Yet few Americans choose to take the opportunity to learn and understand those defining principles that the Founding Fathers laid forth in that first and all-important document. If contemporary Americans were to simply read the words and follow the principles that reside within Declaration of Independence, the nation as a whole might be philosophically aimed in an entirely different direction...the one for which it was first intended.

The Declaration of Independence was written as a means of accusing the English King of wrongs before the world as a jury.

The basic premise of the Declaration of Independence is that Governments are put in place to serve the needs of the people and ensure that their basic, inalienable, and undeniable natural rights are protected. Taken another way, Governments are here to ensure that an individual can do whatever he or she wishes, as long as it does not infringe on the natural rights of another. This line of thought could have plenty of connotations and applications in today's world. Current event issues such as the legalization of drugs and prostitution would be valid under this theory. In all reality these two illegal acts, no matter how distasteful and immoral, are usually done in private with arguably no immediate effect to the average citizen.

Yet sadly, another of the Declaration's truths has bared its teeth in this day and age. The passage reads, "...all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer...than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Although Jefferson spoke of a different sort of suffering, his observations about the willingness of people to suffer rather than to change what they are accustomed to has proven all to true.

The three basic rights highlighted in the Declaration of Independence have proven to be a cornerstone of American ideology. "...among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Jefferson, although a regretted owner of slaves, was fully aware that these rights would expand as time went on. This is why he chose the phrase "among these." Much as our knowledge of natural phenomena has increased with better instrumentation, so too has our knowledge of what constitutes the basic rights of all individuals. The phenomena have not grown in number, only our knowledge of them has. The same is true with natural rights. The United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides an impressive list that literally dwarfs the triad proposed by Jefferson, and certainly encompasses rights that never would have been conceived in the eighteenth century. And still the U.N.'s Declaration would fall short of the standards of contemporary people today. (Adler 35)

There are literally thousands of laws on record within the United States. So many, it is nearly inconceivable that the average American could possibly know them all, or live out his or her life without breaking at least one of them. Yet we are obviously, as voter turnout suggests and Jefferson wrote, "disposed to suffer." However, Jefferson also warned that this disposition would only reach to a certain point before a people will provide "...new guards for their future security."

Today the nation's student population has taken an all-time low interest in their government. And this trend has recently been increasing dramatically. According to the Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, in 1996 only 32% of 18-24 year olds voted as opposed to 50% in 1972. The per

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Approximate Word count = 1966
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)