What are some of the limitations of the Declaration of Independence the Declaration of Independence?

Answer 1

Not sure what you mean by limits. The Declaration declared we all have unalienable rights that cannot be taken away by government. But, those rights must be respected and you cannot interfere with the rights of others. The Declaration also says that when a government becomes destructive of the rights of the citizens, they have the right to revolt. But, it also states that governments "long established" should not be over thrown for simple causes but to work within the system to change what is wrong.

Answer 2

First of all, and with haste, let's trash this notion that the Declaration itself is any kind of sacred work. It is the work of men. Intelligent, thoughtful, powerful men. It may be the case, as a teacher of mine says of many historical texts, that it contains more and deeper truths than the writers intended or were even aware of. And yet, even if we overlook the genocide of the Native Americans and the enslavement of black Africans and the oppression of women (which we most certainly should not), is it really true that "All men [humans] are created equal"? This line is one of the most oft-quoted, and revered, of all the many words in the Declaration. And yet the claim suffers from a fundamental and irreconcilable flaw: it is simply not true. We are not all created equal. We are all created different. And that is a good thing.

And yes, I am aware that the interpretation most people use here is equality 'under the law', or in the eyes of God, or some such thing. But the wording is unambiguous:

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 'men' are endowed 'by their Creator' with 'unalienable rights' seems to me a separate issue from being 'created equal'. For why even bother including that phrase? Why wouldn't it have been enough to say that "all men are equally endowed by their Creator, etc."? And regardless of the context in which you choose to interpret the word 'equal', its presence is significant. The idea of the equality of men (with exceptions, of course) is used as justification for separation from Mother England. The whole document is not much more than eloquent Propaganda, especially the further you read on. There is little 'reality-based' content in the Declaration, so why should the first few paragraphs be judged any differently?

In fact, I argue that the very idea of 'equality' between or amongst people, in whatever form, and its imagined possibility, can be judged not only as a potential (but never realized) source of noble lawmaking and good governance, but also of an actual pathological relationship to self and others.

Let me explain.

In our experience, are there really any two, or three, or forty things that are really equal? While industrial production has refined its methods to the point where, for all intents and purposes, nearly all of its non-defective products seem to us to be 'equal', on a microscopic level they would indeed look quite different. Even the billions of grains of sand on a beach, all seemingly the same, are not 'equal' to one another. Same for chicken eggs, which are for many humans the epitome of uniformity in nature.