A sonnet by Emma Lazarus is engraved on a bronzed plaque and mounted on the lower level of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Probably the most recognized line from this sonnet is the one that says “…Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to break free. The wretched refuse of your teaming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the Golden door!”.
Truth be told, most of the world belongs to the class of people referred to in the sonnet as “huddled masses.” No matter what culture or kind of society in any place on earth, most people have been poor and utterly unremarkable.
The promise of the sonnet on the American Statue of Liberty is that we are a land that makes no distinction of class, that all are welcome, and that once you are here, the opportunity exists, through your hard work, perseverance and sometimes with a lot of luck, you can elevate yourself above the huddled mass. That is the American Dream at its most basic.
I heard an interesting news item coming in to work this morning where the reporter tried to illustrate the difference between our current President Barack Obama, and our wannabe Republican candidate, Mitt Romney. The reporter chose to use the American Dream as his point, and proceeded to explain that the current crop of Republicans believe that the level of government assistance given to the huddled masses causes them to abandon the pursuit of their American Dream, while the Democrats, in the form of our President, believe that the government should do what it can in the form of subsidy and assistance to maintain standards of living.
The Tea Party Republican point of view is that people who have fallen on hard times should depend more on their family, friends and churches to get them over the rough spots in life, and less on the government. They believe that by making welfare and food stamps too plentiful, people will stop chasing their dreams and be content to use the government assistance as their sole means of support.
Mitt Romney seems to believe, as does Mr. Obama, that the rich should pay higher taxes, but the problem is that there is a wide separation in the numbers tossed around as to what level of income one has to make before they are considered “rich”. The Romney’s brought in about 42 million dollars last year, and have a net worth north of two-hundred million dollars, yet Ann Romney made a statement that she doesn’t consider herself wealthy.
President Obama’s tax plans have consistently been targeted at people who make 250,000 a year or more, and I guarantee you that if you stop 50 random people on the street and ask them if they think anyone who makes 250,000 a year or more is wealthy, you will get a positive response.
The Republican point of view also seems to fail to take into account the massive loss of good jobs across our land, particularly manufacturing jobs from our heartland. In places like Ohio and Michigan, tens of thousands of good paying jobs have been lost to Mexico or China or Vietnam. Where are all these people supposed to work now and make a decent living. Not everyone can go to work at Walmart or McDonalds, and a $9 an hour job that only gives you 30 hours a week so that the employer doesn’t have to count you as “full-time” does not replace one of the manufacturing jobs that was lost.
Many ‘replacement” jobs have been in the service industry. Well, to a point, that works, as long as a job allows a family to have decent housing and food on the table and put clothes on the kids back, but at some point you need to remember that in order for service jobs to exist, you have to have consumers, and if no one is working, or if they are underemployed, then they likely aren’t consuming a lot of services either.
Another problem I see with the Republican expectation that people who are down on their luck rely more on their family, friends and churches is that the 
America where this was possible no longer exists. How many people today can name their neighbors? How many people today have moved hundreds or thousands of miles from their family in pursuit of jobs? Only 40% of Americans report that they attend church at least once a week. The cold hard truth is that the picture of American that many Tea Party Republicans have is one that was painted by Norman Rockwell, and to a great extent, no longer exists.
The biggest difference between todays Democrats and Republicans that was painted by the reporter in this mornings news story was that Democrats have great optimism about the future of America, but worry that individual freedoms and opportunities are fading, while Republicans feel that America is a fading influence on the world, but that if government would only get out-of-the-way, there is still plenty of room for individuals to chase the American Dream.
As usual, I’m somewhere in the middle, but because we have no third political party that straddles the views of the Democrats and Republicans, many voters like myself are left feeling abandoned. The only viable candidates we have left are either too far right, or too far left. Nothing is always black or always white, we need a grey party.
Yes, we have abuses of government assistance. Let’s work together to clean those up, after we have defined reasonable rules that are fair. Yes, we need to revise our tax statutes so that everyone pays their fair share, rich or poor. Yes, all Americans need to feel free to love who they please, marry who they please, work where they please – we all want our fair shot at our piece of the American Dream, and our government should not be a hinderance to that objective, nor should we expect the government to do everything for us. The role of Government in most of our lives should be to give us all a level playing field.
I think our presidential candidates should stop hurling stink bombs at one another, no one is stupid enough to believe that the success of either party would be the end of the world. Most of us just wish we could all get along and work out the American Dream together.