I like Jefferson. It's incredible, and serendipitous, that there were so many extremely thoughtful and cautious fellows associated with the founding of our country.
It's hard to argue with the deism of the immortal line:
"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."
... but the bottom line is that it continues to work very effectively as a lower limit for the rights of the State vs the individual. What is granted - even ostensibly - as originating from beyond Man's comprehension cannot then be taken away by Man, where government lacking that philosophical grounding can much more easily remove such rights for its own expediency or eventual nefarious purpose.
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It's hard to argue with the deism of the immortal line:
"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."
... but the bottom line is that it continues to work very effectively as a lower limit for the rights of the State vs the individual. What is granted - even ostensibly - as originating from beyond Man's comprehension cannot then be taken away by Man, where government lacking that philosophical grounding can much more easily remove such rights for its own expediency or eventual nefarious purpose.