>>We clearly disagree. It seems to me the reason is that I believe in the individual whereas you believe in the collective.

Nice projection... but here's an example of the sound bites you delivered:

>>The difference in a free market capitalistic society is that everyone is afforded the opportunity to achieve the highest wealth status.

The word "everyone" is extravagant and easily disproved. If only you would accept that, discussion could move to the consequences as wealth become concentrated more and more out of reach for more and more communities, which is what the CBO paper shows.

>> What I mean is that I believe that individual will can overcome nearly any circumstance, which is why I look for such examples rising from desperate poverty in horrible environments to prove that individuals, through sheer power of will and determination, are capable of exceptional things. You seem to believe that if everyone doesn't succeed then the system is a failure. That's how I read "negative example can trump 1000 positive examples". There is no system, yet discovered, which will guarantee success for all. It's called Utopia and as long as humans, with all their inherent flaws, are involved it cannot exist.

The issue you will not accept is that while people can do exceptional things, it's called "exceptional" because it's not normal. For your claims about prosperity to be valid, it can't be confined only to an elite. Not that I disapprove of true elitism that drives lots of innovation and advances, but it doesn't need to gather all advantage to itself and leave everybody else with soundbites that become increasingly demeaning as people realize that utopic slogans don't put food on the table. Your reference to Utopia is intended as slap, but it's an own goal IMHO.

>>The qualities I look for are those very qualities that put the early Europeans on the boats for the New World. Those qualities that formed this nation. Those qualities which were acknowledged and guaranteed by our Declaration and Constitution.

That's aspirational and wonderful, but it doesn't help people in Detroit who can't get a job and may live in an environment where the most obvious way to get ahead involves crime and narcotics.

>>I fully acknowledge that many will not succeed. That many will outright fail, through their own efforts or those "put upon" them by friends, family or well-meaning outsiders. However, that many fail does not trump those who succeed and it only takes one success to prove that it can be done. Because of the structure of this nation, we don't have but one, there are millions of examples.

The American Dream doesn't say that you can bring yourself to prosperity only if you're exceptional. It's a principle for the whole community- or else it's hopeless as soon as people realize that they're not geniuses or 7-foot basketball players. Joe Average needs hope too for the idea to be real. But at present the ladder is being pulled further and further out of reach so even the Middle Classes now are losing certainty and prosperity. That's the most concerning finding of the paper about income disparity IMHO ... but I've said that three times before and you ignored or denied it, so I guess that's the end of it.