[Vision2020] Historic Precedence

[Art Deco aka W. Fox]

Ted replies:

OK, Wayne, fair enough.  Now I ask you to apply your standards of observation 
and testing and provide verifiable proof of the truth of the following statement 
regarded by many as the foundation of American Democracy:

"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."


Without wishing to sound like a traitor, I think the statement at issue is 
neither true nor false, like its sometimes cited corollary:  "That which governs 
least, governs best.

Both statements are like the following statement:

"The square root of a minus tush abdicates salt."

All three statements are syntactically correct and sound like possibly true or 
false English statements.  But because their meaning is so vague and ambiguous, 
it is not possible to determine their truth except by deducing them from other 
equally vague, ambiguous statements.

It would be incorrect to say that the statements are meaningless because they do 
make some people feel good (or not).  However, the statements lack meaning in 
the sense that the statement "There are exactly five apple trees in old man 
Hansen's back yard" has meaning.  Because of their vagueness and ambiguity, it 
is not possible, so far, to agree upon test conditions/observations for their 
truth.

I think it is possible to recast "Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and 
the pursuit of Happiness"into a less dogmatic, more flexible series of 
statements which may be found to be heuristically true (or false) by 
observations in certain contexts.  Doing so correctly, however, would probably 
take much more time and discussion than I have left in my life.

Thank you Ted, however, for illustrating the philosophical problem of 
establishing the meaning/truth of political "First Principles."

Wayne

Wayne A. Fox
waf at moscow.com
PO Box 9421
Moscow, ID 83843
208 882-7975

[PS:  Because I unintentionally changed the name of the thread, many did not 
grasp the context of the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon I posted earlier.  The context 
was the discussion of the biosphere and the use/waste of limited natural 
resource by a burgeoning world population, especially the western, affluent 
world.]


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