Declaration

I was browsing a blog many of you know today, and roaming around got these phrases stuck in my head:

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.

(You all know whence that comes, so no need to cite.)

There's that word again: truth. Is it true that all men are created equal? I think it is, essentially. Barring major difference in circumstance (you don't expect someone growing up never being exposed to a second language to pick it up just as easily as someone who's taught a second language from infancy, do you?), I'd say that generally speaking human beings do emerge into this world equal, at least in essentials. I believe, as far as I can tell, in the basic doctrine of Existentialism: that we are our decisions and actions, not our predestined genetics and being. But I believe that, at a certain level, we are indeed created "equal." We all seem born with the capacity to love and hate. We all seem (at least all of us I've met) able to deceive and also to follow through the biggest and best surprises. We all seem to have the capacity to grow and change.

Is it true that we humans are endowed with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And if that is true, then is it also true that those rights are unalienable?

"Life" is an easy one that I don't feel the need to dissect here. I take that straight off of Maslow's Pyramid and say that if you achieve the bottom level of the pyramid, then you're a living (hu)man. Cats attain that much, after all.

So, to start: where do you cut off the definition of "liberty"? Do you limit it to physical liberty, the ability to move around and act as one pleases, if it harms no one? Do you extend that limit to speech and offer to say whatever truth you will, as long as it is not a slanderous or libelous lie? (We in the U.S. do, obviously!)

When do you limit the "pursuit of happiness"? When harm comes to others? I imagine Charles Manson was in some sick way "happy" with himself when he was free. (Maybe he still is; I don't like to hear or read about the man, so I don't know.)

Self-evident truths: Equality, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

I don't see how my hopes for our country deprive anyone of any of those things. I really don't.