Posted on 05/15/2003 1:18:48 AM PDT by tame
The next thing people will be telling us is that we need a 'new' Bible to replace the King James! :>)
too bad that you changed this phrase. At the time of the founders this phrase was the natural law that all our laws should be based on.
Blackstones law was based on this. The founders and all people of the day studied the Bible and nature to know what God wanted, expected us to live by
yes God
That is why there aren't many laws in the Constitution, the laws were set up in the declaration. The constituion was just how the gov. would be set up and run.
Of course, now we have lost that knowledge. On purpose... I think so.
A better translation would be "that God created all people as equals", specifically in the eyes of the law. The context here is to contrast with the concept of peerage, where different classes of people had different rights. Your original translation still leaves open the possible reading in of the typical liberal fallacy that equality of outcome, not opportunity, is what is being argued for.
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Of course, my friend, of course. But isn't "to be alive" part and parcel of (being master of) one's own life?
Also, an "unalienable right to life" is neither in the Declaration nor in the body of the Constitution, but rather it is found in the Fifth Amendment which deals with, as you said, judicial process; not a person's "right" to his own life.
Still and all, this all could be just tilting at windmills on my part. Heaven knows, I've been wrong before, and will doubtlessly stumble and land smack on my nose many more times in the future.
"Hier steheich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir."
You could even set it to music. Can you think of any good musical group? (wink-wink) 8~)
”When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary [f]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...
While I appreciate your desire to change the wording to something that is understandable in today's society, I think you've made this statement a little too flippantly. Brevity is a good thing, but this one needs a little more explanation. I would try something like:
Sometimes a people that were once one people split and grow in different directions until they are no longer one. When this happens, they can no longer live peacefully under one government, and they do best by splitting into two separate, independently sovereign governments.
”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.
I disagree with your interpretation of this passage. I don't think that Thomas Jefferson is just trying to draw the old boiling frog analogy. (See We Are Not Frogs for more of my feelings on that topic.) Instead, I think he's saying that if the division between two peoples is small enough for them not to divide, then it is generally better and easiest for them not to divide. He's giving this statement to strengthen his previous statement that governments shouldn't split over trivial issues. He doesn't say that people put up with unbearable evils as you claim, but instead says that people will tolerate the evils only as long as they are bearable. His point is that he wouldn't be writing this whole thing if the problems were things that could be tolerated. He is writing only because the problems have gone beyond that point. My version would be:
Generally, history has shown that if there is a way to stay united, it's the right thing to do. Most of the time, splitting creates more problems than it solves. If these were problems that we could put up with, we'd put up with them and stay united.
Sure. Why not?
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