House of Eratosthenes

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them. Boy, that Thomas Jefferson. He really had a knack for tossing in the ol’ throw-away words. He really knew how to season the main course of his essay by sprinkling in a bunch of adjectives and nouns, sounding oh-so-weighty, but completely devoid of purpose, laying sprigs of inedible parsley alongside the pork roast.

Whoopsie, though, no he didn’t.

Studying the writings of the red-headed Founding Father, in his days as a rising young legal savant, and as an elderly, impoverished former President, one is awestruck by the unbroken pattern of purpose behind each word. His writing is like a good movie script. Everything has a point. Every article, every verb, every syllable.

Entirely worthy, like the writing of few other men either living or dead, of dissection.

So let us dissect. It’s birthday #230, after all.

They…and from this, it is easily inferred, the big “We” as well…have a station in life, a station to which we are entitled by the laws of Nature and Nature’s God. The laws of Nature, alone, do not entitle us to this station, nor do the laws of Nature’s God. We are entitled by both of these. What on earth could that mean?

It would appear that as far as the word “Nature,” definitions #1 and #4 of Merriam-Webster’s are the focal points of what Jefferson means to say.

1. The material world and its phenomena.
4. A primitive state of existence, untouched and uninfluenced by civilization or artificiality: couldn’t tolerate city life anymore and went back to nature.

We are entitled to these stations because we have been made to be entitled to them, in the state untouched and uninfluenced by artificiality. King George III is denying us this station, because he is influencing our status with artificiality, denying us rights to which we would naturally be entitled.

History supports the thesis that this has to do with trade. As I’ve already commented in Thing I Know #24: “A dog can pick out a master and follow him; a lemming can detect a consensus and go along with it; a monkey is capable of showing compassion to the weak; but only a human can honor a pledge.” This is a sacred thing, made moreso by the fact that the honor of a pledge, is the keystone to any & all trade. But the paramount quality to the honoring of pledges, is that only humans can do it. We must be able to engage freely in the practice of doing so, because we can do so. The laws of Nature say that whatever we can do, we must be able to do.

The laws of Nature stay in place, even when they are offensive to others. I don’t like to see spiders suck the juices out of flies, or to see killer whales bite seals in half while the victim is still alive. And yet, such things will be. Nature can be pretty harsh.

In this highly compact nugget of obscure terminology, Jefferson manages to observe, and soundly address, the dictum that this is not an absolute. I may have biceps as big as your thighs, and I may be able to beat the crap out of you. According to the logic above, I should be able to do it. I’m bigger, and stronger, so it’s “natural.” And indeed, that is what King George, and Parliament, were doing — passing taxes against the colonies, because they were legally able to do so, because they were militarily able to do so.

This is where “Nature’s God” comes in. Jefferson was saying this was wrong…

…and yet he wasn’t saying simply that, and nothing more. If this was the foundation of the argument, you could use the same logic and go around saying this is wrong, that’s wrong, don’t do that…insinuating yourself in all things whether they were any of your business or not, whether you had authority to enforce your decrees or not, over the flimsy foundation of “well, that’s just wrong,” like some smelly European.

Note that in 1776, Great Britain was a protestant nation. The laws of England decreed that we are here because God put us here, and by the Grace of God King George was the high and mighty Prince of all the realm. The King, in those days, was almost like a protestant version of the Pope. He shared the power over his subjects with Parliament, which was said to “virtually” represent the colonies. That is to say, the colonies were thought to be represented in the Parliament that approved the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Act of 1767, although, factually, they were not.

So according to the Law of Nature’s God, within this tiny nibble-sized clause, Jefferson, by implication, posed the hypothetical. The Creator put us here, clearly, with the explicit intent that we should live our lives as thinking individuals, engaged in lawful trade through the honoring of pledges, and by His divine will, appoints a sovereign, who, acting on the will of The Lord, proceeds to treat the colonists like…dogs. Beasts of burden, who simply draw breath, eat food, do work, and send the profit of the work back to Mother Britain.

Makes no freakin’ sense. Jefferson was saying, if we are all children of God, let us all act like it. And in order to act like it, we need absolute, inalienable rights, rights from which we cannot be separated by any mortal man, no matter how offensive our exercise of those rights may be…

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…

Look that last one back over: We hold these truths to be self-evident. Our modern liberals would strike this down in a heartbeat, according to their own twisted logic of “oh yeah, prove it!” Jefferson, here, is saying I cannot prove it and I will not deign to try. We hold them to be self-evident. You may disagree with these premises, but in so doing, you abjure yourself from the discourse involved in reading our document. You cease to be part of our intended audience.

And of course, if you accept these truths, thus remaining part of our intended audience…you must ultimately come to agree that the Independence of the colonies (poll rating: about seven percentage points, in 1776, beneath what President Bush has right now) is the right way — the only way — to go.

Man was not built to be two-legged cattle. He has rights, rights transgressed by the status quo. You can tell by looking at him.

You may peel a carrot, and in so doing comport with the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.

You may peel the skin off a living man, and in so doing comport with the Laws of Nature if you have this physical ability…but not with the laws of Nature’s God.

Man has rights. We may do everything that the laws of Nature say we can do, so long as we also comply with the laws of Nature’s God. And if we do so comply, then the laws of Nature’s God say that all other men must allow us to do what we are doing. If they use physical force to stop us, then they, in turn, are complying with the laws of Nature, but not with the laws of Nature’s God.

Nature’s God has a simple law: Now that you are here, do my work. Justify your existence. Use your lives to find some reasonable purpose to why I put you here in the first place.

And for an upper-crust of aristocracy to make arbitrary rules, while commoners toil away, doing nothing, just working for the benefit of others, sweeating, pooping, eating, drinking, like so many millions of bacteria, being denied the right and privilege to even think for themselves…that’s just not consistent with the mission. It cannot be. We are sovereigns as individuals — or else, we are a pointless experiment. And whoever makes us such a pointless experiment, thwarts the will of Almighty God. Thus, thwarting the point to his own existence, along with our own.

I believe in God, so I know what we’re celebrating tomorrow. I feel really sorry for the atheists. They have no home in this country, and most of them don’t even realize it. As a scientic theory soundly based on empirical fact, God most certainly does not exist and cannot ever exist. But as a hypothetical, posed for the purpose of defining our existence and the justifying the same, He most certainly can.

And among those who seek shelter beneath the rights afforded by the laws of Nature and Nature’s God, whether they call themselves “atheists” or not…in His station as this hypothetical, defining and justifying the existence within which those rights are to be enjoyed…He must. Logically, there’s no way around it. The rights do not exist, unless there is authority to say they are there, and all authority to say the rights are there, are derived from Him for they can be derived from nowhere else.

Happy Independence Day.

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Of Nature And Nature’s GodMonday, July 3rd, 2006

Of Nature And Nature’s God
Monday, July 3rd, 2006