234 Years ago...

Thoughts on the Declaration Of Independence

The Declaration is really a list of grievances against King George. They were real and we would have them today…I dare say there are those that think we do. Everything has evolved in those 234 years though and for almost all of us in the US, things are significantly better than they were way back when.

In re-reading the Declaration I could see how this document was a brazen affront to the King; fighting words so to speak. There were two things that I thought worth commenting on. The first is the phrase “…endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…”. It raises a question about many statements made by fundamentalists about the Christian motivation of the establishment of this new nation. It would seem that if the founders imagined this to be a singularly Christian nation they would have written “…THE Creator…”. There would have been only one choice rather than a personal choice which would include scientific naturalism.

The second curiosity that struck me during this reading was the grievance regarding the King’s obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners. This was considered to be a point of rebellion. The founders considered the importance of building their stock through an open door policy. Immigration was important to them.

I would not try to make an argument that the same conditions that insulted the revolutionaries are the same as today. I would argue that a policy of immigration rights was critical to the thinking of those who penned the document and that still exists today.