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For many decades before the Declaration of Independence the popular phrase of public opinion was "Life, Liberty and Property". John Locke the eminent British political philosopher had provided that phrase to the Wigs, and the American Wig party subsequently adopted it. The phrase appears in the declaration of rights of the Stamp Act Congress authored by John Dickinson. The first drafts of the constitution of Massachusetts as written by Samuel and John Adams in 1779 contained the phrase also. However when Mr. Jefferson drafted the federal Declaration of Independence he changed the phrase to " Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". Even though all the co-authors of the document were strongly influenced by the Wigs they let Mr. Jefferson's change stand without opposition. When we reflect we clearly see what a monumental change Mr. Jefferson brought to the table. The "Pursuit of Happiness" is an all-encompassing phrase with broad meanings as well as implications. It includes property rights, as well as a very broad spectrum of additionally assumed rights. What he in effect did is to broaden the entire scope of what may be considered governmental concepts of scope and size. What the Wigs had done was to attempt to protect individual property rights, and what Mr. Jefferson did was to expand that to a societal responsibility to see to the welfare of individual citizens by the state. The first American president to cease upon this was Franklin Deleno Roosevelt; the second was Linden Baines Johnson. Both these socialists worked their magic upon the American scene by making our citizens ever more dependant upon the state, and through this creating a large electoral dependency class ensuring their political parties dominance of the federal state. In the past the declaration has much occupied my mind, as has the constitution, which was the ultimate outcome of that very important first step document. For a long period of time just over thirty years, beginning in the 60ies, I travelled all around the world. My employ was such in the machine tool manufacturing sector, which caused us to export to well over one hundred nations. Often I have thought of the "Pursuit of Happiness" and just exactly how little of it there really was in most of the nations I had the opportunity to visit. I then made the observation that there was a relationship between individual prosperity and happiness and the size of government. By act, and fact the larger the governmental apparatus was, the less happy the people were. Of late, I have been astounded by our own nations decline from a once prosperous and happy society to one that obviously is neither happy nor prosperous. The fall of American greatness has been rapid and since the coming to power of our third socialist president William Jefferson Clinton, and has accelerated at an alarming rate. I am not to say that our fellow Americans are dower , sullen, or gloomy, just that they are not as happy as they were when I was growing up. Our fellow citizens just no longer act like free people. A major manifestation of this appears as a populace afraid of their own government, and particularly enforcement branches that are responsible for the sustenance and maintenance of the federal state. The IRS, BATF, and FDA come to mind. The people, ever mindful of the federal presence, in snooping, bugging, cajoling, and enforcing numerous by the people hated laws and act as if they were shadows upon which sat a great ogre depriving them of said " Pursuit of Happiness". The decline of American prosperity goes on unabated. It is in fact the product of the "New World Order's" "Free Trade" lie, which is manifest in state, sponsored and controlled trade. It is my observation that the happiness of the people is directly affected by the degree of socialisation present in governance. The rule being; the larger the welfare state the worse off the people are. It being a fact, that the state cannot give anything to anyone that they have not previously taken through confiscatory taxation from someone else. In fact all this loss of happiness is attributable to nothing else but the actions of the state. Any thoughtful observer will hesitate to argue that the loss of happiness is not directly related to positive interference with citizens in their personal and business lives by the state. Whether or not such interference of your personal rights are warranted. Take for example the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] who without doubt is through their interference of the free market responsible for: drastically higher prices of medication than in nations not having such an overzealous agency, unavailability of numerous drugs, procedures, and medications, due to the astounding cost of certification, the deaths of hundreds of thousands through the approval of medicines and procedures not properly tested or falsely certified, but approved, and lastly the deaths of millions of our fellow citizens due to unavailability of treatments. In fact the largest number of deaths in America due to any individual item is the FDA. Such is the action of the welfare state. All this brings to mind another quote from Mr. Jefferson; ". _Government big enough to supply everything you need is government big enough to take everything you have." Or if perhaps you prefer a very eloquent Thomas Paine; " when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by the fact that we furnish the means by which we all suffer" I do not want to create the impression on you, my reader, that I give credence to the concept that government sets out to make us unhappy. A consideration of motive does in this case not even need to be weighed. In fact it is surely true that the originators of these socialist endeavors harbor no evil dislike of society or of individual citizens. They in fact mistakenly believe that they are benefiting mankind with their ideas of protecting the weak and foolish. They furthermore also mistakenly believe that individual citizens are incapable of taking care of themselves or their families, and that the sate must guide nurture and regulate such matters, through socialist legislation. I believe that these assumptions stem from a severe superiority complex by it's proponents, and a by themselves understood inability, by them, to cope with the complexities of our society. They are surely correct in their assumption that some small percentages of our fellow citizens are indolent, lazy, and incapable of self-maintenance. The assumption however that this is true of the majority of people is not only wrong but also devastating to society as a whole. The greatest problem brought about by this socialist philosophy is the fact that government is the absolutely worst abettor and manager of the distribution of such largess. For example we can examine the Social Security Administration surely an icon in the statistics of miss-management. Seventy percent of every dollar collected by them is consumed in management and payroll expenses. Imagine if you will a manufacturing concern operating on this same cost distribution system, they would be out of business before you blinked. If we now compare this to most mutual funds, privately managed, we can see fund managers earring well over $100,000. Per year, with charges to the investor of never more than 5% on the earning on invested capital. Social Security angers me more than any other of the alphabet soup of governmental agencies ever active in helping me into more and more happiness. Some years ago I calculated just exactly how much I had paid into SS over my working career, and what I would have if the interest had been compounded quarterly at prime rate. The SS administration has informed me that I will be eligible for $1,066.00 per month beginning at age 62 . When I contacted a private carrier they informed that if I gave them the accumulated value of the total fund they would guarantee me a payment of $2,400.00 per month beginning at age 60, and continue such payment for my wife until her death, then giving the residual remainder to my heirs. SS is 2 years late $1,460. Short, and provides a $ 300. death benefit with no payment to survivors. It then behooves us to consider just exactly how the state
should act. Or perhaps we could say what the state must do to
increase our joint happiness. I might just end this by saying
PRECIOUS LITTLE. The fact of the matter is; that the more time
government spends staying out of our business the better off
we all are. If we could convince the Hillary's of this nation
to mind their own business and to let us get on with ours the
level of happiness would surely be improved ten fold, perhaps
even to the level that it existed back in the fifties. |