Message #18828

[Bianca]

Self Evident Truths . . .


 
By Scarecrow on Wed Jul 4, 2007 at 05:15 am

In 1776, a group of well educated and propertied men from all the colonies got together to draft and sign a revolutionary document. As they did so, they pledged “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” to its ringing declaration of defiance against a lawless, power mad monarch who had usurped their liberties and trampled on the rule of law.

These were serious men, willing to risk everything to be free from tyranny and lawlessness. And the words they wrote would eventually transcend even their own enlightened but still limited understanding, extending its self evident truth to everyone — women, slaves, the poor, gays, immigrants from all lands — because this was a document whose principles logically applied to all humans, the whole species, not just privileged men. From the Declaration of Independence:




"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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. . . .

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."



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