Taylor Lewis writes from Virginia.

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  • May 30, 2021
    A.Wilson

    Our friends who helped to craft a ‘united States’ back in 1776 thought that beyond the ‘powers of the earth,’ there are now laws of nature and nature’s God. We are the United States of America, but we envision other forms of life.

    If we hold truths to be self-evident that all men (and women — all human life forms) are created equal, then maybe it is not too much to think that other created beings may very well have the same relationship to Life-Itself as humans see themselves as having. Maybe that is one definition of United States-ers, or living ‘awoken as created life forms.’ If we are endowed by our Creator with things, we may surmise that ‘others’ are endowed with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness(?).

    Science suggests that life evolves, even now as we think about it. Maybe life forms that are older or even younger have a different endowment. That would be interesting. Would we recognize the next step in homo sapien evolution?

    As United States-ers, we ought to believe that other native Earthians have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness among other things. Can we believe that non-native Earthians do not?

    We are United States-ers by reason of the Declaration and the Constitution. Maybe there are enumerated and adjudicated rights of United States-ers that are not automatically endowed upon non-United States-ers.

    If non-native Earthians are merely economic immigrants, that is not necessarily bad. If their intentions are replacement of human life forms we may want to react with less collegial responses.

    Plato was not a United States-er; but he seems to have thought a lot. Thomas Aquinas was not a United States-er; but he was given to insights on being alive. Neither Protagoras nor Arthur Hazard Dakin were right about ‘man’ as the measure of all things. Descartes was surely putting his foot into ‘it’ when he suggested that ‘cogito’ was the measure of all things.

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  • Jun 14, 2021
    Jacob Duke

    If extraterrestrials arrive on Earth, I’m more concerned about whether they think we have rights.

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