Do you know what the “American Dream” is?
Years ago, I saw an interview with Bruce Springsteen. He was talking about the plight of the working man and how you could work at the same job for decades, expecting that such loyalty would get you a comfortable retirement and how being taken care of was the American Dream.
I thought “WTF?? No, it isn’t.”
The Pilgrims didn’t come to a wild, unsettled country because they wanted to be taken care of.
The Revolution was not fought because the Founders wished to be taken care of.
Settlers didn’t push on west across the continent, over the Rocky Mountains for the sake of security.
Most of the early Americans came from Europe. The feudal system there worked like this: guys who were really good at fighting took over and called themselves ‘kings’, they claimed as much land as they could hold with the might of their armies. They divvied up the land and gave chunks of it to other guys who could fight really well and gave these guys titles like Duke, Marquis, Count, Lord, Baron etc. There was a hierarchy and the titles meant how good a fighter these guys are and how much land they got for their skills.
The land and the titles were handed down within families based on legal bloodlines that ran through the sons. Important possessions like property and jewelry were entailed, which means they belonged to the title, not the man who wore it. A Duke didn’t have the freedom to sell off his land; he held it in trust for his heir, who was his closest male relative.
What about everyone else? They did whatever they could for the guy whose land they lived on; they farmed, they learned trades like butcher, baker, horse shoe maker, etc. Not only did they not own any land, they belonged to the guy whose land they perched upon. The villages and homes they lived in belonged to whatever Lord owned the countryside they lived in. If he was called upon to go to war for the king or an insurrection, these folks had no choice; they were his men and they took up arms. As for the women, well…if you caught the Lord’s eye (or that of any member of his household) you had two choices; become his doxy or join a convent. Nice, huh?
Americans are people who said “Screw this, I want my own shit.”
In the beginning, the American Dream was simply the ability to own one’s own land. To own the land meant one answered to no one else, fought for no one else and were dependent on no one else for food and shelter. To own the land meant you were your own person. That is what an American is.
“Braveheart” is a movie about Americans who lived in Scotland in the thirteenth century.
Americans had been trying to find America since the beginning of civilization.
Being an American has nothing to do with being born here. There were Americans long before there was a country called the United States of America.
We who are fortunate enough to be born American in the USA don’t need to own land to be our own persons. The Founders designed the Constitution to guarantee the supremacy of the individual over that of the state. They understood that ‘king’, ‘duke’ etc. were just names guys gave themselves to lord over everyone else and that there was nothing inherently special in them. There is no divine right of Kings, just deluded populations who put up with such nonsense. Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton knew that a government is made up of people. They also knew that all people are capable of being flaming asshats, so they designed a system that prevents the people in power from accruing too much of it. That is the system that the left; the statists, enabled by politicians of both parties, is working to destroy.
Even at the time of the revolution, not everyone here was an American; plenty of the colonists were loyal to the crown. I believe that if you got right down to it, what they were loyal to was their sense of security. They were afraid of what their society would be like without the king. Change is scary.
They wanted to be taken care of.
This is a perfectly natural human desire.
What I find mind boggling is the idea that the King or any other form of government, gives a shit about you. I find the idea of trusting a faceless bureaucracy miles away to act in my best interest much more iffy than the proposition of taking care of myself.
When politicians talk about how much they care or how kindness guides their policies, all I hear is a self-righteous charlatan planning to oppress us for our own good. C.S. Lewis was right about them.
Even if they aren’t shameless liars, playing to your insecurities, they can’t do what you want. They can’t take care of you. The closest the government can ever come to ‘taking care’ of the populace is to subjugate it. One size fits all and no one rocks the boat and do what you’re told and we’ll all be fine.
That’s feudalism.
Those who were loyalists (or royalists) during the revolution are still among us. Now they’re called liberals, progressives and statists. They’re people who still believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the government can take care of them.
Some of them believe in government because they work for the state and have very nice contracts. Even progressives like FDR was against public sector unions because he recognized how un-American they are; a union of public employees, negotiating with publicly elected officials is the embodiment of corruption. Both negotiating parties are paid with taxes yet the tax payer has no voice in the negotiations.
“But the tax payers elect the representatives; they speak for them!” I’ve been told.
That’s a lie. The tax payers do elect the representatives but thanks to the unions, it’s a rigged game. One party makes a back door deal with the union; you hold down the taxpayer while we fuck ‘em and we’ll hold ‘em down while you do it! When the party that won’t collude with unions gets in power, the unions won’t even talk to them. Still think the union negotiates with the people’s representatives?
You want honesty in union negotiations? Never vote for the candidate the union endorses. All that endorsement means is that the fix is already in.
That’s UnAmerican.
The public sector isn’t the only place where UnAmericans are comfortable. Some have so little ambition or imagination that they’re satisfied with whatever handouts they can get. Living like peons is okay with them if it means they never have to rouse themselves. The Welfare state is where the government agrees to take care of the citizen in exchange for him giving up his share of the American Dream.
I think Americans should be free to live in hand to mouth squalor if they so choose. I do not think other Americans, who work hard to realize their own dreams, should have to foot the bill.
The modern American dream is not limited to owning land. One no longer needs his own land to be his own man.
The American Dream is simply the ability to go as far and fast and high as one’s ability and ambition take one. It’s a lot more work to realize your dream if you have to pay for the dreamless comas of others.
Welfare is an anesthetic that puts one to sleep while depriving one of dreams. Talk about the Walking Dead.
Charities exist for the express purpose of taking care of those who can’t (or won’t) take care of themselves. Americans are the most charitable people on the face of the earth. They choose to help out those without the means or even the will to help themselves. This is a good thing; better managed by charities, which concentrate on the individual, rather than government agencies which can’t.
Plenty of Americans need help once in a while. The difference between an American and an UnAmerican is that no American is comfortable in that state. Americans want to stand on their own, do it themselves and do it to the best of their ability.
Not every American is born here and they don’t all make it here.
Not everyone born a citizen is an American.
Americans know the difference between ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’. One is the idea of a child and the other is natural balance.
Is it fair that Kim Kardashian is richer and more famous than Mary Jo Copeland? No. Is it just? Yes. Why? Because not one dollar that has flowed into Ms. Kardashian’s account was taken from anyone against their will. People are free to watch her show, follow her on twitter and pay attention to her.
All Mrs. Copeland does is take care of the homeless here in Minneapolis. She’s not very entertaining to watch. A true American, Mary Jo doesn’t waste time worrying that Kim K. has more stuff than she does. Both women are living their American Dreams.
Our immigration system (how it works both legally and illegally) is a mess, not because too many who wish to come here aren’t Americans, it’s that too many natural born citizens, especially those who hold office, have no idea what an American is.
This ignorance has left a void, into which dreams of a multicultural Eden have flowed.
“Multiculturalism” is the idea that we can happily share the wading pool, as long as you only pee in your end of it.
My problem with the statists is that in order to realize their dream of a land in which everyone is happy having no more and no less than their neighbors, they must necessarily destroy the dreams of everyone who want to go as far, as fast and as high as they can.
They demonize the 1% because shiny success makes dull equality look less appealing. They don’t want you to have your dream because then theirs can’t come true.
That they do it in the name of ‘Caring’ and ‘Kindness’ and ‘Equality’ doesn’t matter; this is oppression, plain and simple and America is the idea that we should be free of that oppression.
I think George W. Bush was wrong: Not all people crave liberty.
Given the choice, I think the vast majority of humanity would opt for security and a dangerously large portion would rather have power.
The problems of the world arise because those who want Liberty are willing to fight for it, those who want power are willing to kill for it and those who want security have no idea how that is achieved.
The American Founders valued Liberty enough to give up everything on the gamble to win it; they pledged their lives, treasure and sacred honor in its cause.
I’ve come to think that perhaps most people would trade their liberty for the perception of security or power. Those people who really do crave liberty are natural Americans, regardless of where they are born or live. They are the exception rather than the rule.
That’s American Exceptionalism.
As far as immigration goes, I'm in favor of all Americans coming here and becoming citizens. I just wish the UnAmericans already here would go somewhere else.