{"id":2695,"date":"2011-12-07T07:21:09","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T14:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2011\/12\/07\/defining-america-down\/"},"modified":"2011-12-07T11:07:21","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T18:07:21","slug":"defining-america-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2011\/12\/defining-america-down\/","title":{"rendered":"defining America down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/osawatomie-speech.pdf\" title=\"Obama\u2019s Osawatomie speech\">Obama\u2019s Osawatomie speech<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Obama&#8217;s change for America is to lower expectations by providing government enforced fair and balanced\u00a0outcomes for all Americans.\u00a0 Leave aside the thorny fact that government cannot succeed in producing such an outcome&#8211;that it&#8217;s completely impossible for government to do that.<\/p>\n<p>Most importantly, the key takeaway from yesterday&#8217;s speech is that Obama&#8217;s version of the American Dream is an\u00a0American\u00a0nightmare where unlimited opportunity becomes\u00a0&#8220;a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sounds all very pleasant, but it&#8217;s a far cry from the\u00a0land of unlimited opportunity where anyone can do\u00a0or become anything they want if they&#8217;re willing to work for it.<\/p>\n<p>People don&#8217;t immigrate to America to get by modestly and then quietly die.\u00a0 That is the life they want to immigrate from, not to!\u00a0 \u00a0The American Dream is\u00a0about unlimited\u00a0personal and societal growth and creative\u00a0opportunity.\u00a0 It&#8217;s about a life accessible to anyone that is\u00a0not limited by heritage, not limited by any other man within a consensual framework, and especially not limited by a government &#8220;by and for the people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>America has the largest\u00a0middle class of any country because it&#8217;s where a lot of people end up after aiming for the top.\u00a0 If Obama succeeds in convincing Americans to aim for the middle, he will\u00a0have lowered expectations for all Americans, and\u00a0the ranks of impoverished Americans will grow.<\/p>\n<p>A president should lead the country by expressing high ideals, not low expectations.\u00a0 This has always been a problem with both Michelle and Barack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Obama\u2019s Osawatomie speech Obama&#8217;s change for America is to lower expectations by providing government enforced fair and balanced\u00a0outcomes for all Americans.\u00a0 Leave aside the thorny fact that government cannot succeed in producing such an outcome&#8211;that it&#8217;s completely impossible for government to do that. Most importantly, the key takeaway from yesterday&#8217;s speech is that Obama&#8217;s version [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,61],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-change","7":"category-hope","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}