Publisher's Synopsis
The American Dream began 250 years ago with simple phrases: created equal, unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, no taxation without representation. In the ensuing years, those things have served to guide much of our development, even as we have strayed away from them. In the United States of today, more than 600,000 legal citizens are denied representation, created equal doesn't mean treated equally, and the leaders who fought for those revolutionary ideas have been replaced with invective and diatribe. In this book, author Craig Allen identifies 10 places where the American Dream has been derailed, sometimes by the very Constitution that created it. He proposes simple, though sometimes gutsy, changes that will re-level the playing field and ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to prosper, limited only by their own abilities and drive. This is not a book advocating bigger Government, or the creation of a nanny State, for, in the words of the author, neither of those was ever a part of the Dream. He structures his suggestions based upon Abraham Lincoln's principles that: "The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere." He seeks neither bigger Government, nor more regulation by Government. What he proposes is Functional Government...and Simple Government. Drawing upon his own experiences in local and state governance, he has assembled ten ideas to make you think, proposing his own solutions without demanding that you blindly agree. He thoughtfully provides enough background so you can make up your own mind. By his own words, he says if he made you think, he met his goal.
