{"id":368230,"date":"2018-07-06T04:13:04","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T03:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-values-underlying-independence-day\/"},"modified":"2018-07-06T04:13:04","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T03:13:04","slug":"the-values-underlying-independence-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-values-underlying-independence-day\/","title":{"rendered":"The Values Underlying Independence Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Declaration of Independence \u2014 which was signed on July 3, 1776, for public release on July 4 \u2014 was Thomas Jefferson\u2019s masterpiece. Jefferson himself wrote much about the declaration in the 50 years that followed.<\/p>\n

Not the least of what he wrote offered his view that the declaration and the values that it articulated were truly radical \u2014 meaning they reflected 180-degree changes at the very core of societal attitudes in America. The idea that farmers and merchants and lawyers could secede from a kingdom and fight and win a war against the king\u2019s army was the end result of the multigenerational movement that was articulated in the declaration.<\/p>\n

The two central values of the declaration are the origins of human liberty and the legitimacy of popular government.<\/p>\n

When Jefferson wrote that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, he was referring to the natural law. The natural law teaches that right and wrong can be discerned and truth discovered by the exercise of human reason, independent of any commands from the government. The natural law also teaches that our rights come from our humanity \u2014 not from the government \u2014 and our humanity is a gift from our Creator.<\/p>\n

Even those who question or reject the existence of the Creator \u2014 was Jefferson himself among them? \u2014 can embrace natural rights, because they can accept that our exercise of human reason leads us all to make similar claims. These claims \u2014 free speech, free association, free exercise or non-exercise of religion, self-defense, privacy, and fairness, to name a few \u2014 are rights that we all exercise without giving a second thought to the fact that they are natural and come from within us.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/span>
\nSuicide Pact: The Radi…<\/a><\/span><\/span>
\nAndrew P. Napolitano<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Declaration of Independence \u2014 which was signed on July 3, 1776, for public release on July 4 \u2014 was Thomas Jefferson\u2019s masterpiece. Jefferson himself wrote much about the declaration in the 50 years that followed. Not the least of what he wrote offered his view that the declaration and the values that it articulated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-368230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}