found online by Raymond
From nojo at Stinque:
They’re fine ideals, after all. They continue to inspire. Our cynicism arises from not living up to them.
And hey, we did fight a war over them. A revolutionary war.
What was that about?
The crux of the matter was not Life Liberty Etc., but despotism, rule by an unaccountable power. That is where we find the phrase that resonates most today, the “consent of the governed”, from which, and only which, a legitimate government derives its authority. Absent that consent, living under a government that is “destructive” of that consent, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”.
And here we are.