【美国精神】第9期

Explanation:   

    The phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit¹ of happiness” comes from the Declaration² of Independence and it is something Americans talk a lot about.   These words were written by Thomas Jefferson.  He and the other men who wrote the Constitution believed that these are unalienable rights, that people are born with and that a government should not be given the power to take them away.  These words have become synonymous with (or have the same meaning as) the “American spirit” (or the way that Americans think and feel).  

 

    In the United States, the right to life is considered the most basic of all rights.  It’s exactly what it sounds like: the right to be alive.  It may seem funny that the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence included life as a right, but many of the earliest Americans had come from countries that did not take this right seriously. In many of these countries, governments executed (or killed) their own citizens.  This is why the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence included the right to life. 

 

    The second of Jefferson’s rights is the right to liberty (or freedom). The right to liberty is a person’s right to make his or her own decisions.  Again, many of the countries from which the earliest Americans came did not give their people this right. 

 

    The rights to life and liberty are easy to understand, but the third right, the right to the pursuit of happiness, is more vague (or unclear and difficult to understand).  To pursue is to work hard to get something, in this case, happiness. Happiness, of course, could mean anything a person wants to have: a job, a family, or a safe place to live.  The writers of the Declaration of Independence believed that the government should not interfere³ with (or get in the way of) a person’s right to pursue happiness.  The pursuit of happiness is exemplified⁴ by (or shown or seen in) many American rags-to-riches stories, where a person who is very poor becomes very rich because of their own hard work, including those of several U.S. Presidents.  

 

问题：

What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence? 

Answer:   

•  Life 

•  Liberty 

•  Pursuit of happiness 

1 pursuit   

n.追赶，追求，职业，工作

参考例句：

• They set off at once along the lane in pursuit.他们立即出发沿着小巷追赶。
• Life,liberty,and the pursuit of happiness have been called the inalienable rights of man.生命、自由和追求幸福被称为人类不可剥夺的权利。

2 declaration   

n.宣布，宣告，宣言，声明（书），申报

参考例句：

• We read the declaration posted on the bulletin board.我们读了贴在布告板上的声明。
• At the recent convention a declaration was adopted.在最近举行的大会上通过了一项宣言。

3 interfere   

v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰

参考例句：

• If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话，可能弊多利少。
• When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件，棘手的事情就来了。

4 exemplified   

是…的典型( exemplify的过去式和过去分词 )； 例示，举例证明

参考例句：

• Our ideas about right and wrong are exemplified in the laws. 我们关于正确与错误的概念在法律上取得了例证。
• He exemplified the use of the word. 他举例证明那个词的用法。