The American Dream

**Mickeys_Elbow** · 04-11-2005 03:37 PM

When I asked people about what the American Dream is to them the most profound answer I received was, “I don’t know, I’d have to think about it.” This answer struck me because it was mine as well. After sitting down and pondering over it for the past several weeks I’ve decided that the American Dream, in its essence, is really just thinking the way you want to and expecting everyone else to agree.

Now… not everyone in America thinks the same way. They exude this essence of Americana in their own way. When America first began the revolutionaries decided we want to do things this way and frankly if you don’t like it you can take your tea and stick it where? Since then all Americans have been the same way. Every major movement in America has been centered on rebellion. In just the 19th century there are many examples. Americans invented the union when they decided we want to make this much money and if you don’t like it we won’t work. The civil rights movement in the 60’s was sparked because Americans got tired of not being treated like Americans.

When the Framers said, “In God We Trust,” that God was the dream. It is what truly drives America. In order to avoid the pitfall of not quite realizing your dream one must have faith. Just like any other god the American Dream needs believers to fuel it on. Like Christianity, the dream has many sublets and apartments but all are essentially the same. The Dream lives in us.

But the American Dream has gotten obscured over time. Very many Americans don’t realize the dream. They see their lives as failures when they lose their paychecks to the keno machine, or when their car gets repossessed because they bounced too many checks. When immigrants moved over here from Ireland during the potato famine they were taking a gamble except their chips were fried not stamped. They were living the American dream and so are the teenagers of the world, rubber checking accounts and all. To them it all works out in the long run.

People spend their whole lives trying to realize what they see everyday. A new yoga therapy massage studio is open on Third St. now. Six men were apprehended for smuggling cocaine. Twelve eagle scouts graduate from the same high school in Mayville, ND. The news articles shown everyday are evidence enough. Everyone is fulfilling what he or she sees as right. No wonder Joseph Smith decided this blessed ground should be his Chosen Land for the coming of Christ and yada yada yada. Religion has been a common excuse for people to flock to the states. The puritans made their colonies, burned their witches, and tamed their britches all in the graceful name of the Dream.

America has plagued the entire world with its paradigm. If you don’t live in America or your society doesn’t resemble America in some way you most likely want to move to America. Whenever cultures have sprung up as anti-America groups we’ve been quick to use them as an anvil, because, of course, we must make the world safe for Democracy. Every single war America has been involved in is because of the Dream.

In a way the Dream has desensitized America. We’ve been so keen on rebellion that we’ve failed to stop and take a look at what we’re rebelling against. Our commercials become more scandalous, our music more loud, our children join cults, all in the name of free will. But we’ve lost a sense of culture for the most part. We have no ethos because every new generation plots out a new plan for how they should live their life. There are so many different ways you can choose to be an American today.

America has set itself up on a dangerous precipice. With the coming of new technologies such as cloning and genetic engineering we have no regiment of rules to guide us through the troubled times ahead. How should we then live if we can’t decide if making people smarter is unethical or beneficial to the human race? Most people don’t know, more people don’t care, and the rest of them believe if everyone else thought the way they did then we’d all understand the whole situation. The dream has gotten us to this point but will it take us further?

The only thing that can save America is it’s past. Our education system attempts to force a little history on all of us, but what Jay Leno is quick to point out with his Jay Walking skit is that many of us don’t know where we came from or why we’re here. That grasp for meaning is a driving force of the American Dream; it’s what everyone wants along with their nice cars and stereos. Wake up and open your eyes America; you want the dream, you’re living it.

Like any good virus or religion the dream has remade itself over and over again to tackle new hosts. It’s evolved and carried us through our age and then moved on to the next generation. The Dream will live on with or without us, but will we survive to see it pass?

**Yume** · 04-12-2005 01:32 AM

What is rebellion without the will to receive complete individual choice?

Also culture evolves.

**Mickeys_Elbow** · 04-12-2005 08:16 AM

Originally posted by Yume+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Yume)</div>

What is rebellion without the will to receive complete individual choice?[/b]

Isn't that exactly what rebellion is?

Originally posted by yume@
Also culture evolves.

<!--QuoteBegin-Mickeys_Elbow
Like any good virus or religion the dream has remade itself over and over again to tackle new hosts. It’s evolved and carried us through our age and then moved on to the next generation.

**SleepSpirit** · 04-12-2005 10:11 AM

I always thought "The American Dream" was defined as, having material prosperity; white picket fence, family, little ones playing on the swing in the backyard, pops coaching the local little leaque baseball team, chicken dinner with mashed potatoes.. .
all That,

**irishcream** · 04-12-2005 02:45 PM

to me, it's basically what others have said. Freedom.
But it's about something else. Freedom of choice, and the guts to go for what you want, even if others disagree with you.

**SleepSpirit** · 04-13-2005 10:17 AM

freedom of choice ?
with all the conservative propaganda and all the naive minds,
freedom of choice is an apex reached by very very few.

**irishcream** · 04-13-2005 01:00 PM

well, i don't do politics, i've never voted in a general election, and i don't intend to. I don't read the papers, i very rarely listen to the news. I make decisions on what i feel to be right, by using my experience of life, and what others have taught me.

**Yume** · 04-15-2005 01:18 AM

Originally posted by Mickeys_Elbow+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mickeys_Elbow)</div>

Isn't that exactly what rebellion is?[/b]

<!--QuoteBegin-Mickeys_Elbow
In a way the Dream has desensitized America. We’ve been so keen on rebellion that we’ve failed to stop and take a look at what we’re rebelling against. Our commercials become more scandalous, our music more loud, our children join cults, all in the name of free will.

We are using free will the way we way to. We wanted free will and we have chosen to use it in a certain way. It is because you have different morals and opinions than others that you frown upon what Americans are doing today. I am sure that the Americans that are doing these things do not see them as wrong. What a person does with free will should not be judged by others because if the people being judged had to follow what people said it wouldn't be free will. If one's free will does not ruin another's free will than all free will can continue. The choice to have more scandulous commercials, having \"louder\" music, and joining cults are all uses of free choice. You shouldn't get free will and not use it. That would make our forefather's efforts to gain free will in vain.

Originally posted by yume+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(yume)</div>

Also culture evolves.[/b]

<!--QuoteBegin-Mickeys_Elbow
Like any good virus or religion the dream has remade itself over and over again to tackle new hosts. It’s evolved and carried us through our age and then moved on to the next generation.

Are you saying the American Dream is the only culture America has?

**SleepSpirit** · 04-15-2005 11:58 AM

Obviously there is gonna be a rebellion..
Conservativism is dying,
and it should..
even with the 90% - to 10%
conservative - liberal propraganda ratio....
conservatiism is dying..
Extreme conservatism in americas case.
Cults, louder music,
that's just a cry for help, an exreme against extremes, from all this bullshit that were being fed, in the name of intergrity, yet, we all know, it's far far from intergrity,
the age of pisces has fallen,
Eyes are opening,
hopefully, it won't be too late.

**ElijahJones** · 04-16-2005 05:34 AM

This is an interesting debate. I am a pisces by the way. The American dream used to be having your own home and a job that payed the bills and the ablity to be a part of the political process: political and religious freedom. I dont think it has ever really happened. Especially today we spend so much time telling each other to go to hell. I mean if its not the conservatives using the system for an agenda its the liberals.

At the same time the poeple who were told that if they work their life in the factory they get retirement benefits and a pension are being screwed like crazy. More and more of them are getting injured in their 50s because of the America diet that turns us into walking piles of shit by 40, then they cant get compenstated for it because of the healthcare crisis. And then alot of companies sell out so that the new owners can dump their pensions.

And the damn government keeps insisting that I pay taxes even though I apparently have no say on how the money gets spent. I hate to agree when someone says that something potentially so good is gonna fall, but I do agree. 20 years maybe, give or take, and America though still a country will be a superpower no more.

Their are alot of environemental issues that are sapping our strength right now and the decline of oil resources is going to hit much sooner than anyone will admit. Thats my opinion anyways. If we had the balls ot face it head on we might avoid the worst but the rich have their hand in the pants of the political parties, or is it the other way around?

I had almost stopped talking about the American dream because I think it has turned out to be a nightmare for at least 30% of the country. The die is cast in my opinion, the handwriting is on the wall.

Sadly,

EJ

**Yume** · 04-16-2005 06:34 AM

EJ,

If you told me what you would do with the taxes I would gladly mine to you. We may get a better reform from one person than the government as a whole.

America need to wake up. I don't mean listen and yell "Government is wrong!" I would like to see some people really go into government and list every bad decision and what the current decisions being made will do to this country. It would be nice for a change if we had a time where millions of people could voice their opinion on how America could be better served.

I personally see electric cars not the way out, but a way to help save oil resources. People need to realize that not everything will be there for them in the future.

Also I would like to see a new political party arise. I mean a powerful one. It would be unlike Conservatism and be the new Democratic side. I am not saying that the Democratic side is bad and infact I am more towards it that Conservatism, but we need a new party that is more assertive because I do not see the Democratic party filling that obligation I feel it owes America. I am still deciding on it. We need a Democratic reform. I am actually Individualist, but I side with Democrats more often.

I will be leaving America hopefully 10 years at the latest and will be moving to Italy with family. I am not saying America is a bad country, but I would rather get out of all this pointlessness of arguments that can obviously be ended with a good amount of Democracy.

I am also Pisces.

**ElijahJones** · 04-16-2005 09:24 PM

Yeah Yume,

My wife and I have talked about moving to Europe: Ireland or Britain (because we only speak English). The EU is definitely on the rise.

But, no matter where we go the same basic issues of human liberty will be continually examined under one experiment of government after another.

I am so tired of how America is now, it is like a stone around my neck.

I think that if we took the middle leaning parts of each of the Republican and Democratic parties we could create one super party that would me the needs of most Americans most of the time.

These middle leaners like myself, care about minority interests are usually level headed, peace loving, respect peoples lifestyle choices and want equal opportunity for all.

Unfortunately I think nothing short of the emergence of a god among men could turn us way from the course we are on. The whole thing is very sad in my opinion. Very, very sad

Regards,

EJ

**irishcream** · 04-16-2005 10:29 PM

it's funny...no matter where we are in the world, we always think life is going to be better somewhere else...

**ElijahJones** · 04-16-2005 10:51 PM

Are you suggesting the shamrocks are not greener on the other side of the pond?

Thread: The American Dream

LinkBack

Thread Tools

Display

The American Dream

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions