Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Brigid but Home on the Range has long been one of my favorite blogs (not counting, you know, anyone who blogs here of course ;>) Besides talking about guns & good shooting & politics & life she often puts up some awesome food pieces, recipes often in the comments.

This is a terrific piece she penned yesterday. Read it all here then maybe, you know, pop over to her joint and sample Ye Olde Bill of Fare.


from Mausers and Muffins:



LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS


The Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The phrase, penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and written 11 years before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, is said to have been influenced by the writings of John Locke, who expressed a similar concept of life, liberty and estate (property) in his work.

What is a Right? It's a principal that defines and sanctions a man's freedom of action within a social framework. There are many rights, but the one true right is the right to life, not in the context of the right to be born, but a man's right to his own life.

What is liberty? Again, I think Jefferson was somewhat influenced by the words of John Locke, who said in The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) -

The natural liberty of man is to be free fromany superior power on earth, and
not to be underthe will or legislative authority of man,but to have only the law
of nature for his rule...freedom of men under government is, to havea standing
rule to live by, common to every oneof that society...and not to be subject to
the inconstant, uncertain, unknown,arbitrary will of another man....

Life and liberty as integral parts to a whole. He goes on to say:

This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power,is so necessary to, and closely
joined with a man’s preservation,that he cannot part with it,but by what
forfeits his preservation and life together:for a man, not having the power of
his own life,cannot, by compact, or his own consent,enslave himself to any
one....

Life and liberty not just intertwined, but binding. Strong words for times that gave us the words of Patrick Henry who uttered “Give me liberty or give me death!”

As to the "Pursuit of Happiness". No where in the words of our founding fathers did it say the "right to happiness". Only that we have the right to pursue our own happiness, to engage in self sustaining activities, to build up a sweat chasing whatever it is that is our dream. We have the freedoms to do what is necessary to support, further, and daily savor our own life; freedom to do so by our own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to our neighbors, a right means that our actions should impose no harm or obligation on them, they are our actions for our lives.

If your dream is to stay home and watch a brand new TV all day that is fine, but that that doesn't mean that I am obligated to buy it for you.

We have the right to liberty, to freedom. I do not personally believe that means that we are free from helping to reasonably support or maintain that which we use, our roads, our parks, our libraries, our schools. That does not mean we are free to shrug off responsibility for elderly parents or those children we bring into the world. But we have the right to expect that our efforts won't be wasted. We have the right not be forced by threat or law to give up our possessions or income or hand over our Second Amendment rights which protects the safety of that family or personal community we do provide for. We should not be forced to take the food off of our table, there from our own toil, to give to a group of people who do not have the desire to produce, only to consume. Given with no measure of accountability that they will not come back to rob our table again.

Live, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Or as John Locke defined it first, the right to property. Not the right to an object, but to the action and reward of producing and earning a product. Our founding fathers did not intend the issue of property to be a guarantee that all will have all they want, but only that if a man will own it if he earns it. It will be his to use, to keep or if he chooses, to give to another to help them in time of need.

We are going into a new administration, one who has stated that we need to change our country to be one where the rich will be made to provide for the poor. "Share the wealth" was not just words in a campaign, but what I perceived as being the culture of the party. But whatever your political leaning, I think we all can agree that there are many things that this country can improve on. But improvement is not, as it has been in the past, having elected officials with blind power to spend the taxpayers money without accountability to where it's gone. Accountability to dispel the concerns that it merely promoted many businesses that promoted said politicians. We need to return to healthy businesses through competition, where those who use sound operating principals, offering quality goods and services that are wanted, thrive and make more jobs and those that don't fail. We don't need handouts to those without plans to do business differently or lifelines to companies by whose greed or ineptitude the whole mess started. There are a myriad of ways the country could be improved. But it can NOT be improved by changing the principals on which our country was founded.

I'm not going to watch the inauguration. I love my country, but don't think I want to watch another 150 million spent in what is proving to be not a solemn rite of passage, but what looks more and more like the confirmation of the divine right of kings. I don't wish to celebrate another day in which I see our country moving further away from that which made it great.

The American Revolution was a revolution of greater note than the battles fought and the words penned. One of the most revolutionary outcomes of the formation of the United States was the subordination of government to moral law, moving away from societies in which the citizens life belonged to those that ruled, and the freedoms he had were only that which the rulers decided by whim he might have that day, or that week. The recognition of man's individual rights by the Constitution limited the force of the power and greed of the states, protecting its citizens from an unwanted collective. The United States was one of the first moral societies in history, all previous governments viewing their citizens as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end to itself. Our founding fathers had taken note. They recognized two threats to a man's possessions, to his rights. One threat is a criminal. The other is a government. The most laudable accomplishment of our government when it was formed was its ability to draw a distinction between those two, thereby not allowing the second to become a sanctioned version of the activities of the first.

The Government of our founding fathers was structured to protect men from criminals and the Constitution was drafted to protect citizens from the government. The Bill of Rights was an explicit declaration that the rights of the individual citizens supersede any public power. We the People is I. And I support the constitution and ALL its amendments, not just the ones you pick and choose.

When our new President takes the oath of office, I hope that he truly hears those words as he speaks them from Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Support those words that gave us a country that worked, that thrived. Preserve. . . Because with all due respect Mr. President, our founding fathers were smarter than we are.