What Is the American Nightmare?

The American Dream has been the ethos of America since it's creation. At it's core, it is a belief that the current or next generation should be able to accomplish more than the previous. For many Americans today this is indeed just a dream. The American Nightmare is the result of the mistakes made by the previous generations to hinder the next from accomplishing anything greater. If you spend 13 years in a public school, should you not be able to acquire a better job than flipping burgers or repetitive manual labor? Why should anyone graduate from high school or college with no prospects of employment? Jobs do not disappear with new technology or out sourcing. A job is like energy, it cannot be destroyed or created, it can only change location or form. These jobs still exist in a place that is cheaper for the company or in a form that makes it completely undesirable to a potential employee. This causes more and more young Americans to take careers as criminals. Despite the inherent dangers of these activities, it is the most appealing to our generation. Sadly most do not realize that these basic business practices can be applied to perfectly legitimate entrepreneurial endeavors. Now here's an example of the American Nightmare in action: Jimmy is a high school graduate. Jimmy graduated in 2009. Jimmy worked at McDonald's for 6 months, never missed a day, and always did his job to the best of his ability. During the six months Jimmy decided to rent a small apartment and had a child with his high school sweet heart and attended a few classes at a community college but but could not afford to continue even with financial assistance from the government. Well now Jimmy doesn't have a job or any marketable skills. He can't afford the time or money to learn something new. Jimmy takes his last $300 and invest in a quarter pound of average quality marijuana to sell to his peers. Jimmy ran a good business for awhile but was finally busted by Johnny Law. Jimmy lost his driver's license and owes hundreds of dollars in fines and court costs to his local government which must be paid in a timely manner or face imprisonment. Jimmy was a had working American that was just trying to provide for his family and is now in an almost infinite loop. This scenario is far more common than it needs to be. I am not a politician. In fact the majority of my knowledge of current events come from John Stuart and Steven Colbert. Regardless of my lack of knowledge in many aspects of how the world works I know it will not continue to work like this. The American dream is dead and we are now living in a nightmare that will only get progressively worse until we wake up and realize that, intentionally or not, we have been royally F'ed in the A.