Unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Right now, America is a very divided country with violence caused by racial tensions making headline news. Discrimination based on race in the United States has existed since the colonial era, where owning slaves was legally permitted by law. Over the years formal racial discrimination has been banned thanks to the activism of minority groups who fought for equality in legislation and civil rights. In the 20th century, racial discrimination is illegal and it is perceived as being socially and morally unacceptable, but the demonstrations across many cities in the United States following the death of George Floyd are showing us that, although progress has been made, there is still a long way to go to allow everyone the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In order to understand the present and be better prepared to take effective, long-lasting action, we need to know the history behind it all. Let’s take a quick trip down ‘History Lane’ right to the start of all of this…

The American Declaration of Independence

According to the American Declaration of Independence, every person has the unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Unfortunately, history is full of examples where theory and practice are two different things.

Thomas Jefferson, who was the President of the United States from 1801 to 1809, wrote the US Declaration of Independence in 1776 near the beginning of the American Revolution. The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows:

“We hold those truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Despite the libertarian rhetoric that followed the Declaration of Independence, liberty and equality became more and more muted in real life; people started realizing that even if the…