On this most felicitous and oddly inappropriate "holiday" we should spend time reflecting about those who gave up their lives and fortunes in the pursuit of happiness in order to own property and enslave others.  The "Colonists" of England, who then owned land formerly occupied by settlers from France, Holland, Spain and Sweden, were simply protesting taxation imposed on them by a distant Parliament.

These were people of consequence in their time and had fortunes, property and names that were well known to their neighbors who looked up to them as serfs looked up to the master in the big house on the best land.  Yet, the lowest on the slippery pole took up arms, perhaps more eagerly than some of those who already had theirs, to fight against their King and Parliament.  They had, after all, set up little countries of their own and felt free to persecute those in neighboring colonies who differed from them in beliefs and practices.

But, the most telling of problems which we today have inherited from those lawyers, landowners, publishers and persons of wealth is the distinction in the words bequeathed to us in two important documents they sat down to write in order to justify rebellious thoughts and actions against said King and Parliament.  These two little words contained a world of differences that still have not been resolved.

First, in the famous Declaration of Independence, a document worked and reworked to get it right, declared that in order to insure "Happiness" was a goal of people putting their lives on the line.  That was a very difficult idea to realize although it sounded pretty good in its context.  We still have not defined what happiness is and what it will look like to each of us when we get some.

The second problem came in the Constitution that was written up to make sure we all knew what we were talking about.  But here is where we confounded things by making a single change in wording.  Instead of "happiness" which can not be found in the Constitution, "PROPERTY" was, instead inserted.  This was a whole other thing and down to today we find that it separates us rather than brings us together in the sense that happiness would. It is "Life, Liberty and PROPERTY.

 We, at least have the power to make changes in the Constitution. We can amend it to take away the sting of "property" and make us economically equal. Our democracy continues suffering class distinctions that owners of property have over the rest of us. The rest of us have political but not economic democracy.