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Not long ago the prevailing opinion of the American Dream was one lived with a veangance. Now, I'm no Cuban Gangster living in Miami...yet...but I feel that we should take violence out of this equation and only focus on peaceful means for implementing a dream for all Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, occupation, location, age and any other categorical assignation. The first thing we have to do is wrestle away the definition of "American Dream" from these gangsters that may as well be wielding Webster's instead of a tommy gun. We should first take a journey to our past before defining our future and the obvious severe implications of defending our right to have an American Dream, albeit one without violence as a catalyst for said dream.

Now, before the 1980's a man by the name of Horatio Alger was signed the card of authenticity on what dreaming (American Dreaming if you will) really was. This was a man of the written word (he was mute, you see) and what he did was...well, suffice to say, the man wrote books. These books generally described the American Dream. This is the assumptions historians go by, for nobody actually ever read a Horatio Alger book, but rumor has it that Horatio detailed a narrative based on the arc of Rags to Riches. Where a boy would work really hard and eventually build up enough capital to buy a house, a yard, a dog, a wife and four beautiful children. This was the American Dream WITHOUT the veangence that Tony Montana and his minions put in place. For them, a house, a yard, a dog, a wife and four beautiful children weren't enough. Instead, they wanted: a mansion, five yards, a wife (and seven mistresses), fifteen dogs and as many illigitimate children as their loins would allow. Well sir, picking youself up by your bootstraps won't buy you a mansion, five yards, a wife (and seven mistresses), fifteen dogs and as many illigitimate children as their loins would allow. Instead, they picked off their enemies with the aforementioned Tommy Gun.

Now we see the two competing visions of the American Dream. One symbolized by the beautiful man of written words and one by short gangster with bad hair. Now what seems more American? Not so fast! We don't need to be tied to two outdated choices, after all, this article should address the future of the American Dream, not the past, not even the present! How's this for a thought experiment? Let's choose a third path, more like a third choice, a third way which will trump any writer's or mafioso's notion of conceptual constructs. What if we found a way to buy a mansion, five yards, a wife (and seven mistresses), fifteen dogs and as many illigitimate children as our loins will allow WITHOUT picking up a tommy gun? What then? It seems to me that we have thoroughly examined the concept and future of the American Dream!

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