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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

That all men are created equal

“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.”

If it needs introduction then the above is the opening line from the US Declaration of Independence. It was drafted by Thomas Jefferson who was clearly no dummy. In such a short sentence there is much to consider, I for one have always enjoyed the clever construction of the first clause “We hold these truths to be self-evident” In other words I don’t propose to explain it to you and if you don’t get it you are clearly an idiot as it is “self evident” What a fantastic way to shut down a debate before it has even begun. In fairness to Tom to all “right thinking folk” as he knew them the following statements probably were just a statement of common sense.

But the clause that interests me for today “that all men are created equal” This statement has been used to support any number of ideas in the US and along with the results has been clearly influential in other jurisdictions. But what did Jefferson really mean, did he for example mean that, what he would have called, Blacks should vote (remember slavery was still common and Jefferson had slaves of his own when this was written). Well we don’t need to guess as he spelt it out as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This was not a phrase he dreamed up in some brain storming session but is the accumulation of thought that stretches back to Aristotle, where many philosophers have applied their minds to the idea of natural laws or what others might call human rights. The last phrase being more encompassing and so the original Natural Laws title is probably more apt.

He did manage to put his own spin on this with the “pursuit of happiness” bit whatever that might mean I think a more appropriate replacement would be freedom of thought which has a far longer lineage. In fact it could be considered the first inalienable right in that you can’t really stop people thinking things, no matter who much the politically correct brigade try. You can stop them saying them but that is a different matter entirely.

Interestingly this is about it for a list of Natural Laws as far as I can tell, there are people both famous and obscure who have added various twists on this like Jefferson with his “pursuit of happiness” but the generally agreed list is fairly similar and short.

We have gone on to draw up much longer lists, such as freedom of religion (which could be viewed as an extension of freedom of thought but does not imbue religions with the freedoms they generally enjoy in western society) or equality of the sexes, which I guess could be an extension of Jefferson’s pursuit of happiness but doesn’t imply that women should be admitted to the army (as a random example).

The lists we now prepare (including the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights) are more properly a “social contract” which is a set of man-made rules that we agree are useful for the fair and efficient operation of our society. This is an important distinction as I am a bit fed up with people claiming or inferring some “right” or other. Next time some one tries this remind them that they are actually generally relying on a social contract and what is man made can be man unmade. Lean to heavily on your “rights” and you might find society takes it away. This is particularly so when you fail in your responsibilities which a lot of people seem to forget is the other side of the “rights” coin.