1 – He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Declaration of Sentiments , 1848
The vote! The vote! The vote! Why, good gob-bejesuz, this is the epitome of oppression! It’s such an important facet of freedom and western culture that in the last several federal elections here in Canada, for example, around 40% of the eligible population has chosen not to participate in voting… and guess what, their lives are just as secure and satisfying as those who actually did vote. As well, refugees, landed immigrants and those under the age of majority were not permitted to vote, and low and behold, their rights are still magically protected under the documents our nation has furnished to protect inalienable rights, of which voting has certainly never been one.
That modern society has little idea of “inalienable rights” is one thing, as our basic rights and our original systems of government have been brainwashed out of us by the removal of civics classes in our schools. However, for Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an influential and presumably educated woman in the day of 1848, to make such a boldly false statement about the “inalienable right to the elective franchise,” there is simply no excuse and she must be characterized as a willful charlatan. She starts as a fraud and finishes as a fraud with her female screed. She was the daughter of was a federalist attorney who later served a term as a congressman, and eventually went on to be a circuit court judge and ultimately was appointed as a New York Supreme Justice. If anyone had an insight into the workings of the social justice systems of the day, it was certainly Elizabeth Cady Stanton, rather than the schlub males who were pounding spikes into the trans-continental railroads of the day… and who according to Canton’s outrageous screed, lived a privileged life compared to the miserable existence she managed to wrench out as a poor woman suffering the fate of being born to a congressman and supreme court justice.
And, as per the vote, just the other day I was reading about the history of my province of British Columbia. In the 1850’s, Vancouver Island was a crown colony of Britain, while the vast mainland area of the present day province was a hinterland populated only by around 100 white people, of whom virtually all were employees, or families of employees, of the Hudson Bay Company and who inhabited various fur-trading posts throughout the region. The crown colony of Vancouver Island was the first place in BC to be colonized and, the first to receive a form of government… and back then in the 1850’s, a scant two years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, the only people who could vote in the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island were those who owned over 25 acres of land, of which very few people qualified for. The vast majority of people had absolutely no vote at all… but low and behold, just because they couldn’t vote, did not mean they no longer had their “inalienable rights.” Of course they did! The idea of “inalienable rights” is that nobody can take them away from you, not even if the majority of voters decide to vote your rights away! That’s kinda the point of them being called “inalienable.” Not the government, not the king, not the pope, and not even the majority of voters, can take away your inalienable rights. That is sorta the meaning of the term, after all. What did you think it meant?
In fact, one of the facets of free nations is always the declaration somewhere in the beginning of their founding articles/constitutions that the people’s rights are endowed to them by The Creator. The reason why our rights are granted to us by The Creator is not because of our past as a civilization being based upon Christianity, but rather, because “The Creator” is out of the reach of man, and what the Creator gives (in this case, our rights), only the Creator can take away.
Here is the difference between the constitutions of the United States and the United Nations, which is based on an almost direct knock-off of the old constitution of the Soviet Union:
"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 Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men..." -- United States Declaration of Independence
versus
“The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize that, in the enjoyment of those rights provided by the state ... the State may subject such rights only to such limitations as are determined by law." -- Article Four of the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
And on a slight side-note, to address the usual arguments that arise when simple secular-based arguments try to defend Christianity continuing to exist in our society: All atheist protestations and flagrant insults about the “flying spaghetti monster” aside, I can think of nothing that proves the illogic of atheists more than the instant insulting they resort to at the mention of the word God, or Creator, or Christianity, or religion. If they really don’t believe in God, but understood the mechanics of the constitutions of free nations, they would be overjoyed that our rights are given to us by God/The Creator, as since he does not exist in their minds, there is 0% possibility that someone will try to take away their rights! Christians, however, believing in God, must also believe that it is possible for their rights to be taken away by God. The logical conclusion would be that atheists should be more comfortable with their rights coming The Creator than Christians. However, they are not. They are downright insulted about it. And yet, not a mention of replacing “The Creator” with another fictional character of their minds, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny being the one who grants us our rights instead. Nope. They downright demand to be Soviet Suckholes, and insist only some other human being should have the power to decide whether they have the right to enjoy Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness. Maybe you too want your neighbours to have a say in your pursuit Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness, but not me. I’d choose the Easter Bunny or even a flying spaghetti monster in a heartbeat over my neighbours Marcy and Jefferson D’Arcy.
Why wouldn’t you?
But regardless, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was simply another bold-faced feminist liar when she tried to claim, in her opening point, that men have never permitted her to have the inalienable right to the elective franchise. Voting was never a right – let alone an inalienable one. And nowhere in the founding articles of Canada, the USA, Britain, and presumably Australia and New Zealand (as they are based on the same system as the rest) will you find a declaration of the inalienable right to vote. You can see this quite readily even today in the rights children possess. A child has the right to many things – like freedom of association, freedom of speech, the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness and so forth… but they do not have the inalienable right to the vote. They are restricted from it because of their age. Plain and simple, it is not an inalienable right, and anyone claiming it is, is either a doofus or is trying to be subversive. Neither camp deserves the privilege of voting, and good on the original founders for trying to prevent them from screwing us over with it, which is the inevitable result of universal democracy.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was liar.
Plain and simple.
And she has no excuses. All she had to do was ask her father, an expert in government and the law. She was no Laura Ingalls Wilder living in the Little House on the Prairie (who, btw, seemed to understand the nature of government and society, despite her impoverished upbringing). No, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the most privileged women in the US of A, who likely had mounds of access to top quality libraries as well as the ear of various extremely powerful men in society to guide her along. She had no excuses to lie or embellish, and yet she blatantly did.
That lying bitch.
But, she was a suffragette!
How noble she was for being that.
May God have burned her soul.
Thrice!
