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.
It’s important to understand the Founders’ worldview. Truth was not relative to anyone in that generation. The relativist philosophers had not yet thought those thoughts or written them down. Even religious skeptics believed in something they called Providence – something greater than mankind and in control above the authority of humans. That might be God, but even if it wasn’t, it was greater than mankind. This was completely understood by our Founders. Gravity was truth. You don’t argue with gravity and you can’t argue with truth. Truths are also self-evident. These truths prove themselves. They can be discovered by any sane person who applies some reason to the subject. They did not need to be created. Again, gravity is a self-evident truth of nature. And the self-evident truths are:
- All men are created equal
- Men are endowed by their Creator
- with certain unalienable rights
- These rights consist (broadly) of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
aurorawatcherak 
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Reblogged this on aurorawatcherak and commented:
An oldie, but a goodie. I would note that a part of the right to life involves the right to self-protection … in opposition to anyone who might want to take it or disrupt it. These days it is very popular to insist that you must give up this right in order to have a “safer” society. Common sense says it won’t be any safer and the Founders, being practical thinkers, knew that a long time before we did.
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