"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 " Does it not seem those rights aren't being upheld? Simply curious...
While I would agree with you, to further the discussion, I would suggest that you provide some examples. p.s. You've misspelled "Contradictions"
"Unalienable" is generally taken to mean "cannot be taken away". Yet Jefferson could not have meant that literally, since the condemned criminal usually loses his right to liberty, and sometimes his life. The other built-in contradiction is the "created equal" part. As has been pointed out so often by others, Jefferson himself owned slaves. "Men", in this case, seems to refer to white landowners. Anyway, the notion that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are unalienable rights is absurd. They are conditions to be preferred, sought after and hopefully increased, but there is no authority or institution that I know of with the power or inclination to uphold these rights. There are those who walk under the banner of Right-To-Life. They wish to uphold the right of the fertilized egg to become a manifest person. The whole question revolves around whether it in fact has that right, and whether that right conflicts with the right to liberty and happiness ascribed to the mother. In addition, those who promote right-to-life are generally unconcerned with the child's unalienable rights after they are born. This position seems to me to be more sinful that preventing the egg from developing into a child in the first place. I don't want this to devolve into another abortion thread, though. Our culture seems exquisitely crafted to specifically alienate those rights from the bulk of the citizenry. Need we provide examples?
