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| The Declaration of Independence |
America sometimes feels like a party to which you’re not always certain you’ve been invited. Oh, the hosts have said hello and they made tiny little gestures of welcome, but other people are looking at you funny and some people openly hiss.
I blame the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the United States, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. You could call it the ultimate invite.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” he wrote, “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.”
Who would want to skip a party like that? Even if it comes with certain caveats that seem to undercut the claims, suggesting that your results may vary?
Jefferson said you had the right to the pursuit of happiness, but significantly, he didn’t promise you happiness itself. The distinction seems small but it makes all the difference in the world.
I've been thinking about the Declaration of Independence. It’s impossible not to while the nation's leaders have once again taken up the task of passing immigration reform.
In Washington-speak the movement is called CIR, meaning comprehensive immigration reform. That’s also Washington-speak for the near certainty that comprehensive immigration reform will not be achieved. The nation’s bill crafters enjoy irony more than the rest of us, it seems.
Irony abounded when the Declaration of Independence was written, after all. Not all men were free then. Far from it. In fact, many tens of thousands of them arrived on these shores shackled by the ankles and then forced to work without wages for their entire lives.
The existence of American slavery highlighted a striking contradiction contained in the document (and in wider American society) then and now.
In Jefferson’s era he signed inspirational documents with one hand and ordered his slaves about with the other (Jefferson owned slaves). The Irish call this talking out of both sides of your mouth.
We like to imagine, or I do, that had we lived during the Civil War period, or World War II, or during the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s, that I would have stood strong against exploitation and prejudice, on the side of the better angels.
We like to imagine, or I do, that the gross racial and religious and civil prejudices of the past are all behind us now. But the truth is they’re not. We still live in an age where far too much of what your present and your future will look like are based on who you are (or are not).
We still live in a country where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are notional rather than actual. The truth is that for millions of us, where you work, what you make, even what your prospects are, have been parceled out and predetermined without consent or apology.
The game is rigged. It has always been, and the results don’t match the soaring rhetoric.
Everyone knows how much the nation’s service economy is dependent on the undocumented, for example. We know that the undocumented often get exploited, and we know they also often get blamed, in both cases for working for too little.
But now is the best opportunity we've had in years to literally put our money where our mouth is, to stand up and say this Declaration of Independence makes its promise to all who live and work here, not just the favored sons.
In the interest of full disclosure I will raise my hand now, because there is a bill called the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) under consideration as part of comprehensive immigration reform.
If passed it would permit permanent partners of U.S. citizens to obtain lawful permanent resident status for their foreign born LGBT partners. It’s estimated there are 36,000 same-sex bi-national couples that could benefit from this act.
Two weeks ago Senator John McCain scoffed at the idea of including it, saying UAFA’s presence or absence in the eventual deal was not “of paramount importance.”
Perhaps if his wife was denied a visa and forced to move to the U.K. for no other reason than to appease some bigots it would be of importance to him. In the meantime it’s just another example of some men being more equal than others.
The so-called group of eight bipartisan senators introduced their blueprint for CIR several weeks ago. It contained no provision for bi-national same-sex couples, despite the years long push among advocates to include UAFA.
This week I asked New York Senator Charles Schumer’s press office if he would strongly advocate for it, since it has not been included in the bill. I got a one-sentence reply: “Senator Schumer is a co-sponsor of UAFA and supports its inclusion in comprehensive immigration reform.”
But, significantly, Schumer has not yet put UAFA in the bill. So when I hear senators and House members insisting that “all men are created equal,” I won’t believe them until I finally see some proof.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.seanomelb | Feb 25, 2013, 06:59 PM EST
I suppose Eiriamach misunderstands you you poor soul you remind me of that song "O please don't let me be misunderstoo".
Smyrnian | Feb 25, 2013, 05:38 AM EST
Seanomelb - to put it politely, you do not know what you are talking about. Also, you misread , misrepresented and twisted what I said. Grow up please.
seanomelb | Feb 24, 2013, 07:20 PM EST
Smyrnian accuses the protagonists below of the "age old mistake of judging people through history" Ergo the historical documents,The constitution,the declaration and magna carta have no relevance. Smyrnian what exists today in our time and space will be history tomorrow. therfore what you stated is poppycock and tomorrow that statement will be history. You're a laugh a minute or maybe you live in a groundhog day where history does not exist??
eiriamach | Feb 24, 2013, 05:55 PM EST
Smyrnian is an ethical relativist, a form of sophistry as ancient as Socrates and Protagorus (See Plato's dialogue "The Protagorus"). The moral law is timeless and unchanging across cultures and eras. It consists of principles that thinking people apply to situations they encounter. Bible thumpers and church-doctrine fundamentalists, however, understand only the petty moral rules they inherit from church "authorities" and ancient legal codes, which they unthinkingly use to limit the freedoms of other people.
Smyrnian | Feb 24, 2013, 02:35 PM EST
Eireamach and Swinsford commit the age old mistake of judging people from history vs. today's mores and values rather that those that existed in their time and place. Think about it.
eiriamach | Feb 24, 2013, 01:31 PM EST
"The results don't match the soaring rhetoric," Cahir writes. Not yet. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" are prescriptive, not descriptive, rhetoric. They are choices of values, not statements of facts. They PREscribe goals for Americans; they do not DEscribe American society at any point in our history so far. Have we not made some slow progress toward these goals? Slavery is gone, civil rights have legal protection, women have the vote and anti-discrimination laws, children study in schools rather than working in factories, and LGBTs have most civil rights in most places and marriage rights in some places. If Congress were to vote the Uniting American Families Act into law, we'd take another step toward equality. Jefferson's rhetoric hasn't held LGBTs back, but evangelical/ Catholic lobbying has blocked UAFA and halted immigration reform since 2007. Christian fundamentalist ideologues have a different set of prescriptions for life, and they don't include Jefferson's "created equal." Equality under the law is only for people whose choices they approve of.
TomSwinford | Feb 24, 2013, 09:55 AM EST
Glackin, your post is a textbook example of historical ignorance and twisted logic. While Jefferson possessed the intellect and vision to talk the talk he lacked the moral courage to walk the walk. He lived the life of a privileged, wealthy aristocrat, a member of a small, exclusive club that he cherished above all else. While writing of human progress and dignity he refused to free a single slave - and opposed other slave owners freeing theirs. Other than words that inspired some - in part because they were misinterpreted - he did little to improve the lot of humanity. You talk about progressing from the cave. Progress has always been made by men and women having both physical and moral courage to risk their lives - Tom Jefferson never risked his - and drag society, usually kicking and screaming into the future. Had we all been like you we'd still be in the cave.
Joe Glackin | Feb 23, 2013, 11:36 PM EST
Theres no perfection in any ruling declaration or agreement etc.These have a solid foundation to start and progress is ongoing. Would it have been better if there was no civil war.Then wait until the Civil right movement in 60, began. Then have a Civil war . Theres a process of progression but some dont understand and twist historical truth for self gain This includes groups who call themselves victims, by not getting their way. Societies has progressed from cave men to present and learned as it went along. When a traditional way of life has proven to be a foundation for society ,then dont change whats working. When Thomas Jefferson signed that Declaration and how Today the US has become a world power,speaks volumes. To try to discredit men that had a vision , risked their lives etc in order for self interested gain & using equality by similar fashion is disgusting by this disgraceful comparison.
Smyrnian | Feb 23, 2013, 09:37 PM EST
Equal outcome cannot be guaranteed to anyone.
Maureen Hawkins | Feb 23, 2013, 08:06 PM EST
The author is right; that's why I emigrated from the US to Canada. Now we're stuck with a Tory Prime Minister who is trying to Americanize Canada. It's no wonder that a recent study shows that, since Harper formed a minority &, later, a majority government, the majority of Canadians have been moving to the left.
Smyrnian | Feb 23, 2013, 07:49 PM EST
Looks like Cahir is looking for not just equal opportunity or even equal outcome but guaranteed equal outcome. Ridiculous.,
curtisjohnson | Feb 23, 2013, 07:11 PM EST
“Since the Magna Carta when the Knights set limits on the King, the course of enlightenment has been set toward ever broadening rights and equality within the english speaking world.” This is such an absurd myth that is peddled ad nauseam to the sheeple. What developed was a commercial oligarchy that was in substance more repressive than the monarchies. The US was a distinct break from britain’s commercial oligarchy but inherited many of its deficiencies (for instance, the system of slavery was imported from the Caribbean).
TomSwinford | Feb 23, 2013, 06:16 PM EST
PiperMac52, "Jefferson freed his slaves early on and most of the founders knew slavery to be a scourge and were working to eliminate it from the start." And where did you come upon that fiction, lad? Jefferson didn't even free Sally Hemings, his black mistress of many years and with whom he had several children. But stout-hearted Tom did allow two of his children to "escape" north in 1793 and 1794. He freed not a single slave in his life and was unalterably opposed to other slave owners freeing their slaves - because it might encourage other slaves to rise up. And how exactly were the founding fathers "working" to end slavery? It took a war to end this appalling evil, giving us the 13th Amendment. It would take almost another century to truly end slavery across the South. Smarten up, lad!
seanomelb | Feb 23, 2013, 04:57 PM EST
One could say "selective liberty" Ephraim The GOP need to understand that liberty is for all not just middle class white males or multi millionaires.
EphraimKibbey | Feb 23, 2013, 04:38 PM EST
The Violence against Women Act will be a good harbinger of what is to come for the CIR. It has passed the Senate twice now, the last time with 75 strongly bipartisan yeas. It remains to be seen whether its broadening of protection to Native American, Undocumented and LGBT partners may again hold it up in the House or if they will create a bill that excludes those persons from equal protection under our laws. Equality is worth fighting for but is very jealously doled out by those in power.
EphraimKibbey | Feb 23, 2013, 04:35 PM EST
Since the Magna Carta when the Knights set limits on the King, the course of enlightenment has been set toward ever broadening rights and equality within the english speaking world. They have and will have their setbacks but once unleashed, Jefferson's words can not be recalled. Their reader instantly thinks "so why not me, why have I been left out?" And he/she set about making a place for themselves and their brothers/sisters at the table of equality. Having actually lived through the 60's in America, as Cahir imagines, I thought that we had things on the right path until the Bush administration came along and I have disparingly watched things get nastier ever since that backward step. Only recently have I seen some glimmers of hope toward forward progress once again.
PiperMac52 | Feb 23, 2013, 04:12 PM EST
Context, context is everything. Oh how you love to twist it. First off , slavery was not invented by America, it was inherited and existed within virtually every continent since at least biblical times. Jefferson freed his slaves early on and most of the founders knew slavery to be a scourge and were working to eliminate IT from the start. America as put into context within the Declaration of independence, was always a work in progress. And progress we did, ending slavery only 89 years after the signing. AS far as Immigration, every nation must control it's borders in order to maintain it's sovereignty. No nation can afford to absorb unlimited numbers of immigrants especially when the current state of the economy has so many citizens without work and suffering. I find it ironic that though my great-grandparents were born in Ireland I am not eligible for Irish citizenship, nor could I move to Ireland and take a job, or collect government assistance as many do here in the U.S.
anglo-norman | Feb 23, 2013, 03:03 PM EST
Go home to Ireland Cahir, seems like you can't cut it here son.
Silling | Feb 23, 2013, 12:17 PM EST
Jefferson had a hand in Le Droit D'Homme also Liberty Egalite Fraternity. But when Eiffel gifted Liberty to America, Egalite and Fraternity were left without their big sister. While the Algerians were struggling to comprehend the meaning of freedom, Liberty was sunbathing in New York harbor. Maurice Morry Taylor is right, the French are bunch fcuk wits.
TomSwinford | Feb 23, 2013, 11:12 AM EST
Jeffereson's words about equality in the preamble to his Declaration of Independence were inspirational but hollow. They most certainly were not intended to mean black slaves, but neither were they meant to include women or native Americans (whom we still ludicrously call Indians), nor did Tommy intend to include white men who were not also men of property or influence or the right breeding. In short, Jefferson's equality club was very, very small and almost exclusively WASP. And while these great men of character and humanity may, in their quiet moments of reflection, have pined for the day when slavery would be no more, their actions demonstrably proved their life-long attachment to a vile and evil system. Most Americans believe that slavery ended in 1865. In fact, "slavery by another name" continued across the South into the 1960's - until LBJ's Civil Rights Laws of 1964. By 1874 the federal govt. had given up on Reconstruction and the South returned with a vengeance to the serious task of reinstituting 'slavery by another name,' namely, making it impossible for blacks not to break new state and local laws, like not being out in public after 6pm, not being able to prove on the spot that they were gainfully employed, for walking along a railroad. The purpose of these laws was simple: convict blacks of crimes that they could not avoid committing and then, instead of prison, send them to slave in iron mines owned by U.S. Steel, in coal mines and factories and cotton fields. Everyone benefitted except the re-branded slaves, now called convicted prisoners. We all know of the infamous chain-gangs. This was its origin.
CitizenWhy | Feb 23, 2013, 11:09 AM EST
We are free to interpret "All men are creed equal" with a modern meaning. But for its time it was a statement by an English merchant and squirearchy class against the divine rights of kings, the excessive property owning privileges of the magnates (upper nobility) and the pretensions of high church "spiritual lords." The equality formula simply meant that these upstart classes intended to create an "an aristocracy of merit" based on hard work, applied talent and personal achievement and not an aristocracy based on birth or the whims of a monarch. The US Founding fathers came out of the Parliamentary, low church tradition in England. This party opposed the then prevalent notion of the divine right of kings. The English and US parliamentarians, Cromwell among them, wanted a Parliamentary Republic and a lay dominated church ruled by their idea of an aristocracy of merit. It was no accident that the three most independent minded colonies were called Commonwealths. Commonwealth is an excellent translation of the Latin "res publica," meaning Republic. They could not stoke the ire of the king by using "Republic" but they could use another good translation of the Latin word for Republic. Such Republics were, and still are, concepts justifying rule by an oligarchy.
Nicopernicus | Feb 23, 2013, 11:04 AM EST
On another note; It is well established history that the use of Irish labor to build the this country was akin to slavery as slaves were property and therefor had value. The Irish were valueless and could be therefore used until death exhausted them. I don't here a lot of complaining from that side of the argument. Seems Cahir has some self appointments towards taking history how appeals or just flat what it feels like for him. Stupidity is the real unjust master.
Nicopernicus | Feb 23, 2013, 10:58 AM EST
Cahir has more issues then the founding fathers so called hypocrisy. If he was the last man on the planet he could manage a full blown argument with himself but would be unsure of which personality had the facts he needed to distort. Microscopically utilizing history to prove some outlandish personal agenda only highlights the serious gaps in ones education about the past.
boydshield | Feb 23, 2013, 10:26 AM EST
Cahir, are you just plain nuts? And, are you a citizen of the U.S.? Have you studied history at all, at all? From a book review on “White Cargo,” by Jordan and Walsh- King James II and Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s famed Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor. The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves. Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white. Really, stop whining and writing this hyperbole.
boydshield | Feb 23, 2013, 10:02 AM EST
Cahir=Whine, Whine, Whine. Poor me. Everybody else has so much. Where is mine ?
seanomelb | Feb 22, 2013, 05:54 PM EST
Seanmor I doubt Jefferson had semen on his mind other than the semen he used when penetrating his female slaves. So much for "life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness" It would appear he left out one little codicil.' Only if you area white protestant male".
olovely | Feb 22, 2013, 04:57 PM EST
But being gay is no more a 'choice' than having blue eyes or black hair. You are hammering the world to make it fit your theology. Jesus was clear what would happen to men who do that in Matthew 12:34.
Oldloadr | Feb 22, 2013, 03:54 PM EST
olovely - When standing up for devinely inspired moral standards is called "sins," I'm glad you consider me old and out of touch. Telling somebody that every sinful choice they make is not a civil right is not being unjust, it's just being honest. Anyway, considering the social, economic and political ramifications of any typre of immigration legislation and its affect on the 14 million in the country illegally, the concerns of a small minority of gender benders is nothing more than a distraction that could derail the whole proccess, thus Sen. Shumer's aparent apathy.
olovely | Feb 22, 2013, 02:44 PM EST
That was a entertainingly sympathetic reading of the sins of American history Oldlodr, but you have a no awareness of the sins you prolong with your own do you? I imagine you're old and I imagine you're indifferent to the injustices of the present, as your post makes clear.
Oldloadr | Feb 22, 2013, 02:02 PM EST
To those who actually study history, instead of just complaining about it, we know that the Declaration of Independence was the beginning of the end for slavery in the USA, precisely because of Thomas Jefferson’s words. Yes, Jefferson owned slaves, so did Washington and most of the other Southern statesmen; if you were to study their POVs, you would find that most were already looking for a way out of the slave-based economy by 1776 and considered the ownership slaves as something that had to change. Some, including Jefferson felt they had a tiger by the tail. How all of this has anything to do with certain people's belief that sexual deviancy should be a civil right is hard to understand within the historical context supplied by the author.
Seanmor | Feb 22, 2013, 12:00 PM EST
The U.S. is not without its imperfections but its barbaric custom of slavery was declared abolished by President Lincoln during the Civil War that cost the mnation 600,000 lives.All freedom-loving people admire the Declaration of Independence which include these words: "...all men are created equal...". We know that creation takes place at the monent of conception, which leads one to wonded if supporters of abortion agree with that phrase of Jefferson's famous document.