The glaring inconsistency of The Declaration of Independence.

Murrmurr said:
That's what I said...The inconsistency is that what the Declaration of Independence states, was not actually practiced until many years later.

I just added a comma. Maybe that's better.
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Fair enough. I get the intent of what you are saying. The consistency wasn't practiced until many years later.
The inconsistency was actually going on at the time of the writing. I think we are on the same track though.
 

Naturally said:
Would we be having this discussion if it had been written, "From the beginning all men by nature were created alike".
The DOI was a unifying document for a nation in it's infancy and written by young patriots.
It wasn't a document intended to correct moral ills ... that would come later on 01JAN1863 with Proclamation 95
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Being "created alike" would be a real stretch even now because it is too general of a meaning. If it were literally true, we would all look like clones. So I really couldn't offer any opinion of value on the question.
 
Hasn't every American heard of Crispus Attucks?

"Crispus Attucks, an African-Indigenous sailor and dockworker, was the first person killed by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. The event became known as the first casualty of the American Revolution and helped fuel the outrage against British rule. Attucks was born into slavery around 1723 in Framingham, Massachusetts, and is believed to have escaped around 1750. He spent the next 20 years working on whaling ships. Attucks was the only victim of the Boston Massacre whose name became widely known, and he is memorialized as the first hero of the American Revolution. Musician Stevie Wonder wrote a song about Attucks during the American Revolution Bicentennial, and a commemorative postage stamp was also issued."
 
bobcat said:
Being "created alike" would be a real stretch even now because it is too general of a meaning. If it were literally true, we would all look like clones. So I really couldn't offer any opinion of value on the question.
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Horses are created alike although coloration differs, there is no mistake they are horses ... and they all certainly are not equal. There are big ones and little ones, fast ones and strong ones, quick ones and slow ones ... and some that can't be ridden. Or maybe it's just semantics.
 
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Naturally said:
Horses are created alike although coloration differs ... and they all certainly aren't equal. Or maybe it's just semantics
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Yeah, I think he's arguing semantics. When they wrote "all men are created equal" they weren't talking physical appearance. Even in Biblical terms, they didn't think Noah looked exactly like Abraham, or Abraham like Jesus.
 
Naturally said:
Of interest to some might be the Wiki history of African Americans in the Revolutionary War since many might think the war was fought solely by white men.
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Interesting. They fought on both sides, presumably because they were either promised eventual freedom, or they just believed their chances were better allying with a particular side of gaining that freedom.
 
bobcat said:
Interesting. They fought on both sides, presumably because they were either promised eventual freedom, or they just believed their chances were better allying with a particular side of gaining that freedom.
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I wouldn't make that assumption. Many black men were aware of the cause; the abolition of slavery.

Indeed, the Union Army promised freedom, but only to slaves who managed to escape to the north first. Black men who lived in the north were already free men. Some slaves were forced to fight for the Confederate Army as well.
 
Murrmurr said:
Technically, there isn't an inconsistency in the Declaration of Independence.
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I think there is and have long not liked the wording "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." It was political rallying talk.

At no point in the history of humankind has equality and "pursuit of happiness" as a right been true. It wasn't when Jefferson wrote it and it isn't now. We've just left the era in which the Western world started closing societal gaps but now the gaps are widening between the have-lots and have-less. With tech in the hands of the rich, the gaps are widening again and likely will always increase unless there's a global catastrophic event severe enough to knock out the data collecting foundations of the Information Age.
 
Pepper said:
Hasn't every American heard of Crispus Attucks?

"Crispus Attucks, an African-Indigenous sailor and dockworker, was the first person killed by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. The event became known as the first casualty of the American Revolution and helped fuel the outrage against British rule. Attucks was born into slavery around 1723 in Framingham, Massachusetts, and is believed to have escaped around 1750. He spent the next 20 years working on whaling ships. Attucks was the only victim of the Boston Massacre whose name became widely known, and he is memorialized as the first hero of the American Revolution. Musician Stevie Wonder wrote a song about Attucks during the American Revolution Bicentennial, and a commemorative postage stamp was also issued."
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Another great story is the one about Robert Smalls.

During the civil war, a slave named Robert Smalls commandeered a Confederate transport ship in Charleston Harbor, and sailed it from Confederate-controlled waters to Union-controlled Beaufort–Port Royal–Hilton Head area, where it became a Union warship. In the process, he freed himself, his crew, and all their families.

Smalls heroics helped convince Abe Lincoln to accept Black soldiers into the Union Army.
 
AnnieA said:
I think there is and have long not liked the wording "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." It was political rallying talk.

At no point in the history of humankind has equality and "pursuit of happiness" as a right been true. It wasn't when Jefferson wrote it and it isn't now. We've just left the era in which the Western world started closing societal gaps but now the gaps are widening between the have-lots and have-less. With tech in the hands of the rich, the gaps are widening again and likely will always increase unless there's a global catastrophic event severe enough to knock out the data collecting foundations of the Information Age.
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It was a declaration; an idea put forth as the foundation of a new society. It wasn't written as law, but an idea to build upon and to live up to. It's up to Americans to live up to it.
 
Yep, I'll stick with what I said,

The DOI was a unifying document, [a rallying call], for a nation in it's infancy and written by young patriots.
It wasn't a document intended to correct moral ills ... that would come later on 01JAN1863 with Proclamation 95.

... and other moral issues such as women's rights etc etc etc would come later.

A discussion of the wording of the DOI is a matter of semantics. I don't think "we" could have written a better DOI. The posts in this thread don't feel very unified on the subject. Were there hypocrites involved with the drafting and signing of the DOI? ... Apparently
 
AnnieA said:
I think there is and have long not liked the wording "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." It was political rallying talk.

At no point in the history of humankind has equality and "pursuit of happiness" as a right been true. It wasn't when Jefferson wrote it and it isn't now. We've just left the era in which the Western world started closing societal gaps but now the gaps are widening between the have-lots and have-less. With tech in the hands of the rich, the gaps are widening again and likely will always increase unless there's a global catastrophic event severe enough to knock out the data collecting foundations of the Information Age.
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Yes, I think the meaning of it can be very easily misconstrued. I am just guessing here, but I think the intent was to mean that they are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, that ideal never really materializes for so many because of opportunity, education, and resources.
 
Murrmurr said:
I wouldn't make that assumption. Many black men were aware of the cause; the abolition of slavery.

Indeed, the Union Army promised freedom, but only to slaves who managed to escape to the north first. Black men who lived in the north were already free men. Some slaves were forced to fight for the Confederate Army as well.
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From what I read, most weren't allowed into the Confederate army until that last month of the war when the outcome seemed pretty hopeless, and even then, they did the hard work of fortifying the Confederacy's infrastructure of roads and weapons factories, which white people did not want to do, or could not be spared to do.

The concern over putting weapons in the hands of the people they abused wasn't a welcome idea except in extreme cases. Desperate people do desperate things.
 
Pepper said:
Denial. Not just a river in Egypt. The mind disassociates. Making blacks 3/5 of a person for their own economic security. Jefferson, unlike Washington, did not free his slaves upon death, not even his own children. Boggles the mind.

This Fourth of July brings to my mind a song:

I like a party too, but I can see clearly now, the rain has gone. A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, though, it's coming. Turn on the captions for the video. Eerie, prophetic.
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I wonder how many listeners have any idea what Dylan is "singing" about? I thought this "song" was a mystery when it came out, and after listening to it with the captions, after all those years in between, I still don't have a clue as to what he is saying - other than doing his best to bring depression to the masses.

Hey, I'm just speaking my mind here, and before you jump on me too hard, know that I really love and appreciate the vast majority of Dylan's songs (I believe I have them all except for recent ones). But this one just needs some more straight forward lyrics instead of mystery meanings.
 
Well they could have said, "From the beginning all men by nature were created alike" ... and left out the Creator (whole 'nother source of contention), Unalienable Rights, Life, Liberty and Pursuit part the "creator" endowed ... but that wouldn't have been very stirring. Nor would it have been a precursor and inspiration to Lincoln when he attempted to make the original DOI wording true. So at the end of the day, I think the hypocritical young patriots did just fine ... or we might be speaking English today ;)
 
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Declaration of Independence works for all who wish it. The Constitution and amendments + States rights &their constitutions Are legal statutes. Sure one talk about old men in power &all of there screw ups. That’s a forever intent. The Supreme court and it’s good and the bad. The Declaration of Independence wasn’t a law. It was a document of intended violence.

Those guys said‘ “if we don’T hang together we shall Shirley all hang separately.“

But those smart & devious b-terms created a monster. No School boys innocence in the room please.

What those lunk heads back in the 1770’s were saying was, “Stick it up yours, King of England“
“All Your horses and all of your Naval Armada & your redcoat men and guns be dumbed.”

The Tories moved to Canada! Tories were colonists who helped and even fought with the British during the American Revolutionary War. Also known as Loyalists for their loyalty to the British crown, their contention with the Whigs (Patriots) was so intense that their savage fighting can justly be called America’s first civil war.

It was a very dangerous time to be alive. But maybe not so dangerous as it is now! One Russian Naval officer, not the Captain stopped nukes from flying during the blockade of Cuba.

One Air Force Officer, First to break the sound Barrier, sat on a runway in Turkey, Nuke Bombs on the squadron of planes of his command & on the flight runway demanding to see written orders to take off to Nuke Russia. These are real hero’s of their own countries.
 
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Bob, my friend...you are so right! Hypocritical BS is what it was. Perhaps people need to consider that "All men are created equal" did not apply to Blacks back in the day because my people were thought of as animals, even less than animals. Animals were treated better than some of the slaves, who were treated as chattel. The machinations of slavery go so deep that I won't even go into everything here. The slave owner mentality was perpetuated in this country after slaves were set free. Even today, though there is no slavery in the general sense people think, there's still unequal treatment of people of color in a surprising number of cases. There is blatant inequality in the justice system as well (both with victims and those arrested for crimes).

Bob and @Pepper...you told it like it is!!

honest-leslie-jones.gif
 
Gotta say....."all men (and/or women) are NOT created equal". And, as a boss told me many years ago, "There ain't no such thing as fair".
 
Mobilman44 said:
Gotta say....."all men (and/or women) are NOT created equal". And, as a boss told me many years ago, "There ain't no such thing as fair".
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What you say is true BUT it is up to us to make life as fair as possible, IMO. People are born with mental and physical challenges. Even beautiful v. plain, is that fair? Born rich v poor? You are right, Life is Not Fair, but to repeat myself, Let's work to make Life As Fair As Possible.
 
Mobilman44 said:
I wonder how many listeners have any idea what Dylan is "singing" about? I thought this "song" was a mystery when it came out, and after listening to it with the captions, after all those years in between, I still don't have a clue as to what he is saying - other than doing his best to bring depression to the masses.

Hey, I'm just speaking my mind here, and before you jump on me too hard, know that I really love and appreciate the vast majority of Dylan's songs (I believe I have them all except for recent ones). But this one just needs some more straight forward lyrics instead of mystery meanings.
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I thought I had read somewhere that Dylan had a bunch of one-liners that he thought could become a song, and he just figured, WTH, I'll just put all the one-liners into a song and let the public figure out what it all means. I have no idea if it's true, but from the lyrics, I believe it very well could be.
 
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