Personal Responsibility and the Path to Success

This episode is brought to you by Starbucks. That is fire. Whoa, that's good. This might be the drink of the summer. Okay, I like this one too. I'm not with you, o? Try it for yourself. Starbucks refreshherers concentrates are coming home. Find them in the coffee aisle and make it yours. This is a little more interesting than the usual tik tack torment. That's what they call it tik tack torture, terrible tik tack torture, where I have to watch stupid people saying stupid stuff. I will be doing that The thing that they're saying is very specific. They're saying that the American dream is dead. So we're going to test those ideas. We're not going to just, you know, make fun of them. we're going to first Look at the ideas, look at their arguments, and then make fun So let's see why the American Dream is dead. Logic drove me out of the United States because I saw the people as a whole weren't standing up for themselves and weren't fighting for change. We feel rewarded from posts, we feel rewarded from from certain protests, but where do they then lead? Has the change occurred Are the Democrats good? Are the Republicans good? Is anyone Doing what's best for America and for Americans, it doesn't seem that way to me. Nope. It's all corrupt And when I moved to Dubai, the CEO of our company, who was a good friend of mine, we argued because Arabs love Americans. Arabs love America They really do. And we argued because I said I think it would be better if China was the ruling power of the world They would govern the world as a business better That America, and he fought with me and we argued, no, you're wrong because the Chinese this. I mean, he had his points, but I'm like, bro. it's different. Americans don't mind blowing people up. Americans don't mind killing their own citizens en masse, they're poisoning, they're doing this. There's all these factors. The American government is horrid. All right. There's a lot in there that you could talk about, but let's focus first of all, on how much we love the Chinese The Chinese rule their people with an iron fist. If you don't follow the Communist Party, it shows up on your internet profile and they destroy you, they can ruin your life. They have taken the minority Uighghurs and put them in camps and taken their allegedly, but I very plausibly taken their organs and sold them. These are horrible people doing things that America actually is not doing. this is one of the things. You can accuse America of a lot of things, but these are things we're actually not doing. Is there corruption? Is there dysfunction in America? Yes, there is. And the thing about this is, I mean I hear this Tucker Carlson says stuff like this, you know, I go to Dubai or wherever and things are working well. you know, there's always going to be low crime in oppressive countries because they kill you. They don't bother about the rule of law. if you commit a crime, they take you away and kill you. We're here, we have these rights and they keep, yeah, you know, sure, they keep the innocent from being thrown in prison without a trial, but they are make us a little bit of slow in punishing the guilty. And so you know that's something that bothers people. And of course it does. Freedom is always chaotic. It's always going to be more chaotic. But to go where the law and order is, but without freedom is simply to be rich. That means that you're rich enough. to're rich enough where you feel you can protect yourself from being hurt. And it's a big, big mistake ultimately for the world. I'd rather have some chaos and freedom Which is always it's always freedom that makes countries into great nations in the end that have oppression and the trains run on time. You know, Even Hitler made the trains run on time, but where were they going? All right, let's watch the next guy. You may be asking yourself, well, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, they were jumping up and down, you know, they were saying make America great again. They're pro pro union, they're pro worker, they're pro America N than not. They're commen. I told you they're commen. I told you remember, I work in real estate. I can spot a comm man a mile away. Yeah, they're com comm. Donald Trump is a commman, Elon Musk is a comm man, RFK is a con manan, Vibbeic Ramawami is a comm man. they're all freaking conmen. That's why he has appointed about twelve billionaires into his cabinet to control us And You may be saying, well, comea Harris, Waltz They're commment, No they're not. Kama Harris is just an everyday person Waltz. He's an everyday guy. Do you stand by that claim of Hington? Yeah I think there's something wrong with him. Aly sure. He doesn't have some hidden agenda. They're not billionaires They're not billionaires. They're not part of the elite They're just average Americans like you you and I You want change You want fairness, you want opportunity You need to put somebody in who's a real person. All right, so a bad judge of character. I mean if you're looking at Tim Walsh and saying he's a regular guy, clearly, Tim Wals, you know, I don't want to say that he's obviously a homosexual serial killer. You know, I mean, what doing And Kamala Harris is one of the most corrupt politicians in the country There's a little bit of the con man to Donald Trump. I think would know if he drank and he had a couple of drinks, he would kind of admit that He' said, he's a cheerleader. He always blows things up. He's hyperbolic. But I look at Elon Musk and I watch him send a rocket into space and then it comes down and lands on a little platform in the ocean So you can use it again. I don't think the guy's a conman. you know he's a salesman. You know, every good businessman is a salesman, but that's your reason why the American Dream is dead. I would say your problem is you're lousy, lousy judge of character. You can see a conman coming miles away, but you can't see them right in front of your eyes. All right, another one. The American Dream is dead The average home in the United States costs four hundred and eighteen thousand dollars, do you know anyone making that much money Do you know anyone? Do you know anyone that's started a business that's notro drops shipping or like some sort of AI gig economy. Like do you know anyone that owns a store? Name two people Do you know anyone that our aged that owns a house did not get help from their parents Like There's no jobs. All the listings are fake. Jobs don't even offer health care. so then you're on Medicaid, you get kicked off because of the big beautiful bill that just got passed The American Dream was dead. And then they tell you you're not working hard enough. Like, make it make sense to me. You're not not doing enough. America's not doing enough for you. Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country can do for you. Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country can do for you. Okay, so what is the American dream? The American dream is that if Wor like a crazy man and you have some breaks and you never give up, you might achieve, no matter who you are, you might achieve what you were meant to achieve. N're not going to achieve more than you were meant to achieve because nobody does, but you might achieve what you were meant to achieve. That's the American dream and the American part of it, the reason it's an American dream is because it can happen to anybody. No matter where you start, you have that ability because in a free economy, there's a lot of flexibility and a lot of growth. So has that dream been damaged? I would say, yes, it has. I would say the expansion of government has made it harder for people to maneuver in the American economy. I think if we could dial back regulation, I think every time we dial back regulation, when we did it during the first Trump administration business gets better. You know, Trump is like the only president ever to narrow the gap between blacks and whites and poor and rich. He's like the only president to ever do that. And that was because he got rid of regulation, cut taxes. Taxes are still way too high. spepending way too high. So all of that stuff has damaged the American dream However, however I noticed that woman wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I noticed so she's tattooed all over, so she's not going to get the best jobs. She is you know not the kind of she's not making the presentation that makes you want to hire her. And I think that that may have something to do with it too. You know, when you get married, you have a team to go forward with, which has always been part of success The idea that you thrive and wve has always been nonsense. You have to you know you thrive a little bit and then you wive and make the rest of the way. I was married when I had nothing and I would have nothing still if I hadn't gotten married. And you know, I think that you do have to ask yourself whether you're doing it wrong. I do think that the expansion of government has cut down on availability of the American dream, but it's still there. and it's still there for anybody if they live well and do the things that have to be done. And that's a woman I can almost guarantee is not doing those things. Everything in America begins with looking at yourself, that line, you, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. I would actually say ask what you can do for your family. Ask what you can do for your neighborhood. Ask what you can do for your community. because those are the things that lead to success The biggest thing, the biggest thing that leads to success are dreams tempered by realism. That's the thing that will get you what you need. If you have a dream that you are going to be Elon Musk, but you just don't have what it takes to be Elon Musk, you're not going to get where you need to go. But if you take a look at yourself and you reach further than you think you can go, you will get to where you're supposed to be. It is an amazing thing Barring tragedies, barring catastrophes, right? Those happen to everybody in every nation, everywhere. But that still is available to you in this country in a way that it's not. It is a little harder because of the growing government. But I think we can dial that back. and if we dial it back, it will be there again. There's startups happening all over. There are all kinds of new technologies that free you to do things. If you're looking for it to be handed to you, you're going to get something handed to you, but it's not what you want If your American dream is dead, wake it up by liking and subscribing and also subscribbe to the Andrew Claven Show wherever you get your podcast