Source: New York Post
The primary obligation of any government, the Declaration of Independence tells us in its famous second paragraph, is the “safety and happiness” of its citizens. The necessity of securing safety is obvious (except to progressive politicians in big blue cities, who are often diffident about crime and disorder), but it is thought something of a novelty of the Declaration to set out “the pursuit of happiness” as one of the central “inalienable rights,” along with life and liberty. It is well established that Thomas Jefferson and his collaborators in writing the Declaration (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston) followed the language and logic of John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Government.
