Posted on 05/15/2003 1:18:48 AM PDT by tame
While learning the Declaration Of independence by heart, I realized that many readers may "pass over" so many of the beautiful phrases without really grasping their meaning. Therefore, I have endeavored to offer the following "Declaration of Independence for Dummies" in "street corner English".
Actual words/phrases of the Declaration of Independence will be italicized, with my simpler translation following on normal font. Here Goes:
”When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary or one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...”
Whenever a group of people needs to split from their government...
”...and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them...”
...and assert their God given independence and equality...
”...a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the seperation.”
It’s always important to spell out the reasons why.
”...We hold these truths to be self-evident...”
We think it’s pretty obvious...
...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights...
...that God created every person equal, and he gave each person specific unchanging rights which should never be trampled upon...
”...that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...
...these include the right of the people to live life in freedom (without undue harm), and pursue their dreams and goals.
”–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...”
The very reason we have man-made governments is to protect these rights, not to interfere with them. Furthermore, whatever power and authority governments have are given by the people’s permission and limited to their protection.
”...that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people the alter or to abolish it...”
When any government starts to undermine the very purpose of protecting the life, freedoms, and happiness of the people, then they have the right change the government or, yes, even to pull the plug on the government if things get too bad.
”...and to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles, and organizing it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
The people have the right to set up a newer, better government based and organized on tried and true rules that protect, rather than threaten, their safety and happiness.
”Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;”
Now, it’s not wise to change a long standing government for some trivial or fleeting reason or for the latest political fad;
”and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
And, in fact, history shows that people are more likely to put up with unbearable evil (They even get used to it!), than they are to correct the problem. You know the saying: Put a frog in hot water and he’ll jump out. But put him in cool water and gradually turn up the heat, and he’ll fry to death.
”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.”
But when a government becomes tyrannical and abusive with consistent, repeated violations of the people’s rights, with the intent to make them slaves of the state, then the people have the right–in fact, the duty to revolt against the government, and put new rules in place to protect their future rights.
I'm happy to say, my good friend MG, that there is no error on that part of the translation since I specifically mentioned "without undue harm" having that very concern in mind. I don't think I wrote a word about "privacy" in that clause, but I'll look again.
GREAT idea! You all can discuss what may be right as well as wrong or a little off concerning the translation, and alternative readings. I do hope you print out the whole thread since there are some good observations, especially that the frog would "boil", not fry, lol!
LOL! Exactly the point! The Declaration of Independence, in effect, has been ruled an unconstitutional violation of separation of church and state by the radical leftists.
I respectfully disagree. The Constitution had not yet been framed, and when it was framed the principles were tried and true principles practiced in part by past civilizations (not the least of which was the nation of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures).
What was revolutionary was the combination of all these principles in one government in the later Constitution.
Hello, ole' friend! I didn't know leftists read old American documents.
It's not too late, is it?
Hi, Dr. Eck. How are you?
Patterson wasn't talking about Cuba, she was talking about America. Her words are prophetic. It is plain to see, for anyone who wishes to see, that the government of the United States has begun the process of usurping parental rights, and dictating what our children may and may not know, believe, think and value.
Unfortunately, we Americans tend to read the modern and false idea of freedom as license into the traditional, Aristotelian idea of "Happiness." I know I did when I was in school.
See the logical results of this relativistic doctrine here
Below is a good explanation of Jefferson's understanding of the term, "Happiness":
Dr. America Archives: Pursuit of HappinessToday is the Fourth of July, and Americans are pursuing happiness in such forms as eating, drinking, playing games, and exploding fireworks. A few Americans -— including Dr. America — are also commemorating the day by thinking. Join us on the Picnic Grounds of the magnificent (but wholly imaginary) American Studies Museum, where you can see the all-American doctor — a smile on his face, a hot dog in his baseball glove, a brownie on his paper plate, and the pursuit of happiness on his mind.
In creating the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson revised John Locke's list of inalienable rights from "life, liberty, and property" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." As Americans contemplate the Declaration this Independence Day, it's worth wondering about this elusive phrase. What did Jefferson mean by the pursuit of happiness? And what might it mean for us today?
Jefferson's source for the "happiness" in the Declaration was a draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights his friend and mentor George Mason had written earlier in 1776. Jefferson's replacement of "property" by "the pursuit of happiness" didn't mean that he was opposed to people's owning property; he just didn't believe it was a fundamental right. Jefferson knew that property might be a means to happiness, but he also knew that it shouldn't be an end in itself. And so Locke's property got tucked away inside Jefferson's happiness. And Americans got to ponder the relationship of happiness to self-government, and vice versa.
For Jefferson, happiness comes from self-government — the individual's governing of his or her own appetites, outlooks, and actions. It isn't about fulfilling desires; it's about fulfilling the self by fulfilling one's duties. Happiness comes not from play, but from virtue. "Without virtue," said Jefferson, "happiness cannot be." And in a letter to Peter Carr, Jefferson advised his young ward that "health, learning and virtue will insure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem, and public honor." As Helen Keller said more recently, "True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."
Jefferson also believed that an individual's happiness was inextricably connected to a good social life — not the rollicking social life of modern beer commercials, but the social life of a country constituted to promote the general welfare, or what he called "commonwealth." These days, when we want to know about happiness, we ask individual people: "Are you happy? How happy? What makes you happy?" Jefferson certainly believed that individuals should be happy, but he understood that individuals would be happiest in a good social order.
So Jefferson believed that the pursuit of happiness was not just personal, but political too. In his own life, he deprived himself of the private pleasures of Monticello in order to participate in the public service that would promote the happiness of his fellow Americans. He left his serene estate in the mountains of Western Virginia for the dank swamp of Washington and its dismal politics. But he did so because he was confident that pursuing happiness for other people would bring him that true happiness of "quiet conscience, private esteem and public honor." On his tombstone, he didn't mention the fact that he had imported ice cream and French cuisine to America, because he knew these were private pleasures. He only mentioned the Declaration of Independence, Virginia's statute for religious freedom, and the establishment of the University of Virginia, because they fostered the happiness that he hoped Americans would pursue.
From the American Studies Museum, this is Dr. America, wishing Americans every happiness on this happiest of days.
Dr. America is professor of History, Happiness and Happenings at St. Olaf College.
My definition and both the authoritative passages you've cited (and have not) serve to illustrate overlapping circles. At worst it is "both/and" not "either/or") a false disjunct.
[BTW, why have you stopped posting in poetic form? Some of your haiku was inspired!]
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