Our recent celebration of Independence Day inspired me to reread the Declaration of Independence. My first thought was to assess its relevance to our current state in America. Of course, we are no longer besieged by a foreign tyrant; and its enumerated grievances against a foreign power are no longer applicable. But its declarations still resound with a clarion call to action: “the right of the people to alter or abolish” any form of government deemed destructive of certain unalienable rights, among which are “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Although Americans are not in the same plight as Egyptians, we do have a right to alter our government wherever it impedes one of those unalienable rights, many of which are further specified in our Constitution. These words were preamble to a revolution and justification for America’s Declaration of Independence. In our form of democracy, activism is not only justified. It is required. So, if government derives from “the consent of the people,” as the Declaration intones, then every citizen is required to understand his/her rights and to hold elected officials responsible for their safeguard. I think we all understand in general terms what “life and liberty” entails. But when we consider the right of the people to “keep and bear Arms,” are we cognizant of the second amendment context for the necessity of a “well -regulated Militia” to maintain “the security of a free State?” We do, after all, have law enforcement and a standing army to protect us from a foreign invasion. Certainly we all benefit from the first amendments’ freedoms of religion, speech and the press. But how do we explain our legislators’ application of religious interpretations to issues of homosexuality, same sex marriage, or abortion? It would appear that this amendment assures that no person can be forced to engage in any of these activities against his/her religious convictions. Equally, it assures the freedom of those who do not share these religious convictions. The fifteenth and nineteenth amendments state that the rights of citizens to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State” on account of race, color, sex, or previous condition of servitude. How does this mandate stack up against the whim of some state legislatures to abridge voting laws to curtail the vote of minorities?

Before I close this blog, I want to make one final comment on the “pursuit of Happiness.” A careful reading of the Declaration reveals what Jefferson meant. Also, his life gives an even more strident testimony of his intent. For Jefferson and for the signers of the Declaration, the happiness they considered our unalienable right was a common dedication to the public good. Of course, they foresaw a future nation where everybody had an equal opportunity to pursue their life goals. But this pursuit was seen as the necessary adjunct to the general welfare of the state. “It is the Right of the People to . . . institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their (the people’s) Safety and Happiness.” So with our freedom comes responsibility, not only to ourselves but to each other.