Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Pursuit of Happiness

The following immortal words of The Declaration of Independence are in peril of misinterpretation:
... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Note that it is the pursuit of Happiness - not Happiness itself - that is among the unalienable Rights. The Obama administration and the current Democratic Party seem to leave out that crucial word "pursuit", and they kowtow to Americans' sense of entitlement. Forgotten are J.F.K.'s words "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." Americans now want their happiness handed to them on a plate.

It is often asserted that the citizens of the welfare states, such as the Scandinavian countries, are happier, and that Americans are among the less happy in the world. The surveys may say so, but the immigration trends seem to point to the opposite - I personally know quite a few friends who came to the States from the Scandinavian nations. Do immigrants come to the United States in search of misery? That seems to violate the basic human instinct.

Some Americans will always be happier than others; that disparity will remain ubiquitous in this world. But the strength of the United States lies in its social mobility. Nobody is limited by his or her circumstance of birth; everybody is truly blessed with the equal and unalienable right: the pursuit of happiness.

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