The American Dream, as far as my research can tell, is a phrase first coined by James Truslow Adams in his book “Epic of America.” In his book he states “The American Dream is that dream of a land…with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement…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 fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” Even before Adams wrote this however, our Founding Fathers outlined the idea of an American Dream in the Declaration of Independence by writing “…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.”In Communist, or Socialist countries, the notion of this type of dream is unheard of, because in reality one’s ability is not praised in the same manner that it is in the American Dream. In those settings, if one person succeeds, they are succeeding for the entire community, not just themselves. This is unfortunate however, because it doesn’t encourage innovation or motivation for success, since the ones who succeed won’t reap the benefits anymore than their neighbors do.
So what does this have to do with the American Dream? There are many socialist laws in America that make it virtually impossible to live the American Dream, as was defined in “Epic of America” to its fullest extent. We think of this country as being such a great country where everyone is free, but in actuality we’re not. Social Security, Welfare and the multitude of other entitlement programs the government hands out goes against everything the American Dream stands for. How is one supposed to be “recognized by others for what they are” if they keep receiving government entitlements? Unless, of course they want to be recognized for being thieves or beggars, which I don’t think is what they were looking for.
U.S. tax laws are another socialistic way of “spreading the wealth” causing the rich to pay more than their fair share, and the poor to pay less. When it comes to be April 15th however, no one seems to notice too much because we pay our taxes on a pay as you earn basis, so most, if not all of our taxes are taken out before they’re even due, leaving us oblivious to the fact that the government has had the use of our money all year long. If we ever get the opportunity to keep what’s ours until April 15th, the government would never see a penny, because people would find it very difficult to fork over thousands of dollars in taxes all at once (a person who had taxable income of $144,500 last year would have to pay a total of $35,256 in taxes). With ridiculous amounts of our income being paid to the government, ridiculous amounts of unnecessary (and often unconstitutional) government programs begin to pop up, which in turn causes the government to want more and more of our hard earned money to fund these programs.
If all men truly are created equal, what happened between the time of their creation and the time they started receiving unearned government paychecks, or funding government programs? Our “Robin Hood” government seems to have taken away the equality, and forced the rich to fund the poor.
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