I've just watched on Fox an Episode of _Lone Gunmen_ where they liberate an intelligent chimp who was held in captivity by the g*vernment.
So: > > "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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among >Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." > And JDG wrote: > >If you want Western Civilization in a nutshell, I don't know that you can >do much better than that. > Ok, but maybe we _can_ do better than that. I don't see Western Civ as a discontinuity from a tradition that began with the _Lex Dodecadecem Tabularum_ [or some other pompous expression in Latin], or earlier with the Pentateuch or the Code of Hammurabi. Namely: that there are artificial laws to regulate society. And the Declaration of Independence is quite humanicist [:-)], denying [by not mentioning] the rights of non-human sentient beings, or the right of species, etc. Alberto Monteiro
