Messy,

I like to think that our founding fathers earn the tears that roll down my cheeks when the flag goes by in a parade.

Thomas Jefferson, when he used the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," in the Declaration of Independence, I like to think he had higher virtues in mind than the collection of taxes with which to pay public servants prostituting public service.

In an essay dated 1-28-07, a Berkely PHD, Carol V. Hamilton wrote:

"Properly understood, therefore, when John Locke, Samuel Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson wrote of the "pursuit of happiness," they were invoking the Greek and Roman philosophical tradition in which happiness is bound up with the civic virtues of courage, moderation, and justice. Because they are civic virtues, not just personal attributes, they implicate the social aspect of eudaimonia. The pursuit of happiness, therefore is not merely a matter of achieving pleasure. That is why Alexander Hamilton and other founders referred to "social happiness."

When one reads the "Federalist Papers" discussion of the new Constitution, one is aware of the intention of its authors (Madison, Hamilton, and Jay) to see to it that the promises made in the Declaration of Independence were to be guaranteed as much as humanly possible.

Social happiness, if properly pursued and realized, would, I believe, relieve you of your need to worry about health insurance, for example.

Unfortunately, politicians and bankers and oil magnates, among others, have appropriated the meaning of "the pursuit of pleasure" for themselves, personally, without consideration of the above mentioned civic virtues of moderation and justice.

Corporate-ism, Ayn Randism, with its code of rational selfishness, coupled with the loss of the middle class's sense of balance, lead to the degeneration of social happiness until its victims rail and rail and rail against the system, tired of eating cake.

When I read and saw the reports of the flight attendant standing up and saying, "take this job and shove it, I thought of your recent posts.

A Pentagon bursting with arms and plans to use them, a banking system bloated with money unwilling to lend it, a Congress focused on its members re-election having to struggle to pass the very minimum of an Obama's administration campaign promises to improve the "social happiness", all speaks ill of our future, and betrays the political intention of our founding fathers.

I was reminded more of the 12th century expansion of the church with its mandatory tithing with which to extend its power, when I read your "invention/intention post.

The Carol Hamilton essay in its entirety:

http://hnn.us/articles/46460.html