Before then, there was only "American Exceptionalism". America always has and always will be an exceptional place, precisely for reasons that progressives cannot understand and quite simply do not like. So they have to replace what used to be America with something new.
Like most dreams, the American one means different things to different people. Mine is an America where people get to keep the things they earn. Where government exists to serve the citizens, not vice versa. And where people of all classes respect the rights of others, whether they be of a higher or lower social standing.
It was an America that existed once. And there's one man who wants to make it true again.
save for later
Marx/Trotsky/Lenin invented this ‘American Dream’ and it’s taken off since then.
NOT the embrace of equal opportunities, but a demand for equal outcomes, has become a fundamental Leftist delusion.
And now this same delusion is powering the obama/hillary juggernaut.
The American Dream is universal prosperity, and to me, this was largely realized in the WWII and postwar era, compared to the “dark days” of labor unrest in the early 1900’s.
Do you know the song, “She’ll be coming round the mountain” ? It came to my attention when my then toddler g-kids were watching Baby Genius videos, which included this song. I learned that it was a celebration of the turn-of-the-century labor organizer “Mother” Jones. Those were indeed hard times, and the labor movement was indeed politically radical, and it’s identification with Communism has real meaning.
Yet, things did sort out, to the extent that this anthem of the radical labor movement appeared on Baby Genius as a harmless jingle.
It’s Shay’s Rebellion all over again.
I agree most emphatically. In that respect, we should BOLO for one tendency in particular: socialists consistently conflate “government” with “society.”The reason they do so is to Newspeak away our ability to even think about “society” and its meaning. Every “conservative” (here I intend you to understand the markings as scare quotes. “Conservative is actually a misnomer forced on us by socialists after they have stolen “liberal” and “progressive” - which is what we actually are - and what socialists are not). Thomas Paine put paid to the fatuous conceit I here decry back in 1776:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Socialists (actually they are really “governmentists”) do not always use the literal word “society” when they do it, either. They will say, “we” should, or “America” should - or just about any polity individually “should” feed the children. Yes, indubitably - society should feed the children - and in fact it does. But theSociety in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
socialistgovernmentist means that the government should do what actually is the job of society. The job of “patron” tothe peopleeach of us individually . When you have a job, your employer is actually your patron. Just as your employer’s customer is his patron. But if the public at large is dependent on the patronage of the government, that society is not free.