print“I like Fox-News broadcaster Glenn Beck. The man exudes goodness and has a visceral feel for freedom.
From this scrupulous soul I’d like to hear less about ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ and more of the original Lockean phrase, from which Thomas Jefferson drew when writing the Declaration of Independence.
‘No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions,’ wrote the British philosopher John Locke, in the Second Treatise on Civil Government.
By ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ Jefferson meant property plus; the right to take action to acquire what is required to sustain and satisfy life. Instead, the founder bequeathed us a vagueness that has helped undermine the foundation of civilization: private property.
By and large, modern-day Americans have twisted the famous phrase, and have turned into looters who pursue happiness at the expense of the producers.
Elsewhere, Jefferson affirmed the natural right of ‘all men’ to be secure in their enjoyment of their ‘life, liberty and possessions.’ But in the Declaration, somehow, he opted for the inclusiveness of ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ rather than cleave to the precision of ‘property.'” …
More about why you should “shout ‘life, liberty, and property’ from the proverbial rooftops,” in my new WND.com column, now on Taki’s Magazine, titled aptly, “Own It.” Remember: If you miss the column on WND, you can catch it Saturdays on Taki’s Magazine.
Excellent article, there is a lot to think about there.
There is so much confusion about “rights”. “I have the right to (fill in the blank)” is usually followed by something which cannot be logically or morally defined as a “right”. True rights normally cannot be taken away, they can only be violated.
Thanks for the history of “property” vs. “the pursuit of happiness”. It merits more research on my behalf.
Good article. By ignoring the “pursuit of” in front of happiness, the statists have taken negative (inherent) rights and made a perverted “right to happiness” {e.g. health care, education, housing, etc….} and grew a Leviathan government. The government, now approaching the 50% of GDP level, has become the majority owner of ouselves with individuals as the minority owner. So much with government having an original purpose to “secure our rights” – NOWADAYS, with ourselves owned largely by the government, we are here to “serve” the government – that collective entity of “us” led by Big Man Barack.
Ilana, I think Jefferson included “pursuit of happiness” instead of “property” because of the slavery issue.
Ilana,
Thanks for reminding the world that it was partial respect for property rights that allowed mankind to prosper. Our society’s neglect of this fundamental truth will not only decrease our liberty a little, it will lead to economic ruin. Our current administration seems to be celebrating the end of property rights with gusto. The principle being firmly established and unopposed, the economic crash can then be used as the excuse to assume even more coercive control. The script is proceeding beautifully for them.
Mr. Beck seems to have come around somewhat since his awakening by the Ron Paul campaign, when he started out by calling us domestic terrorists on his CNN show, then ended up giving Ron Paul a full hour on his show. I’ll give him credit for that, but I’d still consider him to be in ‘learning mode’. To be fair, he is learning from some of the best.
On Ayn Rand’s definition of rights, I believe she was aware that slaves survive, and may even be treated with generosity by their masters, therefore her use of the phrase “proper survival” in her definition of rights as springing from the nature of man. Most of the thrust of her life’s work was dedicated to illustrating the premise that “proper survival” means “as a sovereign individual”, as you wrote. I see agreement here, not a logical flaw in Rand’s argument.
Greg, there is a treasure trove of good information on the subject at the Ayn Rand Lexicon, freely available on-line.
I agree with the importance of property rights, and personal rights, against government tyranny, etcetera. I have some distant, colonial-era, notable and wealthy, political Virginia ancestors; and an early nineteenth century ancestor in New York including a George W. Mason, of unknown ancestry, perhaps a descendant or relative of the George Mason quoted. Unfortunately, most of my colonial-era Virginia ancestors were propertied slave owners, a terrible mistake in American history.
[And in mankind’s history; although European Man is the only “man” to beat-up on himself for ever-after over this sin, going on in other cultures as we speak.]
Ilana, thank you! Yes, it is obviously possible to survive without freedom, but is such a life desirable? One shouldn’t have to argue that freedom is preferable to slavery (I would think that’s rather obvious), and yet we have millions today who believe their slavery is freedom, and that true freedom would be slavery.
It would be tempting to blame this erosion of understanding on the imprecision of English, but let’s remember that even the Romans, in possession of a very precise language, lapsed from republicanism into imperialism, and then decadence.
Somehow the right to pursue one’s happiness has mutated into the ‘right’ to have big government pursue it on one’s behalf, provided that you are not productive, and at the expense of someone who is. Who could believe the founding fathers intended something so profoundly bogus?
My sentiments exactly.
Excellent article. However, as a listener of Glenn Beck’s radio show (where he’s better able to flesh out thoughts with 3 hrs vs 1), he has acknowledged “Life, liberty and the pursuit of property”, and even spoke about how he wished we would get in the habit of saying “property” instead of “happiness”. He explained Jefferson was forced into substituting the word “property” because of potential abuse by slave-owning states when the slavery issue eventually had to be taken up by Congress. Since it’s unlikely “property” could now be misinterpreted to slavery’s advantage, Beck is all for returning to the original wording.
As John Danforth says, Rand was referring to sustaining life as a free and independent person (a natural person in a ‘happy’ state) and slavery is not actually synonymous with life in this sense.
The idea of being owned or living with a hyper-intrusive (abusive and categorically corrupt) government reminds me of John Locke’s words (a friend recently reminded me of this)
“If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation.”
With reason, it’s very simple, we face the consequences of our choices, decisions and acts. With slavery, we face the consequences of another’s decisions.
I made my choice about that a long time ago.
Bravo Ilana, (as usual)
I agree with you that Glenn comes off as a very decent man. My one critique of Mr. Beck is his tendency to jump on the freedom philosophies when it’s “safe” to do so. Ron Paul is a crazy loon for years on Beck’s show until President Zero takes over with merely a more intense form of collectivist statism coupled with a cratered economy.
THEEEEEEENNNNNNNNN Mr. Paul transforms to brilliant on the economy but still dead wrong on not being a warmonger.
Gee Glenn, we back-benchers in smaller media markets have been willing to be called crazy when it wasn’t cool….to accept being called “libruhl” (sic) for agreeing with the anti-war positions of Mr. Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Pat Buchanan, and other truly principled commentators. This, while staying true to classical liberalism, free markets, and traditional conservative lines of thinking.
Unfortunately I can’t help but believe that every national host on cable tv or radio is effectively controlled by our unholy merger of media and state, and is used to manage opposition discourse.
“Safety Valve” comes to mind…”Useful idiots” may be a less kind description.
A key detail that has been excised from U.S. history is the
simple parameter that the Continental Congress was under
when writing the Declaration.
In your column, right after George Mason’s quote from
“Virginia Declaration of Rights” you mention:
“But in the Declaration, s o m e h o w.”
By your leave, I suggest that the following replace “somehow”
with something like:
The goal was to present a single statement to the British
crown, and the world, from a UNITED group of North American
colonies. A unanimous declaration from all thirteen colonies.
Early in the deliberations, it was recognized that the slavery
issue could not be satisfactorily resolved, so they had to work
around that “problem.” The North Eastern colonies would not accept the
word “Property” because they were afraid it would be used against
future efforts to abolish slavery.
Therefore, a substitute word or phrase that all thirteen colonies
would accept had to be used and the best they could find was
“pursuit of happiness.”
This is why the phrase “Life, liberty and property” as used in other
writings of the day – and since – was changed.
The above is unknown to most U.S. citizens. Documentation is very
scarce. However, it is alluded to in the Broadway musical “1776”
and movie of the same name. (DVD version is better than VCR tape
version)
Keep up the work, and as the U.S. Marines have said for two
centuries, Semper Fi(delis).
Paul Tait
Mount Prospect, IL
Dear Ms. Mercer,
It has been suggested that Mr. Jefferson diverted to the phrase “and pursuit of happiness”, to avoid the appearance of an entirely venal purpose in the statement, with the expectation that the further explication of this right, in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, would establish the whole meaning of the intended phrasing.
I have always considered this a gross error, as enumerating exactly is the best way to ensure no misunderstanding, and to ensure against the deliberate abuse of words, by those who wish to reduce their value, and change the meaning of principles.
If man has the absolute right to the fruit of his labor in property rights, then only such taxes which can be paid, or left unpaid are legitimate, as such taxes as excise taxes are.
In changing the phrase, Mr. Jefferson set us up for an “income tax”, and with it, a progressive tax which validated the idea of Marx, which is the exact antithetical principle against property rights. I believe we lost much of the value imbued in our founding Document, The Declaration of Independence, by this error, as it allowed much of what was stated as principle to be twisted to mean less than it should have in its original form.
One can note that the people and the state and central government adhered to the original meaning of the phrase in the years when the founders were still around to embarrass those trying to change the nature of what had been established.
I am hopeful that the illegal alien elect will continue in his quest to bring us to communism, and the speaker of the house will continue to lie like a rug, that sufficient outrage will be brought out and a new generation can personally experience the freedom and liberty that only those first few generations of Americans actually experienced, and which vestiges, those of my age remember well, even knowing they were vastly reduced by the encroachment already accomplished by the time of my birth.
Sincerely,
John McClain
GySgt, USMC, ret.
Vanceboro, NC