Perhaps the slogan of modern secularists (and there really is no such thing...everyone makes something most important and therefore has a religion) could be "everyone is entitled to their own opinion," and the seemingly infinite variety of opinion is why no Christian or Jew could ever be justified in quoting the Word to justify a position of public policy. How can we argue that such a position upends the a founding principle of the Declaration of Independence?
Quote:
How can we say that men's interests generate their opinions when some men, at least, decide what their interests are only after they have decided what those interests ought to be? One of the conspicuous features of the Declaration of Independence is the appeal of its Signers "to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions." Becker would have us believe that they were either deluded or insincere.
Harry Jaffa. A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Kindle Locations 1791-1794). Kindle Edition.
Quote:
Can we not then ask whether some human beings differ in nature from others in such degree or kind as to make their slavery just, whether they consent to it or not?" This at bottom is the question that Carl Becker declares is meaningless, and it is this question we must be prepared to answer.
Harry Jaffa. A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Kindle Locations 1811-1813). Kindle Edition.
Carl Becker declares such questions meaningless because at root, he says, are ulterior motives or interests. If Becker is correct for the majority of people, what difference does it make if a leader like Lincoln believes otherwise?
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