Do We Hold These Truths . . . ?

This is the presentation I gave at the annual Independence Day Oratory Program in Claremont in 2000.

The Declaration of Independence affirms the dignity of the human person as “self evident.”  I quote: “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.”

Self-evident means not needing proof.  Experience shows us, sadly, that different people put different limitations on what they consider “self evident.”

For example, some of the very signers of this Declaration owned slaves, and did not see the contradiction inherent in their very words. 

Four score and seven years later, the most brutal war the world had known to that point, the American Civil War, was fought over the question of slavery, as well as its economic, social, and moral implications.

Divisive conflicts throughout our society into our own day, including, as we are so well aware, in our own city of Claremont*, amply demonstrate that the equality proclaimed by the Declaration and the rights won in the civil war victory of the Union, have not yet become fully a part of the fabric of our society.

Another example.  It was a full century and a half before the laws determining participation in our society began to recognize that the equality of “all men” included women.  And while that struggle for equal participation has made great strides, it is not yet complete.

And . . . the “unalienable” right to life, continues to be alienated all over the place!  Perhaps more so in our day than in the past.

It is ironic that it was only in the 1970’s that science was able to prove genetically that the unborn baby is truly a distinct human being from the moment of conception—that’s not a so-called religious doctrine, that’s a scientific fact—and simultaneously in the 1970’s a woman’s choice to kill that unborn baby for any reason whatever was defined as a constitutional right by the nation’s highest court.  The “unalienable” right to life of a human being was made dependent upon the criterion of whether or not it was “wanted.”

I do not want to make light of the agonizing choices and pain that lead individuals to choose to kill their unborn baby.  But neither truth nor mercy is served by redefining the unborn baby as something less that human, or subjecting her or his right to life to another’s right to privacy.  Alternate solutions are difficult as well as unpopular, but if we are a just society we must dedicate ourselves to finding and implementing them.

At the other end of the spectrum is the subordination of the unalienable right to life to certain qualities of behavior, specifically the death penalty as a punishment for certain types of serious and/or violent crimes.  It is true that society cannot function if we are not adequately protected from the threat of violent crimes against persons and property.  Both protection and deterrence are legitimate values in the penal system of a just society.  But, punishment that exceeds what is necessary to protect society from further violence, particularly when that punishment is itself an act of violence—even the sanitized violence of pumping toxic chemicals into a human being’s veins—that punishment goes beyond justice, and enters into the realm of revenge.

Of course, the question of human rights and dignity, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, extends far beyond these two particular issues, even beyond the issue of life and death per se.  How, for example, do our immigration and labor policies measure up to the basic human rights affirmed in the Declaration?  How about our health care system?  Are human rights violated when the environment in which others live is degraded by actions and policies motivated by profit?  The list of similar questions can go on and on.

That having been said, our nation still serves as a beacon for much of the rest of the world in upholding human rights and dignity.  In the global picture, our nation still does lead the world in successfully living as a democratic and just society.

All the more reason why we should be sure that the light truly shines bright and clear.  All the more reason why we need never to take for granted that our actions are consistent with our ideals.

Then why is it that those who point out that there remain serious flaws and inconsistencies in the way we as a society uphold these values are so often branded as “un-American”?

(I’m reminded that the late, great South American Archbishop Helder Camara once lamented: “If I feed the poor, I’m called a saint.  If I ask why people are poor, I’m called a Communist!”)

We all recognize that patriotism is more than just flag-waving.  Perhaps the real patriots are those who do not let us settle for quick, easy, or obvious answers to the question: What are we waving the flag for?
 “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .”  Those simple words of the Declaration of Independence, whose values we claim as the guiding principle of our nation, still serve as a disquieting reminder—two hundred and twenty four years later—of how far short of those values we fall.


*Note: the "conflicts...in Claremont" refers to the controversy over the police shooting of Irvin Landrum in 1999.