Snortin' Norton

The America Dream

   Every immigrant that has come to the shores of what we have come to call the Americas has come in search of freedom. They came so they could breathe the fresh air of what could be. Some came to be free of oppression in all its various forms, some came to learn and to grow, some came looking for a new start, and a few came to get rich. They all came searching for their own version of freedom. It was the American Dream. Many stayed, and their children stayed, and their children's children stayed, and so on until we forgot that we are all children of immigrants ourselves.
   In the process of staying, we decimated countless tribes of the aboriginal natives. When we nearly ran out of aborigines (American Indians), we turned our attention on the rest of the world, and ourselves.
   Who started the idea that being rich was the same as being free? To be valued as a human being for the number of possessions one has, and/or the amount of money that one can make. As if lots of either, or both, could make one free or happy. Yet, it is what the American Dream has become. Achieve the American Dream and you can be free is the sales pitch. Live like a king in your own little domain. They've turned the American Dream into a lottery game; two dollars for a chance to be free. The odds are always with the house.
   When our forefathers fought for freedom, they fought for the freedom to be and to become, and to live and let live with reasonable expectations of respect for others, and for others to respect our existence as well. The American Dream was just a whispered idea; a jewel to be treasured.
   True freedom is in the becoming who or what we have it in us to become. We are only as strong as we believe we are; a little faith has been known to move mountains. True freedom, true creativity in the hands of ordinary people is feared by multi-national corporations, religious, and government leaders around the world. Yet, to discover what one is capable of, without restraint, is the greatest freedom.
   We need to reinvent the American Dream. We need new well defined national goals like the ones that propelled us to reach for the Moon. We need a dream that is accessible to every American regardless of their means. We need an economy that is not based on war. We don't need to make America great again. We just need to go back to the basics of what the America Dream once was, not the warped and distorted thing that the dream has become.
   Without restraint, comes without worry. Imagine a free education and a free basic healthcare system (upgraded coverage while employed to include workman's compensation for enrolled employers) to remove some basic concerns and worries and to provide opportunities for our future and advancement in life. In many ways it may seem socialist in nature, but in other ways government owned endeavors will help set and standardize prices in the marketplace and control the insurance industry as a whole.

Posted March 29,2024