"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."
All men are not equal, never have been and probably never will be. So why is that line so famous? Why has it influenced the course of history? Not just in the US. What that sentence, and its effects on history show us, is when people are faced with the Unprovable, they have a choice to sit back, do nothing and accept it OR decide what they want the truth to be. Unsurprisingly its always the latter group that makes change happen. The rest just fall asleep reading Goedel.
No way - it's derived from a conception of rights derived from Reason, God, or both.
What you say sounds like a Postmodern interpretation, even revisionism, of the original intent. What else do you think self-evident meant?
But even worse, you left out the very next part: "endowed by their Creator with Certain unalienable Rights".
No, it is NOT about making change happen, or whatever hijacking of Truth is being attempted here, it's about solidifying a state (as in authority) different than other states created with other underlying principles.
All men are not equal, never have been and probably never will be. So why is that line so famous? Why has it influenced the course of history? Not just in the US. What that sentence, and its effects on history show us, is when people are faced with the Unprovable, they have a choice to sit back, do nothing and accept it OR decide what they want the truth to be. Unsurprisingly its always the latter group that makes change happen. The rest just fall asleep reading Goedel.