Someone can spend a lot of time thinking about what a writer
had in mind when they read their writings hundreds of years later and some of
those writings are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the
United States. If you read it carefully you
can almost hear time slow down and as it does you can see that in 1776 they had
no idea what they were building. Did
these men really think that it was OK to have other people as slaves? They did and not only that but it was a “rich
man’s” right to have slaves from where they came from in Europe.
See, in England things have their place so not everyone was
called ‘My Lord’ there was an order to things.
So these men in colonial 1776 wanted to be their own Masters of their
lives and have what the “rich” or royalty had back home in places like
England. So the whole “…all men are
created equal…” really is pointing to a specific group of people. It excluded Women, Blacks, Native Americans, well
basically everyone except for White men, but not all White men were included
either take the Irish for example. The
Irish have always been looked down upon by the English so no Englishman would
dare rate himself as an equal with an Irishman so again it really was pointing
to a small group of specific men of that time in 1776. For the most part the Declaration is one big
flip off to King George of England and not some God enlighten act to show
humanity.
So what would these men say if they were brought into
2013? They would all most likely try to
take over and establish some sort of martial law so that they could “fix”
things and we would most likely see every advancement in civil rights and human
rights be violated and thrown away. I
say that because I believe these men of 1776 had no intention of ever letting
Women and “others” advance past them because they obviously thought themselves
to be superior above all others.
So here’s a question: if the writer of a founding document
felt himself to be superior to others can that same document be the fundamental
basis of rights for those “others” the writer felt superior over?
I believe it cannot.
I say that with all certainty based on this one example; if
a slave ran on his “master” in 1776 NOT one of those men that signed the
Declaration of Independence would have hesitated to lynch that salve for doing
so. I ask again, can these founding
documents be the basis of rights for all in the USA?
So what does this mean when we want to talk about gun control
and violence in our country?
We cannot ignore that the basis of this country is
established on uneven ground and since a lot of these politicians like to throw
the Bible into their actions I’ll do the same here Matthew 7:24-27 where Jesus
talks about having a home built on a rock and those that have it built on sand
and I do believe that this country’s foundation is on one big sand lot.
Yesterday a new PAC opened up by the name of Americans for responsible solutions started by U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her
husband astronaut and US Navy Captain Mark Kelly. They will be the opposing force to the
powerful gun lobby of the NRA and though I think the subject is being
whitewashed with lots of reactionary emotions I believe they are missing the
point of why we have certain “rights” and why we don’t have a better grasp on the
"why ‘s" of violence. It’s not about the
amount of guns in the country it’s about the demand for violence in our country
fueled by anger, mistrust, and hate. But
we need to attack things on different fronts and I truly hope that they are
successful in accomplishing their objectives.
In the meantime how does this change anything on the corner
of 63rd and King Drive? Or in North Lawndale on the West side? In
Pilsen? I guess it doesn’t until something tragic like Newton happens in these
communities…but then again some people might just think we deserved it.
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
