Life and liberty

Jefferson claimed that “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” But this “us” is a very narrow slice of the human race. As Rosenstock-Huessy says, “The obvious weakness of the new-born child, of the old man, of the dependent servant, of the ill or weak-minded man, the bondage of irrational loyalties, even the slow growth of man into independence, contradict Jefferson’s idea that life and liberty were ‘simultaneously’ given to man.”

In the light of this, the claim that life and liberty are simultaneous begins to look like an inhuman doctrine: What are we to say about the citizenship, or the humanity, of the weak and dependent?