Posted on 07/05/2016 8:10:03 AM PDT by PROCON
Has America spent the last few hundred years misunderstanding the Declaration of Independence? That's what Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, believes.
According to Allen, the paragraph beginning 'We hold these truths to be self-evident' has been misinterpreted thanks to a rogue period that was not in the original document.
And that could completely transform our understanding of how the Founding Fathers viewed the role of government, The New York Times reported.
The line as it is most commonly reprinted reads:
'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...'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
From the article:
But according to Allen, who made the observation while writing her book 'Our Declaration' that period should not be there - that, at most, it should be a comma.
And that changes everything.
'The logic of the sentence moves from the value of individual rights to the importance of government as a tool for protecting those rights,' she told The New York Times. 'You lose that connection when the period gets added.'
Eureka!
It's Government that gives us these Rights, (or take them away).
How silly of us to think our Rights come from God.
I wonder how long before SCOTUS takes this case and "reinterprets" the Declaration?
Is Danielle Allen a Declaration Denier?
All you have to do is Google/Bing her and her image to see what she’s about.
Geez,... the controtions of language liberals go through, to try to increase government control.
Either way it would NOT mean that you OBTAIN those rights from the government, but only that government should PROTECT them (not grant them)
That is nonsense. That particular phrase was examined VERY closely, as some wanted “PROPERTY” rather than “HAPPINESS” as the last term. It is early in the document and would have been picked up, right away. Until Morse Code, I’ve not seen the “. -” punctuation used in any document.
An Obama / big government worshipper. And apparently, psychic.
She can’t debate the words, she debates the punctuation...and interprets that our Founders really wanted a Marxist government after all. Because of a period on the document, instead of the comma she’d like to see.
She looks like Obama’s son, too, BTW
Why is the “ T “ capitalized?
.
As history goes, there is a wealth of documentation and actual historic writings from the folks that debated, drafted and signed both the DoI and the Constitution. It’s meaning and intent (both at the time and the here and now) is well explained from several different perspectives. The folks that debated the documents and fought for them were not confused about the meaning. But somehow, today, someone thinks maybe they didn’t mean what they said they meant when they signed their own death warrants in the DoI. (face palm here)
At no time during the debate over the founding was there any question from any participant that the citizens were to have power over the government and their rights as it pertains to government power was to be protected from the government and BY the government. NEVER to be given, granted, modified or revoked by the government.
"Researchers claim that the scribe who penned this version had a bad habit of not capitalizing."
See how this works?
Why is the T capitalized?
________
You have destroyed her argument with that sage observation. This “scholar” has a chip on her shoulder, an agenda, and somehow in all her “research” didn’t answer your simple and obvious question. She’s a tool.
It’s settled law like global warming is settled science. Nothing to see here. Move on.
original? possibly:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3176381/posts
same author called Trump the next Hitler:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3403889/posts
He hasn’t. Life, Liberty, and Happiness also started with upper case letters.
The chain of reason is still flawed.
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
If Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,— are less important then Governments instituted among Men, then just powers from the consent of the governed,- are less important than the Right of the People to alter or abolish it. In essence, following the stupid Obama lover’s logic means that the United States was intended to exist is a perpetual state of violent revolution.
Such was not the case. The Declaration Of Independence was the justification for a rebellion against specific acts of the British nation. If she insists that the right to overthrow the government was more important than the government, she will have a big problem explaining her position on the Second Amendment.
I thought this claim looked familiar...
From 2014:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3175855/posts
Why is it resurfacing now?
Her little discovery, if it is indeed a discovery, means nothing.
I would certainly consider it a self-evident truth that the only legitimate reason governments should be instituted among men is to secure our inalienable rights, and that any legitimate government can only derive its power from the consent of the governed. I have no problem with those points being considered as important as the first part of that paragraph.
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