<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV class=RTE> >This is unjust and un-American. America was founded on the principle >of individual rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the >pursuit of happiness.> > The Declaration of Independence is a political, not a juridical document. Our legal system is primarily founded on the Constitution, whose preamble states that the government is formed to secure four main social results: provide for the common defense, establish a system of justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, and to "promote the general welfare."  The mechanics of the constitutional balance of powers was to ensure that the general welfare was promoted and that majority factions would not take over the machinery of government and suppress the interests of minority factions.  The Bill of Rights was added to protect individuals against tyrannical factions.  Constitutionally, "promoting the general welfare" has to be secured before that of the individual to avoid anarchy on one hand and tyrannical rule by a majority faction on the other hand. At present we have rule by majority faction and that is subverting the general welfare.  This is inevitable as long as the civil society, which forms the basis of the government structure, is divided into factions based on economic antagonisms.  The interest of the individual and general interest will always be in conflict, within limits determined by economic development of the society. The constitution, as a social document outlining the juridical relations within the political entity called the United States, necessarily supports the primacy of promoting the general welfare against the pursuit of individual happiness.  It promotes the pursuit of happiness as necessary to the general welfare, but does not guarantee a successful result, because the individual, whose will is determined by their position within the conficting class structure, may be in pursuit of objectives which conflict with the promotion of the general welfare. In the case under discussion, it is necessary to prevent the intervention of special interests pursuing the goals of political economic factions between the individual pursuing their happiness and the constitutionally mandated role of government to promote the general interest against that of special and individual interest.  This is accomplished through "lawmaking" and judicial review of written statutes.  Lawmakers swear an oath to the constitution, that is to promote the general welfare, and then proceed to break the oath by support special and individual interests against the general welfare.  Hence, the "balance of powers" to ameliorate the tyranny of factions (which the writers of the Constitution considered inevitable due to human nature, but are in reality due to conflicting economic interests).  Since the legislatures at the national, state, and local levels have abdicated more and more of their powers to the exectives of their respective governmental units, the tyranny of factions has overturned, within specific political limits in each case, the balance of powers, with the result that the economic forces (money and education) behind the political factions have taken more and more control of the legislative (lawmaking) branch and are seeping into the judicial branch as well. The solution of the "objectivists" is to replace factional tyranny with individual tyranny.  This is the tendency of the evolution of the political factions at present.  Witness the Republican Party (a majority faction based on specific, if conflicting, economic presuppositions) coming under the control of a few operatives pursuing their individual happiness at the expense of the general welfare of the whole party.  The primacy of the individual interest over the general interest results from viewing society from the point of view of the isolated, Jeffersonian gentleman farmer, with his rights to his landed estate and the chattel attached to it.  It can only result in anarchy and the tyranny of the individual subverting the general interest. A solution can only be found in a form of society where individual and general interest coincide and indivdual interest promotes the general interest, and the general interest by definition contains individual interest.     </DIV></div></html>