As Rich notes, Kamala Harris conveniently omitted the “life” part of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in a speech about abortion rights yesterday. The vice president intoned:
So we are here together because we collectively believe and know America is a promise. America is a promise. It is a promise of freedom and liberty — not for some, but for all.
A promise we made in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Be clear. These rights were not bestowed upon us. They belong to us as Americans.
Actually, there’s a lot of other stuff in the original text of the Declaration of Independence that could be seen as problematic from the progressive perspective. I did Harris the favor of writing a long-overdue update of the preamble:
We hold these truths to be relative (my truth is the product of my own lived experience, and any rational criticism of its premises is literal violence): That all humans — particularly BIPOC women of color and LGBTQIA+ gender-nonconforming persons — are created equitable, and marginalized groups are endowed by the government with exclusive affirmative rights; that among these are diversity, equity, and inclusion; and that to secure these rights, Human Resources departments are instituted among corporate boardrooms and Ivy League college campuses. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, except for when the governed make the mistake of voting for something that we don’t like, at which point it’s probably illegitimate because of voter suppression or Russian election-meddling or hanging chads in Florida. Whenever any Form of Government has a disparate impact on perfectly equitable group outcomes, it’s proof of systemic racism, sexism, and homophobia, and it is the Right of Unelected Federal Bureaucrats to actively undermine elected officials. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should be the subject of instinctive suspicion, because every idea and political institution that has existed for more than five minutes is probably perpetuating systemic oppression.
Viva la revolución!