Time to get back to basicsHow does one pursue Life? And Liberty for that matter. What do you mean by this? As your constitution actually seems to say a right to Life and Liberty which presumably just means the rights to not be unlawfully or unjustly killed nor unlawfully or unjustly imprisoned, basically the Magna Carta updated for the pleb.
As for the pursuit of happiness, well apart from being a pretty woolly term this sounds fair enough but what restrictions do you put upon this? As one man's happiness can be the cause of great misery to another.
Henry
A commune without choice is a jail. Working together can be practical but forced servitude is not. I will post the difference between negative liberties defended by the Constitution and positive liberties furthered by progressives like Obama.It's not complicated: most communitarians don't view communitarianism as slavery. Instead they see it as enlightened and practical
First the Preamble to the United StatesConstitution
Negative liberties protect the people from the government.We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
“When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise the original rights of self defense – to fight the government.” – Alexander Hamilton
“The ultimate authority resides in the people, and that if the federal government got too powerful and overstepped its authority, then the people would develop plans of resistance and resort to arms.” – James Madison
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson
Now read how Obama and the progressives want to transform America into a country preaching positive liberties.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderi ... f4f811593a
Obama’s radio interview offers four main take aways, which I summarize using his own words where possible:
So the struggle for the soul of America becomes clear. It is a basic struggle for freedom from government influence to impose its will beyond what the Constitution allows . Our founding fathers warned us against it but the Obama types are dedicated to transforming negative liberties which protect us from government into positive liberties which impose statist slavery.First: “We still suffer from not having a Constitution that guarantees its citizens economic rights.” By positive economic rights, Obama means government protection against individual economic failures, such as low incomes, unemployment, poverty, lack of health care, and the like. Obama characterizes the Constitution as “a charter of negative liberties,” which “says what the states can’t do to you (and) what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.” (Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy).
Second, Obama regrets that the Constitution places “essential constraints” on the government’s ability to provide positive economic rights and that “we have not broken free” of these Constitutional impediments. Obama views the absence of positive economic liberties that the government must supply as a flaw in the Constitution that must be corrected as part of a liberal political agenda.
Third, Obama concludes that we cannot use the courts to break free of the limited-government constraints of the Founders. The courts are too tradition and precedent bound “to bring about significant redistributional change.” Even the liberal Warren Court “never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.” Obama opines that the civil-rights movement’s court successes cannot be duplicated with respect to income redistribution: The “mistake of the civil rights movement was (that it) became so court focused” and “lost track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground…In some ways we still suffer from that (mistake)."
Fourth, Obama argues that economic rights that the state must supply are ultimately to be established at the ballot box. Those who favor redistribution must gain legislative control through an “actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.” The electoral task of a redistributive President is therefore to craft coalitions of those who stand to benefit from government largess. The legislature, not the courts, must do this “reparative economic work.”
In sum, Obama views the Constitution as a flawed document from which we must “break free.” We need, instead, a “living” Constitution that refocuses from “negative rights” to requiring income redistribution from the Haves to provide “positive economic rights” to the Have Nots.