. . . to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I get chills just saying that. Every time.

I quote it sometimes on Thanksgiving, when we go around the table saying what we're thankful for, but only in certain company because it's hard not feeling pretentious. But that really is what I'm most thankful for in this world. To have been born into a time and a place where a group of people have banded together to rule themselves by those words. That's simply extraordinary. Hard to picture the world ever topping that one.

Except when it actually makes them all come true, of course. I know I complain a lot, but half the complaining has to do with us not living up to those words. (The other half is about failing to realize artistic potential, or selling out and not trying to.) We're not doing bad, considering how close the rest of humanity has gotten most of the past 10,000 years or so. But we can sure do a lot better.

We veer so far from that vision so often, that I frequently wonder whether the people I find myself arguing with most of the time have a different vision of what those words mean, or just don't truly buy into them. I realize some of my Christian friends, for example, put that document way down the list below a lot of religious documentation. Many of them do not buy into that sentence, they do not see their Creator endowing them with those rights, the see the world through a very different lens. A very muddy one, unfortunately. Which I don't mean as a knock--I think most of them would agree that the bible is wildly complex and contradictory. So many interpretations of what it means. And then--particularly among the Catholics--there's that whole other body of religious dogma that has built up based on God knows what, that they're trying to governing behavior by. Kind of hard to keep the central message straight sometimes in that realm.

That's the wonderful thing about the unalienable rights sentence: couldn't be more crystal clear, could it? And it really does capture the whole breadth of human existence, at least as much as any one sentence could reasonably hope to. (Although I would have written it as several sentences. Would read a lot more powerfully with some periods in there. Not to nitpick or anything.)

And like any truly great sentence, the blockbuster arrives at the very end:

. . . The Pursuit of Happiness

I wish I could remember who--some ferner, they've always got the best vantage point to see us--made a wonderful point of how extraordinary the inclusion of that phrase was. I've always thought so, but I hadn't realized (and I am not at all certain it's true, but in this rare case I'll pass on an unsubstantiated rumor) that no (known?) government had ever before established happiness as one of its a guiding principle. Civilizations were always championing wealth, power and occasionally the glory of their god (or paying lip service to Him). Security and food were always primary concerns. Gold a quick runner-up. Land, obviously. Liberty was a relatively new and radical concept. But happiness. As a central right of existence. Endowed directly by our Creator, trumping the right of any man to restrict it? That was totally off the map.

Revelatory. But really, that's what we're all shooting for, isn't? That's what I really want, is the opportunity to pursue whatever course I think it is that's going to bring me some sort of happiness. And fulfillment--which is found at precisely the same destination. (Or along precisely the same path, for those of you obsessed with the whole journey! journey! life is a journey! metaphor. (I agree with you, by the way, but could the phrase possibly have grown more tiresome?))

In fact, the only reason I really need the Liberty is to make my way successfully to the happiness. If there's anything redundant in that sentence up top it's the Liberty. But thank God it's in there, or some damn fools interpretting the document would surely be arguing its utter dispensibility. In practice, Liberty is the most important word in the document, because hopefully it's a guiding principle on the road to happiness, though quite a few groups in this country are intent on abridging it.

The Happiness line, though, that's the one that brings the brightest smile to my eyes.

You know the one big problem with The Sentence? Someone lacked the foresight to append it to the constitution. I guess they figured it went without saying: If we formally issued the document to declare our existence as a nation, then it automatically rose to pre-eminent status in interpretting how we should be governed. Unfortunately, our chief governers, those nine men and women on the supreme court do not see it that way.

So many frivolous constitutional amendments out there, that's an unfrivolous one I would love to see appended. Just that single glorious sentence.