A recent book entitled, "The Destruction of the Great American Dream," deals with this question from a principles standpoint.
America's Founder's in-depth understanding of human nature and the ideas essential to liberty, combined with their passionate devotion to the cause of securing liberty for future generations resulted in the U. S. constitution's possibility for the "American dream."
Since the beginning of the 20th Century, so-called "progressives" have attempted to censor those enduring ideas and principles from textbooks and public discourse. They have been on a determined path to substitute the counterfeit ideas of Mao and Marx for the authentic ideas of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison--ideas which brought freedom, opportunity and plenty to America. People throughout the world called that "the American dream."
It is threatened today, because after decades of neglect, the citizens of 2008 were blinded and bedazzled by a flash in the pan called "hope" and "change," accompanied by a Pepsodent smile and a "fill-in-the-blank" that the resulting "change" would be "whatever your heart desires."
Citizens optimisticly filled in that blank with their own desires, and later discovered they had failed to recognize that the "blank" already was filled in with the words "socialism" and "government control of your lives."
The American dream? Same as it always was: the right to enjoy Creator-endowed life and liberty, free from the cocercive hand of government.
The Pepsodent smile faded as the heavy hand of government in the pockets of hard-working Americans caused hardship and lack of investment in job-creating businesses, and politician-appointed bureaucrats were seen to be ready to take the place of local doctors on matters of health.
That over-reaching by the promisers of "change" revealed that underneath the smile and velvet glove was an iron fist. The very boldness and arrogance of that over-reaching may have awakened enough citizens to bring America back from the dustbin of history.
It is time to restore the Founders' principles and to reject, here and now, the counterfeit notions of class warfare and the Alinsky tactics of the so-called "progressives" to impose Mao and Marx on the American people.
The election of 2010 is only the first baby step in that process. Before the restoration of liberty, the glove may come off, and the iron fist may reveal itself. Already, a scowl and pursed lips sometimes replace the gleam of the Pepsodent, and lectures replace the friendly chat. The rejection of the idea of limiting government power may come next.
If so, it must be met with the firmness and resolve of freedom lovers everywhere who understand that their rights come from their Creator, not from a few self-appointed folks who dare to believe they are better qualified than their fellow citizens to decide the limits on how much they can earn, what they can do with those earnings, and how much freedom they can have while they're doing it.
Nice speech. I agree with you, but you are preaching to the choir.
Problem is that the people you are “educating” don’t believe in the constitution or the republic.
And they certainly don’t read posts on FreeRepublic.
Very good response. The message you just posted should be incorporated in every speech and written article in the land.
The next thing we have to do is to really “Man Up” the physiological weaklings that our education system has created over the past two generations in our public indoctrination systems known as public schools and colleges.