I hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are not created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with different qualities, that one is strong and the other feeble, one is wise and the other fool, one is good and the other evil. That the Laws of Nature and of Nature´s God don´t confer them equal powers to secure for themselves Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That the likeness of one man to the next, brethren though they be, resembles that of Heracles and Iphicles, who born from the same womb were fated to such distant ends.
I hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are not born equal, for some are high born and others delivered into misery. That before birth, fortune determines the station of man, who but by a mighty struggle may remove himself from the constrains of his assigned destiny. That he who is born into riches shall enjoy pleasures denied to the humble. That whilst some endeavour to attain honour, power and glory, others content themselves with tiling for the daily sustenance.
I hold this truth to be self-evident, that no unalienable Rights are observed that can not be removed. That all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to cause insufferable evils than to right themselves abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. That a long train of abuses and injuries, pursuing invariable the same Object evinces a design to reduce the people under absolute Despotism, whenever and wherever it may be.
That the Governments, which derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are instituted among Men to guarantee their Safety and Happiness, betray their duty becoming destructive to these ends and impose themselves by force on their own citizens. That rather than serving the people, they establish tyrannies, abolish the liberties, ally with the mighty in the name of the freedom of markets and act against the frail they ought to protect.
I hold this truth to be self-evident, that when the people, in use of the sovereignty which is their own, have given themselves governments following democratic principles, they have elected representatives among themselves to rule them; and that as soon as these rulers have seen their power to inflict abuses and injuries on the people, they have forgotten their origin and duty, affecting the manners of tyrants whose birth impelled them to stand above the people, thereby rendering themselves unfit to be the rulers of a free people.
I hold this truth to be self-evident, that whenever the people have invoked their right, their duty, to throw off a despotic government and provide new Guards for their security, when they have resorted to a revolution to establish a new Government which lays its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such a form that it procures the Rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, new masters have taken hold, who in name of that same revolution have redoubled the servitude.
That in the name of revolution they have destroyed the life with guillotines, with muskets, and through the causation of famines and death they have provoked the decimation of mankind.
That in the name of revolution they have suspended the Liberty, and enslaved the citizens in gulags and concentration camps. That they have built walls that divide cities and separate families, turned the people into the informers of their brethren and waged wars where men die in the perfidious endeavour to enslave their neighbour.
That in the name of revolution they have persecuted the pursuit of Happiness, established regimes of terror, impoverished the lands and spread the horror of despotism.
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Equality and the rights proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence of the United States are not a starting point, but one of arrival. Perhaps they are just a reference towards which to tend asymptotically, getting progressively closer without ever getting there. The governments and the revolutions whose function is to make these values effective all too easily reproduce tyrannical models. They require a constant watch by a politically active people. We will only advance towards equality and the rights that dignify people if we make an active effort, having previously recognized that we start from a situation of inequality and injustice which makes the effort necessary.
If we take equality and the rights for granted, thinking that they are self-evident and are going to hold themselves on their own, while we enjoy bread and circus, tyranny will come about.
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