The American Dream

Individual Rights & Delegated Authority The primary responsibility of government is to protect the individual, God given rights to life, liberty, and property for when government protects individual rights it automatically protects society because society is made up of individuals. However, when individual rights are sacrificed to satisfy majority or mob rule, all society suffers the loss of all rights and freedoms. Government derives its power to govern through delegated authority form the individual citizens it governs. The individual citizen cannot do an illegal activity, such as robbing their neighbor for personal needs without breaking the law; they therefore cannot delegate authority to government to break the law for them. When government steals in that manner it is called legalized plunder for that is still robbery and no amount of majority support, fifty-one percent or even ninety-nine percent, can make it lawful.

"The American Dream" is one of the most familiar and resonant phrases in our national lexicon, so familiar that we seldom pause to ask its origin, its history, or what it actually means. In this fascinating short history, Jim Cullen explores the meaning of the American Dream, or rather the several American Dreams that have both reflected and shaped American identity from the Pilgrims to the present. Cullen begins by noting that the United States, unlike most other nations, defines itself not on the facts of blood, religion, language, geography, or shared history, but on a set of ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and consolidated in the Constitution. At the core of these ideals lies the ambiguous but galvanizing concept of the American Dream, a concept that for better and worse has proven to be amazingly elastic and durable for hundreds of years and across racial, class, and other demographic lines. Cullen then traces a series of overlapping American dreams: the quest for of religious freedom that brought the Pilgrims to the "New World"; the political freedom promised in the Declaration; the dream of upward mobility, embodied most fully in the figure of Abraham Lincoln; the dream of home ownership, from homestead to suburb; the intensely idealistic--and largely unrealized--dream of equality articulated most vividly by Martin Luther King, Jr. The version of the American Dream that dominates our own time--what Cullen calls "the Dream of the Coast"--is one of personal fulfillment, of fame and fortune all the more alluring if achieved without obvious effort, which finds its most insidious expression in the culture of Hollywood. For anyone seeking to understand a shifting but central idea in American history, The American Dream is an interpretive tour de force.

"The American Dream" is one of the most familiar and resonant phrases in our national lexicon, so familiar that we seldom pause to ask its origin, its history, or what it actually means. In this fascinating short history, Jim Cullen explores the meaning of the American Dream, or rather the several American Dreams that have both reflected and shaped American identity from the Pilgrims to the present. Cullen begins by noting that the United States, unlike most other nations, defines itself not on the facts of blood, religion, language, geography, or shared history, but on a set of ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and consolidated in the Constitution. At the core of these ideals lies the ambiguous but galvanizing concept of the American Dream, a concept that for better and worse has proven to be amazingly elastic and durable for hundreds of years and across racial, class, and other demographic lines. Cullen then traces a series of overlapping American dreams: the quest for of religious freedom that brought the Pilgrims to the "New World"; the political freedom promised in the Declaration; the dream of upward mobility, embodied most fully in the figure of Abraham Lincoln; the dream of home ownership, from homestead to suburb; the intensely idealistic--and largely unrealized--dream of equality articulated most vividly by Martin Luther King, Jr. The version of the American Dream that dominates our own time--what Cullen calls "the Dream of the Coast"--is one of personal fulfillment, of fame and fortune all the more alluring if achieved without obvious effort, which finds its most insidious expression in the culture of Hollywood. For anyone seeking to understand a shifting but central idea in American history, The American Dream is an interpretive tour de force.

Individual Rights & Delegated Authority The primary responsibility of government is to protect the individual, God given rights to life, liberty, and property for when government protects individual rights it automatically protects society because society is made up of individuals. However, when individual rights are sacrificed to satisfy majority or mob rule, all society suffers the loss of all rights and freedoms. Government derives its power to govern through delegated authority form the individual citizens it governs. The individual citizen cannot do an illegal activity, such as robbing their neighbor for personal needs without breaking the law; they therefore cannot delegate authority to government to break the law for them. When government steals in that manner it is called legalized plunder for that is still robbery and no amount of majority support, fifty-one percent or even ninety-nine percent, can make it lawful.

For some, the American Dream is a pre-fab house in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and a two-week vacation at the end of the year. To others, it is working a push fruit cart in Oakland in order to put food on the family's table in Oaxaca. In The American Dream Harmon Leon draws upon his experiences of adopting personas and disguises to infiltrate the various institutions of everyday life, living among a diverse range of subcultures and learning first hand how they see their vision and utopia. His incursions include working as a marijuana farmer in a hippie commune in Northern California becoming a carnie in rural Indiana visiting a tourist attraction in Mexico (that allows people to simulate illegally crossing the border) venturing to Hollywood while trying to climb the ranks in the star-making machine and working in the strawberries fields of California with newly arrived immigrants. The American Dream is a funny, satirical, and ultimately poignant take on what it means to be an American today.

For some, the American Dream is a pre-fab house in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and a two-week vacation at the end of the year. To others, it is working a push fruit cart in Oakland in order to put food on the family's table in Oaxaca. In The American Dream Harmon Leon draws upon his experiences of adopting personas and disguises to infiltrate the various institutions of everyday life, living among a diverse range of subcultures and learning first hand how they see their vision and utopia. His incursions include working as a marijuana farmer in a hippie commune in Northern California becoming a carnie in rural Indiana visiting a tourist attraction in Mexico (that allows people to simulate illegally crossing the border) venturing to Hollywood while trying to climb the ranks in the star-making machine and working in the strawberries fields of California with newly arrived immigrants. The American Dream is a funny, satirical, and ultimately poignant take on what it means to be an American today.