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The Declaration of Independence states that We the people in order to form a more perfect union and establish justice are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness. Such a statement is–full of flaws.
First and foremost we are not created by a superior being and certainly we are not made equal by said creator. But we are equal if we just consider freedom and what it offers us. And certainly we exist.
Second, as Ayn Rand said rights are to actions not to things– so not to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness but Liberty offers us the rights to actions, to live as we see fit and to pursue our own happiness.
So those words could be rewritten as follows.
It is by Liberty itself that we are, each one of us equally offered the rights to live as we see fit and to pursue our own happiness. And it is by and for our government formed that we enjoy these rights made inalienable only by and through defending these rights with our militia.
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Re: Susan DeYoung’s post 99258 of 03/11/16 at 6:26am
You’ve put the preamble to the Constitution as the start of the Declaration. The Declaration starts:
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, 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, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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.
I would not be so presumptuous as to re-write what is the single greatest political statement in the history of mankind. Ayn Rand described it in much those terms. Short of that, one could wish that the two references to God had not been included.
The reference to equality means metaphysical equality. As Jefferson wrote,
the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them
If the topic headline, “Full of Flaws,” is meant to give an evaluation of the Declaration as a whole, it verges on the Objectivist equivalent of blasphemy.
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 111760 of 03/11/16 at 12:35pm
After rereading your response you are all right and I am all wrong.
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