What Did Our Founding Fathers Think of “Equality”

An interesting read:

What is Equality?
By Larrey Anderson – American Thinker

President Obama recently spoke to the Human Rights Campaign about “equality.”  Here is how he began his speech:

Thank you so much, all of you. It is a privilege to be here tonight to open for Lady GaGa. I’ve made it.  (Laughter.) I want to thank the Human Rights Campaign for inviting me to speak and for the work you do every day in pursuit of equality on behalf of the millions of people in this country who work hard in their jobs and care deeply about their families — and who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. [Emphasis added.]

I don’t know much about the singer Lady GaGa. But I do know a little about equality: there is no such thing.

The myth of equality started in the late 18th century. The successful American Revolution (which had nothing to do with equality) guaranteed “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The failed French Revolution promised “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” (liberty, equality, fraternity). It disintegrated into the Reign of Terror.

The French discovered (long before the Soviets and the Communist Chinese) that equality among human beings is impossible. Utopians on the left continue to ignore those lessons.

Our Founding Fathers were fully aware of the dangers of the state trying to impose “equality” on its citizens. The specific word “equality” does not appear, anywhere, in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Variations of the word “equal” (“equal” and “equally”) appear twice in the Declaration of Independence and eight times in the Constitution. Let’s take a look at the appropriate appearances of the word “equal” in our founding documents.

The two appearances of the word “equal” in the Declaration of Independence both refer to a “starting point” for human beings under the law. The first line of the Declaration of Independence reads in part:

“… to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them …” [Emphasis added.]

In other words, if people are not treated equally before the law by their government, they may “dissolve the political bands.” Stated differently, if all citizens do not have equal protection under the law, they have a right to overthrow the regime. This has nothing to do with the state making people equal, or forcing them to be equal, or guaranteeing that all citizens are equal – this is a revolutionary statement about overthrowing an unjust regime.

The second use is the famous one:

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.

Our Founding Fathers believed that we have the same rights “coming out of the box,” so to speak. But after that … all bets are off. The government protects only three things: life, liberty and property.[i] It does not make us equal. God takes care of that.

Let’s move to the Constitution [...]

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