[thegrimmest]

The document does not give any rights to anyone. It is a piece of paper. What it does is describe an idea. The idea is that there are certain unalienable rights. You may disagree with that idea, but you cannot deny its existence.

> many of its signers were holding slaves

I can separate the idea from the people that held it. Can't you? I think this idea of liberty was a very good idea, and I support the expansion of those who qualify to be as free as described. What I'm arguing against is the erosion of the definition. We are not nearly as free now as free people were when the document was written. We are subject to much more authority.

It seems as though in your view, anything "society" does is legitimate, is that so?

[sausagefeet]

My claim, this entire time, is that the reality is that you, as an individual, have no rights to consent or volunteer beyond what society bestows upon you. Your usage of documents from the founding of the United States of America, if anything, entirely support my argument. The Declaration of Independence might talk about equality but the reality is that blacks and women were not equal. It took society choosing to give them rights for them to receive them. That's not an idea, that's the reality. Whether or not you like it or not or think it's a good idea doesn't get in the way of that is what reality is.

> We are not nearly as free now as free people were when the document was written. We are subject to much more authority.

Tell this to a slave in 1776.

> It seems as though in your view, anything "society" does is legitimate, is that so?

No, "legitimate" is a judgement, I'm saying that what society does is what society does and there is no philosophy or higher abstraction defining it. It's just reality. I think if society is functioning in a way we disagree with, our only option is to try to convince enough people to change it. We can use language that tries to define philosophies around consent and individual rights in order to be persuasive but if society doesn't agree then you don't get those things, even if you really think that's how it should work.