Declaration Made Huge Assumptions

I resent being told in the Declaration of Independence, the basis for our Constitution and law, that I am free to seek "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."  What does that really say to me?  It says "Hello, Richard.  You can be alive, and you can do whatever you want, so be happy!  Shut up and quit whining!  Only I, your government, has the right to define the limits of your life and liberty, and you had better be happy with your lot!"  Geez, somebody thinks highly of himself.

Seemingly, the Founding Fathers did not even consider the possibility that someone would pursue sadness.  "No," they thought, "Surely a man will seek to do that which pleases him for his desires are definitively his key to happiness."  I object.  Pursuing happiness can easily be seen as selfish and uncaring.  When the Declaration says "life liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," people are essentially told they must be happy, and that this is every bit as important as preserving their life and liberty.  What of a man who, by choice or religion or some other impetus, lives for the purpose of serving others to the emotional detriment of himself?  What if he just thinks that happiness is weak, and that he must be stalwart in his glum, boring existence?  This may not seem likely, particularly to those of self-serving and indulgent interests, but this is that land set apart for those with ideas contrary to the majority!  These who embrace the ideal of free mind and existence are branded as un-American because they do not pursue happiness!  Is it the government's business to determine that they must be happy?  Evidently, no council of rich ideologues in Philadelphia could tolerate such lifestyles.  They saw it as each American’s duty to take what he can and hungrily devour that which he desires.

            The statement is likewise contradictory and indicts the nation itself. All men are free, but not from their neighbors, whose right to happiness decrees that their trespasses are allowed.  All men are free to curtail each other's freedom, because they must do so to find fulfillment.  Necessarily, either happiness or liberty must be protected.  Happiness, also, cannot be achieved fully by all people, because our desires are in conflict with those of everyone else, and the happiness of one man will come at the price of another man's happiness.  For instance, Thomas Jefferson held dear the agricultural roots of the nation, but others saw the benefits of industrialization as a better goal.  These two desires cannot both be fulfilled.  Now some say that because the only guarantee is the pursuit of happiness, my problem is solved because each man can pursue happiness without each achieving it.  This, however, means that the "pursuit of Happiness" is just talk, rhetoric meant to make it sound like this is a happy place with no troubles where everyone is happy.  In reality, however, you can just try and hope for the best here, like everywhere else.  Basically, that's false advertising.

            There you have it.  The "pursuit of Happiness", a.k.a., the opiate of the masses.  It sounds nice and happy, but is impractical and condescending.  It laughs at we pitiful subjects and tells us that we can all be happy.  Some "unalienable right".

-Richard Wilde

(Take with 3 tablespoons of salt)