Date: Wed, 14 Apr 99 17:51:03 EDT
From: "Brian J. Callahan" <Brian=J.=Callahan%MT%DFCI-AT-EYE.DFCI.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject: Re: US-information warfare & KLA


Old Goat writes:
>	the "unalienable rights" o "life, liberty, and the 
>pursuit of happiness" spoken o in the American Declaration
>of 1776 are very pretty "ought to's" and are valuable as
>a statement o ideals toward which we strive, but to say that
>they are absolute presupposes a higher power that is willing
>to both grant and enforce them--a fact not in evidence in the
>real world.

Well, you have to go to Locke's Second Treatise on Government to see why 
Jefferson called them inalienable.  Locke started from the assumption that 
society is essentially a contract created in the misty past by individuals 
who were tired of their lives being nasty, brutish and short (he was a big 
Hobbes fan); and any *workable* society would grant the rights to life, 
liberty and property (pursuit of happiness sounds more elevated).  That's 
because, if society didn't, the individuals who make up society would begin 
to kill their oppressors thus returning things to the nasty, brutish times.  
The "inalienable rights" stem from an analysis of what rational humans would 
not stand for.