Platt: "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." -- Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
Andre: 'On the Fourth of July in 1943, the New York Times reminded its readers of John Adams's statement that there is nothing in the Declaration of Independence 'but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before' and that Thomas Jefferson, at first annoyed with Adams's remark, later admitted that this document 'was intended to be an expression of the American mind' adding that 'All its authority rests upon the harmonising sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation , letters, printed essays or the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc... I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether, and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before' 'Two points in this statement by the author of the Declaration of Independence are important: First, its utopian ideal had become the common property of all the colonists; and second, this ideal had not originated with them or even with Jefferson but had been formulated previously by European philosophers. Among these philosophers, as Jefferson was well aware, the most important is John Locke' 'It is to the moral, the religious and the political consequences of John Locke's philosophical conception of man and nature that Thomas Jefferson gives expression in the Declaration of Independence. In short, the traditional culture of the United States is an applied utopia (of European origine) in which the philosophy of John Locke defines the idea of the good' ( The Meeting of East and West' Northrop, pp 70-1, my addition) In a few earlier posts it was argued that John Locke's philosophical foundations were flawed, contradictory and outmoded. Yet it remains engrained in the American psyche. For what it is worth. Andre Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
