Starvin Larry

“This is true despite claims to the contrary by some on both the left and right.
ILYA SOMIN | 7.4.2023 10:00 AM





The connection between individual liberty and the principles of the Declaration of Independence should be obvious. After all, the most famous passage in the Declaration states that all men have the rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” But, in recent years, it has become common in some circles on both right and left to argue that the Declaration and the American Revolution were really about collective self-determination by a community.

For right-wing nationalists, this position enables them to assimilate the American experience to standard nationalist narratives under which governments exist primarily to advance the interests of a specific racial, ethnic, or cultural group. For left-wing critics of the Declaration and Revolution, such as legal scholar Kermit Roosevelt (see also here), it allows them to highlight the slavery and racial inequality of early America and claim that our real Founding did not come until the abolition of slavery during and after the Civil War (if even then).

Such attempts to reinterpret the Revolution as being about collective rights is off-base. As already noted, the Declaration emphasizes that the protection of individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the main purpose of government. That’s about as far from communitarian collectivism as you can get! To the extent collective self-determination matters, it is only in so far as it helps protect individual liberty and happiness.

Moreover, the Declaration does not claim that ethnic, racial, cultural or any other kinds of groups have any inherent collective rights to self-determination. Rather, it indicates the secession and revolution are justified only when the “Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends” (referring to the previously mentioned individual rights). And even then, overthrowing the government is only defensible in response to “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” Complaints about “light and transient” causes —or mere belief that a new government would fit the society’s character better—are not enough.”

Read more @

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/07/04/the-declaration-of-independence-promotes-individual-liberty-more-than-collective-self-determination/