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The American Dream

ky54

ky54

Senior member
This forum is much more liberal than other sites I've posted at so I wanted to gauge how the most fundamental of American ideals - the American Dream - is seen here. What is the American Dream and how do we achieve it?
 
Life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. Liberty to me defined as do whatever you want as long as it doesn't infringe on others' rights.

I have strong 'liberal' tendencies. I think prostitution and all drugs should be legal. I think there should be zero religion in politics other than freedom of religion, again with the caveat that you do not infringe on others' rights.

I do not believe that states should have the right to pass laws that infringe on people's rights or allow people to infringe on other people's rights.

I believe if you see someone doing something you don't agree with, you should mind your own business unless that act is infringing on someone else's rights.

I do not believe people have the right to not be offended.

I can go on and on but that's a start.
 
So you're not concerned then with material needs as applied to the American Dream. I do have a question though... would you advocate for the end of state governments and just have one centralized government and how does that help people realize their American Dream?
 
ky54 said:
So you're not concerned then with material needs as applied to the American Dream. I do have a question though... would you advocate for the end of state governments and just have one centralized government and how does that help people realize their American Dream?
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Material needs? Like some right to an iPad or V8? I think people have the right to pursue monetary gain, as long as the methods used don't infringe on other people's rights. Notice a common theme here? I will add one more caveat in this instance though. I believe in a practical approach to limiting the destruction of the environment.
Only central government? No, there are many regulations and laws that are best left to the states, just as there are many that are best left to the local level as well.
 
The American Dream is twofold (1) for your kids to do better than you and (2) a relatively peaceful and stable society (ie, no invations or civil wars remotely likely).
 
dank69 said:
MI think people have the right to pursue monetary gain, as long as the methods used don't infringe on other people's rights.
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I'm not sure how this would be applied? If I make widgets - the best widgets known to mankind - how do I infringe on others?
 
Pretty simple once you get away from the adolescent fantasies.
A family, healthy children, a home, meaningful and good paying work, freedom of thought/politics/religion.
When you start getting too specific you run into the problem that it's an American nightmare you're talking about.
 
ky54 said:
I'm not sure how this would be applied? If I make widgets - the best widgets known to mankind - how do I infringe on others?
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If you demand people work excessively hard, or in dangerous conditions, or seek to control or pry into their lives in ways that are none of your business. If you do anything to manipulate markets or laws or whatever to negatively impact other peoples right to make widgets in competition to you. If you pollute (more than a bare bare minimum). If you reduce the effectiveness of their right to representative government. If you discriminate a protected class.

Basically any action you take MUST respect the rights and liberties of everyone else.
 
dank69 said:
Life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. Liberty to me defined as do whatever you want as long as it doesn't infringe on others' rights.

I have strong 'liberal' tendencies. I think prostitution and all drugs should be legal. I think there should be zero religion in politics other than freedom of religion, again with the caveat that you do not infringe on others' rights.

I do not believe that states should have the right to pass laws that infringe on people's rights or allow people to infringe on other people's rights.

I believe if you see someone doing something you don't agree with, you should mind your own business unless that act is infringing on someone else's rights.

I do not believe people have the right to not be offended.

I can go on and on but that's a start.
Click to expand...


This, almost exactly. I would add a few more specific things to qualify it as 'The American Dream'.

To attempt to gain and build and secure a family...even if it's just you and your dog, or a small circle of friends. Everyone has the right to seek love and companionship, though it's not guaranteed anyone will want you. The caveat about not infringing on others applies.

To attempt to provide the necessities of life for you and yours. Everyone has the right to work for, or produce themselves, food, clothing, shelter, water, air, sun, medical aid, etc. Anything necessary to maintaining life must be allowed to be obtained. I don't care if you farm, or work at WalMart, beg, or run a lawn care business, you have a basic right to do what is necessary to stay alive. Again, the non-infringement reciprocity applies.
 
PrinceofWands said:
If you demand people work excessively hard, or in dangerous conditions, or seek to control or pry into their lives in ways that are none of your business. If you do anything to manipulate markets or laws or whatever to negatively impact other peoples right to make widgets in competition to you. If you pollute (more than a bare bare minimum). If you reduce the effectiveness of their right to representative government. If you discriminate a protected class.

Basically any action you take MUST respect the rights and liberties of everyone else.
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But I don't do any of this. I'm voted the Best Company In The Universe to work for. My workers are paid the best in the country. I have full representation of all ethnic groups. I'm so green I offer free electricity to any family who makes under 50K a year. And yet I still get filthy rich.

Is it part of accepted fact in this forum that anyone who makes whatever arbitrary number you want to place on rich MUST have fucked someone else to get it?
 
spacejamz said:
That is the dream for the 1/2 that pays income tax. Unfortunately, the other 1/2 wants to reap the same fruits as well...
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It's their fault that only a percentage of jobs offer wages that will qualify someone to pay income tax? Fascinating.

Roughly 50% of people in the US make less than $25,000 a year. They don't choose that income from a list or as a fill-in-the-blank, that's what the company is offering.

The nature of the economic, political, legal, and social system we live in is one where the vast majority of people are prevented from earning even a middle class income because there are a finite number of jobs offering that as compensation, and a finite number of hours in a day to work. It is beyond the ability of any person, or even group of people, to alter the system in such a way that everyone is able to be paid $50,000/yr.

You can talk about working harder and applying yourself and doing whatever you have to in order to get a better income, but that only acts to reduce the income of others because economies (all economies) are inherently closed and finite...all you can do is divide up the available wealth, not really create more. Income changes are shifts in available wealth, not shifts in individual earnings.
 
ky54 said:
But I don't do any of this. I'm voted the Best Company In The Universe to work for. My workers are paid the best in the country. I have full representation of all ethnic groups. I'm so green I offer free electricity to any family who makes under 50K a year. And yet I still get filthy rich.

Is it part of accepted fact in this forum that anyone who makes whatever arbitrary number you want to place on rich MUST have fucked someone else to get it?
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Nope. Who said it was? We just said you have to behave and not infringe on others. If you comply, good on ya...I hope you one day own the moon.
 
PrinceofWands said:
It's their fault that only a percentage of jobs offer wages that will qualify someone to pay income tax? Fascinating.

Roughly 50% of people in the US make less than $25,000 a year. They don't choose that income from a list or as a fill-in-the-blank, that's what the company is offering.

The nature of the economic, political, legal, and social system we live in is one where the vast majority of people are prevented from earning even a middle class income because there are a finite number of jobs offering that as compensation, and a finite number of hours in a day to work. It is beyond the ability of any person, or even group of people, to alter the system in such a way that everyone is able to be paid $50,000/yr.

You can talk about working harder and applying yourself and doing whatever you have to in order to get a better income, but that only acts to reduce the income of others because economies (all economies) are inherently closed and finite...all you can do is divide up the available wealth, not really create more. Income changes are shifts in available wealth, not shifts in individual earnings.
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Unfortunately, there is no easy way to distinguish between those who really want to improve their lot in life versus the scumbags who would suck on government welfare the rest of their lives if they could.
 
spacejamz said:
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to distinguish between those who really want to improve their lot in life versus the scumbags who would suck on government welfare the rest of their lives if they could.
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Does it matter? Rather they want to make more or not, rather they're capable of doing more or not, the same percentage of the nation is going to be stuck at less than $25,000/yr. Their desire or worth doesn't figure in to policy decisions because nothing is going to change the numbers (except wealth redistribution or complete abandonment of our systems). It's simply the cost of having the society we do.
 
ky54 said:
Is it part of accepted fact in this forum that anyone who makes whatever arbitrary number you want to place on rich MUST have fucked someone else to get it?
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I infer from your posts that you are determined to set up a strawman. Why not just lay out your gripe in plain english instead of trying to inject meaning into other people's posts? There is entirely too much passive agressive BS in the world already.
 
IronWing said:
I infer from your posts that you are determined to set up a strawman. Why not just lay out your gripe in plain english instead of trying to inject meaning into other people's posts? There is entirely too much passive agressive BS in the world already.
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It's pretty plain to me - is there an arbitrary number where we say people can do longer earn because they have too much? 100K? Million? Is there a cap on the American dream? From reading the responses I get the idea that maybe the America I grew up isn't going to be the same for my grand kids. Everybody who is rich fucked someone else to get it, right? How much of a straw man is that? What's the number where the America Dream ends and the raping of the world begins?
 
ky54 said:
But I don't do any of this. I'm voted the Best Company In The Universe to work for. My workers are paid the best in the country. I have full representation of all ethnic groups. I'm so green I offer free electricity to any family who makes under 50K a year. And yet I still get filthy rich.

Is it part of accepted fact in this forum that anyone who makes whatever arbitrary number you want to place on rich MUST have fucked someone else to get it?
Click to expand...

History has generally shown people do not do the above out of free choice. Owners want to pay workers the least they can with the fewest benefits, take short cuts whenever possible (I'll just dump my waste over here...), and take advantage of any group where they have an unfair advantage.

Companies that generally don't do the above are driven by market conditions. Google and Facebook treat their FTE engineers incredibly well b/c they'd simply leave to a competitor otherwise. Their contractors? Not so much.

<Edit> I don't know what the point of this thread is. Americans embrace innovation and hard work - no one I know thinks the Google founders shouldn't have their billions (or any other successful start up in the Valley). Should a banker who knowingly brought the economy to the verge of collapse in their insatiable desire for a bigger bonus be lumped in the same bucket?<Edit>
 
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dank69 said:
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Liberty to me defined as do whatever you want as long as it doesn't infringe on others' rights.
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That's vague. And in law and philosophy, vague is useless. That's why the criminal code isn't just one law ("Do no evil", for example). For example, a lot of people think current tax rates infringe on their rights quite a bit. So should gov't be allowed to collect an income tax?
 
ky54

False outrage. Please cite the Congressional bill that establishes "people can do longer earn because they have too much".

As far as "Everybody who is rich fucked someone else to get it, right?" there is no such blanket condemnation. But there are an awful lot of individual instances for examples and they should rightly be scorned and condemned. If enough of it is exposed, it tends to look like a pattern. Wouldn't you agree?
 
ky54 said:
This forum is much more liberal than other sites I've posted at so I wanted to gauge how the most fundamental of American ideals - the American Dream - is seen here. What is the American Dream and how do we achieve it?
Click to expand...

If this forum is much more liberal than other sites, you must have been spending all your time at that cesspool of human filth called Freepervile. Even to refer to this place as liberal is odd given all the right-wing asshats here.
 
ky54 said:
But I don't do any of this. I'm voted the Best Company In The Universe to work for. My workers are paid the best in the country. I have full representation of all ethnic groups. I'm so green I offer free electricity to any family who makes under 50K a year. And yet I still get filthy rich.

Is it part of accepted fact in this forum that anyone who makes whatever arbitrary number you want to place on rich MUST have fucked someone else to get it?
Click to expand...

That would be fine. Unfortunately in todays world most of these rich people did fuck something or someone over to get there.
 
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