In the Declaration of Independence, there are three rights given to every human. |
The Unalienable Rights; Alien by Andrew Creech On July 4, 1776, the document that is considered to be the most important document in the world’s history was signed. The document marked the beginning of the country that is currently the most powerful in the entire world. When the Declaration of Independence was created, its goal was to deal with the injustices that the King of England was dealing them. In addition, it laid down the three “unalienable rights,” the rights that every human being should have at birth, regardless of age, color, religion, on citizenship. These are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The first, Life, is basically the right to life without threat of death, tourcher, or malice persecution. The second is liberty. Liberty is the freedom of a citizen to do as he or she chooses, within the law. These rights prohibit the government from forcing people to doing anything against their will. The third is the pursuit of happiness. The happiness in life is what actually makes life worth living. If the government takes away all happiness and makes the pursuit of said happiness impossible, than it should be destroyed. While trying to secure these rights, there are certain roles that the government has to fill. First of all, it should not be able to take away life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness from any law abiding citizen in its own pursuits. Although prison takes away a persons life, it becomes necessary for the government to imprison them to fulfill the second role. This role is to insure that no citizen’s unalienable rights are taken away by a foreign government or another citizen. If a citizen steals from, assaults, or kills another, he is infringing upon the others life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and the government has no choice but to intervene, taking life from the criminal rather than letting him take life from the citizen. Unfortunately, the government often does a very poor job of this. Thousands, if not millions, of times in the history of the United States, the government has failed horribly at its two simple roles. As for life, there are many people who serve prison sentences and commit no crime. The evidence against them is often insignificant and cannot proof them guilty. There are soldiers who follow orders and are court marshaled for acts that they are forced to do. Our very protectors are in prison, or dishonorably discharged. But then celebrities and politicians may get ridiculed by the media, but serve no sentence, or a lights one. As for liberty, the list goes on and on. The Declaration states very clearly, :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.” If this is true, that why did it take another hundred years before slavery was finally abolished? To the government, these “equal men,” still needed to be enslaved, helping build the wealth of white men. It took even longer for women to be given certain rights as well. Did the declaration really only refer to males as men, or us it as a statement such as “mankind?” In addition, ask almost any American about the horrors of WWII and they will most likely talk about Auschwitz and all the Jews killed. But what about Amache, Rohwer, or Manzanar? How about Amache, CO; Rohwer, AR; and Manzanar, CA. These were Japanese concentration camps operated by the United States government. In the camps, two-thirds of the people of Japanese descent were United States citizens and half were children. But apparently these citizens needed to have their “unalienable rights” taken away because they might be spies. At least the Germans were honest to the Jews. “We hate you, so you are going to these camps.” The United States decided to lie to the Japanese and the rest of the country. The government also makes the pursuit of happiness difficult as well. Instead of allowing citizens to do as they please, there are requirements for every little this and that that comes up. But people continue to suffer through this, maybe complaining every now and then, but nothing concrete. Perhaps people today simply lack the guts that the founding fathers had so long ago. According to the Declaration, “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” By this statement, it is our right and duty to overthrow this government and create a new one. |