Do you the American Dream destroyed America?

Do you think so? Despite the fact that the idea is a great one that everyone should have a shot at fortune, I think the Americans took it to a dangerous notch. When I was in the U.S. there was a really no sense of unity, it was everyone for themselves. I'm talking about even among family members. Nobody cares about anyone else just how they will get rich and if they had to bulldoze their way through to get to it then so be it. What do you think?

• I blame it on those damn immigrants, OP. Oh wait, we're all immigrants.

• I agree with the op. I want to move far, far away.

• [quote]Do you the American Dream destroyed America? no idea, but clearly bad education and sloppy editing can destroy the best of intentions.

• America is and was the dumping ground for the world's worst people.

  wretched%20refuse

• The "American Dream" wasn't American at all. It was first pioneered in New Zealand in the 1860s. It was a socialist dream. America's turn to the right actually happened on the left, when John F. Kennedy was elected president and they began cutting taxes for the rich and reorienting society around destructive competition.

• Fractional Reserve Banking destroyed the USA.

• Nonsense R6. America was far wealthier in 1960 than in 1914.

• When was America destroyed.

• The American dream as the house, the car, and the quarter acre was strictly a post World War II phenomenon, based on the easy credit used in New Zealand and Australia by labor governments. The USA in the 1930s was a place where you had to put 50% down and pay your mortgage off in three years, a place for the rich. We had more cars than other countries, but in every other measure of human development, we were a bit laggard. People were eating dirt and dying of pellagra on a routine basis.

• America is still basically John Wayne, even now when we're at our worst badass/drunk/retching/hungover. But the rest of the world knows we always come through despite our hating our own country and just about everybody in it.

• I am sorry, but I have a very strong sense of unity. I care and help out my family, friends and strangers. I may not have much, but I will help out when I can. I just paid a friends electric bill to help them out yesterday. I am currently having my cousins teenage son live with me to help him get through school. Are some people selfish? Yup, sure they are. In general though, I think we come together in times of trouble.

• Of course r11 feels the need to brag about his good deeds. As if any of it can be proven.

• [quote]The "American Dream" wasn't American at all. It was first pioneered in New Zealand in the 1860s. It was a socialist dream R5 & R9 - Don't try and blame New Zealandand Australia for the fucking mess you guys have made of your country!

  NZ born Australian

• We aren't R13, we're just pointing out that historically the "American Dream" is a misnomer on a foreign phenomenon.

• America HAS NOT BEEN DESTROYED. I get so sick of these Socialist trolls.

• r5 and r9 need to learn more about American history and culture before they post. America has ALWAYS been a place to which immigrants fled to create a better, more comfortable life for themselves and their descendants. And the USA HAS NOT been destroyed.

• Completely untrue R16. Most immigrants REGRETTED their choice in the late nineteenth century.

• Okay r12 What can I do to prove it to you? It's sad to think the things I do for friends and family are unbelievable. My cousin has a 15 year old son, and recently had a 18 month old girl that has been diagnosed with autism and a 3 year old son. She is overwhelmed and the 15 year old is suffering. I am single, no children so I offered to take him in as I can offer him all the time and attention he needs. As for the friend I helped, it's a friend I met working with at a drag club many many years ago. He and his boyfriend have fallen on hard times and were going to have their power shut off, I paid it. So what...I would do that for any friend.

• No, GWB did.

  Literally

• In the 30's America adopted antipodean socialism and called it "The American Dream". From the 70's onwards America's elite set about systematically destroying that "nanny state" not only in America but also in Australia and New Zealand. You guys have no idea of the ducking and weaving we have had to do to keep some semblance of our old egalitarian ways. Right now the American Right are funding the conservatives here and using the media to run a destabalising campaign.

• r17,mine sure didn't regret the choice to come here. Have you done extensive research and interviewed millions of families on how their ancestors felt about coming here in the 19th century?

• I confess to being a Canadian. A friend of mine, whose dream was to live and work in the States (and who I would say is definitely centre right), said exactly the same thing: it is in the DNA of the country that the individual, in the end, is responsible for himself. He was amazed at the resistance to the collective and the begrudging nature of what collectivism there was. He left the States quite disillusioned and wound up working in Germany.