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Over at Power Line, Professor Steven Hayward recently asked, "Are We Trapped in a Locke-Box?" It is an important question because most books on the American founders make the claim that the British philosopher John Locke provides the key to the founders' thinking. But does he?

I had used the same image, the image of a Locke-box, in an article of mine. I had written that there is a steady stream of books and articles trying to stuff the founders into a Locke-box, but that into the Locke-box the Founders cannot be made to go. I wrote that the founders were declaring that they were not followers of Locke every time they declared that you and I have unalienable rights. In fact, they were proclaiming that they were un-Lockeans, that it was Locke specifically they had left behind.

> Over at Power Line, Professor Steven Hayward recently asked, "Are We Trapped in a Locke-Box?" It is an important question because most books on the American founders make the claim that the British philosopher John Locke provides the key to the founders' thinking. But does he? > I had used the same image, the image of a Locke-box, in an article of mine. I had written that there is a steady stream of books and articles trying to stuff the founders into a Locke-box, but that into the Locke-box the Founders cannot be made to go. I wrote that the founders were declaring that they were not followers of Locke every time they declared that you and I have unalienable rights. In fact, they were proclaiming that they were un-Lockeans, that it was Locke specifically they had left behind.

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[–] • 0 pt (edited )

That’s a jewish way of looking at it.

The Lockean trio is built on a boiling down to the barest essentials for logic and reason.

Inalienable rights to life, liberty and property are “negative” in nature, meaning they are not to be abridged, once acquired, by force or fraud. They are supplied in nature and are the results of one’s efforts.

Each represents three states of time. Life is the present, current existence. Liberty is the future, freedom to animate and change your current state. Property is the past, material goods collected through previous undertakings of life and liberty