I sometimes muse that I might be able to cause a riot at a medical trade show by the simple expedient of climbing up on our booth table and shouting, "Get Government Out of Health Care!" real loudly.

So far, I have resisted the temptation.

Jan

Spot on, blackswan!

Jan

Another useful idea would be for politicians to stop lying and claiming that they can fix things they have no knowledge about. They're the ones who are claiming to be able to "create jobs." They are also claiming to "improve health care," and to "protect the environment," etc., etc., NONE of which they can do; they don't even know where to start.

It's a pity that we allow our self interest to interfere with the purity of our ideas. In 1775, the village idiot understood that "men" meant "mankind." The only problem was that our society had been contaminated with slavery, an institution brought over from the old world (by both blacks and whites, I might add, at a time when the rights of man wasn't even an idea), and which was an important economic pillar of parts of the economy. It wasn't until the industrial revolution showed that slavery was unsustainable that it could be successfully challenged; in fact, it had to be eliminated in order for industrialization and the full formation of our new civilization to be implemented. In other words, the industrial revolution made possible the full implementation of "we hold these truths...."

Alas! I do not even know enough to agree or disagree with you. Obviously, I must learn more.

Jan

The original draft included such anti-slavery phrases as, “cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant [African] people". These were removed because the southern states objected to them and the big purpose of the Declaration was to unite the States against Britian - not to cause divisiveness withing their own ranks.

Jan

I understand the context, BB. Apparently I was not clear. Please read my reply to sdfi, below.

Jan

Blame it on whomever you choose, but the Articles of Confederation were simply unworkable.

If you are old enough to remember when schools took education seriously, you may remember being taught that the 'default' noun or pronoun when referring to two or more genders or to a person or people of an unknown gender was the masculine.

Since then 'gender neutrality' has largely replaced these age-old conventions.

It is important to read documents in their proper time context.

Jefferson and Franklin would have been steeped in Aristotle's logic. Given the precision of their writings, specially Jefferson, It is impossible to believe that he deliberately used the universal "All men are created equal..." rather than the conditional "Some men are created equal..."

If we elevate other species to sentience or contact sentient species from other planets, then the definition of "man" as "sentient person" still makes sense.

This is how the word was used in the poem "The Battle of Clontarf": the beings described as 'men' turned out to be entities that were neither male nor human.

Jan

sfdi -

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I have read that - in the context of the times - there was an 'understanding' amongst the founding fathers that 'men' meant 'white males'. At the time, the 'male' part was not in contention, but the 'white' element allowed them to sidestep the question of slavery, which was already a subject of contention.

I am deliberately suggesting that, instead of the Emancipation Proclamation and all of our subsequent regs about gender and race, that it would have been cleaner to deliberately redefine the terms used such that 'man/men' = sentient person. Others on this thread have suggested specifying that 'right' != endowment, etc.

I am not oblivious to the context, I am suggesting that (for instance, were I to re-write) the Constitution have a prefix of defined terms would make fewer subsequent laws necessary and fewer abuses possible.

Jan

Of course. It is only those who would divide us who separate mankind by "race" (we're the human race), sex (we're mankind), origin, income, and in so many other ways by which they hope to pit us against each other.

Yes! . "man" in this context means mankind, IMHO. -- j

.

Dear Jan,

You commit the sin of all Liberals and Progressives, taking Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin's thoughts and writings out of historical context and literally.

May, June, and July of 1775 were vastly different times, times that none of America's Progressives, who began to rise a hundred years later, would have understood or been able to survive in. There was no "Social Safety Net" there were very few public charities, and they were religiously based.

When asked the question you've posed in 1922, Oliver Wendell Holmes said: "Men, spoken plurally, in a grander context refers to all mankind, as surly as Locke must have intended." Today the PC Police would cite me because I didn't say 'Humankind' to denote lack of gender or other multicultural identifier.

What most fail to realize is that Progressivism is like Socialism, unlike Objectivism, it all about the control of the masses by the selected few pure progressives or socialists.

Doubt government institution anyone would argue with your broadest definition of the word.

I suppose if we really think it is ambiguous, it is worth defining and correcting. Maybe we could, at last, get a unanimous decision by SCOTUS!

Kind of view this like the Washington Redskins name, a non-issue, unless we belabor it. Of course in either case, I am not in the category offended or previously oppressed, and perhaps overlook remaining biases.

I can't even get a rise out of my daughter, teasing her that she need to learn to cook because she is a woman. The flicker of truth necessary for humor, and below offense, is absent from the statement in her mind.

As pjhorgan points out, amongst the words that need explicit definition are "equality", "freedom", and "rights". While I started this thread to address the definition of "man" and "men" as being "sentient persons" (and this definition making the Emancipation Proclamation and race/gender laws redundant), I like the way this thread is going towards a total set of explicit definitions.

Jan

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”-Aristotle

I think it is reasonable to hold that all men are CREATED / BORN equal…. with identical individual rights….at least in the USA.

Foremost among those are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Certainly both our Declaration of Independence and Constitution support this concept of equality.

However, I think that in reality, there is no equality postpartum….primarily because the child’s genes begin to express individuality by responding to the baby’s environment, almost immediately…..of course that's only if there are no defects in that baby.

And while all people in this country should be entitled the same protection under the law as guaranteed by the Constitution, the notion that all men ARE equal, and have a RIGHT to equal results in life, is one of the most idiotic socialist concepts ever formed. Where we are in life has always been about the choices we’ve made “along-the-way”. But the notion that people in this country have a “right” to equal results in life is simply absurd. Such a notion ultimately leads to altruism and provides an irrefutable excuse to parents, and the child, to justify not learning and not working…….. and therefore…… removes all pride in self-improvement and achievement.

This leads to concepts such as “amorphous guilt”…. "white privilege"…. "women's rights" …

……….and spawns erroneous concepts such as ”victim mentality” and “social justice”…….and, of late….. “income inequality”.

A most recent example involves commentators on ABC urging mothers to not read to their children because it isn’t fair to the children whose parents don't read to them. Absurd? Insane??? Yes!!!!!!!!!!….but it happened!

Another is Obama’s recent “re-distribution-of-wealth-justification” rhetoric that successful businessmen are society’s lottery winners…. …as if success in business is totally random…..and…… as if it was somehow “unfair” that some people are successful, while others are not.

Can anybody honestly be this out-of-touch with reality?

“Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others. ” – Ayn Rand…

Karl Marx suggested “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”.

It would appear that Obama is simply attempting the implementation of Marx’s suggestion.

Here’s your sign!

Obama: Successful Businessmen Are 'Society's Lottery Winners'

Published May 13, 2015

Hmmm. You are correct. Defining 'rights' as 'the ability to perform a deed without legal strictures preventing it' (as opposed to 'endowing it by public funding') would go a long way to resolving a lot of problems.

Jan

Jan

I believe that your ascertain is correct. In my uneducated reading of many philosophy book I find for instance King James bible written with men dominance in mind and until more was discovered in the dead sea scrolls now we know women played large rolls in Jesus teaching and life(if one believes). Our fore father's were Christian. I also see Plato and Aristotle in our fore father's work which seems to have male hiarchy dominance.

As I read Ayn Rand work's I've always interpreted man or men as all people and also all other works even though the authors had other meaning. I see we are all in this together.

I have never read much about the Articles, freedomforall. I guess I should...

Jan, admits ignorance

I used it to clean up dog poo...

Jan

Inasmuch as slavery has existed since the dawn of humankind and all races have been enslaved by someone and since before we were an independent nation some of the most brutal slaveOWNERS were black; getoverit. Only 84 years after we became a nation slavery was abolished. That doesn't make us perfect but it shows we were and still are a better people than most of the world.

Want to own a slave today, go to most any country governed by sharia.

Have a great Independence Day.

And we should perhaps also clarify what "equal" means. It should simply mean "equal before the law", or :having equal access and opportunity.:

But it should NOT, and it CANNOT mean equal abilities,intelligence, energy, skills, characteristics, weaknesses, outcomes, successes, compensation, health or wealth. This ambiguity is behind most of the political and social strife in American history.

The words "freedom" and "rights" could also stand some clarification.

That was already tried. they called it the Articles of Confederation. Unfortunately, Alexander Hamilton and the NY banksters didn't like the individual liberty and competition it allowed.