"All men are created equal," and "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." What does this really mean? Are we truly created equal? Do we all share the same rights?
What the thinkers behind the Declaration of Independence understood is what equality means--and what it doesn't mean. John Adams, a premiere conservative thinker and signer of the Declaration of Independence, understood the meaning of equality. In a letter from John Adams to John Taylor, he wrote the following:
That all men are born to equal rights is clear. Every being has a right to his own, as clear, as moral, as sacred, as any other being has. This is as indubitable as a moral government in the universe. But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life, is as gross a fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people, as ever was practiced by monks, by Druids, by Brahmins, by priests of the immortal Lama, or by the self-styled philosophers of the French revolution. For honor's sake ... for truth and virtue's sake, let American philosophers and politicians despise it.
More from John Adams:
Adams firmly believed that we are born equal, meaning that as individuals, we are independent. As strongly as Adams believed in that equality, he believed in the inequality of man.
But what are we to understand here by equality? Are the citizens to be all of the same age, sex, size, strength, stature, activity, courage, hardiness, industry, patience, ingenuity, wealth, knowledge, fame, wit, temperance, constancy, and wisdom? Was there, or will there ever be, a nation, whose individuals were all equal, in natural and acquired qualities, in virtues, talents, and riches? The answer of all mankind must be in the negative. It must then be acknowledged, that in every state...there are inequalities which God and nature have planted there, and which no human legislator ever can eradicate.
What did John Adams, one of the signers of our Declaration of Independence see?
Did he realize that although all born independent and free, that there are always going to be queen bees and there will always be drones to maintain the hive? Are many people misinterpeting the meaning of "All Men Are Created Equal" and trying to push us towards socialism as a result? What are the alternatives?
2007-08-20
01:06:29
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21 answers
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Politics