if god gave us those rights, they wouldn't need to be in a document. they would be intrinsic to our nature.

i know this is cynical and people on Hacker News Dot Com hate when i say this, but it will never change the fact that the constitution was authored and approved by men who owned human beings (including at least one man who took the teeth from human beings he owned to put into his own mouth). i don't care how high-minded the ideals may seem. the foundation is as rotten as Washington's teeth.

Because that is not the nature of man. Even angels fall when they forget who they are.

So good men are needed to push back the overwhelming desire to rule as gods over our fellow men.

The big plan of the Revolution was not, in fact, any sort of revolution. It was merely consolidating power the landowning class already had, and not sending a cut back to Britain.

And like, that's fine. America, for better or worse, exists, and we'll never know if history would've been better or worse without us. But please let's let go of this fantastical origin story. We're a country, same as any other, just a bit younger, and already with frankly just as many atrocities under our belt as other countries. We are not unique, apart from we treat our citizenry uniquely poorly relative to other developed nations. If you want me to be proud of this country, I'm amenable to that, but it has to earn that.