>>>Thats Ted's dream. Not what they refer to as the American dream.
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>>From what I learned during my years there, the american dream is to take someone to court and get a big pile of money out of him. The american nightmare is that someone will take you to court and get a big pile of money out of you.
>
>That isn't the way it is. I'm not saying that doesn't happen but it isn't the typical American experience. You must have missed something while you were our guest here.

Or I have noticed, being an outsider, things you take for granted or perceive as normal.

Just look at your malls and entrances to public buildings. Any staircase, no matter how wide and how not really steep, MUST have the handrails every four meters (or a certain number of feet, whatever). I've seen two steps connecting the levels of a mall, no taller than six inches each, and they had two railings. Just take a look at buildings anywhere else in the world and count the number of handrails on wide, short and generally not steep stairs. The US are the only country where this is some kind of law... or a direct influence of ambulance chasers. They've managed to instill the fear of litigation into everybody's minds, to the point where you don't even think about it, just behave like that without second thought.

The most drastic case that I remember was back in the summer of 2000, when I took my lunch break to drive my girls to the lake, where I'd join them after work. So it happened that around 3pm there was a huge storm - no big deal, the lake was in the forest, there are dozens of trees which would attract the lightnings, and there's also a big covered terrace, perhaps 10x10m, where anybody could just sit away from the edge and wait it out. But when I got to the lake, after the storm, they weren't anywhere - there was nobody at the lake. I drove home to start making phone calls (didn't have a cell phone yet), and then I found them at home. What happened? The county lakes and parks, i.e. the public enterprise in charge, closed the lake because of the storm. Because it could be dangerous. So everybody had to drive through the forest during the worst storm, risking a crash with a falling tree or branch, or electrocution from loose cables (which happens regularly, that's Virginia, any wind does that somewhere) instead of staying sheltered on that terrace. People could seriously die. Yes, but not on their premises, so they wouldn't be responsible. We don't care if you die or get hurt, as long as you don't do it on our turf, whereby you can then sue us (and yes, this interpretation was confirmed by locals).

I'm not taking that back, except the definite article - this litigation has screwed up the american way of life, and I was quite sorry to realize how far it went. So, it's one of the american dreams/nightmares.