I emailed my paper to my group members (Typee) and never receieved any feedback or commentation. I was coming here to post it on the blog so anyone else who has a heart could give me their thoughts on it so I can change some things before Tuesday. But then I saw the the post that said that the paper is actually due today. I don't know what to do now, but here it is.

Fox,Juliya
Bleck, Bradley
31 May, 2008
Essay 2

Do 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”? In today’s society, what can be considered as “self evident”? Does everyone believe in a creator? If not, then how is it that this important document known as The Declaration of Independence still apply today, if it does at all? Putting this document against the test of time, it will be made evident that it has lost its meaning to
contemporary Americans.
July 4th, 1776, Congress adopted The Declaration of Independence. Yet two hundred and thirty-two years later we still have the same declaration, but no revisions on how the U.S. has changed? The statement “ 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” (Edwards), has changed dramatically from what it has meant from 1776, to now 2008.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”(Edwards). If all men are created equal, why did we have black slavery in the 1800’s; if (we had just written), “All men are created equal”, then twenty-four years later we began African-American slavery? That doesn’t sound like all men are equal to me. Why did we have extreme racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, who killed African Americans just because of their skin color? And yet, why do we still till this day, put up with discrimination in the United States if all men are created equal? All men are not created equal according to our American actions. In fact, The Declaration of Independence should say that only Caucasian men are created equal because that seems to be the evidence given if we allow prejudice to continue in our nation. The same applies to having discrimination over religion as well.
The Declaration of Independence also states that we “are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable right”(Edwards). This states that we are supposed to treat everyone equally no matter what their belief is because everyone has rights. But that is as long as we have one creator, because our four founding fathers believed that they were endowed by a creator. Recent debate is arguing that America should take “In God We Trust" off our bills, and coins, because people are offended by this saying (World Net Daily). However, by doing so, wouldn’t we offend the Christians and the Catholics and the Muslim, whom all believe in God? Wouldn’t that then be offending them as well? They have also taken action in taking out the Pledge of Allegiance from schools because it says, “One nation, under God” (World Net Daily). "Many atheist activist have argued that it is unconstitutional and they want the government to be equal” says Michael NewDow from World Net Daily. Once again, we are upsetting many other religions by doing so and I am sure that taking monuments such as the Ten Commandments outside of the judicial courts didn’t help much (CNN). If this is so, we need to set up a medium where everyone is neutral, and we need not to accept atheism, because the The Declaration of Independence clearly states that we “ are endowed by our creator.” (Edwards)

Lastly, we have the last part of the sentence that states, “That among these are life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness.” During the time when we were fighting for our independence, King
George the third turned out to be guilty of twenty-seven different abuses. He tried everything in
his power to make the colonists lives miserable, all so that he could obtain control over them
still. King George interfered with the colonist’s rights to self govern and have a fair judicial
system. He also taxed the colonist’s and colonies on their tea(Sparks). When all of this was hap-
pening, the colonist’s tried everything they could to make peace with England, but were consis-
tently being ignored and treated poorly, so they appealed to England, and soon declared their
freedom from Britain with Declaration of Independence. The colonists, despite the rough
times, were extremely happy that they could now declare themselves from England after being
treated poorly. They had hope and a future for America and the thirteen colonies. Interesting
enough, we now have the highest suicidal rate compared to any other country (21.8%), because
people are depressed, paranoid and have other problems in the United States and don’t want to
live here anymore.(Nation Master.) Incidentally, people aren’t happy in the United States and
don’t want to hold true to the values of The Declaration Of Independence.
To the other countries surrounding us, The Declaration of Independence, was meant to define the
rights of, all men, women, and denied the privilege of the self-proclaimed nobility. However, we
now allow the government to read our mail, tap into our phone lines, and lurk around our houses
watching and listening to everything we do. And all because they tell us the Government is keep-
ing us safe from harm? Keeping us safe doesn’t mean tap into our personal lives and try to see
everything we do or say. No wonder why people are paranoid and depressed is because the government now decides to violate our liberty, life and pursuit of happiness.
After putting The Declaration of Independence through the test of time, it is evident that we
clearly need a revision done. These values that our four founding fathers once held true to our
land, America, isn’t necessarily what holds true anymore. Many people are still accepting racism
in our nation. Often times there is not just one belief anymore than Christianity. There are Catho
lics, Muslims, Atheists, Pagans, and many other religions that may or may not disagree with
what the four founding fathers wanted and hoped for our land to become. We are only driving
ourselves into paranoia and depression with trying to take out everything, and allowing people to
govern our everyday lives down to listening to phone conversations, and lurking around every
corner, making sure we are doing the “right” thing. Due to this we have people who commit sui-
cide, and for that we have one of the highest suicidal rates among any other country. The Decla-
ration of Independence desperately needs to be changed, because it truly no longer accurately applies to us, contemporary Americans. My question to you is who will change the The Declara
tion of Independence? If we don’t change it, then perhaps the time has come to kick it out the door altogether. We won’t be free until we do.

Work Cited

Edwards, Jonathan. The Harper American Literature. Ed. Donald McQuade. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Longman, 1994. 328-338.

Newdow, Michael, “In God We Trust to come off coins?” Law of the Land 14 November, 2005SpokaneFallsCommunityCollegeLibrary29May,2008

Sparks “The Declaration of Independence “ Sparks Spokane Falls Community College
Library29May,2008.

Unknown, “ Economy statistics” Economy by Country. Spokane Falls Community College Library 29May, 2008.