11 thoughts on “Killing the American Dream

  1. You know, people are beginning to yell “Stop!”

    A friend of mine suggested, before the election, that Obama’s (then potential) victory would be the best thing that could happen for conservatism and sanity. I’ve been thinking he was right, lately.

    The battle isn’t over and it’s not anywhere near over… but I think we still have quite a bit of reason to hope. Real hope, I mean. Not HopeTM.

  2. Why would anyone want to renounce the American Dream?

    I understand soul searching and striving for better, but to beat people down into ugliness and hopelessness shouldn’t be part of that exercise.

    • Same reason my ancestors renounced whatever pagan religion they had before they became Catholic, and why Christians are supposed to witness.

      When you take on a new faith, you gotta get the word out, and distance yourself from others.

      When your faith is “America bad….”

    • American Dream?

      I always heard the American Dream was two cars, a tv in every room and a house to put all one’s stuff into. Problem with that is it came with a price bubble and loads of debt. American Dream? Or American Nightmare (see what’s happened with all that debt, people living beyond what they earned, chasing the American Dream)?

      • Re: American Dream distorted?

        The American Dream does not equal materialism rampant as you’ve suggested; rather, it is the manifestation of opportunity where the ordinary individual may express — with a due respect to one’s neighbors — what one wishes, work where one desires consonant with one’s abilities, to travel freely, and own the property on which one resides with a reasonable respect of one’s privacy from the State within that home.

        Across the globe, for the last five hundred years, only North America [I include Canada] offered this wealth of opportunity with increasing vigor.

        Not for an aristocracy, not for an entailed tenancy, not Star Chambers for alleged sedition against the Crown.

        It’s like the Host. One may perceive only the ostensible surface appearance as mere wine and wafers. Or one may receive it as the “outward and visible sign of an inward andspiritual grace”.

        Simply because those pursuing the American Dream may possess credit cards and TVs hardly excludes the existence of a more important chord within those persons.

        Do not confuse the trappings with the ideal.

        JJB

        • Re: American Dream distorted?

          Thank you so much for answering this so much more eloquently than I could.

          To think the American Dream is limited to a house or a car–well, that’s a fairly meaningless dream as far as I’m concerned.

          The American Dream is the ability to follow one’s own dreams–to live to one’s potential–to be free to pursue that which is fulfilling. The American Dream is living in freedom and opportunity. The American Dream is contentment without resting on one’s laurels–always striving for better.

          Freedom, Truth, Justice, Opportunity–these are the American Dreams.

          • Re: American Dream distorted?

            For some people, the American dream is a bike and a place to live and enough food and a chance for an education.
            For others, 2 modest cars and a modest house may be what they really do need and want.
            And some people can afford wonderful cars and amazing houses and vacations to lovely places.

            Communist countries make a cult of doing without but turning a blind eye when their leaders do exactly as they please. Or, in socialist cases, demanding people be patriotic and pony up more taxes for the common good…$25,000 date night to NYC, anyone? Splendid parties showcasing the best of American culture as defined by the party in charge? I do not believe the costs of those things came out the personal account of the man who ordered them up.

      • Re: American Dream?

        People do use the term the American Dream in this fashion, but it is not the original or important meaning of the term.

        Nor is it the part that the people in the article were attacking.

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