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Extricated from Happiness

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or some such gibberish. I am but a lowly country bumpkin vegetable farmer who loves her some guns and even I know this don’t make no sense. Melissa Harris-Perry:

I’m deeply irritated by their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness.

Extricate the capacity?

extricate: to free or release from entanglement; disengage


We disengage the capacity of ordinary people… .

Well. Okay. I’m not doing that so by “we” she must be referring to herself so maybe herself shouldn’t be doing that. How does one disengage capacity, though? Is there a switch? 
I don’t get it. I must be a moron.

If what she is trying to say is that someone– not me– is stopping people from their pursuit of happiness, she doesn’t understand happiness. She’s assuming that the two men to whom she refers define “pursuit of happiness”– as it appears in the Declaration of Independence— as money for the richest. Grammatically that don’t make no sense because the richest (in terms of $$) already have more $$ than everyone else so exactly what are the people with $$ pursuing? But set that aside. 
I do not know this for a fact but I’m willing to bet $1 that the two men to whom she refers could probably make the connection between “pursuit of happiness”– as it appears in the Declaration of Independence— and that old dead white guy… whatshisname… . Come on… . Think… . You can do this, Marica. What the heck is his name? Help me out here… .

Dang. What do you expect from a country bumpkin vegetable farmer?

6 Responses

  1. Dennis Prager commented on the same point this AM – and had exactly the same problem you’re having.

    I have no idea what she means. Other than apparently she expects that since “nature’s God” conferred those rights upon us, He should be relied upon to defend us all from any infringement upon those rights.

    Hmmm. Guess fighting a civil war to defend the rights of blacks wasn’t enough. She’s pretty demanding, considering how many died to ensure her rights would be intact.

  2. Reading this again, it reminds me of a friend we had at a point in the past. It was very clear that he was working very hard to increase his vocabulary (I don’t really think I knew anything about his background), and must be memorizing definitions from the dictionary. As a result, he frequently used words with incorrectly – that is, if you looked up the definition, it could be construed to mean what he intended based on one of the definitions, but in common usage the context made his application incorrect. I’m not explaining this well – but the dictionary usually gives 2 or 3 definitions of a word. Usually the first is the more common usage, but he’d use the word in a sentence where the 3rd definition was the one he applied. It was a bit disconcerting at times.

    Maybe “pursuit of happiness” means access to money. By making poor people pay for necessities, we’re “extricating” money, therefore not permitting them to pursue happiness???

    I don’t know. Doesn’t make much sense…either which way!

    1. This was exactly my point. It doesn’t make sense.

      Over the years, I’ve learned that one sure fire way to dismantle an argument is to rebut the *words*. Do not give into the temptation to understand what was meant and argue against that. Rebut the words themselves.

  4. My reading of the Declaration of Independence interprets “pursuit of happiness” as the pursuit of the Good Life. A life that is, just, and virtuous.

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