I am addressing an extremely delicate subject in this blog. I am discussing the preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence in terms of the wording, the meaning at the time it was formulated, and the subsequent history of its interpretation up to, and including, today. Admittedly, that task seems like an impossibly monumental, arrogant proposition, that could easily result in multiple volumes of written pages. So why would I even attempt such a thing in a blog of one page? I have no illusions about how this might be viewed, and certainly no pretentions that the result will be a scholarly rendition. It is just a few thoughts that occurred to me in the chaos that we currently endure as Donald Trump works his way towards demolishing U.S. democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship with himself as dictator-for-life. I just feel that the drastic threat of his path towards this goal forces us to examine closely what the Founding Fathers said, and how that has been used, and misused, in the last 250 years.
“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.”
Let me start by wondering what the country would look like today if they had written, “We believe that, in this new country, all human beings should be treated equally under the laws that the people’s representative government shall pass. These laws to be written with the overriding principles of Life, Liberty with community responsibility and the pursuit of personal and communal Happiness”.
A bit clumsy, perhaps, but much more definitive in the sense of a document to guide a new nation.
In many ways, and certainly this is a view subscribed to by the majority of Americans, the Founding Fathers preamble is a lofty and commendable goal for a new country. However, once you try to implement it, in a practical sense, reality intervenes, and the subsequent discussions are open to all sorts of interpretations, many of which become at odds with the actual wording, and probably the intent of that wording. I am not suggesting that we abandon the preamble as a concept, but I am suggesting that we need to qualify it, perhaps with words similar to mine, that create a practical path forward, while eliminating a lot of the controversy that emanates from interpreting the actual words of the preamble; questions like the definition of “men”, “created equal”, “unalienable rights”, “endowed by their creator” and “Liberty” come to mind. From what I have read, for example, it apparently would never have occurred to the Founding Fathers that the word ‘Men” would include women, blacks, and native Americans. Also, as it is written, “are created equal” is obviously not true since no two human beings in the world are “equal” – even my biological brother and myself!
Again, I am not questioning the lofty concept of the preamble, except perhaps to take a more secular view of the situation, but I am concerned that without a clearer, practical, path forward, the chances of the aims going astray are manifest, and the latest aberration, that of Donald Trump, only confirms that fear.
Perhaps a nationwide competition to come up with “a qualifying sub-preamble” would produce some interesting ideas, and would certainly promote two of the country’s major goals; government of the people, by the people, and equal opportunity across the nation.
Thoughts please.
