosity of man; but at the limits of the political world he checks his researches, he discreetly lays aside the use of his most formidable faculties, he no longer consents to doubt or to innovate, but carefully abstaining from raising the curtain of the sanctuary, he yields with submissive respect to truths which he will not discuss.

All of this long before the so-called French Enlightenment.

I have more to say on this but will end this post here.

 

[Gary K]

I thought I was being clear. Apparently not.

My repeated point about the founders and early American practices, is that you can’t point to de facto behavior of the time as some kind of implicit argument for their Constitutionality. The constitution was written by men who were at times wildly inconsistent in their beliefs and practices— and pointing to any of their behaviors with a juvenile, reductionist posture that essentially says,”hey, if it was good enough for the Founders, it must be OK for us today” (a type of argumentation that ACW uses ad nauseam). I shouldn’t have to point out the absurdity of this position. Just because some societal practice existed or was practiced openly at the time of this nations founding, is not a prima facie argument for its morality or constitutionality. The founders were not apostles and the constitution is not holy text— wild inconsistencies have abounded in American behavior since it’s founding.

And people today are wildly inconsistent, and far more so than our founding fathers were. That they believed in the God of the Bible is clear. They didn't all have the same point of view that I do, but so what? They still looked to the Bible. They still studied it carefully. They were a religious people.

 

[Gary K]

Religion is the most powerful institution in Vatican City today. Would you presume that all in VC are saints?

Yes, in the early days of the nation, religion was the most powerful driver of cultural change. That doesn't mean that all of those religious leaders or followers were saved.

See Matthew 7:21-23

What does VC have to do with the American colonies? Don't you understand that the colonists were almost 100% Protestant?

Religion, Christianity, was the most powerful driver of their political ideas too.

Now let's look at your last argument. Whatever denomination/church you are a member of isn't Christian by your own definition because not all people claiming to be Christians will be saved. Matthew 25. Therefore, by your own argument there is no Christianity.

 

[McCoy]

And people today are wildly inconsistent, and far more so than our founding fathers were. That they believed in the God of the Bible is clear. They didn't all have the same point of view that I do, but so what? They still looked to the Bible. They still studied it carefully. They were a religious people.

Is that the societal bar for you? That politicians “know” the Bible? That they are “religious”?

For starters, this is a very nebulous criteria and could include anyone from a Mormon to a Muslim to a Wiccan.

Secondly, the constitution forbids religious test for public office— suggesting clearly, as the First Amendment’s prototype the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom says, that a man’s religious opinions have no bearing on qualifications for public service.

Thirdly, the assertion that religious people of any stripe are inherently more moral than non-religious people have any real merit. In making this point the focus of your argument you reduce Christianity to a morality play and back yourself into the indefensible position of claiming that practicing Christians are somehow more moral than other people. I would argue, the primal idea of the gospels is that Christ didn’t come to make bad men good— he came to make dead men live.

Regardless, the Ten Commandments from which people like you claim are the central tenets of morality, are actually antithetical in some ways to our Constitution and to our Representative Democracy.