Our friends at the Soros-funded far left blog Think Progress have set a new standard for lunacy today, with a piece attempting to reframe the Declaration of Independence as the “Declaration of Interdependence.”
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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.
Okay, the Declaration of Interdependence sounds a lot like the Declaration of Independence.
By saying that it is a self-evident truth that all humans are created equal and that our inalienable rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, our Founding Fathers were telling us that we are all in this together, that we are interdependent, that we have a moral duty to protect these inalienable rights for all humans. President Lincoln, perhaps above all others, was instrumental in making clear that the second sentence of the Declaration was “a moral standard for which the United States should strive,” as Wikipedia puts it.
The double appeal to “Nature” — including the explicit appeal to “the laws of Nature” in the first sentence — is particularly salient. For masters of rhetoric like the authors of the Declaration, a repeated word, especially in an opening sentence, is repeated for the singular purpose of drawing attention to it (see “Why scientists aren’t more persuasive, Part 1“).
Yes, the phrase “laws of nature” meant something different to Jefferson than it does to us (see here). But as a living document, and as a modern Declaration of Interdependence, the words have grown in meaning. (emphasis in original)
I’m not even sure where to start with this nonsense.
First, the Declaration of Independence was just that: A proclamation that we would no longer be governed by the king of Great Britain, along with a list of reasons supporting that proclamation. It was never intended to appoint us as the World Police, responsible for defending everyone else’s rights. Our founders would have found the idea abhorent.
Second, when did the Declaration become a “living document”? It’s bad enough that liberals want to mischaracterized the Constitution as such. Now they’re doing the same with the Declaration of Independence, as well.
So, where is this nonsense headed, you ask?
It is the laws of Nature, studied and enumerated by scientists, that make clear we are poised to render those unalienable rights all but unattainable for billions of humans on our current path of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions. It is the laws of Nature that make clear Americans can’t achieve sustainable prosperity if the rest of the world doesn’t, and vice versa. (emphasis in original)
Ironically — or perhaps intentionally — the toughest inalienable right to maintain is “the pursuit of happiness.” Certainly, the catastrophic global warming we know we face (thanks to our understanding of the laws of nature) threatens life and liberty (see “Memorial Day, 2030“).
Brilliant! The Declaration of Independence requires us to destroy our economy in order to combat imaginary global warming, in order to guarantee the happiness of people in other countries.
If there is some sort of prize for the year’s most tortured logic, this piece surely deserves a nomination.
