【VOA常速听力】Celebrating Unalienable Rights on the Fourt

The United States declared independence from Great Britain in 1776 to secure for all Americans their unalienable rights. These rights include, but are not limited to, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."Thomas Jefferson, chief author of the Declaration of Independence, by using the word "unalienable," claimed two things about our human rights. First, these rights are not given to us by the government. We have them even if the government does not respect them. Second, we cannot cede these rights to the government even by our own consent. They cannot be taken away from us, and we cannot give them away.Mr. Jefferson was careful to define our rights in this way because this definition justified a declaration of independence from Great Britain. Revolt, he argued, was lawful only if, "after a long train of abuses and usurpations," a government continued to refuse to res ………………………………