Has the USA changed its original priorities?

I agree. I support the use of both but it shouldn't be a law. The logic used is that by not wearing a seat belt or helmet, you increase the chance of serious injury, which everyone else pays for either through their insurance or in taxes.

That sort of indirect logic would allow the government to mandate everything about your life to reduce your cost to society. Your diet, activities and exercise, you choice of jobs, and even where you live affects everyone else through insurance or taxes.

 

I dunno. Since people always want more than they have pursuit of happiness has become an generic entitlement rather than a right, and as politicians always want more votes they started pushing entitlements as opposed to rights. I do know that Jefferson and the founders and framers did not think of the pursuit of happiness or promoting the general welfare as some kind of entitlement of the people or obligation of the federal government. They would be shocked and appalled at all the stuff the federal government does today.

 

I'm your age, and 20 years ago I was shocked when the government passed the USA Patriot Act.

I got over it. That is, I'm no longer shocked. I accepted many years ago that the federal government is a criminal organization.

 

All true,but that's how insurance works whether it is medical, fire, or automobile insurance. You willingly pay large premiums and hope you never have to collect. Taxes I don't accept. I have paid thousands in hospital and doctor bills and premiums over the years and I never once saw any taxpayer there helping out. Besides, where there is a lot of individual liberty there is not much efficiency or smooth operations..... and vice versa.

 

I see your point, and I generally agree with it. I would include those modern democratic constitutional countries of the European tradition, but, of all of them, the U.S. is probably the one that most values individual liberties. But with that said, yes, I agree with you.

 

Clearly you didnt get the joke...

 

Whether you pay for other people through increased insurance rates, or through taxes, is irrelevant. You are still paying.

The problem is, we as a nation made the decision in the 1980s that we don't leave people bleeding to death in the street because they don't have insurance. I was working in medicine when we tried that. We had ERs turning away ambulances carrying critical patients,. We had ERs locking their doors. It was a nightmare and a failure. Either we leave people dying in the streets or we don't, The minute we said we don't, medical expenses became everyone's problem.

It is a difficult balance to strike.

I know how to pay half the cost of health care with a painless tax. We tax high risk items according to their long-term risk. Pay for risky choices at the point of sale and that covers the related health care consequences. But people would scream. The actual cost of sugar consumption is about a $trillion a year - about a third of all health costs. Based on that, to pay for the consequences, sugar would be taxed at a rate of about $20 pound.

Crazy but that is the actual cost of sugar consumption - $1 trillion a year in health care consequences..And if you eat a lot of sugar we all pay for that.

 

Oh, it was a joke? Then I apologize.

 

If you’ll notice i said “in her interpretation”. I was speaking within the context of this thread and her interpretation.

don’t be obtuse you know exactly what I’m talking about. Here let me give you an example:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/09...oun-for-student-discusses-ongoing-legal-case/

 

A pessimist will never be happy, so maybe they don't even bother pursuing it, but its not as much about the 'pursuit' aka 'chasing', but actually living it. I see people practically searching for things to complain about (look at this forum) and they heap the negativity on themselves. Its a choice.

 

So then is California’s law banning gas vehicles unconstitutional when my idea of happiness is mud slinging in a giant 4x4 gas guzzler with dual exhaust?

 

Bump

 

I tire of repeating everything to you.

You are free to walk up to your boss and call him an idiot. Such stupidity might cost you your job, but you are free to do it. Actions have consequences but it does not negate the fact that you can pursue happiness.

Why pursuit of happiness seems impossible to you, but it goes back to what I said about pessimists: They will never be happy.

 

Which is a false premise. The Constitution does not guarantee the right to the pursuit of happiness. No doubt it was realized that the language was legally impossible to manage.

 

Its a reference to animated comedy show Southpark's fictional video game 'Heroin Hero' where one spends the entire game 'chasing the dragon' (by injecting heroin).

"Sometimes when the phrase 'chasing the dragon' is used the individual means they are trying to get the same high as they experienced the very first time. The drug is the “dragon” and they continue to “chase” or try to catch that very first euphoric feeling they got. It is a vicious cycle and something that they will never achieve."

In the context of this discussion, it was meant to display the subjective and fleeting nature of 'happiness', and the difficulty that comes with defining such a thing, especially on an individual basis.

 

It is indeed a choice but that doesn't make it impossible to achieve for others.

 

I really don't know why this opinion about america seems so prevalent...unless it is a hangover from the propagandist education you got.
I have lived in the US, the UK and in France and I can tell you that you are wrong.
Of them all I would say France is most sensitive to individual liberties. The spirit of 1789 is still huge and appears in the many demos, manifestations, news programmes, interviews with politicians, trades union representatives and social organisations. At times it makes the country almost ungovernable as one set of individual rights grates on others. We are now having hunting rights as part of our general election discourse. We have had burka issues where rights are incompatible. France bristles with issues about rights and balances of freedoms. They are sometimes settled by the underpinning of the truly secular state where no one gets any extra rights or treatment based of grounds of faith. If you can't live without your burka, move on to somewhere else. Anything else is definitely matters of individual rights. Loudly expressed.
The UK is far meeker. All British want is the right to be stealthily rich or to have at least 2 foreign holidays a year, a decent football team and a pub within walking distance. The rest they don't care about. How do you think Bozo got to be PM? By offering more individual rights? The British wouldn't know what he was talking about. Or care.

 

It has been said three times now that the pursuit of happiness is in the Declaration of independence including in the OP.

 

Only if you can prove that your 4x4 provides a mental benefit to your wellbeing. And is not merely a preference.
For example I might prefer the colour blue and OTOH I may need blue to calm me down mentally. My reading of "happiness" is more about mental health, not arbitrary choice.

 

No, it wasn't. Your question is based on a flawed premise

There is no legal right to the pursuit of happiness and there never was.

 

That is absolutely not true. I have insurance only if I voluntarily agree to and willingly want to pay for insurance. (Well, until Obamacare came along and I was forced by law to buy insurance.) This is not at all the same as the government at virtual gunpoint telling me I have to help pay for someone else's healthcare. Especially since I might or might not get some healthcare benefits for the money I give the government.

 

So I have a right to pursue happiness only if I can prove to a 3rd party that my pursuit provides a mental benefit. Who determines if I get a mental benefit from my pursuit? What is their criteria? You just deep sixed anyone's right to pursue happiness.

 

I have just attempted to define what was meant in the DOI.
And in these days of mental health, ISTM that happiness is what keeps you sane.

 

I don't know ISTM.......

 

Well, individual liberties are enshrined in our Constitution, unlike most other modern constitutional democracies. France was able to ban the burka, a move that would be impossible in America. In Australia, they prosecute people for not masking or for grouping in violation of covid restrictions. The Australian police arrested and removed a pregnant woman from her home because she tried to organize a protest online. You can’t even carry a pocket knife in that country unless you can prove you need it, like for work. In Germany, the Nazi party is outlawed. In America, no political parties are outlawed. You can join the Communist party if you want to. In the UK, you can be arrested and prosecuted for various types of speech that the government deems to be offensive. Not in America.

So when it comes to individual liberty, the U.S. is arguably the most free country in the world.

Seth