And the Dream Goes On...

The American Dream is Alive and Well, Thank You

In Andrew Morasvcsik's America the sky is gray and the grime of poverty and despair clouds the view at ground level. In a cover story for Newsweek magazine Mr. Morasvcsik shows his complete lack of understanding of the American Dream as I know it. His all out hatred for everything that is America is stunningly evident in this piece. The very fact that is published as a cover story in a leading national news magazine is further evidence of how sturdy and forgiving this country and its dreams really are. I don't know much about Andrew Morasvcsik other that he is a professor at Princeton, however the things I need to know about him I can glean from the article. How many of these self-loathing Americans do they employ over there at Princeton?

The fine professor no doubt draws a decent salary, drives a nice (foreign) car and lives in a big, comfortable home. He probably has a pension and a decent 401k or retirement plan. If it's any different then I will stand corrected, but this sounds like the epitomy of the American dream. To his credit Mr. Morasvcsik is probably a self-made man. Sounds like a pretty wonderful life. Not good enough for Mr. M. Only European society can truly provide what ails the gloomy professor.

Me, I grew up in a lower middle class family during the suburban migration. My folks were working class stock raised by working class stock without lofty expectations for their seven kids. With the power of the American dream driving us my six siblings and myself have all surpassed anything my parents ever achieved professionally and economically. It was not easy for any of us, but we have all succeeded in this land of milk and honey. Our professions include computer networking, a transportation director, a welding engineer, a paralegal and an international businessman. For some, our dreams are incomplete, but none of us feel particularly trapped by the system.

I guess the thing that bothers me about people like professor Morasvcsik is the blanket of hatred that they have for America, as if nothing here is any good at all. It hits you everytime you go into a convienience store owned by a newly imigrated arab family. They have come here to do what they can't do in their own homeland. The southern border leaks Mexicans and South Americans all coming to participate in the American dream whether they are here legally or not. Why do they still come to America from all over the world - even from Canada? For a better life than they can live at home? That would be my guess. The dream is not guaranteed, no one ever said it was nor should it be expected. One must be willing to work for it.

All that being said it is interesting to examine just what makes the rest of the world so much more attractive to professor Morasvcsik: (italics)

...The gulf between how Americans view themselves and how the world views them was summed up in a poll last week by the BBC...

Consider the source, the BBC is hardly a disinterested statistician, helping spread anti-American sentiment around the world through its global network. Besides, Americans self-esteem would be crushed if they read this stuff.

still on the poll ...Only one third, disproportionately in the poorest and most dictatorial countries, would like to see American values spread in their country...

Well no kidding, the richest countries have already been liberated from their dictatorial pasts by - ta da - America!

...Futurologist Jeremy Rifkin, in his recent book "The European Dream," hails an emerging European Union based on generous social welfare, cultural diversity and respect for international law—a model that's caught on quickly across the former nations of Eastern Europe and the Baltics...

Jeremy Rifkin has discredited himself in so many ways, cheifly by proclaiming expertize in areas he is not expert in, but leftists give him a pass because his rhetoric is the right flavor.

...Blinded by its own myth, America has grown incapable of recognizing its flaws...

For crying out loud, America pioneered the self correcting system. Sure we have flaws but because the light of freedom shines on them they do get fixed eventually.

...After American planes and bombs freed the country, Kosovo opted for a European constitution...

Where were the Europeans that Andrew loves so much while the people of Kosovo were being slaughtered? Why did it take Americans to do the dirty work?

...Nearly all countries reject the United States' right to bear arms as a quirky and dangerous anachronism. They abhor the death penalty and demand broader privacy protections...

From these cold dead hands... So what if they think were quirky. Yes, and I see that most Islamic countries do not consider beheading a death penalty. We Americans use the barbaric lethal injection method

...This year's ranking of the world's most competitive economies by the World Economic Forum awarded five of the top 10 slots—including No. 1 Finland—to northern European social democracies...

We'll see just how competative they are when the entitlement train they are driving crashes into the wall in the next 10 to 20 years. These are apples to oranges comparisons anyway. Try to stand these shining economic examples against the economic output of California alone. The fifty United States count as only one set of statistics but Europe can be sliced and diced to make any statisical argument you want

...the British, like Europeans elsewhere, "will try their own way to achieve a proper balance." Certainly they would never put up with the lack of social protections afforded in the American system...

I defy these people to show where America doesn't provide for the welfare of poor. Yes, we can continue to throw money down the rat hole like Europe does or we can get people to work. There is no dignity living on the dole when you are an able bodied person. Last time I looked America's unemployment rate was half again what it is in most European countries

...public spending in Britain represented 43 percent of GDP in 2003, a figure closer to the Eurozone average than to the American share of 35 percent...

This is something to be proud of?

...U.S. leaders have long believed military power and the American Dream went hand in hand. World War II was fought not just to defeat the Axis powers, but to make the world safe for the United Nations, the precursor to the —World Trade Organization, the European Union and other international institutions that would strengthen weaker countries. NATO and the Marshall Plan were the twin pillars upon which today's Europe were built...

This is something all Americans can be proud of!

...Following European criticisms of the Iraq war, the French became "surrender monkeys." ...

Finally the truth out of this guy

...No single policy has contributed as much to Western peace and security as the admission of 10 new countries—to be followed by a half-dozen more—to the European Union...

And what made this possible? Was it Europe's courageous and commited stand against Soviet aggression? What a load of manure this guy is peddling. So this great step toward peace and security made possible by America winning of the Cold War is evidence of how great the EU is?

And finally

...The United States can take some satisfaction in this. After all, it is in large part the success of the mid-century American Dream—spreading democracy, free markets, social mobility and multilateral cooperation—that has made possible the diversity of models we see today. This was enlightened statecraft of unparalleled generosity. But where does it leave us? Americans still invoke democratic idealism. We heard it in Bush's address, with his apocalyptic proclamation that "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." But fewer and fewer people have the patience to listen...

A big stick upside the head will get some attention.

So America is the parent of the world practicing what is known in the pscychobabble world as "tough love". Sure the little brats hate hearing it over and over but they know old Dad is right when he says "this is going to hurt me a lot more than its going to hurt you". I think this professor's love affair with all that is Europe blocks out the part that reminds us that every evil, diabolical, genocidal and failed "ism" ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting world was hatched in Europe to the detriment of the every nation on the planet. And just what is wrong with liberty?