Editorial Rule 1: Words and phrases flagged in red are, in my opinion, vague, ambiguous, or otherwise problematic.  But for that they are not inadmissiable in political discourse.  As you may surmise, they are the lifeblood of such discourse.         

I promised in my first post to justify the presumptuous name for my blog, "Come Sit at The Founders' Table."  (I can never justify my own presumption; for that, I can only beg your pardon.)  Before I can justify, I must clarify: Who are the Founders to whom my title refers?  They are the generation, our first generation, who risked life, liberty, and property to found a regime "dedicated to the proposition" that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  

 

Now, I can justify: Why "Come Sit at The Founders' Table"?  It is an invitation in the spirit of St. Paul's "Come let us reason together."  We are the heirs of the regime the Founders constituted, but more importantly, were are the trustees of the proposition enshrined in our beloved Declaration of Independence.  If, as the Founders argued, it follows from this proposition that the only rightful aim of government is to secure our unalienable rights, then it likewise follows that our allegiance to that proposition must precondition our consent to our regime today, tomorrow, and always.  Therefore, our prime duty as citizens---and may we never countenance the heresy that Americans are free of civic duty---is to deliberate the commensurability of our regime's ends and means with that proposition.  And it is wise and just that we take our bearings from the generation who were the first to declare that proposition before all of humankind. 

 

It is wise: the Founding generation was imbued with an understanding that the true ground of our rights is not man but "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."  We sit at the Founders' table to imbue ourselves with this understanding.  Are we to slavishly bow to their opinions?  No.  Our thoughts will be directed to the same ends along similar lines.  But we think our own thoughts; to do otherwise would be deny our nature as the rational creature.    

 

It is just: the Framers put themselves in peril for sake of posterity.  They reasoned out the true ground of our rights so henceforth it could not be forgotten unless the very memory of man had come to oblivion.  Our gratitude is owed to them; to deny them our gratitude would be to deny ourselves our dignity.  Must we, to feel gratitude, share their racial or ethnic heritage?  No.  Need we vouch for their complete morality as men and women?  No.  For the proposition they declared, they did not originate.  And whatever their personal opinions about the extent of its applicability, the proposition they declared is inescapably an assertion or affirmation about humankind as such.  Hence, by the force of its logic, the proposition is universal.  It is meant for every person, for all time, regardless of any characteristic, circumstance, or condition that happens to distinguish one human being from another.  A person may deny that the proposition is universal, in which case he would be denying its truth; but one cannot assent to its truth on one hand and on the other deny its universality.  And since we who assent to the proposition must grant its universality, we perforce must grant that it applies equally to each human being.  In other words, one person cannot be more endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights than another person.  God, the Bible tells us, is no respecter of personage.