[black4eternity]

GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED

The majority do not care, as they believe that they have nothing to hide. They do not realize that this will strike at our very core of being human.

Would I be comfortable talking with my friend in person at my home when I know that our XBOX One, Phones, Google Glasses are all 'listening' to us.

And something I tell my friend in a private conversation might send me to prison ?

[ewanmcteagle]

This quote changes the meaning. It says that to secure inalienable rights, governments are instituted among men and to do that those governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. It is not consent of the governed in the sense of everything should be decided by voting. According to this document government exists to secure basic rights. The people who wrote this were wary of democracy. They certainly didn't believe that it solved the problems of tyranny. Another man once wrote: 'There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary…it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary.'