The Moral Foundations of the USA & Thomas Jefferson's translation of Volney's Ruins of Empires скачать в хорошем качестве

The Moral Foundations of the USA & Thomas Jefferson's translation of Volney's Ruins of Empires

The opening lines of the #DeclarationofIndependence provide the moral foundation of the government of the United States: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [humans] 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." Everyone knows #ThomasJefferson wrote those lines. And everyone knows the document as a whole has been a source of inspiration for freedom-seeking peoples across the planet ever since. But few people know, not even Jefferson specialists in academia, that Thomas Jefferson also translated Volney's #RuinsofEmpires, a review of human history written by a post-#Enlightenment philosopher. #Volney has a hero of the early days of the #FrenchRevolution: as a deputy in the first National Assembly, he took the Tennis Court Oath. He sat on the committee that wrote the first French constitution. Volney later been a celebrated academic and senator. Volney published his most famous book, Ruins of Empires in 1791. Thomas Jefferson liked the book so much, he anonymously translated it from French into English. Are you worried about where the United States is headed? Are you concerned the #American people have lost touch their core vales, have even forgotten their own revolutionary history? That's exactly why Thomas Jefferson translated Volney's Ruins of Empires. He wanted the American people to understand the Enlightenment-based principles upon which the #UnitedStates was founded. Volney's Ruins is like a bible for rational thinkers. It shows why empires rise and fall. It also provides a solution to the world's enduring religious conflicts. Volney's book is like an extended version of the Declaration of Independence--it's based upon self-evident Natural Law principles that apply to all countries, all cultures, all continents, all centuries. Check out my first long video on the Volney / Jefferson relationship:    • Why did Thomas Jefferson translate Volney'...