Are You Living The American Dream?

This topic came up on another blog. The piece discussed what the American dream is not, without being too definitive about what it is. That's when I dropped my post in the midst of the discussion, hoping that it would force a new examination of these oft-repeated words.

It got one comment. The comment followed my statement, and was positive. The host responded briefly, but it was clear that my comment received little more than a perfunctory glance.

I'm not angry.

It's a good blog, but the locust have descended upon it, threatening to strip it of the verdant growth of thoughtful comments, fresh ideas, intellectual banter, the vastly different, but interesting perspectives, and the treasure-trove of information we've come to expect and appreciate--all that the blog used to be before the coming of the locusts: the ideologues, the trolls, and the malcontents.

Five regulars make up roughly 72% of the posts. The remaining 28% often conceal a few nuggets of gold, and a gem or two, but the nuggets and the gems are becoming rarer.

And that's a shame.

I read a blog as much for the content, as for the comments, and see them both as an intricate part of the overall experience I've come to expect from frequenting a blog.

In case you're curious, and didn't see it: Here's the post I left:

What, in fact, is the American dream, and when do you know that you have it?

Does it come on like a cold, with symptoms so clear that you can't mistake it for anything else, like say the flu?

Does it creep up behind you in the night, and snatch your purse, or your wallet, and leave you glad that you didn't lose more, like say your life.

I'm thinking about all those lottery winners who won millions. If you had asked them right after their sudden win, if they're living the American dream, I believe to a man or a woman that they would have grinned broadly and said, "Yes."

Are they living the American dream? Hard to say, too often these mega-millions winners end up dead, or as impoverished as before they won, or meet with some other ignominious end.

What is the America dream, then? Is it material wealth? Or is it something else?

I'm thinking about all those starlets, and other celebrities of stage, and screen, and courts, and fields, and courses, and tracks.

Are they living the American dream? Hard to say, too often they're caught up in scandals--sex scandals, drug scandals, and ripoff scandals.

What is the American dream, then? Is it fame and public acclaim? Or is it something else?

Martin Luther King defined what he thought the American dream to be, and immortalized it in a speech, of which most of us are familiar, his, I Have A Dream, speech.

Upon close examination of the speech, you're struck by how often King used the words "free," "liberty" and "freedom," or some other similar reference:

"Emancipation Proclamation," and "a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity," and "the solid rock of brotherhood."

What is the America dream, then? Is it freedom? Or is it something else?

Our founding fathers conceptualized it by encapsulating it with these words from our Declaration Of Independence, ostensibly to enumerate a deficiency in governance to which they rebelled:

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Now this brief passage is open to endless interpretations, and have been so subjected.

But what's remarkable about it, is that man's "unalienable Rights," which are "self-evident," come not from government, but from God ("their Creator"), suggesting that it's government's role to assure that these Rights aren't trampled by the whims of men, or tyrants.

If this is the American dream, then it's nothing more than a Gift from God, and not man. And the government that governs best, is not the one that governs least, but the one that seeks to protect those "unalienable Rights."

We might quibble over how best to do that, and when we have done that, but the charge is unmistakable:

Government is entrusted with the solemn duty to protect what God has given to each equally--an endowment, a Gift of "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

So, is this the American dream--a Gift from God, and a government charged with the protection of that Gift?

I like to think so.

So, to answer the question posed in the title of this piece, "Are You Living The American Dream?", let me say it depends, and answer it this way: You live and experience the American dream in direct proportion to how well government protects the Gift with which God has endowed us all--"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."