It takes more than that.  Hard work and behaving, I mean.  It takes discipline and persistence as well if you want to pursue happiness at a high level in the good, old USA.

 

Most educators and even parents do not lay it out.  They don’t tell children that economic success comes at a price in a competitive, capitalist system.  An American must be able to make money for a company, or for his or her self in private business.  Ability and production is everything in the “for profit world.”

 

You produce by developing skills.  Working intensely over a period of time to do certain things very well.  Then you discipline yourself to fulfill every job expectation.  That’s how you prosper.

 

If you are unwilling to do that, and millions of Americans are, you can get by - but the struggle will be significant.  You may live “paycheck to paycheck,” you’ll likely owe money.  And, if a health or any other kind of crisis hits, you’ll get hammered.

 

That’s the deal the Founding Fathers set up.  The government protects citizens from bad guys, foreign and domestic, allowing Americans to practice self-reliance, to “pursue happiness” the way they, the citizens, design the journey.

 

All of that is under siege right now.  

The Democrats have decided that the American system, as designed in 1776, is both rigged and obsolete.  They want to destroy it, and much of the media has bought in.

 

Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are running for president on the “guaranteed outcome” ticket.  They have both proposed that the federal government essentially pay your bills.  In return, you will do as you are told and hand over a substantial amount of your earnings and assets to Washington.

 

If you don’t have much in earnings and assets, this may seem like an attractive deal.  Also, if you don’t want to work hard developing a skill, the senators have appeal.

 

Of course, the far-left promise is a cynical mirage.  The federal government is incapable of administrating to 330 million people plus millions of foreign nationals who continue to pour into the country.

 

Fidel Castro could not even provide a decent standard of living for ten million people on a tropical island with verdant soil.

 

The United States has become a selfish nation with many of us demanding instant economic gratification.  So it is easy for charlatans to set up a “victim” scenario.  Most Americans have no chance, they wail.  White supremacy keeps minority citizens down, greedy corporations steal from all workers.  That’s what the “pay your fair share” stuff is all about.  The wealthy are stealing from the non-wealthy.

 

Sanders and Warren are both millionaires who live in comfort.  But neither really cares about money.  No, what they want is power, and they have created a gigantic false promise in order to achieve it.

 

As I’ve said before, these are dangerous people especially if you believe in freedom.  Because they don’t.