re: #237 HappyWarrior

The rugged individual living on his own against government interference is a myth. I mean I get it. People want ot be able to do it on their own and say they did it on their own but no one really does it on their own. That was what Obama’s whole point of the whole “You didn’t build that” that the Romney campaign so crassly tried to make into an attack on success. Me? I’ve loved history for a long time but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t teachers who fostered that interest on the way and make it even more fascinating.

America’s founding myth. Immigrants can jump off the boat in the 18th and 19 centuries, and with a little pluck and intestinal fortitude…they build business empires and become wildly successful!

Of course, for 99.99% of the people coming off the boat in the 18 century, you were damned lucky to get a farm (without getting killed in any of the horrible possibilities that existed at the time) and the 19th century, you could 1)live in the ghetto of your ethnic group in Boston or New York and work for slave wages in the mills and factories or 2) head out West and break your back on the railroad (and if you were female, get used to prostitution as a necessary way of life).

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