I felt inspired to write a little sketch. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

The framers spent 17 days working on the first draft of the Declaration, and Thomas Jefferson was no slouch. I don't think the conversation went in any way like this:

Jefferson:          Okay, let's see here. Life, Liberty . . .
Franklin:            And the pursuit of greater knowledge.
Adams:               No, the right to multiple spouses.
Franklin:           Again with multiple spouses, John?
Adams:              What.
Sherman:         Life, Liberty and Ladies!
Adams:            Yeah baby. Come get some. (Adams and Sherman knuckle punch each other)
Franklin:           Why am I the only one working here.
Jefferson:         Thanks, Ben. Listen, guys, I know its been a long night, but I really want to get this part before we call it a day. (They all calm down) Good. Life. Liberty.
Franklin:          How about just Life and Liberty. It's got alliteration and an oomph quality. LIFE AND LIBERTY. Oh and make sure you write "and" in italics so they get the oomph feeling.
Adams:         You haven't had an "oomph" feeling since your balls got bolted.
Sherman:      Zing!
Jefferson:     (doing his best to ignore Sherman and Adams) That could work, but I want a third. We live and we have liberty, but we are more than our bodies and minds. We live amongst each other, we must be able to use our Life and Liberty for something, otherwise we simply exist. Have we no dreams? No aspirations?
Sherman:     Yeah, I aspire to be out of here in twenty minutes and inside my maid in twenty-one!
Adams:        In yo face T-bag!
Franklin:     Why did we invite them here.
Jefferson:     Wait a tick. Hmmmmmm. (he writes something and looks at it) No, just aspirations leads nowhere. (he thinks, crosses off what he wrote and writes something else and looks at that) the pursuit of Happiness. (he smiles)
Franklin:      Life and Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Jefferson:    No. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Franklin:     That's the one, Tom. Put it in there. (Pause. He turns to Adams & Sherman. They are red in the face, about to explode with laughter, but stop and nod)
Jefferson: Gentleman, I give you our preamble.
Livingston:   I just want it noted that I was here.  

First of all, I am a complete Rachel Maddow fan. I admire her intellect, her wit, and most of all, her sense of what a true journalist is and does.

This is something that struck me as interesting. Now, I don't that I don't think of myself as conservative in terms of dress or sexist in terms of fashion, but am I the only one who thinks Maddow should wear a shirt or blouse under the blazer? A man would never wear a jacket without a top underneath, right?


I mean, unless you're Bollywood film star Amar Akbar Anthony.


Anyone want to see Wolf Blitzer with a neckline that low?

 

If you haven't seen it yet, here's the link.

Before we had our Constituation, we had our manifesto: The Declaration of Independence. It contains one of the cornerstones on which our country's ideology is founded: the opinion that all men are endowed with the unalienable rights of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness".

That 5-person committee of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman were either propheptic or they enacted a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those three linchpins upon which America was built have become three of the most heated sources of debate and outrage in our country. In regard to Life, one need only consider the divide over capital punishment, abortion, or euthanasia. How earnestly we fight over freedom of speech, freedom of religion, a right to privacy and for what we consider our god-given Liberty.

But what of the pursuit of Happiness. How do you define Happiness? How do you achieve Happiness? How important is Happiness? Ask yourself the question: "What makes me happy." For me, it is the hope that one day I will be able to have a family and a place of my own. I imagine many of you might have the same hope. For the rest of you, it may be something else, equally satisfying and joyous. Whatever that may be, just hold that in your mind.

Are you pursuing that Happiness? According to the Continental Congress you have a right to do so. An unalienable right. They were pretty good at covering the Life and the Liberty, there must be a reason for that last one. They spent 17 days working on the first draft of the Declaration, and Thomas Jefferson was no slouch.

So if law and governance of that law provides us with Life and Liberty, it should committed to providing us with the pursuit of Happiness. When it comes to my initial conception of what makes me happy, that means I have the right to pursue all legals means to start a family and own a piece of land that I can call home. It also means that whatever your happiness may be, you too have a right to pursue it.

Everything follows from this idea. We cannot pursue happiness if we are too sick and cannot afford to keep ourselves well enough to work and earn a living, which is really our only means to achieve worthwhile happiness. We are denied pursuit if laws are in place which unfairly allow one group of people to attain happiness over the other. The good neighbor policy stands; one group should not be allowed to pursue happiness if it is as at the cost of another group's pursuit. This can be translated to the freedoms that the ultra-rich and upper class have in comparison to those that the poor and destitute do not.

Obama is not a socialist. He is not a marxist. He is not Hitler (Hitler's platform was built on the backs of those whom he would deny even a moment's happiness). He is a Happiness pursuer. He has taken it upon himself and his Presidency to set in motion a series of events and legislation that will lead to a country, and in all hopes, a world focused on pursuing happiness.

Those on the far right of the political spectrum fear this because they feel that if someone else prospers, they suffer. If more people are given opportunity and the same tools that they have, then the fear is that it will ultimately lead to their loss of power, their being in the minority, their inability to pursue happiness. Perhaps this is just a projection of what they would do in place of the underprivileged were they underprivileged themselves. Perhaps it is because this socio-political sect of American humanity believes only in man's self-interest and not his desire for social equity and harmony.

Perhaps those who can truly pursue happiness wish to keep it all for themselves.

Whatever the case, President Obama is the first President in my lifetime who seems to be taking the Declaration of Independence to heart. All are welcome. All have these unalienable rights. That is one thing that is as true as it was in 1776 as it is now.

If you don't see the change that Obama has brought to America and the world, then your head is in the sand and to quote "Inherit the Wind": "Perhaps it is you who have moved away -- by standing still."

From The New Zealand Herald : "He may see no alternative to fighting the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan but everywhere else he has reasserted the importance of the United Nations and of multilateral diplomacy. He replaced military threats with dialogue with Iran and North Korea. He has begun talks with Russia over nuclear disarmament.

He has prioritised peace in the Middle East. He has reached out a hand of friendship to the Muslim world. He has thrown Washington's recalcitrant attitude to global warming into reverse. All change begins with a change of mind by one individual and Obama has been that person.

The prize may make life difficult for him domestically, giving his right-wing critics another stick with which to beat him over healthcare.

But to the rest of the world the US President is an inspiration. The Audacity of Hope, he called one of his books. Rarely has a single individual in recent times given so much of the world cause to dare to anticipate that a better world can yet be made."

Yet another reason that I admire TPM and Josh Marshall. Anyone who uses the word "meme" in a post knows a thing or two about communication theory, sociology, anthropology or evolutionary psychology, or all of the above.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meme

meme
-noun a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

MSNBC is rebroadcasting The Today Show broadcast from 9/11/01. It is one of the more powerful uses of television to commemorate and remember the attacks as they happened in real time. I don't know if they do this every year, but I think it is a superbly thoughtful idea.

I was talking to a friend of mind who shall remain nameless. I wanted to know why he thought that there was such animosity in all the town halls regarding health care reform, not to mention the outbursts during President Obama's joint-session address. After everything we learned from nearly sinking into an economic depression last year, one would think that we need any kind of reform that could (A) save the country money, and (B) make America a country that looks at for the hard-working middle-class. My friend put it bluntly, "They're scared."

"Scared of what?" I asked.

"Scared about the power of Obama and the Democrats."

And suddenly it hit me. The stringent, dedicated, lifetime members of the right-wing Republican party aren't against Health Care Reform. They are against anything that may further show Mr. Obama to be a great leader; something that was sorely lacking in their party for the past two presidential terms. This goes to the very core of "partisan bickering." If anything is to get done regarding HCR, it seems to me that congress and the President have to make it seem as though the Republican Party is a partner in this reform. Only then will staunch Republicans agree to HCR. How else to explain that in the Republican Party "rebuttal" they want to start from scratch, even though Rep. Boustany himself has said in the past that the parties are in agreement on 80% of the bill.

Can't write more right now because I have to get to dinner, but I want to discuss this further.