I just read this article, and a little something popped into my head. What was it, O Deliverer of My Deliverance, Light of My Life, Fire of My Loiny Loins? Not that much. Only the fucking root of the problem with our country today.

It's a pretty big revelation, even for a man known for his shocking insight such as myself. So strap your flapjack ass in, because right now you're in the luggage compartment of Spaceship Awesome, and we're fixin' to blast the fuck off. T minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....

The article concerns Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier who died in Iraq, who is currently leading an anti-war protest outside of President Bush's Crawford ranch. Over the past few days, tensions have been rising between the protesters and some residents of the area. The residents' most common complaint was that the protesters are crowding the street near the site, creating traffic difficulty. And so the residents are making their inconvenience known. For example, Monday night a resident was arrested after he drove his truck over hundreds of small wooden crosses bearing the names of dead soldiers that the protesters had erected. Now the residents are petitioning county officials to prevent the protesters from congregating in the area.

In response to comments about the protesters' civil rights, petition-signer John Laufenberg said, "All those of us that live in that area and in that community and our children also have civil rights, and we do feel that those are being seriously compromised at this time."

The core of what's really taking our country apart right now is right there in Laufenberg's comment. No, it's not that children have civil rights, though I'll grant that it is a somewhat dubious move to grant rights to people that have, time and again, proven unable to refrain from picking their noses in public. No, the real issue is that people don't know the difference between their rights and the things they'd like to have happen.

For me, it comes down to a single phrase: "the pursuit of happiness." The people who started this country, magnificent bastards all, put right there in the Declaration of Independence that one of the three most important rights possessed by every person is to be able to pursue happiness. Not to be happy. To try to be happy.

So what does this mean to you? Let's take an example from my life. I love Wendy's chili. I think it's really delicious, and it always makes me happy. According to those Declaration guys, I have the right to try and eat that chili whenever I want. But I don't have the right to get the chili. If a cretinous Wendy's employee refuses to sell me chili because they're out of it or something, I have the right to be sad and hungry, but not much else. Because, though granting someone the right to try to be happy is cool, in practice it doesn't mean all that much. Consider the inverse of the right of the pursuit of happiness: it's kind of like granting you the right to be disappointed all the time.

And this, in my opinion, is the problem with everything right now. People think they have the right to be happy. In this specific case, happiness means feeling safe driving on a crowded street past people who are upset about something. We don't have the right to feel safe, and that's because the magnificent bastards behind this whole deal knew that feeling safe is totally objective. I might feel safe on a boat of the coast of Alaska in pursuit of the deadliest catch, but you might feel safe in a hermetically sealed penthouse suite at the Four Seasons.

So, yes, Laufenberg is correct when he says that he and his children have civil rights. The problem is that driving down an uncrowded and quiet street isn't one of them. Would I be pissed if a bunch of fucking hippy assholes were protesting at the end of my driveway? Of course. Would I try to intimidate them by wandering my fenceline carrying a shotgun, my greasepainted body glorious and nude, save the smallest of tiny jock straps? Of course. It would be annoying, but in the end it would be just one more way in which I'd failed in my pursuit of happiness.

Analogcabin @ 4:57 PM
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