The Declaration of Independence declares that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights accruing to every human. How do we know they are? It’s self evident says the Declaration. It’s a bold assertion hinted at by Enlightenment philosophers but never before stated in such a powerfully concise way. However, it leaves unanswered what life, liberty and happiness mean. For the purpose of this brief piece I want to focus on happiness because life and liberty are elements of it.
Popular usage suggests that happiness is experienced either as a joyful or elated feeling or maybe a state of deep well satiated contentment. Both are moments that quickly pass. Neither is the kind of happiness intended by the Declaration. Its happiness is a condition of life in which one’s basic needs are adequately met, insecurity is minimized, and opportunities to fulfill ambitions are present and available. It is not an unalienable right to have that kind of happiness, it’s only a right to pursue. Measures of individual happiness can be had but only when the happiness, or common good, of whole communities are also ends to be pursued.
The Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments define and establish in law the conditions the state must guarantee for happiness to be pursued, life lived in reasonable security, and liberties protected. It’s guaranteed not always honored yet always pursued – like happiness. The short list includes the right of:
- Free Speech
- Freedom from unwarranted searches
- Speedy trials by a jury of peers
- Freedom to practice the religion of one’s choice, or none
- Free Press
- Freedom from bonds of slavery
- Full citizenship for all persons previously denied it
- Freedom to vote in every election
Each contributes to conditions for unalienable and self evident rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be given a chance for an adequate level of success.
The United States is not the only country with similar constitutional rights. Many of the most autocratic countries do also, but it is only in stable democracies where they become the enforced law of the land and a significant part of the national ethos. Surrendering democracy to autocracy always and everywhere ends with political, civil and human rights defined as the exclusive Provenance of the ruling autocrat. It’s distressing, therefore, to learn how many Americans prefer a publicly self proclaimed autocrat like Trump who promises wondrous prosperity he never delivered before and cannot deliver in the future. The plans he has personally voiced out loud would reduce the United States to an isolated, belligerent, second rate dictatorship in which political opponents would be rounded up and imprisoned. He is openly contemptuous of working class and rural Americans while claiming to “be their retribution.” I wonder if his true believers think that with him in power they will be whisked from the lower tiers of society to the very top from where undesirables and the undeserving could be kept in their places.
True America’s democracy may not be the best one. After all, it’s fragmented, messy, saddled with oddities like the Electoral College, and is often more of a Semi-United States than a fully united one. It needs reform. Our health care system is the most expensive and least efficient of all advanced nations. Post secondary education does not have to be so expensive. Declining life spans and increasing infant mortality are inexcusable. Border and immigration reforms are held in check by a Congress that would rather use them as political weapons than reform them.
These are not insoluble problems. The nation has faced worse and come through stronger than ever to resume its place as a leader among nations and to be a beacon of hope. It can again by rejecting Trumpism and every candidate allied with it. We need to elect liberals and conservatives committed to the good of the people and the restoration of truly competitive private enterprises that do well for themselves and the good of the nation.