Lest We Forget - Part 4
1847 - The Communist Confession of Faith
For the original document, click here.
What is the aim of the Communists?
To organize society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom.
How do you wish to achieve this aim?
By the elimination of private property and its replacement by community of property.
On what do you base your community of property?
On the fact that in the consciousness or feeling of every individual there exist certain irrefutable basic principles which, being the result of the whole of historical development, require no proof.
What are such principles?
For example, every individual strives to be happy. The happiness of the individual is inseparable from the happiness of all, etc.
How will you do this?
I. By limiting private property in such a way that it gradually prepares the way for its transformation into social property, e. g., by progressive taxation, limitation of the right of inheritance in favor of the state, etc.
II. By employing workers in national workshops and factories and on national estates.
III. By educating all children at the expense of the state.
Do Communists reject existing religions?
All religions which have existed hitherto were expressions of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is that stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and supersedes them.
1690 - "The Second Treatise of Government" by John Locke
For the original document, click here.
87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves.
1776 - The Declaration of Independence
For the original document, click here.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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.