A New York Times' July 4th editorial titled "Liberty Thoughts" (see link below) comments on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence 234 years ago and today? Read the editorial and comment regarding changes that have taken place in our history and whether the proposition exposed by the Declaration is still relevant today
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/opinion/04sun4.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Sunday, July 4, 2010
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Wow, the first one. Yay me.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you professor. In my opionion not many people take the Decleration of Independance as serious and important as they used to. Now a days some cosider it some thing written on a peice of paper and signed by many men to make rules, other consider it some thing very important that was established for the U.S so that their would be peace.
If you compare things how they used to be back then and now, we can all obviously see MANY different things, in every way. For example, back than when people use to say 'You have my word" they really meant it but now it means nothing. Its sad though, you would actually think it would get better through out the years but it doesn't but I consider it soe thing that made us stronger asa country. But that is my opionion. I enjoyed reading the article. LoL I should start reading the paper more. =)
Shamira Cordero
I agree with the previous statement. I think that the persons do not take Independence as seriously as it should be taken. I am not an American citizen and thus I am unable to argue about the reason for the whole US declaration of Independence. However i think the reason why the real meaning of independence have been lost is because the US is made of a lot of immigrants and they have no interest in the movements of previous years. I think that the media and also persons in higher authority should influence the youth and also the persons who are not aware of the importance of Independence.
ReplyDeleteI believe our founding fathers had their own meaning/definition in mind when writing certain areas of the Declaration 234 years ago. The sentence that states "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" is as untrue today as it was then. In 1776 ''all men are created equal" meant just that: men and not all men but white men only. Women and African Americans were certainly not included in that group. In fact these two cultural groups would not be considered equal for about another 150 years. Though we've made major advances on the equality front, today we face a relatively new hurdle, same sex couple rights. The refusal of equal rights for same sex couples to marry is not equal at all. The refusal of marriage in consequence denies same sex couples of a multitude of other automatically given rights after marriage. I admit that this is only one part of the Declaration but you also have to admit it is an essential part. As to the rest of the Declaration I am confident the writers did truly believe in what they wrote in 1776. Our present day "leaders" might say they believe the same but their actions speak otherwise. We lost our "liberty" the day we became dependent on foreign fossil fuel. As for for our "pursuit of happiness" the government has distorted that into "pursuit of money".
ReplyDeleteOver all, the article was constructive. Today more than ever every American should study the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and apply these great founding documents as the pillars of our country. I notice that at the end of article there was a revision note an it said “Correction: July 4, 2010. An earlier version of this editorial dropped the word "life" from an excerpt of the Declaration of Independence”. It did bother me that the word Life would had been dropped from the quote of the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps because the Declaration of Independence recognizes Life on its list of “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. To a pro-Life the fact that Life is an unalienable right support there believes and to a pro-choice this recognition of Life may be offensive and/or intolerable. To me this reflect a strong revisionist attitude held among the self profess elites of the press. I am sure that they most have received plenty of email pointing out the miss haps.
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