by R. M. Gardner

Created on: November 12, 2008   Last Updated: May 31, 2011

The Declaration Of Independence does not guarantee anyone the right to happiness, it only states that we have the right to pursue happiness. When you think of it in those terms, you have to ask yourself who is more likely to pursue happiness, a liberal or a conservative. In a simplistic approach, conservatism has a tendency to focus on the self, what can be accomplished by their own abilities; rugged individualism is a term often coined for a conservative. Liberalism on the other hand appears to lean toward group well-being, dictated by an overall sense of fairness, but on deciding which group would feel happier isn't always that simple. It also depends on what's going on in the world at the time and by how extreme you define either view point.

If taken to extremes, both view points would view the world negatively and would subsequently be less happy about it. Taking liberalism to the very far left, where the sense of fairness plays out to the end, we come up with Marxism, Socialism, Communism, or some variation thereof. "From each according to his ability to each according to his needs," (Marx C.). All sounds very fair in a utopian kind of way but history has proven it just doesn't work, and this is my own personal view point, but I don't think the citizenry of the former Soviet Union were particularly happy about it either. The problem was this model fought against a fundamental natural law in that there was no winner and no loser.

Like it or not nature mandates that there will be winners and losers, the winners eat and the losers are eaten. No other creature on earth sacrifices of itself for the benefit of another, unless you're talking about insect subculture, but even considering that what becomes paramount is the extension of the genetic code. This innate drive to improve one's fate is very Darwinian, but nature has demonstrated the success of this model repeatedly and anything that attempts to subvert it might not always fail, but it certainly won't make everybody happy about it.

This doesn't mean that everything should go the way of conservatism. Stripping away all liberalism we're left with the Darwinian theory we discussed earlier and are faced with absolute freedom. Total freedom, the ability to do anything at any time is anarchy and does not lead to happiness, well it might if you end up as the top dog, but even then you better be on you guard so I don't think so.

The point is we are a part nature and subject to natural law, but we are also social

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