I wonder if anyone really thinks about the Declaration of Independence?

(reprinted from 2010)

I really love the Declaration of Independence,

I have to look up the big words and I stumble over the old King’s English. But when you read it slowly, the ideas set forth are so revolutionary that, to me, it is the best hope in all history for the human race.

First is the concept that all peoples’ basic human rights are “endowed by our creator” (whomever you might think that is). For the first time in the world’s history, a group of people declared that human rights are not handed down by some government, or person, or secured with some piece of paper. But they are “unalienable” (this is one of those words I had to look up). “Not to be separated, given away, or taken away” the dictionary says. What an amazing and forgotten concept. You are not free because the government says you are free, or the Constitution says you are free. You are free because you were born! A government may deprive you of your human rights but they cannot grant them.

Then the basic rights themselves, listed in order of importance, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The right of life is obvious. Liberty has many interpretations but I like Webster’s “state of being free.” And last, “the pursuit of happiness.” Notice they said “pursuit,” not just happiness. Being happy is not a right but something to be pursued!

And last, the solemn declaration that, should a said government interfere with these basic rights, or as our better educated and learned founding fathers said “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,” not only do we have the right but we have the DUTY to throw off that government to secure these rights. Pretty heavy stuff, even scary. But that is the importance these brilliant men attached to liberty. Thankfully they were willing to risk their futures, their fortunes and their very lives to secure these rights for future generations. We would be negligent if we let these rights to slowly be eroded by a well-meaning but miss directed political class just because we were not willing or too lazy to provide for our own personal security.

In 1776, to “throw off such government” meant picking up arms and standing against an occupying army whose purpose was to suppress the people’s rights at the direction of a king. Today, I think that means continuing pushing back against laws, rules, regulations and the growth of a government. We must push back against a government that, with every expansion, results in the decrease of the liberty that allows us the opportunity to be so happy and productive.

After the Revolutionary War, the founders set about laying out a system of government that would allow for an organized society, but avoid infringing on the peoples’ basic rights. The Constitution dictates the powers of a central government, powers that are limited by design and ripe for abuse by officials that think providing for our happiness is their job.