I hope that most, if not all people reading this blog already know where this phrase comes from. This phrase comes from the Declaration of Independence. The whole actual sentence is as follows,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The three ideas are the three basic principles that founded this country and made this country what it is. The sentence from above says that every individual have inherent rights, inherent meaning something natural or inseparable. I think that these three ideas or principles are the most important and I stand by them. So for this blog post I am going to briefly look into each of these words. Later blog posts will go more in depth about these three concepts. Just so you know these will be out of order, because I feel like it.
Starting with liberty. Liberty is defined as, "1 : the quality or state of being free: a : the power to do as one pleases b: freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e : the power of choice." Liberty is my ability to do what I want to do. Yes this means I have the liberty to kill someone, I also have to face the consequences and go to trial and spend some time in jail, but I have the freedom to make that choice. I have the freedom to choose to wear a seat belt or not, well not really because now the government says I have to. I used to have the liberty to smoke in a bar or restaurant, now I don't. The thing is that none of these laws are super bad, I think driving without a seat belt and smoking are both deadly and I will never do either, but I don't think the government has any right to tell me to do the one and not the other. I mean come on whatever happened to personal choice?
Life. I'm not quite sure where to start since I am making these shorter and will go into more detail in future blog posts. I think that most people in this country are guaranteed to this right and actually get it. I did say most. The ones that are not guaranteed this right, are unborn children. Many people like to say, it's the mothers choice. Which in some way it is, because in the end she chooses, just like if I choose to murder someone it is my choice because I pull the trigger. But the baby never gets a say, the person I intend to kill can beg and plead for mercy. It is not fair to the person for me to kill them because they looked at me funny, and it is not fair to kill a child because two people were not careful enough to prevent something they didn't want. Personally I don't think people should have sex outside of marriage, but I'm not here to tell someone how to run their life. But if a woman is single and isn't ready to have kids, then wouldn't the smart thing to do is abstain from sex so she doesn't get pregnant accidentally?
Last but certainly not least, the pursuit of happiness. This one I think is the most important. Over the summer I watched the movie The Pursuit of Happiness for the first time. And I had an epiphany. That phrase says pursuit. Which I always knew, I guess I never spent a whole lot of time thinking about what that really means. But is means we have the right to pursue happiness, no one is guaranteed to have it. It also means that we have the liberty to choose what makes us happy. Personally I don't think money will make people happy. But if my neighbor does and works hard at whatever to make a lot of money who I am to tell him that's wrong. And since we are only guaranteed to be able to pursue whatever makes us happy, that means that no one is guaranteed to actually be happy. You might get it and someone else might not. But that is why this is the best of the three. Pursuing means that some effort has to be used, I want to be a lawyer, so I have to study and get great grades to get into law school and I have to study to pass a test to get into law school. And I have to get a job to afford school. By saying people have the right to pursue happiness makes people work for something they want. And they have to work hard for it. Because anything in life worth having is going to require hard work, and that is what our country was built upon, hard work. It might me mean or cruel but to some extent there is a survival of the fittest, those that don't want to work for something will be poor or work at McDonalds the rest of their life, and while I don't want to be them, they have the liberty to choose that or by not choosing to do something else, they choose that. That is why you don't tax the rich more, what punish them for success? What kind of message are we sending. And I know some people do need help, but there are a lot of people that get help from the government that don't need it, and I have seen many. Besides people someone got along without money from the government before, why can't people do it now. I could go on about this but I will safe a more in depth discussion of these three words for later.
These three principles are the most important and that is why I named my blog what it is, because I believe to many people in this country have gotten away from these three principles and if we could all get back to them our country would not have as many problems.
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