What is the American Dream?  Is it life, liberty, and the pursuit of 

happiness?  Is it being a part of the stereotypical family with a father, a 

mother, 2.5 children, a white picket fence, and a golden retriever 

named Shep?  Maybe it used to be, but as time progresses, it seems 

fairly self-evident that the new American Dream is centered around 

capitalism, lack of morals, and hypocrisy.
	

	Nowadays, Americans are more driven to succeed in life, 

whether the reason is because they have a family, because they're 

materialistic, or because of cultural influences, the fact is that since 

people are more driven to be successful in both the sociological and 

financial sense, morals and values get compromised; it happens every 

day.  Someone is so hell-bent on succeeding that they won't hesitate 

to step on their fellow man or woman to get a leg up on the 

competition.  You can call it being ambitious or you can call it being an 

asshole.  The only thing you can't do is ignore it.  


	Perhaps the American Dream is flawed by design; it seems that 

the concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can no longer 

be handled by Americans.  People fail to realize that pressing personal 

happiness may make it harder for others, which, in itself, appears to 

be a violation of the American Dream.  Equal opportunity and equal 

rights are supposed to be characteristics of America, and though 

they're more prominent here than they used to be, the true 

manifestation of either is a distant glimmering light that's bound to be 

extinguished if we don't begin to unify and work together.


	I'm not sure who said it, but the quote "your right to swing your 

fist ends where my nose begins" is a message that should be put into 

application in America.  If you have to hurt someone (either literally or 

figuratively) to succeed, I don't see how the ends justify the means.  

Ever since Eisenhower placed the United States on a permanent war 

economy, it's been drilled into the kids' heads to succeed at any cost, 

because if you don't, someone else will.  I realize that the theory behind 

this is to stimulate economic growth through competition, but is that a viable 

justification for turning the entire country against itself from nine-to-five?


	Speaking in terms of the government, life, liberty, and the pursuit 

of happiness are more of a sham than ever, especially now that the 

"Texacutioner" is in office.  George Bush Jr. plans to allocate over $13 billion a 

year for the "war on drugs".  That means that more people will be getting in trouble 

with the law for victimless crimes like smoking marijuana.  I find it hard to associate 

the idea of freedom with a country in which the privatized prison industry is the fastest 

growing economically and in employment.


	I also think that the government should be the quintessence of 

what America is, and if the government's current portrayal of the country 

is what America is supposed to be, this is a sorry country indeed. 

The government seems as though it's become based on complete and utter hypocrisy; 

it preaches that murder is wrong, yet engages in the death penalty.  For one, that's 

basically stating that two wrongs make a right.  Secondly, who is the government to say 

who should live or die?  It seems like that for a country that keeps church separate from 

state says "in god we trust" alot.  It's said that actions speak louder than words, and the 

United States government's actions of late almost yell that they think they're on the same 

intersticial level of existance as god himself (if such an entity truly exists).

Isn't your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in effect anymore?

It'll arrest you for selling or owning weed even though you can legally buy it from the 

government for medicinal purposes in some states. Shouldn't we all be entitled to things 

with medicinal value? Especially something as simple and harmless as a plant?  It 

sentenced Joseph Falder to death on the United Nations' 50th anniversary of human 

rights.  


	The American Dream is dead and the American spirit, by whose 

light I've exposed a country full of pain, deceit, sorrow and evil, will 

flare up more brightly than ever before, throwing light on all that had 

hitherto been in darkness; then it will flicker, and wane, and go out 

forever unless we do something to fix this.  

-the roth.