Red, White, and Blue

Female images were not allowed 
in print under Taliban Rule

One of my callings is to design our church's bulletin every week, and, it being Independence Day, this Sunday's cover was all about the Declaration of Independence.  Part of the quote I used, from Ezra Taft Benson's talk "Our Priceless Heritage", has been pinging around in my head all week: 

At issue was the fundamental question of whether men’s rights were God-given or whether these rights were to be dispensed by governments to their subjects. This document proclaimed that all men have certain inalienable rights. In other words, these rights came from God. Therefore, the colonists were not rebels against political authority, but a free people only exercising their rights before an offending, usurping power

I've got to admit that a little part of me was thinking this was convenient on the colonist's part.  They make a deal to move to the America's on the Queen's dime, and then when it turns out to be a land filled with opportunities, they give themselves a moral, ethical reason for being able to part ways and basically steal it all. Revisionist history written by the victor.

Then this week I saw James Reeve's Banned.  A photo essay of things happening now in Afghanistan that were banned under Taliban rule.  And all of a sudden I really appreciate the distinction of inalienable rights, and am grateful to those who made it.

(The first James Reeve link leads to the text explanation of the photographs, the second leads to the photo essay itself, and the link on inalienable rights leads to an article from The Hickory Daily Record that talks about how radical the concept of inalienable rights was in 1776.)