Europe as an average, has a much higher standard than the US. To Europeans, the US pretty often appears very close to a third world country. Why do the Americans think that everybody would want to live in the US?

America is blessed because of several things, including her free enterprise system of life. Anon 234233 (post 100), you have to understand that the American Dream is not to do whatever you want, live without constraint, and without morals, because that is far from being the case.

Government is an entity that is meant to constrain people from infringing on other peoples God given rights. Happiness comes from worshiping God and being in His perfect will. The chief end of man is to glorify God. That is the only way you will really be happy.

The "idea" is seek out what makes you feel good. Embrace the idea. America offers it.

Calling it the American Dream, I would think of freedom, liberty, to wake up in the morning and without being questioned and go after whatever your dreams were the night before.

I have enjoyed reading the article and the comments. There have been proponents of both sides of the debate and i love this rapport. I don't usually do the "post my opinion" thing, but i have been inspired by a few things i have read.

First, i would like to speak to the students using this as a resource for a paper on the american dream. Yes, the ideas are great, but on such a subject i would search myself for what the dream means. Ideas and opinions are great, but it is your interpretation that makes it the dream. Easy paper? Ok, it has to be five pages or something. I'd say my dream is to have a single paragraph count as five pages, then debate it (extensively) with the teacher until they cave. A lot of my teachers hated me, but in the best way possible.

Second, this one is to number 9. This is not intended to be a personal attack, but i feel that somehow it will come across as such. The person who taught this in school is extremely cynical. However, that viewpoint does apply to all greedy people. Not all are so greedy, you just don't notice them for their lack of whining about everything. I once learned in school that the u.s. won the vietnam war. Just in case you learned that too, we lost.

For my last trick, i will attempt to explain what the american dream means to me. At the core, the idea is about progression, the idea that things will get better. If i am lying to myself, it beats being lied to by someone else.

Seriously, it means being kind, decent, and respectful of others no matter what the cost. I'm not talking about being a doormat either. Its about supporting your neighbors and helping someone in need if you can. Helping someone can be as simple as having a two-minute conversation with a complete stranger and just asking them how they are today. This is only one of many ways to show you care about others. I do my best to live up to it, but invariably fall short at times. But life isn't about how many times you fail, it's about the successes! One man made me realize that idea. His name was Thomas Edison. Inventor of the light bulb, something within plain view of all who read this. He failed so many times trying to make it work over many years, but when he had success with it, well, the rest is history. He is not remembered as the guy who wasted years of his life failing at something; he is remembered as the man who invented the incandescent bulb. We should all hope to leave such a mark on humanity.

I didn't really mean for this to be so long but look what happened. Oh well. Cheers, everyone!

Once, to live the "American Dream" meant that if you worked hard you could (and would) live a successful life. This meant you could support yourself (and your family) and you also felt fulfilled on an individual level. Nowadays, I feel that is no longer the case. There are many people who work hard and still barely get by. They also may be so busy struggling to support their loved ones that they have no real time to focus on their own wants and needs.

It seems to me that now the "American Dream" has become a rather materialistic one in which individuals seek to barely work, but possess many things. I blame it on consumerism and our new obsession with having things complete us.

It is being blown away by the takeover of predatory international monopolies who are buying elections and "our" (ha ha) legislators and our airwaves for their propaganda. They are the new Big Brother and we are fast becoming America Inc.

Hard work actually means a lot of things like working smart, working better, working safer and working much much more productive each way, and yet, not everybody can make it the whole way. We should never forget we are humans and we get sick, and that may compromise the American Dream even more, and yet I think it doesn't compromise it at all.

The catch is the organization. The more organized we all Americans become the closer we will be to reach out for the American Dream.

Once we achieve it, what is next?

I believe it would be to perfect it and to enjoy the fruits coming out of it, for our quota would be done, and next generations will be enhanced and allow newer and better solutions, as long as humanity does not lose the track and does not become egocentric and too greedy to know what is valuable and what is a tool.

To me, money is a tool, I may not be rich, and yet, If i work hard and If I have my bills paid, I may be happy enough to tell I'am satisfied. For some others, it may be a miserable view and a miserable perspective. It is relative to everyone's ambitions! --AC S.

I've been working my whole life for an unattainable goal. I've robbed myself of 20 years of experiences so that I could be at work to overachieve without award. The whole time I was working and going to school to get a better job. I never got the better job and am still paying back the loans. I was grateful for the opportunity I had to have a job and never questioned that faith to continue killing myself while wearing thrift store bargains and residing in a lower income area and having the marvelous experience of being persecuted for my beliefs.

Life? Liberty? Pursuit of happiness? Well, OK, I have pursued happiness but what happened to equality?

What happened to that dream?

Now, I am in the wonderful position of not having a job because after this last hospitalization I've been diagnosed with degenerative bone disease and a heart condition that is inoperable caused by chronic stress and exhaustion.

I think I can say at this point that I've worked hard enough to attain the dream. The dream still remains elusive.

What your teacher gave you was a message that would create a hopeless/uncontrollable situation in your mind. When if fact, you can decide to be happy with your life, just where you are with what you have whenever you like.

Many people do make that choice, and many people are very happy and consider themselves to have the dream. That doesn't apply to just the rich with lots of toys either. I have traveled a lot in the U.S. and out, and I have met more happy people living the dream than not and most were not rich with powerful positions.

You are in control. However, now that you have accepted the agreement your teacher has put in front of you, that you will never be happy, that you will always have to strive for more, because it is your nature and you have no choice or control, it is likely that you won't.

You see your friends not caring and so you stop caring for fear of persecution, but if you stopped caring and your friends followed, it would be a chain reaction, would it not? All I'm saying is instead of all of the research papers everyone is doing on the American Dream, let's put it into practice as well and work hard no matter what others think because we'll come out on top.

Definitely helpful for my literature essay. Thanks!

The American dream is to have all the basics that all people share. That means a normal portion of water, food, shelter, clothing, fuel, friends, and opportunities to improve life.

I worry the dream is dying because government is debasing the currency, taxing income, and selling children into debt slavery at far too fast a rate to benefit bond holders and rich people.

I also worry education has become too expensive. No education, no job opportunities other than self employment, which is risky and tough. K-12 costs $150,000 per student. A four year degree is $160,000 for private school and $80,000 for public with half subsidized by taxpayers. A $300,000 education is too expensive. I worry education has become the new form of segregation and class distinction.

I also worry about racism baked into society. Hebrews send 80 percent of their children to college because that is where the money is. Whites are lower than this. Other minorities send few, if any, children to college. Education is a crisis because we segregate and discriminate by educational level in America and it skews our society to Hebrews and whites. Education has to become cheaper.

The American dream is not embracing diversity or racist affirmative action quotas for Hebrews, Africans, women, homosexuals, immigrants, and minorities. The American dream is merit, doing a good job, well done. The dream is in danger because so many incompetent people have been promoted to meaningless high paying jobs like airport underwear inspectors. Government has to change. It is devouring the American dream.

Religion is dead and our truth is a truth that is fed to us at a young age by TV. The rich fear losing us as their workers, so by instituting an imagination of the American dream the rich keep us working hard for them while we hope that we will be one day be "living the dream" but we won't.

If you even try to argue that there aren't social classes in america, then just look in your wallet and notice that feeling developing; it's called greed.

Contains music, bio, photos and his American Dream story.

Do some research eddie crow blues. Happy reading and listening.

Many people want to come to the United States, we try desperately to make them come. However the reality remains the same. How often do these people get a job which raises them out of poverty, and allows them to actually achieve their goals. The answer is very few.

The ability to do whatever you want is the aspect of the American Dream that we as North Americans have to wake up from. It should be re-written to read. "You can do whatever you want so long as you can afford it and with that we will give you no help." If read that way the "Dream becomes far more reflecting of reality. Minimum $40,000 debt for University, A minimum wage job which doesn't make ends meet. No pension plan, On average some of the worst health care in the developed world (Canada, and low level American Hospitals 18 and 37 Overall Distribution (1997) Respectively). What about that is a Dream to me it is a Nightmare.

Perfection is just not humanly possible. Since we all have failings, we will undoubtedly do imperfect things. The task for all of us is to strive to be better, to work toward, and to uplift what is the best and highest in ourselves. And to that end, United States offers to all of us this opportunity. It is one of the best countries the world has ever known. People from all over the world come, and many more would give anything for the opportunity to come and live in the United States.

To me the American Dream is the liberty offered to its citizens; the freedom to attend school, to start a business, to work, to pray if you want to, and not how many things I own. Material possessions, albeit nice, are not what life and happiness are all about. As a matter of fact happiness is not directly proportional to material possessions. Happiness comes from appreciating and being grateful for what we do have.