Should I stick to the obvious statements thing?

Yeah, I think I'll do that as long as I can. So I believe I have some unfinished business with that last post. What is the "pursuit of happiness"? There is more to that question, but I'm not sure how to ask it. Do people really care if they are impeeding someone else's if theirs is going well? ...That isn't too far off I guess. Oh yeah, and there is the original purpose of this blog, what is the governments role in this?

I am kinda just sitting here at this point trying to decide whether to approach this from the top down, or from the bottom up. I think I will go with the top down approach to change things up (since I have been doing this so long and my many readers are so comfertable with my style...). Earlier I made a statement that I think the government's ( I think I'll call it the govey for short) most basic function is to protect the more vulnerable of it's governed from those that could and would take advantage of them. This may just be my opinion; I've heard one other person make a stab at the govey's most basic role (some congresman, or senator on NPR) and that was "to protect our shores and deliver our mail" (I'd like to hear more more ideas about that actually). I think mine is better (in fact, he said that should be the govey's only role).

Anyway, I do see a very clear relationship between people's conflicting pusuits of happiness and a need to keep one from bulldosing the other just because they can. For example, one person (Guy A) may be living on a hill and another person (Guy B) may come along and decide they want to live on that hill (neither is willing to share the hill in this scenario). There is now a conflict of interest, and of course there are different ways to settle the dispute. Guy B could pay for the hill, he could go somewhere else, something like that... or if he is bigger he could just beat up Guy A and take the hill. Does Guy B have more of a right to the hill because he is bigger?

The above scenario is very basic because a hill is something tangeble, but what about things that are not so tangible like smoking in a public place? I for one would like to be able to go anywhere and not have to put up with smoke all the time. On the other hand, some one who smokes may want to take a quick smoke break from time to time without having to seek out some designated smoking spot half a mile away. I'm pretty sure that people who don't smoke would all team up with me and not care that we are taking away someone else's right to enjoy (their shortened, and diminished quality) life the way they want.

I think it is safe to say that though annoying to the people who lose them, the intanebles aren't missed as much. We'd all love to have the God given right to always park in the best spot, or always be the first in line at potlucks, but those aren't the things that we fight for or even think about on a daily basis. There is one think that people think about possibly even more often than sex, money. At least in the US, all of those other little (and big) things are basicly determined by how much money you have anyway. Perhaps this is too big of a leap, but I'd have to say that in this country the "pusuit of happiness" = the ability to obtain + keep money.

Was that last one too obvious?

I sure hope it was. It may seem that I am going way to far back trying to get a running start and will run out of steam when it's time to jump, but I think it's pretty important that I understand why we have a government before I just go around saying how other people are doing such a poor job running it. In my last post I have a link to a transcript of the declaration of independence not because I think that the founding father were these perfect people who had tea with God every afternoon, but because I wanted to get an idea where to go from my obvious stand point that there needs to be some framework that keeps us from "eliminating the competition".

I did read the whole thing, but since it is mostly about what a bad king the king of England was I will only refer to the part that anybody who did open the link was likely to read anyway. "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". The first unalienable right is kind of indisputable to sane people. The second is weird since this document was written by a slave owner (don't get me wrong here, he was apparently pretty good to them), and our whole penal system is based on depriving evildoers of their freedom (and sometimes life), but the third one has got to be one of those things on which each person has a completely different view.

"The pursuit of happiness"!?!? Please forgive me, but I think I have to go to the most primal level to comprehend this. Say we go back to the scenario where there is no one on earth but me, and my actions are not bounded by the responsibility of not hurting someone else. Suppose the thing that would make me the most happy is to talk to someone... This leads me to a tangent.

Have you ever met one of those people who talks crap about you having a full time job, or going to school and tell you how you are stupid for giving their life away to someone else just to get some money? But then they don't have the money to do all the stuff they want to do with their free time, and they begrudgingly realize that they are the ones who are trapped? (I realize this is more of the "what is freedom?" thing, but I forgot to mention it).

Back to my point. Complete freedom does not necessarily equal happiness. maybe it is because people are social animals, but I think people need boundaries if for no other reason to appreciate their freedom from them (don't take this out of context). I for example found that while I was looking for a job, having no time constraints was more tedious than now that I have to wake up at a certain time each day.

Back to my other point. We know it is wrong to kill people, we know it is wrong to enslave people (at least we think we do), but I am not so sure we have a problem stepping on other people pursuit of happiness. There is just something that makes it so mush easier to plan for what we want without taking into account what others want,or need. I think I will have to devote my next post to examples of this, but I am finally sleepy now (yeah, this one just turned out to be an intro to the next one [or few] I guess)