“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose
begins.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935)
The Americans put
forth the ideal of the ‘Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness’, which hasn’t seemed to be working out so well for
the last little while now. When the
American founding fathers put those words to paper their idea of multiple
cultures was British, German, Dutch, and the French; all of who about 250 years
ago where all some form of Christian countries all. Please note that people from Africa, Ireland, and Italy were in that time not
considered at par with the people who came from a more continental European country.
It must be kept in mind that as time
moves forward, what is socially acceptable will change as well.
On Life:
Back in days of the
US Founding Fathers life was much more delicate and so life was held as a required
and sacred thing; towards forwarding the family lineage, hence why so many
families had so many children; seeing as people easily died easily back then.
As medicine got
better and more machines were introduced, many people slowed down on participating
in the baby making process; though I’m sure lots of people tried to make sure
that if they ever wanted another child, they were not out of practice. A problem with all that practicing was that the
babies still kept on showing up and under the rules of supply and demand; the
sanctity of life has waned.
What has become a
major point of contention for the Americans is when does the spark of life
begin? For the more scientific, Life
begins with the creation of a unique string of DNA, for the more selfish Life
begins postpartum which opens the door for abortion, for the religious it
depends on the religion though most religions agree with the scientific types
as they want to see their religion grow, and as for those looking at eugenics
they side with the selfish.
It has been said that
the first order of any government is to protect the citizenry, which leads to
the question: when does that citizenry start? Have fun with your friends
talking about the 14th Amendment; which is going to be reviewed
sometime soon.
On Liberty:
Before Liberty can be properly addressed here, there has to be an
understanding of what Liberty
is. The most basic expressions of what Liberty are: (a) the right
of a person to choose from alternative courses of action with out being
restricted by authority, or (b) the freedom from external restraints,
obstructions, constraints, or impediments, without fear or reprisal. Returning to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
Jr., Liberty
works best when people remember and understand that if they want liberty, then
that same liberty is to be granted to others; else one becomes tyrannical and
tyrants typically don’t last long.
The co-operative
liberty model mentioned above formed a sort of social-contract for most people;
of course some people just can’t think that way, even in a homogeneous society,
and so prisons have had to be built. The
recognition of mutual liberty for all provides for a certain amount of respect among the citizens; respect is presented in two different ways: politeness and
admiration of character or deed, and anyone who demands respect without having good
character or deed, still deserves politeness but only up to a point. Also please remember that a person can walk
away at anytime when they want to maintain civility.
In Canada, the Ontario’s
Human Rights Commission, which predates the US action by about two years now, has
a “Protected Grounds List” with 14 plus items as one of the lines contains “Gender
identity, gender expression”. The full
list can be found at - https://www3.ohrc.on.ca/en/ontario-human-rights-code.
It has been said that: ‘the more laws, the less
justice.’ This principle is only made
worse by downloading the rule of law to a non-accountable and non-refutable tribunal;
and if or when the punishment is not satisfied, the police are called; also,
what is typical within an HRC case, is that the determining factor is more
subjective rather than objective as made known by facts and evidence.
On Pursuing
Happiness:
Of all of the
problems, of which there are many within the Anglo-sphere, is the shifting of
the meaning of common words; for example ‘violence’ used to mean a hurt body
not simply a hurt ego or hurt feelings; ‘happiness’ is another word that has
morphed over time. The concept of
happiness dates back to the ancient Greeks, where Plato called happiness Areté
and Aristotle called happiness Eudaimonia.
For the Geeks of that time, happiness was not just about enjoying a meal
or a movie, or if your team won or lost; it was about a good life achieved
through the active exercise of virtue, reason, and the pursuit of a meaningful
life.
The US Founding
Fathers would have been educated in such matters mentioned above and more. Other people who would have been studied are
Cicero, Caesare, René Descartes, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, John Locke,
John Stewart Mill, Martin Luther, Edmond Burke, and others I’ve never heard
of. It has been said that if a person
copies the work of another that would be considered plagiarism, though if a
person copies the ideas of many people that is called research. It would be interesting to see the citations,
be it in footnote or endnote format, with regards, for the United States Constitution
and The Bill of Rights.
The problem, as I see
it, is that the word ‘happiness’ keeps getting used these days, though for many
people, that word no longer means what the Founding Fathers understood that
word to mean. One of the tactics of
every emerging regime is to morph the language to suit their needs; where those
who adopt the new verbiage are the friends and those who don’t are now shown to
be the enemy to be destroyed with other word that have been changed such as
racist, fascist, and of course ‘literally Hitler’.
