Does the Declaration of Independence Tell the Truth? (How are these truths "self-evident" ?)

American Thinker ^ | 07/04/2010 | E. Jeffrey Ludwig

[Repeal The 17th]

“...The debate has everything to do with The Constitution...”
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May I call your attention to the title of this thread:
Does the Declaration of Independence Tell the Truth? (How are these truths “self-evident”?)
Please try to keep a single train of thought.

[OneWingedShark]

I believe Washington was correct: the evil of destroying families is greater than the evil of slavery.
Just look at the family-unit of today and the condition of slavery compared to the family-unit and the condition of slavery at the time of the Founding.
Or, if you want to eliminate one of those variables and look at only one: look at the condition of the family unit just after the civil war and the family-unit of today.

It is my belief that morally-strong individuals [tend to] come from strong families, whereas there is no real/readily-apparent indicator for the morally-weak (we are all sinners and QUITE susceptible to temptation). So, if the family produces the strong/moral citizen then if the government wants moral citizens then they would encourage/support families, where if they do not want moral citizens (which is one profound thought from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged) because they can only really control the criminal then they will do everything they can to dissolve the family and promote criminal behavior.

That is, I believe, an adequate explanation for the state of Illegal Immigration here in the US.
It really is about Liberty vs. Tyranny, or as some have said: “It’s all about control”.

[TASMANIANRED]

Well done.

[TASMANIANRED]

Agreed...on all points.

One issue that I haven’t seen addressed in all the discussion.

Freedom is the anomoly.. Slavery historically was the norm.

[Artemis Webb]

You are welcome to complain to the mods that I’m not topical. Good luck with that.

[xzins]

“Self-evident” means that he’s not inclined to argue with you about it. If you can’t see it, then too bad for you is Jefferson’s argument.

“All are created equal and endowed...with..rights...”

What would prove that other than a belief in a benevolent Providence, a belief that even Jefferson held?

[Eva]

I believe that the slaves were the property of his wife, from her first marriage. Washington owned very little of his own. He was more or less, a kept man, who benefited from the wealth of his wife’s first husband, who died.

[Yardstick]

Wow, thanks Steely Tom. Glad you liked it.

[Eva]

This is an excellent article for discussion because of the Kagan hearings and the fact that she could not bring herself to affirm her belief in unalienable, God given rights. Unfortunately, the thread has been high jacked by posters who fail to see the significance of the discussion.

None are so blind as those who will not see.

[Yardstick]

Yep, agree 100% and well said.

[Oceander]

Correct, and well-said.

The principals of our founding documents and the constitution are designed to prevent enslavement of one class of men over another. The flaw wasn't the document, it was the definition of "men". That has since been corrected. Those principals are largely being ignored by government these days, unfortunately. Witness the selective taxation of some individuals for the benefit of others - de facto enslavement in essence. The present use of government power to steal from the productive is in direct opposition to the tenets of the constitution of this country.

Thanks, and I quite agree with you.

[dsc]

I like fishing and W.C. Fields, too.

However, you have an insufficient understanding of slavery and the mentality of slaveholders.

As Samuel Clemens wrote, “To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.”

[Charles Martel]

With all due respect, the revolution's success came from the clan of your user name, the French, who despised the British Crown.

The work of Benjamin Franklin as well as the rest of the Committee of Correspondence in appeasing France were the keys to victory, not ideology. The French gradually funneled aid throughout the campaign and when the rebellious colonist started making strong gains against Britain, France went "full bore" knowing victory could be achieved against their hated rival.

We are not in disagreement. The actual "revolution", as John Adams later noted, was in the minds of the people, beginning some ten to fifteen years before the Declaration of Independence. All that followed, including the marshaling of Britain's european rivals to render military aid, grew out from that ideological shift. It all fit together and worked; the "brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" drove the colonists to rebel - or at least to support the rebellion - and the proof of their resolve convinced the French to move against England.

God help us if those "brushfires" are ever fully extinguished.

[mo]

i think there is a pretty good argument to be made in that the self-evidence of these truths led to the death of an institution(slavery) thousands of years old, in less than one hundred years after these men put pen to paper and backed it up with the force of arms.

You need an ano-optic neurectomy.

[OneWingedShark]

Odd that you should mention that; but it is a fact that human trafficking is a problem here in the US. These people who were smuggled in are very often de facto slaves. It can even be argued that illegal immigrants are de facto slaves right now: they may or may not be justly [or even legally] paid by their employers and are afraid/unable to seek justice within the legal system.

Just because you change the term doesn’t make it different. Just because someone says something is illegal [or legal] doesn’t make it so; as an example the City’s Magistrate Court has a big “No Weapons Allowed in Building” sign on its door... however, the State Constitution says:
“No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.”

[mo]

Big difference between state-sanctioned slavery and the under the radar trafficking. Although our border policy comes very near to state-sanctioned human exploitation.

[donaldo]

Re: Washington “was a man of his times. . .” Quite right. Peter Capstick put it this was: “History is the often unpleasant record of the way things actually were, not the way they should have been.”

[Oceander]

And yet, as compromised as the Founders were, they didn't lock us into their own misconceptions and miseries, but rather gave us a governing document - the Constitution - that itself provided us with the means to overcome the Founders' own historical limitations. In other words, though the Founders were men of their own times, and limited accordingly, the Constitution they gifted us with is not - it transcends the time in which it was written and the limitations of the people who wrote it, which is a substantial contribution in a world where so many are dedicated to trapping everyone else in the prison of their own impoverished imaginations. The Founders set us free, notwithstanding their own limited imaginations - liberals would confine us forever to the dank recesses of their own limited, impoverished imaginations.

[OneWingedShark]

>Big difference between state-sanctioned slavery and the under the radar trafficking. Although our border policy comes very near to state-sanctioned human exploitation.

There is a difference; but, as you point out, our border policy DOES come very near that state-sanctioned human exploitation. (Too close for my comfort.)

[savagesusie]

At first I was mad when I started reading your article until I realized that you were doing a parody of the Screwtape Letters. Well done! Strong-minded people educated in the Classical tradition are hard to manipulate and control. Governments have no use for them. Education is imperative for everyone in a Republic.