who decides one's life, liberty, happiness

The adage – The more things change, the more they stay the same – is apropos for America and its history. From the time the nation was British America, up through today, issues have revolved: A vicious cycle of repeat with no outcomes achieved other than unending cycles of repetition. And legislators, those entrusted by the people with improving their everyday lives under the guise of the Constitution, have participated all too well in a system of deception and obfuscation. Their endgame, bringing full circle what has been to what will be, along with a desire to enrich themselves with power and money at the expense of those they swore to defend and protect. Ever wonder why nothing in Congress ever improves or changes for the better, but continually devolves, while old becomes new, even while party power changes through continual election cycles.

An example: initially, there were two classes of men: gentlemen and commoner. The affluent class known as “gentlemen” had others who worked, thereby supporting them, allowing gentlemen the opportunity to experience the blessings of life. Or, if desired, participate in and decide the issues of government at hand. The other class, the commoner – worked his entire life to survive while funding the gentleman’s desires, relying on his benevolence for pay. And gentlemen serving in office, their agenda for themselves in regard to the Constitution. Except, the societal oddity, the business owner with employees. Although, if he worked, income irrelevant – still a commoner. So, at the time, their intent was to obtain gentleman class, thus having others work for them, supporting them. The fundamental myth: belief in the gentlemen working to improve the overall.

Then women, no class system, nor power. Their importance; dictated through marriage, although, no voice, no vote. Except, the degradation of human life continued; the slave, mostly owned by the gentlemen class, and the “merciless Indian savage” (Declaration of Independence). Leaving the Indian aside, on the slave plight, they were considered property, not persons. And estimates range from one up to twenty-five percent of the white population having owned another human until the institution was abolished in 1865, having pushed past a pre-set date of 1808. Although, while in effect, a financial bounty for those who partook. Problem is, no one ever discusses blacks owning blacks, or the countrymen who’d captured and sold to the slave traders, their own countrymen, at times becoming what they’d caught and sold – a slave. Actual truth inconvenient, pushed to the recesses of disallowed conversation. Agenda overruling intent. And much less discussed, the entire history of slavery, its origins, or the diverseness of other societies which held humans in captivity, the benefit of a people-pool for inhumane uses that continue to this day. Even here in America … today.

Yet slavery, and the Constitution’s intent to correct, even though the Framer’s acquiesced, prompting secession and a Civil War. In life, human nature sometimes struggles to stand on the side of right, especially when money and power are at stake. The Framers knew the cost of correction upfront. The nation would have broken into smaller confederacies had they not compromised. The effect of pushing for one’s rights destroying the whole. Yet today, legislators believe compromise is the better to gain while blaming our forebears for having done exactly what they push for today. Their intent to make-believe others believing their interest is in the best-interest, truth an oxymoron, issues fully dependent on agenda: Might not some surprise also be expressed, that those who reproach the Southern States with the barbarous policy of considering as property a part of their human brethren, should themselves contend, that the government to which all the States are to be parties, ought to consider this unfortunate race more completely in the unnatural light of property … (Federalist 54)

But understand, the Framers initial intent was to abolish. My point here being a reason of purpose. To go full circle, one only need turn to the Declaration of Independence to see word fallacy belying the actions of belief: 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. Only, one must understand the Framers word definitions. A far-reaching, yet uncomplex defining that they were either unable or unwilling to place into action or retained for the few:

Life: In a general sense, that state of animals and plants, or of an organized being, in which its natural life functions and motions are performed, or in which its organs are capable of performing their functions.

Liberty: Freedom from restraint, in a general sense, and applicable to the body, or to the will or mind. The body is at liberty, when not confined; the will or mind is at liberty, when not checked or controlled. A man enjoys liberty, when no physical force operates to restrain his actions or volitions.

Natural Liberty: consists in the power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, except from the laws of nature. It is a state of exemption from the control of others, and from positive laws and the institutions of social life. This liberty is abridged by the establishment of government.

Civil Liberty: is the liberty of men in a state of society, or natural liberty, so far only abridged or restrained, as is necessary and expedient for the safety and interest of the society, state or nation. A restraint of natural liberty, not expedient for the public, is tyranny or oppression. Civil liberty is an exemption from the arbitrary will of others, which exemption is secured by established laws, which restrain every man from injuring or controlling another. Hence the restraints of laws are essential to civil liberty.

Happiness: The agreeable sensations which spring from the enjoyment of good; that state of being in which his desires are gratified, by the enjoyment of pleasure without pain; felicity; but happiness usually expresses less than felicity, and felicity less than bliss. Happiness is comparative. To a person distressed with pain, relief from that pain affords happiness; in other cases we give the name happiness to positive pleasure or an excitement of agreeable sensations. Happiness therefore admits of indefinite degrees of increase in enjoyment, or gratification of desires. Perfect happiness, or pleasure unalloyed with pain, is not attainable in this life. (all definitions Webster’s 1828)

Understanding each of the above definitions depicts the importance of the Declaration in its moment and for future posterity, even though the Declaration’s phrase has never manifested in the public domain. And Thomas Jefferson, the author, knowing death would claim, claimed the document his greatest work. But did he live his work? His life actions not representing his pen, while in truth, the Framers individually struggled conceptually with “created equal.” Some professed human differences dispelled, evolving to where today, agenda is to create a society of parity – unachievable by any standard. And yes, the Framers’ belief wasn’t Panglossian in their desire to form a new nation from the ashes of the old, but a society, the antithesis of anything before. What it could eventually become, dependent on those sworn to uphold and protect. To note, under the Articles of Confederation, there was no Federal head: Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter will readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments - and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country … (Federalist 1)

While the pages of history have turned, and generational chapters have ended, the nation has evolved. No longer would there only be two classes; gentlemen, and commoner, but three classes: elite, middle-class, and poverty. In time, the middle-class would itself evolve, becoming upper/lower, highlighting four classes of citizens. And the two-tiered middle-class would become a powerful voice. Except, power equals strength, implying force, and pursuant to the Constitution, the essence of WE THE PEOPLE: That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed (Declaration of Independence).

The resultant Framers design was of those entrusted to govern, to govern according to the people’s will based on the tenets of the Constitution. Yet, in human nature, power surrendered implies weakness, the antithesis of strength, or the will of government, if required through force, to control the people, achieving autarchy; to absolutely control those who were to control: Antithetical to constitutional intent. Our government’s desired outcome, a two-tiered society – rich and poor, all three branches: executive, legislative, judicial, complicit to the takeover of WE THE PEOPLE. The Federal head, harkening back to when British America was, and the Magna Charta didn’t apply. And once the Constitution is dead, the document becomes irrelevant to an agenda of deceit. The final result being: WE THE PEOPLE, the majority thereof, becoming slaves, oppressed through, and beholding to the desires of the elite. Old becoming new … again. Although, a reminder of one’s words: Give me liberty or give me death! A Patriot during the American Revolution who became a staunch Anti-Federalist abhorring the Constitution. Yet before the war started, he was unwilling to free those he held in bondage while demanding his and proclaimed such. The vicious cycle of what truth actually is, and who’s selling it.