Self Evident Truths

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.

. . . . The Declaration of Independence

The above are probably the most memorable words of our most memorable political document, and have played a key role in shaping both our national ethos and our political institutions. It's fair to say that such "self-evident truths" are not ordinary truths, but what Neils Bohr called "great truths." Ordinary truths, said Bohr, are statements whose opposites are false, whereas great truths, are distinguished by the circumstance that their opposites are also great truths. The man who wrote those words was a slave holder, chosen for the task for his eloquence and and reputation. People are very obviously unequal in size, intellect, and economic circumstance, so in what way are they "self-evidently" equal.

Jefferson gives the answer, of course: in their inalienable rights, especially Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. One might also argue that governments, historically speaking, have been instituted more to deprive men of their rights than to ensure them, but that quibble doesn't deprive Jefferson's words of their eloquence or power. Jefferson's words represent an ideal, a goal to be striven for, rather than an attempt to document the historical reality.

Our other cardinal political document, The Constitution, can be seen as an attempt to create in reality the Nation envisioned in Jefferson's Declaration. It has been our great good fortune that the men who wrote it were neither religious or political ideologues like so unfortunately many of their fellow Nation makers, but rather practical minded politicians, business men, and soldiers as well as the extraordinary polymaths Jefferson and Franklin.

Great truths are subject to the "Tinker Bell" effect. Their power can endure only as long as people believe in them. Adams, Jefferson, and others among the founders feared the rise of hereditary aristocracy, and believed the Nation needed to take affirmative steps to prevent its creation. The tension between democracy and aristocracy has always existed in our country, but the rise of the mass media, especially television and talk radio, have given the aristocratic partisans a powerful new weapon. I have written previously about how the network of conservative foundations and advocacy groups works tirelessly to advance what their rich patrons imagine to be their interests.

One of those interests is undermining the American consensus on Jefferson's self-evident truths. It is a bit difficult to sell an agenda of more power and money to the super-rich, so they find it useful to try to sell it under a variety of other guises: individualism, anti-collectivism, religion, anti-unionism, and xenophobia. There is more than one irony in that list. Christianity has a clear anti-rich bias, and is, in fact, rather socialist. The people pumping up xenophobia are often the ones benefitting most from immigrant labor. A climate of xenopobia helps keep the price of immigrant labor down by making it easier to cheat immigrants or eprive them of their rights.

War is a favorite tactic of the tyrant. It helps to rally the people around the leader, and provides a handy excuse for suppressing inconvenient freedoms.