Well, that's true. We all need to read more, and that is never bad advice, so I thank you.
As for that portion of the Declaration of Independence, well, one of the punishments I enjoyed frequently in school was the privilege of copying portions of the Declaration, the Preamble to the Constitution, and other worthy documents. In fact, I got to enjoy this privilege so often, I could write my copies from memory. So, I am slightly familiar with these words.
In fact, I am so familiar with them that I have over the years, many years, given them a lot of thought. Well, you know, they sound very noble, and being couched in such grand language, they are very convincing, so convincing, in fact, that almost no one actually studies them to see if they really make sense.
For example, "We hold these truths to be self-evident...." The thing starts right off with a statement that any school boy could refute between TV programs. No truth is "self-evident." Some things are very simple, and it takes only a little thought to figure them out, but right after this phrase, this document goes on to express concepts that most of the world considers some of the most profound ever uttered; hardly the kind of "truth" one considers self-evident.
After all, if these noble concepts of rights and the proper role of government were really, "self-evident," how come they never occurred to anyone, except a handful of philosophers, in all the world in all of history until Jefferson and company.
If we pass that one over, we immediately bump into one of those self-evident truths, "all men are created equal." You have to wonder how anyone sober could write that with a straight face. There is not any sense in the whole world by which the expression, "all men are equal," whether they were created that way, or got that way by some other route, can possibly be made true. All men are unequal is true, and it is true under any way you would like to measure or consider it, and it can be demonstrated and explained to anyone who would really like to know it, but it is not "self-evident."
I suppose we can let that one go too, so we can get to the meat of the thing. And here we are with something real chewy, "they [men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." Now, we have already considered this business of being endowed with things by our Creator, like limbs, and noses, and a taste for pretty women. In all other cases, to say God endows us with something means we already have it. But, rights, we'll see, are completely different from everything else God endowed us with.
But there is something else. These rights God endowed us with are not common every-day garden-variety rights, but unalienable rights. Unalienable, which nowadays is spelled "inalienable," means, "incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred." But this is very odd, as we shall see.
Just so we wouldn't have to guess what "unalienable" rights are, some examples are listed, "among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I was always curious if there was in the mind of the writer a list of other "unalienable" rights meant by "among these," and if there were such a list, I wish he had listed them all. As it is, I cannot be sure the ones listed as examples are really the best ones or the most important. But, I have to let that go too, because we need to see this very odd thing about unalienable rights.
We have to remember, we have been endowed with these rights by God, so we must assume we already have them, like everything else He has endowed us with, and also, being "unalienable" rights, they are "incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred."
So why does the very next thing in this rebel's declaration say, "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...." This is simply amazing. It is either the hight of presumption or it contradicts everything else that has preceded it. If we already have these rights, because God has endowed us with them, and we cannot possibly loose them, because they are "unalienable," it is a presumption for men to from governments, or anything, to secure them. On the other hand, if a government is required to secure rights, they really never were "unalienable."
Nevertheless, even this we may, for now, ignore, because the rest is worse. Consider this whole clause, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." There must be men on other planets, because this is not a description of any government ever found on this planet. These men were making way too much rope, and they weren't making them of sisal.
With the possible exception of America's Constitutional Government within the first few years, no government has ever been formed with an aim to securing rights to the governed. Think of almost anything else, and some government has probably been formed so someone could get it or do it, but securing rights to citizens was never one of them.
And what government ever had its power "derived from the consent of the governed? The American government, you say? Has the government ever once in your entire life asked your consent to do anything? Do you know any citizen it has ever asked the consent of? Do you think "voting" is giving consent to the government? Would you be interested in buying a bridge?
"Now stop. I have said what I had to say," as Oriana expressed it.
(It's one thing to read, it's another to read critically. We need to do that, too.)
Hank
Ha, childs play. In sixth grade I was required to write the entire history book longhand before being allowed back in school. I wasn't gonna do it but my Dad convinced me otherwise.
You're making it too difficult on yourself.
There are no inconsistencies except in your mind. Unless you are an anarchist the world has chosen to form governments to secure their rights. That some of those governments are or were horribly constructed and did not protect the rights of their citizens is simply a function of free will.
Some men and thus the governments they serve are evil and therefore fail to in their designated function which is to protect the rights of their citizens.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident...."
This phrase has a clear meaning which you distort by ignoring the word "hold". The authors hold the view that there are basic rights granted by a power other than man such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, ie: property. That you don't see this as truth has no bearing on whether or not they are self evident.
"all men are created equal."
Men are created equal as regards their unalienable rights. Simple stuff Hank. Either you believe that or you embrace Nietczke and might makes right. Some are more equal than others under the law. I don't think so Hank. But you are free to feel that way, it's your right.
"they [men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
Or, in your case, they are either not rights but privileges afforded by men and thus alienable by the strongest man. In other words, all things are possible. Murder, rape, theft, whatever lights your pipe. You like the Mets, I like the Yankees.
"to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...."
It contradicts nothing. Along with certain unalienable rights, first and foremost of which is the right to life, God also gave man the greatest gift of all, free will. Certain men choose that free will for self aggrandisement and murder, to steal and rape at will. Whatever feels good and perpetuates their gene pool.
Men, recognising that there are men of such bent, organise governments to protect the weak from the strong, the usurptation of their natural rights by evil. The Government's purpose is to enure that all men are treated equal under the law and that might doesn't make right. Ear size and skin color have nothing to do with it.
In my world.