Curse or Blessing? (The Pursuit of Happiness, Part I)
In their July 4, 1776 preamble to the Declaration of Independence (DOI), our country's founders declared that all men (read "wealthy, white, often slave-owning landowners) have been "endowed" with "certain unalienable rights." These were, they decided, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The first two rights are obviously utopian ideals, since both can be, have been, and are being taken away as you read this. The last one, "pursuit of happiness," is even more chimerical than its predecessors. It's the founding-father version, it seems, of the mechanical rabbit that greyhounds chase around the dog track. So, why is it there? As it turns out, Thomas Jefferson is to blame. According to one source, Jefferson borrowed the phrase from a Samuel Johnson fable called "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." After a friend is kidnapped, the prince, who lives in Happy Valley, laments, "What is to be expected of our pursuit of happiness w...
