The American Dream

A lot of talk recently about the death of the Amreican Dream.  It actually makes me sick to here people talk about that because it shows two things:  one, their ignorance, and two, their selfishness.  Anybody remember what the American Dream was?  And don't ask the idiots running the new Tea Party.  Freedom of Religion.  Freedom to own property.  No taxation without representation (ie. voting).  Does this sound familiar.  It should-between the US Constitution and The Bill of Rights, the Founding Fathers and Mothers pretty much hit the highlights. Oh, it wasn't perfect.  Minorities had to fight another 200 years to even BEGIN to get rights, but just the fact that someone tried to do something in 1776, to give the general populace rights at all, is amazing in itself. 
Europe surely wasn't offering much.  It was pretty much guarantee'd, other than a lucky few, you would die where you were born in pretty much the same economic demographic.  Property was inherited, and you worshipped like your neighbors, or it got ugly.  The Colonies across "the pond" may not have been treating their slaves right, or the native inhabitants, but they were offering more freedom then Europe. 
Nowhere did the framers of our government expect everyone to agree, promise everyone a house, and the right to a perfect life.  They didn't offer equal access to education (although Jefferson advocated for it), jobs, or a chicken in every pot (that was later-Hoover I think?).  In a nutshell, they wanted a government where people had a say in how things were run, with a few "inalienable" rights, just to make it solid and better than what they had.
So how is the American Dream dead?  Because the housing market crashed?  Because unemployment is so high?  Because we can no longer pick our representatives in government?  Because we have to pay almost $10 to see a movie if we go during prime-time?  Because we can longer worship as we see fit?  We have problems here in this country-I am not denying that.  And not everything is going the way I want it too.  But as for the American Dream being dead-no way.  It is alive and well, and continuing to shape this country, just like it always has.  People just need to remember what the American Dream really was, and not what they think it became.