We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Beautiful.

Arguably the grandest lie in the history of government.

I know: you’re saying to yourself, “Lie?! What’s he talking about?” and probably calling me names into the bargain. Just wait for it.

No two things in all of Creation are created equal, not two ants in an anthill or two leaves on a tree— Yes, yes, I know. “Equal Under The Law”. Let me FINISH. —and certainly no two humans. We are grand, complex, idiotic, ridiculous miracles who en masse behave predictably and can be easily manipulated by something as simple as the color of a detergent bottle… but individually, humans will surprise you every. single. time.

In that sense, thank God we WEREN’T created equal. Where would we be without our Da Vincis, our Mozarts, our Einsteins — even Florida Man adds to our great and wonderful variety.

But when this was written, the concept that people were equal was blasphemy. The statement was read as, and intended to be read as, that someone born a Duke or a King was no more able, no more virtuous, and no more worthy than the next guy. Certainly even the signers would have boggled at the idea that women were equal, or those born into slavery. Given the way Jefferson’s mind worked, I’m certain he intended just that as a challenge to future generations as well as a secret joke on every pompous self-important windbag in the room. The man had a wicked sense of humor.

Jefferson aside, though, it’s a statement about social class and equality of value.

Which is WHY, in this country, we’re all considered equal under the law. It’s not just a mystic formula that you utter whenever someone challenges the words of the Declaration; it’s a logical sequence of precision reasoning that leads one, inexorably, inevitably, to form the conclusion that no law can be just that either punishes or protects unequally. No one is immune from prosecution merely because they were born a Baron.

This was a lie, though. It was a lie because it wasn’t true. The signers themselves didn’t believe it — women and slavery, remember? Yes, it was a gage cast in the teeth of the nobility of England, but it was also a ridiculous statement on its face.

But by telling that lie, by stating it and affirming it and by pledging to it their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, and by building on that lie for decades and then generations, they made it into the new truth.

We are now a nation in which no one is born better than any other.

Long may that continue.