"Because they did not receive a love of the Truth, God gave them a strong delusion that they might believe a lie."
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Essays Moral and Political
Pursue Your Happiness, But Don't Make Me Lead The ChaseYou remember, I'm sure, what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence. "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." So we believe, and so we teach. In fact, this is almost the essence of what it means to be American.But a queer distortion has taken place in the meaning of these words. What began as God-given rights to individuals have become government-imposed burdens on a formerly free people. A right is properly defined as something to which a person has a just claim; it is a power or privilege to which one is entitled. Every right that one person has imposes an obligation on everyone else. For example, your right to life means that I may not smite you with a tire iron or poison your porridge. Your right to liberty places restraints on my impulse to chain you up in my attic. Your right to the pursuit of happiness obliges me to quit torching your barn and harassing your son or daughter. What it does not oblige me to do is to make you happy, guarantee your liberty, or to preserve your life. Think about it. Your right to life does not require me to lock you away from cigarettes, fast cars, rotgut liquor and dangerous liaisons so as to assure you of a long life. Your right to liberty does not obligate me to hire a bodyguard to prevent your being shanghaied by Barbary pirates. If you hold up a Quik Mart and land in jail, I'm not obliged to pay for your bail and your lawyer. Your right to pursue happiness does not make it my duty to lead the chase. But that is almost exactly how our leaders see this matter of rights; and every time they discover or invent a new right, they heave a fresh load onto the backs of taxpayers. To hold that every person has a right to (say) housing, clothes, food stamps, education, or healthcare means that they--these leaders of ours--have the right to force us to provide cradle-to-grave care for the clients. A Christian community may choose to assist
those who can't afford such things. A compassionate society may choose
to tax itself for such a purpose. But to say that everyone has a
right to have all of his needs met is a flagrant misunderstanding of Thomas
Jefferson's words.
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