Contextualize Foundations

Here is an example of a rebuttal letter.

Most of the letters against the Hawk Eye’s columnist Mike Sweet are generated from cognitive dissonance of either nationalistic zeal or dogmatic belief structures. Dan Ashton’s letter, “No foundations,” is but one of many examples. He laments Mr. Sweet’s alleged comment from a column in his letter saying, “it is time to bring the Constitution out of the 18th century.”

Mr. Ashton cites the concept from the Declaration of Independence, “all men being created equal,” with no comprehension of these words as written in context to their era. He stipulates that Mr. Sweet’s “non-foundational” opinions mean one could dismiss the Emancipation Proclamation and the Bible as words of historical and absolute truths (in spite of historical implications that the New Testament was written after the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century as a secular, political tool, to unite the Roman empire; not to mention, his holy tome of absolute truth actually endorses slavery.)

While scholars do believe and letters of Thomas Jefferson’s, who owned over 200 slaves, indicated he believed all men were created equal and that this was specifically written as a reference against slavery. There is no indication I know of showing Mr. Jefferson believed women were created equal in the eyes of a creator or the law.

The 18th century context of the times held that only white, property owning males were the equals of which the constitution speaks. Remember that representation in the House at this time counted slaves as two-thirds of a person in allocating states representation. Frederick Douglass, a role model for Martin Luther King Jr., in his Rochester speech proclaimed, "Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?"

Not only does the Constitution need to be brought out of the 18th century but people need to understand absolute truth is foreshadowed within the contextual background of cultural and societal norms and mores of historical eras.

Be it decreed from Mount Olympus, Thor, Isis’s Temple, Bastet or any of the Abrahamic Traditions, truisms are a collective reflection of our species temporal paradigms.