"We believe these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that their Creator has endowed them with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These are the only things that Jefferson claims are self-evident. In other words, without any evidence to the contrary, we must assume that people are equal and have certain unalienable rights. This does not mean that no one has ever tried to prove that people are not really equal or that they do not deserve certain rights. It means only that human experience has shown that there is no good reason for such attempts to succeed. People have always tried to show that slaves are not truly equal to their owners. The argument has always been that slavery is immoral and should not be allowed. However, as long as most people agree that slavery is wrong, then it cannot be admitted into our system of government. Similarly, many have tried to prove that humans do not really possess unlimited power over their environment. The idea here is that since people can be controlled by drugs, alcohol, abuse, etc., then they could be made to stop controlling the Earth's resources. However, like slavery, this argument fails because it is based on the assumption that people are evil and should not be trusted with freedom.