On Independence Day

Happiness is experiencing a state of tranquility:
to be free from anxiety, discontent, and emotional disturbance.

Happiness is a common pursuit. We all desire to live free from unnecessary disturbance. Yet what each of us requires to be happy is subjective- as is our individual method of acquiring happiness.

Our founding fathers seemed to unilaterally agree that happiness is the natural state of humanity. Since our culture spends most of its time and resources attempting to achieve happiness, I would agree with John Locke that humans "are drawn by the forces of pleasure and repulsed by pain."

Widely considered a natural state for humans in the Jeffersonian era, happiness was believed to be divinely intended and worthy of protection. What makes us happy varies widely but human nature and common sense tell us that the ability to feed, clothe, and shelter one's self and family is primordial in pursuing a state of tranquility.

Studies overwhelmingly indicate that those who accumulate property (wealth) are physically and socially more productive than those who do not. Citizens that earn wages and own property sustain our macro and micro economies through consumption, job creation, and tax revenue.

The original document delivered by Thomas Jefferson to the Second Continental Congress in the summer of 1776 included the phrase "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." The phrase survived heavy editing and revision and remained in the concise yet profound document we know as the Declaration of Independence.

The content of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution created the framework for our government and protection for our citizens. Whether Jefferson originated Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness*, or borrowed it from his contemporaries does not matter to me. What is important to me is what that simple line articulates and represents.

The true Pursuit of Happiness can only exist when Liberty is promoted and protected. True Liberty can only exist when Life is a protected unalienable right.


I choose to pursue HAPPINESS.

*Johne Locke originally posited in "Two Treatises on Government" the idea that a person's right to live a healthy life, free to amass and maintain property-"life, health, liberty and property".