Do you believe that all humans are created equal?

1. 68

   Perspycaciousposted 8 years ago

   Do you believe that all humans are created equal?
   
   The American "Declaration of Independence" asserted that all men [humans] are created equal.  Do you believe that that assertion is true?
   Lately it would seem that some people's voices and votes receive greater weight than the voices and the votes of others in America.  Sometimes that seems due to an individual's celebrity, or experience, wealth, or education, business success, or political standing.
   Where does that equality stop?  Are we all "equal before the law"?  Are the votes of each man and each woman to be treated equally?  If not, who decides, and should they be allowed to?
   
   

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2. 83

   tamarawilhiteposted 8 years ago

   If you don't believe that all people are equal in the eyes of the law and have at least equal worth (due to their souls/inherent value as sentients), then you end up with those who have the most power or ability are on top.
   And there are societies that did value people based on their contributions or status. Those societies saw nothing wrong with putting women in second place because men did more valuable work, and they saw nothing wrong with slavery because slaves were too stupid and weak to be free.
   
   This is the horrible possible outcome of social justice hierarchies. It starts with "thou shall not question my narrative, you inferior" and has started to move to segregation of those people for the comfort of those higher up than you to "you have no rights".

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      Ericdierkerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      what strange PC world we walk down when we begin to believe that we are not given special gifts that should be amplified by hard work. Too bad but that guy over there that just wants a hand out is not equal to the worker.

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   2. 83

      tamarawilhiteposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      For the most extreme equality of outcome, see Phillip K Dick's Harrison Bergeron

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3. 50

   bradmasterOCcalposted 8 years ago

   of course we are not created equal. And the Declaration of Independence was really talking about MEN, and didn't include All Men as Black Men were treated as 3/5 of a person. The DOI and the constitution didn't give equality to women or blk men to vote. It took 2 amendments to get it.
   
   We are not born equal, and there are many birth defects that affect being normal. The environment and family that we are born into makes quite a difference.
   
   You have to see the big picture and not just from the view in the US. Take a look at people around the world and then dare to say that All people are created equal.
   
   There isn't even equality among families in the US much less across the community, the county, the state and especially across the country.
   
   The DOI was just that declaring independence from England, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with real Equality. Equality doesn't exist in real life, whether among humans or within the lower forms of life.
   
   The 14th Amendment didn't give black men or women the right to vote.

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4. 67

   WordCrafter09posted 8 years ago

   People often mistake "the same" for "equal'.  They also often miss the part about "CREATED" (and I'm not referring the whole "Creationism" this; I mean the zero-to-born thing, with emphasis on the "born".   And, since "equal" doesn't mean "the same", that goes to the thing that there are babies born with health/medical issues of varying types that will mean one or another child will have something that would separate him from the group of "most other people" who would be considered perfectly healthy and without serious limitations on potential to live a normal life.  BUT, "equal" doesn't mean "without 'issues'" either.
   
   So, with all that said, yes...     every single human being comes into the world equal in terms of "worth" and potential.  Of course a new baby can't offer much to the world beyond his own family for a good number of years, but "worth" or "potential" are not about money or power or any of the other "baloney" that people far too often use when assigning "worth" and "equality" to others (and that includes their own children sometimes, while much of the time people will assign and dole out "worth"  based on all kinds of things at different times and in different situations.
   
   Too many people can't, or won't, sort out all the different things that eventually amount to "inequality", depending on who values what or who decides that whom is not equal.  Too many people also only think of "men" (or human beings) as what they eventually become once they're long past being newborns and, to one extent or another, have moved out beyond that world that starts out as pretty much a tiny and narrow world of the newborn and his mother (and to some extent in some cases, his father).
   
   Historically and in some cultures there have always been, and are even today, those who believe that one brings into the world "unequal genes" that give some people an edge of others.  Better informed people now know better.
   
   The concept of being born/"created" equal seems like one that isn't that hard to understand, and discussing it as if it's debatable seems like a discussion more appropriate for grade-school children.  It shouldn't be a subject that grown-ups stew about or debate - not in a country founded upon that very simple and easy-to-understand concept, anyway.  As far as I know, nobody ever said that everyone would end up "the same" - only that every human baby starts out of equal "value" and potential. It's not a matter of what I believe.  It's what is.

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      bradmasterOCcalposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Sorry, but I think your conception of equal negates its existence as a useful definitive term. Equal also doesn't find its origin in religion, and the normal use of the word equal is in math.
      Your connotation of equal is ambiguous and vague.
      Sorry

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5. 0

   threekeysposted 8 years ago

   This calls for a long comment. But the short version for me at this point in time is-we come into the world with worth and abilities. But the family and the period of history we are born into can make us or break us.

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