Posted on 07/25/2016 9:38:04 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
If you only read the title of the blog entry, you're wasting your time and missing the important details.
I know I just jammed a big huge red button, but this really needs to be written. It's very important for understanding progressive ideology. First, who invented the phrase "American Dream"? It was James Truslow Adams.
What, exactly, did he write? See, what the progressives don't want you and I to do is to actually go and pick up some of these books and commit the heinous act of actually reading them. In The Epic of America, Page 404, he writes:
If, as I have said, the things already listed were all we had had to contribute, America would have made no distinctive and unique gift to mankind. But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
That's what's most commonly quoted from Adams' book. I bolded the phrase a dream of social order, because this phrase - this is a tip off that a scam is being perpetrated. It's a huge red flag. Conservatives don't talk this way. Moderates don't talk this way either. It's radicals and ideologues who are endlessly obsessed with the "social order" - the "social this" and "social that" and the more equitable.... Here. See for yourself.
James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America, page 410: (Yes, this link goes to the original 1931 edition, though in snippet form. Alt link so you can read it.)
If the American dream is to come true and to abide with us, it will, at bottom, depend on the people themselves. If we are to achieve a richer and fuller life for all, they have got to know what such an achievement implies. In a modern industrial State, an economic base is essential for all. We point with pride to our "national income," but the nation is only an aggregate of individual men and women, and when we turn from the single figure of total income to the incomes of individuals, we find there was a very marked injustice in its distribution. There is no reason why wealth, which is a social product, should not be more equitably controlled and distributed in the interests of society.
There's your "American Dream" as originally constituted. It's wealth redistribution and big government. No, really, I don't want you to believe me. Click the link and open the book. See it for yourself. Know it, because you've read what was actually written. With progressives, with any one of their undertakings it almost always comes back to wealth redistribution. Without fail.
This is why I keep trying to provide the original sources, the actual links to the hard copy - and urge conservatives to pick up these books, and read them. We're being lied to on a massive scale, and it only takes about 10 minutes or so to come up with the truth. This is actually really simple and easy. The time consuming part is the reading of the books and discussing, educating others about the realities of progressivism. And, we'll all be so much better off for it.
If a progressive is crowing about something, about how great something is, chances are that if you go back to the original source it won't take you very long to put the lie to everything they're promoting. Everything about progressives is a house of cards. Can we please knock the cards over now?
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You are your own worst enemy.
I hate to seem like a hardass, but anyone who pretends to share wisdom and insights, but refuses to master elementary school English can do it somewhere else. Typos are tolerable, but violations of grammar and syntax are not. At least get a high schooler to edit your words of wisdom...
I'm only speaking for myself, but when I run into one of those, I stop reading and move on... life is too short.
If you have to ask why, you are far beyond hope of ever grasping it. Even throwing 5000 words at the concept is a waste of time.
From each, according to his performance. To each, according to his performance. Perform better or smarter, get richer. It ain't rocket science.
Hardass or just an ass?
...share wisdom and insights (insight, singular)
...can do it somewhere else (what is “it” ?)
At least get a high schooler to edit your words of wisdom .(run-on, incomplete sentence)
...but when I run into one of those (what is “those” ?)
Why not just support your brethren instead of knocking them down? Life is too short.
And there you have it.
But here is the kicker: Just as the Left has appropriated much of the language and enslaved it to their ideology, we have taken their phrase "The American Dream", and given it true meaning since the founding of this country.
When we (as conservatives) refer to "The American Dream", we reference a country that is merit based. No matter how high you are born, you can fail without hard work. And no matter how low you are born, you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams, and all it takes is hard work, dedication, and persistence. ANYONE can succeed. That is our interpretation as conservatives. And it is true. It is why people USED to come from all over the world to come to this country.
To put it plainly, we want equal opportunity. The Left (including those like James Truslow Adams) want equal outcomes.
Tools like those who adhere to leftist policies, don't have that in mind.
. . . a dream, IOW, of what Thomas Sowell calls "cosmic justice.” We can dream of “cosmic justice” only so long as we are unaware of original sin. If the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons unto the fifth generation, who among us can be sure of withstanding the “retribution” that might be our due? Which is part (only) of why the Bible instructs us about mercy. Why we need it, and why we need to grant it to others.Birth order within the same family significantly predicts relative outcomes. The “Great Society” has put a wrecking ball to the family as an institution; it will take an even worse destruction to eliminate the effect of the “fortuitous circumstance” of birth order.
I disagree with you on this, publius911. I make it a point to read many of your posts, as your insight on this type of thing is valuable, but on this I have a different interpretation than you do.
The phrase “The American Dream” does have meaning, and a significant one. While I can agree 100% that “Hope and Change” is a trite political platitude (Hope for what? What is the Change?) I believe the phrase “The American Dream” has acquired a rich depth of meaning
There have been generations of people who came to America (before it became the land of “handouts” for immigrants) who DID have a dream. (back when immigrants actually assimilated into the American society)
They dreamed of getting work. They dreamed of working hard and buying material things like food, clothes, a house/apartment, or a car. There were a lot of people driven to come here, because they heard it could be done. It could be done, was done, and is still done.
To stigmatize the statement “The American Dream” because some POS leftist created it, is to cede that battlefield to liberals. I do admit that most of the people now who come to this country both legally and illegally, hew to to the leftist concept of equal outcomes, and that is a very bad thing.
But I do think it meant something quite apart from what the originator intended it to. Just my opinion.
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