Expanded, mutated, evolved, whatever. But the overall meaning of the phrase has changed, has it not? It once didn’t include slaves and women. Now it does. That is a change, isn’t it?
If it has changed once, why do you believe it will not change again? To exclude black people again, for example? Why do you believe that some latter-day Jefferson couldn’t take the pledge, believe in it whole-heartedly and still exclude gay people fromt he list of those that deserve equal rights?
You wouldn’t do that, good on you. I wouldn’t do that either. But are there not those who can take this pledge, believe in it honestly, and still deny equal rights to gays, for example? Your founding fathers said these things, believed in them honestly, and used their slaves as sexual playthings. Why couldn’t it happen again?
But your pledge doesn’t say that. Perhaps it should read…“Among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness as long as it does not prohibit another from pursuing theirs.”
So already there are exceptions to the pledge that you have presented.
Your pledge is based on the DOI which came before either the Constitution or the Dred Scott decision. It did nothing to recognize Blacks as having the any of those “self-evident” rights to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.
It is the Constitution – that work in progress that I mentioned – that gave us the 14th Amendment to correct some of the injustices of the Dred Scott Decision:
No state
“life, liberty” – Sound familiar?
My first vote was for the President responsible for the 1964 Civil Rights legislation. I congratulate you on your political passion and your activism. But I offer a word of caution: You may be making some assumptions about people who are posting in this thread which are probably not accurate.
I’m just hoping that before too much longer I will have a chance to vote for Harold Ford, Jr. for Senator. Senator Frist makes an excellent doctor.
Yes to the first. No th the second. I believe he loved Sally Hemmings. I’m not sure the evidence supports he treated slaves as “playthings.” I find that more difficult to believe.
No again. The meaning is the same; it is the interpretation that has changed (expanded) as other groups demand their rights. I am suggesting that we expand the interpretation to its final and logical conclusion.
“WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that ALL Men are created equal”. Which part of ALL do you not understand?
Of course it’s possible, Alan Keyes comes to mind. He seems to think that certain people have the right to usurp a woman’s body (the unborn.). But then again, I can see through his arguments. Considering the number of votes he has gotten in the past, I tend to think that most people can see through his arguments.
No, it is much more likely to happen from moral relativist or a sophist. They are much more likely to believe there are exceptions in ALL.
He owned Hemmings. She had no say in the relationship, she was unable to consent. He can’t have truly loved her - she was mere property. This is not equal rights - “owning” a woman for the purposes of sex is what Marc Dutroux did.
Meaning, interpretation, whatever. Words have no objective meaning, they only have the meaning people give them - the interpretation, if you like. People believed that these words meant a certain thing. Now they believe it means a different thing. If they have reinterpreted it once, what is to stop them from reinterpreting it again to disenfranchise people, while honestly believing they are living up to the words?
I believe I have the same interpretation of “all” that you have. But honest people, such as Jefferson, have obviously had a different interpretation of “all”, or a different interpretation of “equal rights”.
So, Jefferson and Washington, were they moral relativists or sophists? Or is there another category, that of someone who honestly believes in the phrases in the DoI, but whose different mindsets lead to a dramatically different interpretation?
It is not necessarily obvious at first glance, but the “as long as…” is also inherent in ALL. If someone is prohibited, they cannot pursue their happiness. That is less than ALL.
As I implied in an earlier post, the tyrants were even more powerful in 1787 than they are today.
Unfortunately, the part you did not quote says: “without due process of law…"
If Atticus Finch’s fears come true, the Constitution will be amended to prohibit same-sex marriage. People will be deprived of their Rights by due process, and our leaders will swear to deprive them of their Rights.
Thanks for the congratulations; I should have assumed that you had already voted your heart.
I also thank you for the caution; I have learned that people are not always what they seem.
Please consider sending the letter and/or this thread to the Senators. I am sure they could say it better than I have.
Sorry, that was confusing and extreme.
The conclusion that the DoI is anti-abortion is in fact, patently false.
The meaning is that the pledge opposes that scenario. No one, not even an unborn, has the right to life the expense of another. If a right is given to one group, it must be given to all. If the unborn have the right to “borrow” another’s body, we all must have that right.
Can I assume that you will now “take” the pledge to prevent this?
rwj
Thank you for taking the time to address my post more fully. I’m not going to try a line by line refutation in fear it’s now too divided to be coherent. Instead I’ll try to consolidate.
Overall I’m not sure you understand my objection. I am objecting not to the idea that people are due “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” but to the whole conception of rights as something beyond human control. I say this is limiting because it doesn’t lend itself to any meaningful comparison of rights. Let me try an example. Lets say I meet 2 men. One believes in a civil right of liberty and the other in a natural right of liberty. The problem is that both men believe that their right to liberty means they can drive on either side of the road if they wish.
The first guy is another moral relativist. He believes rights are social covenants, that rights are agreements between people. He and I can discuss it and I can explain that we have all agreed to drive on the right side of the road so that there are fewer accidents. This makes sense to him and so he drives off on the right side of the road. Now there is the natural rights guy. He believes he has a God-given right to drive how he pleases. I can’t reason with him. It doesn’t matter that we have all agreed to keep to the right, God says he can do as he wants. It doesn’t matter that people, including him, are likely to be hurt because God says he can drive as he pleases.
Do you understand my objection now? It’s like the saying goes: You can’t reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. I think you and the rest of the natural rights crowd should stop being unreasonable. But perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps, as you say, that “Self-Evident Truths are natural laws that can be reproduced consistently”. If so would you mind showing how “all men are created equal” has been reproduced consistently? It seems to me the long and sad history of human slavery belies such an assertion. BTW- I have no idea what the Nash Equilibrium is and even less desire to read a long PDF on it. Would you care to sumarize?
??? How the hell do you know that??? Can you read the minds of dead people? I’m sorry, but with all due respect, sophisticated arguments cannot prove this assertion either. If you wish to propose and support beliefs, we can have a discussion. But making leaps of logic and expecting me to accept the conclusion as fact, is simply not going to fly. I have no interest in those kinds of kinds of discussions.
You have no way of knowing how their relationship grew, or whether they did or did not “truly” love each other; in spite of unequal social status. I submit an illicit love is “truly” love. I expect Shakespeare would also firmly disagree with your assumption. BTW, virtually all women were “property” of their husbands at that time. I guess the next leap will be that the only “true” love under those conditions was between adulterers.
Only the people that know better.
We have covered this ground already. Possibly several times.
Thos. et al had a different interpretation of Men”. Women and Blacks were not Men. It was “common knowledge” that these groups did not have the intellectual capacity to understand Self-Evident Truths. Only (white and enlightened) Men had that ability.
This also has already been addressed. Please note that Zoe covered this with #8 on the list of:
“Who would say the pledge but not take it (to heart: as in live it)
Children
Half-wits
Parrots
Liars
Politicians & Lawyers (joking). I need help. Miller, What is a broader classification for people that would “lawyer” their way out of something?
Cowards
Criminals
People who believe they have a firm grasp of all of the implications of the pledge – whether they do or not
People who wish to please those who offer them the pledge
People who like pretty words
People who have not thought the pledge through carefully
People who make assumptions about people who won’t take the pledge.
Yes it can happen again. I give you GWB as a possible example. It is the nature of Government to usurp the rights of Men (and Women, and Transsexuals). It is up to freedom-loving people to prevent the perversion of our ideals. And the best way to do that is to communicate our ideals as often as needed, especially to our children.
It is almost certain your (our) fears will come to pass if we fail in that.
I’m really not interested in finding out how many different ways you can ask similar questions. I believe we have a fair understanding each other’s positions by now. I also believe we probably share similar if not the same ideals. I just happen to be more optimistic…and logical .
If you admit that bad people can take the pledge and not believe in it (tyrants and so on), and that good people can take the pledge, believe in it, but act according to a different interpretation (even to the extent of owning a woman for sexual purposes, like Jefferson), then what is the point of the pledge?
It will not bind either the evil or the good, or even give them enough guidance to avoid such evils as slavery and laws that play on homophobia. It’s completely pointless.
I don’t know whether the DoI is pro-choice or pro-life, but this is about your pledge. The one that you came up with and that we’re asking you to explain. The more you explain it, the weirder it gets.
First you talk about harvesting something (either organs or fetuses, it wasn’t really clear) from sick people. Then you recant, and say something equally weird about a fetus “borrowing” a mother’s body. You also talk about your pledge as opposing the idea that someone has a right to life at the expense of another, which I presume has something to do with abortion, but it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.
I can read the Constitution and understand it, despite it being vague in parts, and I am happy to take a pledge to uphold and defend it (as I have actually done). On the other hand, the more you explain your pledge, the more confusing and frightening it gets. No way I would take, sign, or endorse something that is confusing, and more importantly, pointless.
Put me down as a certain “no” on taking your pledge, and make a new category for your opponents: People who won’t sign things that cannot be understood except by its author.
However, your ideas are intreguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I’ll take a shot at this one:
RWJefferson was making an analogy here; the idea is that no one has the right to live at the expense of another. He’s comparing a fetus with a hospital patient.
If a fetus has a right to demand the use of someone else’s body to survive, then everyone has that right. So (in a more realistic scenario) forcing a mother to give use of her body to a fetus would be similar to mandatory blood donation by people who are O-, or mandatory kidney donation.
The pledge (in theory) prevents all of these things, not encourages them.
2sense: What I do not understand is how your objections apply to this pledge. God given or “natural” rights end when it affects another person. At that time it becomes a matter of human rights. The pledge supports the idea of human rights; people do not have the right to harm or threaten others.
Please clarify how it is unreasonable to grant another person the rights he desires in exchange for the rights you desire.
We may just simply disagree on the attributes of a “moral relativist”. I have serious problems with the term “moral relativist”. In my humble opinion, the moral goal to not harm or threaten another is NOT relative, it is paramount. I do not see the meaning of the pledge reflected in either of your guys’ philosophies.
Maximum Liberty balances precariously on a point. Both Tyranny and Anarchy both tip the delicate balance of Liberty. The quest is to identify and incorporate that point into our society. In spite of the sophisticated arguments presented elsewhere in this thread, I do not believe a more concise balance point has been offered, much less supported by evidence.
As far as I know, you are absolutely right; there has never been a government to fully implement these ideals. However, it is not that difficult to demonstrate that a society with more freedom will outperform one that is more oppressed. Compare North Korea to Russia to The United States. The trend is clear and consistent. Now take it one step farther. I predict the trend continues. It seems to me that very strong evidence is required to refute that prediction.
I am not a mathematician, so consider this my interpretation of the Nash Equilibrium (as lifted from the movie “A Beautiful Mind”).
Nash’s Nobel Prize winning Equilibrium overturned the economic principles of Adam Smith (1723-1790). Adam Smith, “The Father of Modern Economics”, stated that individual ambition serves the common good; kind of like “trickle down economics”.
Nash demonstrated that what is best for the individual is doing what is best for himself AND what is best for the group. This principle is consistently supported by experiment and experience.
Is that not the implication of the pledge? To maximize your happiness, allow others to pursue theirs.
It’s not. In fact, that’s exactly how us relativists look at rights. We believe they are agreements between people. Stranded on a desert isle one person wants some rights and the other wants others and there is no conflict so they can quickly agree. On the other side of the world another band of castaways could come to a different agreement and have a different set of rights. This is the essence of moral relativity, that people can have different rights because we create them ourselves.
Are you sure you believe in natural rights? You guys are supposed to believe that there is a set of eternal rights that exist seperate from mankind and which he can either recognize or violate but not alter.
Thanks for the info on Nash. I actually caught the movie but apparently not much of the science. I am all for general happiness, and have a “Live and let live” outlook. My concern is not necessarily with the result of your particular view of natural rights but rather with the idea of them in first place.
There is one part of your post I want to quote:
I’m afraid your proof has some flaws. The most glaring is how to define “outperform”. The term is relative. In my view Sweden outperforms the United States. Swedes live longer, healthier lives but somehow I suspect you wouldn’t agree they are more free than us.
slinkydink Welcome to the thread. And thanks for the support. It is always good to have a friend on your side.
You explained it exactly right and very clearly; so much better than my feeble attempt.
Thanks again.
** Ravenman** My apologies for creating so much confusion.
I did not recant.
I find it insincere to use the term Pro-Life to mean anti-abortion. I have come across too many “Pro-Lifers” that support the death penalty. I did not make it clear that I was using “Pro-Life” to mean something other than “anti-abortion”.
**2sense]
I apologize, I was mistaken.
I originally said that the pledge does not fit either of your philosophies. In fact the pledge indeed supports your moral relativist philosophy…to a point. It also supports the natural rights philosophy…to that same point. The pledge is the point where conflicting philosophies intersect.
In your two examples, there is no conflict. If everyone agrees, there is no need for a mechanism to sort out the differences. A “valid” moral relativist solution to conflict could be that the majority rules. The mechanism to protect minorities can vary if it exists at all. A Tyranny of Moral Relativists is still a Tyranny. There can be no question of the Tyranny inherent in any and all Religious States.
The pledge is the razor’s edge on which the Tyranny of the Moral Relativist balances the Tyranny of Natural Rightist.
In actuality, your example of Sweden supports my prediction. It is my understanding that the Scandinavian countries do have more freedom. Prostitution and Recreational Drug use come to mind.
The simple fact is that it is terribly expensive to enforce misguided “morals”. It is so much more expensive than regulating them. Just look at the monetary and social cost of our Drug War. The Scandinavians prove that there is nothing inherently anti-social in vices.
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