How Do We Know

3

THE OPPONENT OF HAPPINESS

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

—THOMAS JEFFERSON

Reflect on what a great American was Jefferson (1743-1826). My Encyclopedia gives his record:

Third president of the United States (1801-1809). A gentleman and a scholar of thorough legal and diplomatic training. Drafted the Declaration of Independence, became governor of Virginia (1779-1781), was U.S. minister to France (1785-1789), and founded the Democratic-Republican party as whose candidate he won the presidential election and became the successor of John Adams. As an opponent of the federative party he was bitterly opposed to Alexander Hamilton. During his administration occurred the war with Tripoli, the Louisiana Purchase, the reduction of the national debt, etc. He retired to his seat at Monticello in Virginia and died, as did John Adams, on Independence Day, July 4, 1826.

What an historical coincidence, these two friends passing away on the anniversary of the day they signed the Declaration of Independence! Wrote John Milton, “Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity.” The brilliant Goethe’s last words, as he passed to his reward in 1832, were, “Give me light.” May more of us than now be aware of and blest by the enlightenment that graced these two who shared in the founding of the greatest nation that ever existed!

Speaking of power over others, my long-time associate, Reverend Edmund Opitz, wrote: “Never advocate any more power for your best friends, than you would willingly see wielded by your worst enemies.” He would be pleased rather than offended if I rejected his wielding of power over me. The appropriate alternative? We work together by aiding each other.

Jefferson’s phrase, “power over others,” had to do with organized police force, politicians running the lives of others. In a word, coercion—a form of slavery. The world’s largest quotation book—nearly 3,000 pages, everything from “ability” to “zeal,” omits this slavish word, “coercion.” That English philosopher, Herbert Spencer, (1820-1903) gave the answer: “What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of him as one who is owned by another. . . . That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another’s desires. . . . What . . . leads us to qualify our conception of the slavery as more or less severe? Evidently the greater or smaller extent to which effort is compulsorily expended for the benefit of another instead of self-benefit.”

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote into the Declaration of Independence “. . . that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” were he to look down upon our present situation, would be flabbergasted, dismayed, shocked.

The idea of Creator-endowed rights is nonsense to atheists. To them, there is nothing beyond man’s earthly sojourn. There is no Heaven! However, evidence to the contrary has been growing for the past 2,000 years. I know it to be a fact!

What would shock our national hero more than anything else would be the millions of nonrational beings getting enjoyment from the exercise of power over others.

Edmund Burke had some thoughts on power:

Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

A few others:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

—Lord Acton

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wines the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough, to be trusted with unlimited power.

—Caleb C. Colton

The basis of international anarchy is men’s proneness to fear and hatred. This is also the basis of economic disputes, for the love of power, which is at their root, is generally an embodiment of fear. Men desire to be in control because they are afraid that the control of others will be used unjustly to their detriment.

—Bertrand Russell

Finally, how does a rational being achieve happiness? Happiness is neither within us only, nor without us; it is the union of ourselves with Creation: Infinite Consciousness. While we finite beings can never approximate a union with the Infinite, we can continuously strive toward that goal. There is no greater source of joyousness!

The happiest life is that which constantly exercises and educates what is constructively unique in each of us. No two of us have an identical competence; indeed, each changes from day to day. It is this millions time millions of varying abilities which make the free and unfettered market a requirement for successful lives.

Is it by riches, or by virtues, that we are made happy? Wealth’s real role is to relegate mundane affairs into the past tense, that we may concentrate on living virtuous lives!

Happiness can be built only on virtue, not on power over others. The joyful life must, of necessity have for its foundation the seeking of truth!