Are you planning your own revolution? Maybe you and your friends want to succeed from your local city council? Or your math class doesn't want to do logarithms? Or you're tired of taking out the garbage and you want your dad to relent and let your little brother do it instead? Whatever you want to change you're going to need a statement of purpose. Some document that spells out your grievances, what you hope to achieve by your revolt and what are the principles you want your new government or agreement to abide by. You will also need to understand from the beginning how enduring you want your document to be. The revolt over logarithms might only need to last for one semester, that is through the life of your immediate class. The revolt over trash will only need to last until you are of legal age and can move out of your parents house. The revolt from your city council is probably going to be more enduring. The point: If you don't give your document sufficiently enduring language it won't be sufficient to cover the period of time you envision for your revolt.
Language is important and the type of language we use makes all the difference. The least enduring language is emotional language. Bursting out in a fit of exasperation that you are "tired of taking out the trash every night" may get you a reprieve for that one night, but it probably won't change the situation for any following nights and may get you disciplined. However, a reasoned argument using language alluding to your growth as a more responsible person who desires, and is willing to take on, greater responsibilities and suggesting that your younger brother is getting stronger and could benefit from learning responsibility through the task of taking out the garbage nightly would likely have more influence on your father's decision. (It would probably also be more along the lines of what he was already thinking.) It would also be more enduring because the next time the trash wasn't taken out your little brother would be called to task. This is because all parties know the purpose for the revolution and change was to remove that task from your list of responsibilities and give it to your little brother. He is the one that is now to be held accountable.
We can all agree that a revolt over taking out the garbage is not as important as changing our form of government. But language plays the same role in either situation. There is no doubt that the emotions felt over a bad form of government are going to be stronger and more highly charged than emotions regarding the task of taking out the trash. But it is no less important for a reasonable, well developed argument to sustain the more serious revolt than to sustain a less serious one. The revolt to change a government is a drastic measure and in most cases very emotional language is needed to get the revolt going. Paul Revere riding through the New England countryside crying, "The British are coming, the British are coming," stirred American patriots to immediate action to protect their arms and for that moment they needed all the adrenaline they could muster to take on British regulars. However when the going gets really tough and men are staring defeat in the face they need something with a greater foundation and more intellectually sound than their emotions to keep them fighting on.
The men who founded the United States of America and wrote its declaration of independence and its constitution were aware of just how serious their undertaking was. They knew that men had gone to war for money or land or women in the past. But they wanted to found their nation on something more enduring and more profound. They had talked about and written about something called inalienable rights. (Most of them were active members in their local churches.) Webster'd defines inalienable rights as " incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred." They are rights that are impossible to take away or give up. Such rights, however, which cannot be taken away or given up, are not endowed on us by mere men. The men who forged this country were aware of this. And this is precisely where Ben Affleck has come up short.
On a recent televised debate between Ben Affleck and Bill Maher on the Muslim faith and whether it is a worthwhile religion (see: http://youtu.be/vln9D81eO60 ) Afllect blurted out the ascertian, "We are endowed by our Cre - forefathers with inalienable rights, all men are created equal." Affleck started to say "Creator" but changed it to forefathers. I am not sure why he was afraid to say creator, when a moment later when he finishes with "created equal." If you are going to use the word created in a sentence then it is a good idea to use the word Creator as well. Whatever the reason Affleck does not understand what the founders of our nation did. When appealing to inalienable rights you have to refer to something more constant than human beings, who are here today and gone tomorrow. Aren't you glad that Jefferson, Franklin and Adams, the writers of the declaration and the men who signed it did not endow us with rights that could be taken away, but appealed to a Creator, who has always existed and always will, and who the Bible says never changes, as the one who endows. What seems to have been lost on Afflect was that if our founding fathers could endow us with rights, another man, such as Bill Maher perhaps, could take them from us. If Affleck had continued with his initial thought and used the word creator, as the founding fathers did, his argument would have had more force. But because he did not, his argument was limp and weak.
So if you plan a revolution any time soon I recommend that you give Affleck a pass for the one to write your declaration of independence.
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