Taking a ‘safety net' to extremes

Published: Tuesday, November 6, 2012 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, November 2, 2012 at 1:53 p.m.

When was the last time you read our Declaration of Independence? More importantly, when did any of our elected?



I recently carefully read this amazing document, which details how and why our Founders created America as a sovereign nation more than 236 years ago. Reading it caused me to reflect on who wrote it, what the words really meant to the writers, and what they should mean to us today.

Obviously, the Declaration of Independence lives up to its title as notice to Great Britain, stating the people of America intended to withdraw from English rule. Growing friction between the Colonies and Great Britain developed over many years, mainly because the British Parliament collected taxes from the Colonists without allowing them any representation, thus leading to the famous, "No taxation without representation."

Following almost a year of fighting between the 13 colonies and crown soldiers, the Declaration of Independence, written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.

According to Wikipedia, some scholars consider the second sentence in this historical document to be one of the best-known sentences in the English language, containing the most potent and consequential words in American History: "We hold these truths to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."

No less than Abraham Lincoln called the Declaration of Independence the foundation for his political philosophy, and he argued that the Declaration is a statement of principles through which the Constitution should be interpreted.

Of course, one only has to look at how long it took to overcome the horrors of slavery and lack of women's rights to see that our nation's leaders didn't come close to following the equality principles for everyone for a very long time. Even Thomas Jefferson, who died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration's enactment, maintained significant slave ownership through his death.

However, it also seems clear that the easily understood promises of the sentence would attract millions of future immigrants to America. This famous sentence was clearly the basis for what became known throughout the world as the "American Dream."

Have you ever carefully considered the real meaning of the words in this famous sentence? It seems easy to understand the rights to life and liberty; however, the pursuit of happiness is more complicated and often subject to different interpretations.

More extreme liberals interpret this to mean we are all born with a divine right to be happy with our life no matter what, and only a large central government can ensure this outcome with a safety net to catch those who fail, or even fail to try. Extremist conservatives on the opposite pole view it as absolutely only promising the right to pursue happiness. If one succeeds, that is great. However, if he/she fails, that's just too bad.

As I wrote in an earlier column, most of the people I interact with, whether self-labeled as Democrats or Republicans, will say they are fiscally conservative and socially progressive. When pushed for further explanation, most will say — and I believe it represents the vast majority of Americans — they don't want our nation to waste any money, but neither do they want to abandon the truly needy.

From what I learned from other writings of several of our Founding Fathers, it seems clear they intended the more conservative view. It seems apparent they only promised the right for individuals to have the freedom to pursue whatever activities might bring them happiness. If you failed, that was simply too bad. You remained legally free to repeatedly seek rewards required for your version of happiness. However, failure that might be accompanied by unhappiness was to be borne by the individual. Our Founders promised no safety nets.

I tend to support the more conservative views because any attempt by man to institutionally protect others from their own failure always seems to have unintended consequences. When one has a safety net that he/she can count on, history has proven many will make reckless and foolish attempts to achieve success because they are protected from failure's consequences. Or even worse, many will simply not even bother trying. The net result for the latter is often "generational poverty/welfare" in which children learn from the actions of their parents that it is easier to accept welfare than make an attempt to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

I grew up dirt poor (as they used to say) in the 1940s and '50s. We had no government welfare programs. The only lesson most impoverished parents of my generation taught their children was that if you want more than they can provide, find a way to earn the money or learn to do without.

Should we have safety nets for the truly needy? Absolutely. Should we, though, provide those same benefits for those too lazy to try? I think our Founding Fathers' intended words, carefully interpreted, would say emphatically no.

Please take the time to read the Declaration of Independence. Then ask yourself: Have America's leaders somehow gone astray from the original intentions of this critically important document?

These are my opinions. What do you think?



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