Another way to look at both the Declaration and the Constitution is that they are not so much an end as they are a means to a greater end. While politicians and scholars debate whether something is constitutional or unconstitutional, there is a strict constructionist viewpoint—sometimes called originalism or textualism—which suggests that if it doesn't say it in the text, it doesn't exist. That is absurd.

The founders intended these to be relevant, living, breathing, timeless documents. For anything to be timeless, it has to evolve with the times; if they were static, dead documents fixed in time, neither would be relevant past the year 1800. The Declaration has inspired countless movements toward freedom because of this genius: it is a relevant, timeless document. Ergo, it is very vague. Jefferson's grievances—the king closing ports, taxing us, or closing courts—do not list dates or examples. It is vague because it is applicable to all people, intended by Ben Franklin not just as a way to get rid of King George III, but as an aspirational gift to all of humanity for all time.

The Constitution is supposed to be an eternal document. If the founders had narrowly described exactly what types of freedoms, guns, prayer, or assembly can and cannot be, it would no longer be relevant. As brilliant as they were, they could not foresee electricity, the internal combustion engine, stem cell research, genetic engineering, or space travel. This idea of originalism and strict constructionism prevalent in the Supreme Court today is not only naive, it is absolutely absurd and antithetical to what the founders were doing. The Constitution is not a fixed document from 1787. It is eternal, and for it to remain relevant in the coming centuries, it requires an implied, interpretive, and expansive view. These documents can be viewed many different ways; indeed, the proof is in the pudding, as we have been fighting over their interpretation for the last 250 years.

The Bill of Rights notes ten basic enshrined freedoms. Some are antiquated, such as the freedom from quartering soldiers—an idea people hardly understand anymore. The British forced the colonists to care for and house the Redcoats. Other freedoms are profound, such as the right to a day in court, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. The First Amendment lays out these freedoms, though we are still debating them. Freedom is a double-edged sword, a two-sided coin. We have freedom, but on the other side, we have a responsibility to exercise it judiciously. As Oliver Wendell Holmes famously noted, you cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater. What supersedes your freedom of speech is another person's freedom to walk out of that theater without being stampeded. A pilot has the freedom to drink a beer, but not when he's flying hundreds of people at 30,000 feet. A surgeon has freedom, but not when she endangers a life on the table. We have spent two centuries debating where these superseding freedoms lie.

The founders were focused on life, liberty, and essential freedoms—the inalienable, unalienable, God-given, and indivisible rights found in nature or from "nature's God." But we cannot give health as a freedom, and at the time, many could not own property. So, we are left with life and liberty. Then there is Ben Franklin’s idea of the "pursuit of happiness." If you could take a time machine back to 1776, you would find that "happiness" meant a mixture of self-actualization and free will. He didn't mean happiness like, "I'm gonna play basketball tomorrow," or "my band's gonna put on a little show this Friday night." It is the intersection of the two: you can be whoever you want to be and aspire to whatever you want. You could decide to be a carpenter, a blacksmith, or a farmer. At the time, these basic ideas of freedom seemed heretical.

The genius is to realize that America was born out of this idea of free will and self-actualization—the notion that you can be whatever you want. I think the worst thing to do would be to try to actually define it. If we define it, we are fixing it in time and putting it in a narrow box. Who could have anticipated freedom when it comes to AI, retinal scanning, or genetic engineering? If they replicate someone's genes—my golly.

We cannot define it; we must consider the "pursuit of happiness" and the basic fundamental rights that are enshrined, then keep them open to interpretation to ensure an always evolving, living, breathing sense of freedom. Sadly, as we have this conversation today, millions, if not billions, of people on this planet do not enjoy even basic freedoms, be it clean water or free speech. When you look at autocracies like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Philippines, China, and North Korea, much of the human species lives without even the most basic freedoms enshrined, and it is 2026. Martin Luther King had the wonderful idea that the arc of the moral universe always bends toward justice, but I don't know. If not now, when? The struggle continues, and I think our great-great-grandkids are going to have this same conversation.