"Work, family, fatherland": The American dream is not about freedom, but scarcity

The American dream was never about doing interesting and creative work with your life. It was always just about earning money. It's also about being able to want something you almost certainly will not have. It will be only your fault you don't, since it's your opportunity to want. Our politicians, the Democrats especially in fact, have been pretty good in reminding people that the ideology sold and imputed to the working class is one of duty, discipline, and sacrifice. You aren't supposed to have a good life, but to slave away while wanting it for your grandchildren. You have the right to your liberty to fuck off, and to otherwise pursue your happiness. You don't have the right to be happy, which might mean living your life the way you would like to, which might in turn depend on things that aren't entirely in your own personal control--as if we lived in a society, that is not just a collection of individuals. You have the right not to be happy but to want to be. The American dream is not about freedom but an idea of freedom that is based on scarcity. The meaning of the American dream is that you can always want it, because you cannot have it. It doesn't belong to you. Indeed, neither really does your life. The advance from slavery is that people now are responsible for freely managing their own subjection. The opportunities and choices are given to you, and not based on what you might want were all things equal. All things are not equal because people aren't. People are not equal, and that is why they are supposed to be. Show respect for the masters, and for their servants. That's equality. Find out what you really want and sacrifice it. That will make you seem holy, and this is a religious nation. Work, family, nation. Is that a democratic notion? In occupied France, it was that of the government which collaborated with the Nazis. It is a fascist slogan. Fascism and liberalism may be not so different, or may go together. One is about false hopes, the other is about resentment.