The United States of America, often dubbed the “Land of Opportunity,” has always been viewed as a place where even the lowest of the low could go to try to make a name for themselves. A nation of the liberty to pursue ambitions, a haven for outcasts, a new world for people to establish for themselves. Since its birth, people have flooded into its ports and worked the malleable land into homes and farms and cities. These same people sought refuge from cruel and unyielding governments and found land to call their own while they chased freedom. All throughout America’s history, its people have been filled with one shining dream: a dream of bettering themselves and their futures. But given the current disparity between the different socioeconomic
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This era of philosophes and social change brought about two particular principles key in creating the United States Constitution, Transcendentalism and Democracy. One of the most famous American philosophes, playing a crucial role in creating the United States early government with the Declaration of Independence, was Thomas Jefferson, who brought some fundamental beliefs of both into account when he expressed that, “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights to liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, America was to be a place where men were politically free to pursue whatever goal they wanted” (Pidgeon 179). Jefferson summed up the beliefs of the Enlightenment and what was to become one of the most widely accepted definitions of the true American Dream in one of the most eloquent testimonies to …show more content…
Basing judgments of the thousands below the poverty line in America upon the very few who manage to strike the circumstances just right, people will often refer to stories like Oprah Winfrey’s. She pulled herself out of a childhood of poverty, sexual and physical abuse, and multiple changes of guardianship and she became a phenomenal media presence. She now advocates self-love and has had numerous outlets to do so, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, “The Oprah Magazine”, “Oprah’s Book Club”, and several other means as well (Liberman, Gail, and Lavine 193). But she is by no means the norm. From about 1970 until 2014, the numbers of Americans living in poverty have rested around 2014’s percentage of 14.8% (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 12). That steady percentage of poverty in the United States, while quite probably necessary to the well-being of its economy, does not lend to the idea that every man is able to achieve all that he desires in life, because people are not getting out of their
This era of philosophes and social change brought about two particular principles key in creating the United States Constitution, Transcendentalism and Democracy. One of the most famous American philosophes, playing a crucial role in creating the United States early government with the Declaration of Independence, was Thomas Jefferson, who brought some fundamental beliefs of both into account when he expressed that, “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights to liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, America was to be a place where men were politically free to pursue whatever goal they wanted” (Pidgeon 179). Jefferson summed up the beliefs of the Enlightenment and what was to become one of the most widely accepted definitions of the true American Dream in one of the most eloquent testimonies to …show more content…
Basing judgments of the thousands below the poverty line in America upon the very few who manage to strike the circumstances just right, people will often refer to stories like Oprah Winfrey’s. She pulled herself out of a childhood of poverty, sexual and physical abuse, and multiple changes of guardianship and she became a phenomenal media presence. She now advocates self-love and has had numerous outlets to do so, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, “The Oprah Magazine”, “Oprah’s Book Club”, and several other means as well (Liberman, Gail, and Lavine 193). But she is by no means the norm. From about 1970 until 2014, the numbers of Americans living in poverty have rested around 2014’s percentage of 14.8% (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 12). That steady percentage of poverty in the United States, while quite probably necessary to the well-being of its economy, does not lend to the idea that every man is able to achieve all that he desires in life, because people are not getting out of their