Bob Coulter

Why is the American Dream So Full of Nightmares? Bob Coulter

America seems to be suffering from 'split personality'. That is a mental disorder characterized by displaying at least two distinct personalities competing for the control of one body. An accompanying characteristic of the disorder is memory impairment not explained by normal forgetfulness. An example of a split personality individual would be the fictional character, "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". When Mr Hyde shows up, he has no recollection of Dr Jekyll. For the first two hundred years of our existence as a nation, we were a "Dr Jekyll". We were a morally wholesome group of people that made many positive contributions to those around us, much like what you would expect from a doctor. For the past fifty years, we've become a "Mr Hyde". As a nation, we have become partners-in-crime, allowing the advancement of numerous influences of evil, which is inflicting pain, misery, and woe on multitudes of people. Woodrow Wilson, our 28th President, once said, "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, doesn't know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about." We must recapture the Doctor Jekyll personality that guided America for the first two hundred years of her existence. As we rediscover what our Founding Fathers envisioned for America, and consider what has been happening over the past fifty years, we will clearly see why our nation has transformed from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde, and what it will take to return Dr Jekyll to the forefront. As we progress through this discovery together, may we all be infused with a renewed love and patriotism for the United States of America, the greatest nation on earth.