Philosophy Now Forum

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What Has Happened to America ?

What Has Happened to the American Dream?




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Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
~ The New Colossus ~




"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887), written in 1883. In 1903, the poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the lower level of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

The title of the poem and the first two lines refer to the Colossus of Rhodes, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The poem talks about the millions of immigrants who came to the United States many of them through Ellis Island at the port of New York.

The "air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame" refers to New York City and Brooklyn, not yet consolidated into one unit in 1898.




Today, we speak of rounding up the our tired, our poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free...but we are now speaking of deporting them.


Is this really America?

Is this really what we stand for today?

Warmongering?

Torture?



...we talk of building a wall around America. WHAT has happened to America's Political Philosophy?




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Bill Wiltrack wrote: ...we talk of building a wall around America. WHAT has happened to America's Political Philosophy?

I think it has been destroyed by people's deluded and self-serving projections... which seem to be a cancerous affliction that permeates just about everything. We are a thoroughly intoxicated bunch. I imagine we'll be the undoing of ourselves. There's only so much disease a "body" can withstand.

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Well, there's one person with a crackpot fantasy - that would be you...and then there is the 300 million plus Americans, including myself, that actually have the ability to dream in a more or less healthy way.



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Capitalism happened to the American Dream. Capitalism and extremely corrupted Media.

It costs money to support all those people, and the cheap labor drives down prices in the long run, lessening the profit margins of the palm pressers in Washington that lobby for big business.

The American Dream...

Today, we fear monger instead of lifting people up. We take away their rights and dignity instead of giving them the tools they need to survive. We give them handouts instead of teaching them skill sets and allowing them to see how proud they can become as Americans. We are not a proud populace anymore. We are a nation of division and derision. We like to sit here and judge others instead of getting our own hands dirty, mentoring and helping out people who would be great citizens if they were allowed to. We don't want them because the media has taught us that they bring drugs and terrorism and little else. The politics surrounding immigration is ugly and xenophobic and it is sad. They are just human beings seeking out what they feel would be a better life for them.

Perhaps if all the people who sit at the border with their guns, gear and trucks would spend less on machinery and more on helping humans better themselves, they'd find they would become better people as a result. But they don't want to open their minds and set a good example. It's much easier to claim they are Americans while not really believing in what our Founding Fathers wanted for this country.

Arditezza wrote:Capitalism happened to the American Dream.

Anybody with an ounce of intelligence stopped reading after that line.

According to Bill, the American Dream seems to be all about welcoming the world's wretched in (to the country, the community, etc.).

I always thought the American Dream was about living as one saw fit, without tyrannical restraint and direction.

I thought it was the living as one sees fit, without tyranny, that was the draw for the world's wretched, the reason the wretched want to come to America.

Turns out, according to Bill, I'm wrong.

Oh well...guess I'll join a union, sign a petition, march in a protest, and open up my house to any person who ambles by.

Thanks, Bill! You done opened my eyes!

Can't open what he doesn't have.