Argumentation strategies and techniques in essay writing

¶ … government has and always will be a tricky sort of business associated almost exclusively with great men of great influence and of great minds. Historically speaking these are often men who can take the best of the ideas of others and compile them to build a case for the goal, a state of peace in a controlled community of men.

Hole 38) When most people think of the Declaration of Independence the ideas that come to mind are simple, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are essential and pervasive aspects of the choice to create government. In fact they are for most people the only readily memorable messages in the whole of the document. Yet, the question must be asked, are these "rights" absolute and the answer would most assuredly be, no. Some examples of this assertion that these rights are not absolute include criminal infringement, such as violence against another, thievery and of course examples of how one person's pursuit can infringe upon the rights of many in cases of eminent domain where the government is given the right to size the property of an individual, with due compensation if such property would better serve the public.

Mace argues that the state of nature, i.e. A community outside of government is only a delightful place for all to pursue life liberty and happiness if all live within reason. Yet all do not live within reason and seek to infringe upon the rights of others for their own pursuit and in fact impose a state of war on the state of nature.

Mace 16) it is for this reason that Mace and many others, Lock and Hobbes included give for why people enter into a contract with a collective government. The government mediates where the rights of others are infringed upon and in a sense makes these rights anything but absolute. Additionally, the community has the right to depose a government that is no longer seeking to support or protect the pursuit of individual rights and freedoms within reason. It can therefore be said that those who govern have thus lost their rights to pursue life, liberty and happiness as in many cases such loss of right to rule also ended in the loss of life, another example of the nonabsolute nature of the rights of the declaration.

Hole 38)

If individuals live outside of reason and infringe upon the rights of others, by say steeling from them or even physically harming them then it is said that they have infringed upon these rights and in most cases have relinquished their rights to the pursuit of life, health and happiness, another assertion that these rights are not absolute. They have limits within reason and they are relinquished when used to infringe upon others. Along these lines Eidelberg stresses that man to have been granted these rights must possess certain special qualities;

Surely a being thus endowed must be potentially capable of governing himself without impairing the unalienable rights of others. Presumably, such a being would have the capacity to distinguish between his immediate wants and his long-range interests. He would have to understand how the pursuit of his own interests may affect the well-being of others, and how the wants and interests of others may affect his own... If he is to show "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," he would have to address the reason rather than the passions of mankind, which means he would have to defend his own claims by reasoning.

Eidelberg 9)

Reason is therefore a requirement for the retention of these rights. If a person is not possessed of reason to control his own actions and to think of how his actions will affect another he is not granted or deserving of such rights, yet again they are not absolute.