Voting for the American Dream
October 30, 2008 by Will Marre
This election has the promise to be truly future changing. But only if the winner seeks a dramatic new course from the wrong-headed assumptions both parties have been operating under for a very long time. Our nation is the first in human history founded on the ideals of a government designed to constantly promote life and liberty so that all our citizens could pursue genuine happiness. This is the root of the real American Dream.
I was raised on a ranch where the ideals of rugged individualism and personal responsibility were emphasized. Those principles are the engine of a strong productive society. But it’s not all there is to it. As I’ve spent the past three decades helping leaders and organizations link fundamental values to their decisions it has become clear to me that the questions of the purpose of life and society must be answered or our unbridled individualism will degrade into selfishness and yes, greed.
The idea that our society exists only to enable its strongest individuals to amass power and wealth is a new spin on history’s oldest story. It’s always told by the people in power. The higher ideal our founders fought for is a society in which our common responsibility is to help people we aren’t related to, don’t even know, or more importantly the unborn next generation. It was based on the inspired belief that the best society is one in which all of us help ensure that the most people have a full opportunity to achieve security, dignity and contentment. This is the vision that inspires me.
I believe that the American Dream has little to do with money. The dream is not so much materialistic as it is spiritual. By that I mean the promise of America is the promise of an equal chance to make something of our lives. The freedom and responsibility to give our gifts and express our most noble desires. If that sounds corny, maybe it’s because we’ve become so cynical. That’s a shame. Our founders were anything but cynical. They were perhaps the greatest group of practical-idealists in history.
I was reminded of that when I read Dean Calbreath’s column in the San Diego Union Tribune titled “Spreading the Wealth.” Calbreath reminds us that Jefferson and Madison were insistent that significant financial inequality not become life-as-usual in America. They were escaping a smothering aristocracy in Europe and England and they knew that if the wealthy interests controlled the government, the banks, and the land a new aristocracy would pass laws to insulate themselves from competition and protect their wealth and their children’s wealth in a thousand different ways that would cripple opportunity for the rest of us. Neither Jefferson nor Madison were socialists but as Calbreath reminds us, Jefferson proposed “taxes could be used to reduce enormous inequality,” and Madison proposed policies to limit “extreme wealth” and promote a broad middle class. Calbreath also points out that none other than Abraham Lincoln instituted America’s first income tax. It only taxed the more prosperous. And Teddy Roosevelt proposed a graduated income tax and inheritance tax. The motivation of these great presidents was not to punish the hard working, inventive risk-takers and reward the slackers; rather it was to use the taxes raised to create a civil society where the infrastructure of universal education, roads, bridges, and later power, water, and communication would reinforce the force of liberty for all of us to pursue our own dreams.
Our great presidents were trying to create a society that presented the greatest opportunity for happiness and least avoidable suffering possible. They realized that liberty is not simply an absence of laws and regulations, but rather it is a system of laws and regulations that promotes the common good for us.
Today, those who believe that the opportunities for a well-educated suburban high school student whose parents can help him pay for college, buy a car or a down payment on the his first home and the opportunities for a fatherless inner city girl attending a violence-drenched high school are anywhere near the same are simply ignoring another inconvenient truth. And any self-made millionaire that thinks they achieved their wealth and advantage solely through their own hard work is as deluded as Donald Trump.
To create our best society those of us who are blessed to have had responsible and loving parents, good teachers and a dose of good fortune have the responsibility to use our considerable resources and innovative minds to provide an infrastructure of education and opportunity for those who aren’t so lucky. We all know direct handouts weaken and embitter the recipients of no-strings-attached charity. But that’s not what the real American Dream’s promise is.
Our real dream is based on a mutual promise to give everyone an honest chance at a decent life. But our pursuit of the common good has been lost in a chorus of “tough luck—it’s your own damn fault” social and economic policies. I am not proposing we bailout irresponsible behavior of anyone, rich or poor. Everyone should be responsible to clean up his or her own messes. But the self-serving belief that wealth is a sign of virtue and that financial struggles are proof of laziness is obscenely wrong. What kind of a society have we created? For me what I see is a society that has parachutes and bailout plans for the rich and well connected while everyone else gets pushed out of the airplane and told to roll when they hit the ground. This is not the best we can do. We need wisdom, morality, fairness and dignity rather than slogans, selfishness, self-righteousness and nastiness. To get it we’re going to have to vote for it, from the President to your City Council candidates.
When I look at the example of some of our best presidents, I am inspired. Inspired by their belief that the best society is one in which those with the most advantages and resources help strengthen the means to rise up the opportunities of all. For me that’s a renaissance of practical-idealism. Isn’t our best society one in which the most citizens are empowered to do their best and be their best? It’s time we vote for the American Dream.
What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do? So what do you think? What is the point of society? Were Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln wrong? How do we avoid turning a commitment to the common good into a welfare state? What mutual obligations should we embrace? What can we do as individuals for each other right now?
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Will, you continue to hit the heart of the dilemmas we face. Yes, we need to give everyone a chance at the American Dream. We do not need to create a welfare state to do this.
We need to give all kids a good beginning-a good education (and I favor improving the public schools rather than vouchers which I think favor families who can transport their kids to distant schools), good health care and a safe family life where parent(s) are involved. We should not reward unwanted pregnancies (which really fueled the welfare state). Families/schools need to be responsible for educating their children about sex and families should support their children who do become pregnant.
Handouts aren’t the answer. Responsibility should be required for every benefit.
Responsibility is really the cornerstone. If someone overuses credit cards (except for health care which is a separate issue requiring separate solutions), they are responsible for repayment. If they bought a home they couldn’t afford (with the exception of fraud on the part of a mortgage company), they need to repay it (although to aid the current crisis perhaps loan duration time should be extended beyond 30 yrs).
Job creation is the key issue. Not everyone can be self-employed or an entrepreneur, but everyone who is willing to work should have the opportunity. There is plenty of work to be done: alternative energy, infrastructure, health care and education. And we need to regain our manufacturing strength.
I favor a required (for all not just the financially challenged) public service for all. We had a draft so we certainly could have required service. And if we are going to have military action, the burden of fighting should not be to the poor and we should not use for-hire commercial companies.
Social Security and Medicare must remain intact. The current economic crisis demonstrates that we can not depend on private accounts. Older people often have health conditions that do not permit them to work. Retirement age could (and has been ) raised for those whose health is good. In my neighborhood, I’ve seen people in their 70s and 80s using walkers standing in 100+ degree heat seeking donations. Now that is sad! Others do without health care, air conditioning/heat and food because they are unable to even get out.
However, too many of the wealthy in this country have obtained their wealth by fraud. Too many people make salaries that do not reflect their contribution. Obviously, Wall Street execs weren’t that smart and made a negative rather than positive contribution. Their compensation needs to reflect this. Japan caps execs salaries in ratio to the lowest worker. We should do this. This helps level the economic field.
But most of all we need a leader who encourages everyone to work towards a common good; someone who demonstrates the harm of greed to society and promotes the value of what people can accomplish when they work towards worthy goals and shared wealth. We need a president who gets rid of special interests, government waste, frivolous law suits, and capitalism run amok.
As individuals, we can set an example with our own lives. We can value what is really important: family, friends, health and developing our own skills and interests. We can say no to over-valuing wealth, greed, lying, mistreating our family and others, celebrity and sports worship, lack of tolerance to others’ values, gambling, vices, and greed. We can simplify our lives. We can help our neighbors and others. And we can vote after researching the candidates and asking, Who’s really best for this country?
What pisses me off the most – the Republican majority over these many years were preaching all the good stuff – but from behind the curtain they were having affairs, stealing, passing bills to pork the huge fortunes of their friends and so forth – Yes, I know the Demo’s are problably close behind – the hipocracy just blows me away – now to save my few bucks in my 401k account and the bit of cash I have in my credit union – the Congress passes a bill to bail out all those highpaid executives companies, adds pork to boot and I am suppose to continue to believe in the American way? – where my children and grandchildren will pay out of the nose through other tax’s
Ned, great points well thought out and presented. Henry,I understand where you are coming from also but thinking only about what you don’t want will assure that you get more of the same. Start thinking about what you do want and take personal action to make it happen . . . be proactive and self empowered and begin building your personal power and encouraging others to do the same. We are all ultimately responsible for creating our lives every minute of every day, whether we want to accept that responsibility or not.
Voting for the “material” American Dream which the two Presidential candidates are talking about, will just get us more of the same which we already have too much of. We really need to get back to the root causes of personal power: education, personal responsibility for one’s actions, service to one’s fellow human beings, honesty, integrity, humility, truth and discovering our real spirituality (not our religion). We can all be and do and have whatever we want in life when we discover that we all are born with this unlimited power inside of us but most of us keep this truth a deeply buried secret.
Yes we must vote for candidates that will do an honest, accountable and responsible job but we must also insist on real change and even more on transformation in government by demanding new standards in the form of only balanced budgets, term limits and real accountability and the need to be able to be audited now as all public corporations must. How can our government get away with saying that it’s various departments (e.g. the defense department) are so messed up they could not be audited for 10 years. I say if they can’t be audited and right now then they don’t get a budget to operate with. And what good is the General Accountability Office when they have absolutely no enforcement power. Yes they know what’s wrong and who is wasting money, they just can’t do anything about it. Makes a lot of sense, right? And then we wonder why Medicare and Social Security will be running out of money.
We need real priorities from our President and Congress each and every year they serve based on the real needs of this country and its people. Right now our government’s only priorities seem to be daily dictated by the herds of lobbyists camped out in Washington. We need new ethical standards, where the slightest taint gets you expelled from office. None of these special standards and treatment for Congresspeople with special deals on mortgages, payoffs, home renovations, trips,sex scandals, etc. and on and on.
My American Dream is to get Washington and my local government straightened out to the point where I feel I am getting something for the money they extract from my hard earned wages every year except being put over a barrel again. If they do their job, I think the rest of America can be counted on to do their part and we’ll get out of all these messes and back on the right track a whole lot faster than if we let them continue with business as usual just for themselves and being legally able to take our money and spend it frivolously any way they want to.
While our founding fathers may have started out with the best of intentions, the fact is we have ended up with the best govenernment that money can buy. We have only to look at the TV, the print media, and our mail as proof. Every day we are bombarded with political ads that scream vote for me, I’m better than the next guy, don’t trust him, etc. to the point that we don’t know who to believe any more. In the end it is the one who has out spent his rival that usually wins.
This time may be a little different, however it has taken a financial meltdown to wake everyone up. As one who came of age in the 60′s, I can only pray that the new leaders of hope and change are not taken away from us as they were back then.
[...] Dream, and our taxation system should help, not hinder, their efforts. Check out Will’s Voting for the American Dream and Business Model for Corporate Social Responsibility. I would also commission comprehensive [...]