Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...Despite Everything Else
I love my country. I am honored and humbled to know that circumstances allowed me to be born here, the daughter of a US Army retiree, descendant of men who fought in the Continental Army in the American Revolution and on both sides (ugh) of the Civil War. My lineage includes whalers, farmers, teachers, musicians, slaveowners, and abolitionists. We have all valued our lives as Americans, the liberty afforded us as Americans, and been able to pursue happiness with minimal limitation. I was taught to value these principles for all people, and because of this, I value the lives of the men and women who put on the uniforms of our armed forces and volunteer to lose their lives for the freedoms granted to us by the Constitution, shaped as it was by the ideals underlying “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. I value the words of those who speak out against the worst devils of inhumanity that keep people from having those Constitutional rights; t