[CLUE-Talk] Iraq Stuph

[Dennis J Perkins]

> > >I thought it was an inalienable right granted by the Creator?
> > >
> > >Sean, making a mental note to read the Federalist Papers.
> > > 
> > >
> > I think you might want to read the Declaration of Independence.  I think 
> > it's mentioned in there.  The Founding Fathers had the idea that rights 
> > belong to the people and that we grant some rights to the government, 
> > not that the government grants us some rights.  That idea seems to have 
> > been forgotten by many people, maybe because we don't teach it to our 
> > children.
> 
> I actually had a portion of it memorized for high school at one point. :) I
> just dug up my miniature copy of it (and the Constitution) that the Cato
> Institute sent me for some promotion they were doing. I had most of it down,
> but had quite a bit garbled in my memory:
> 
>  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...
> 
> No wonder some people get all torn up over teaching these things (maybe
> explains all the ad hominem attacks on various founding fathers instead of
> addressing their ideas) - these documents are and continue to be radical in
> nature: words like this must really stick in the craw of kings and
> power-hungry bureaucrats.
> 
> I was under the impression that the Federalist Papers delved into some of
> the reasoning, and that's why I mentioned it.
> 
> -- 
> Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at americanisp.net  
> http://users.americanisp.net/~seanleblanc/
> Get MLAC at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlac/
> _______________________________________________
> 

They might.  The Federalist Papers were concerned with arguing for ratification 
of the Constitution, but both documents exist in part because of the strong 
influence that political philosphers of the time had.  You might find the same 
sentiment in the writings of Hume and others.