The American Dream means to me that people who need the support that can only be given by a government, that they are given what is needed in order to live, not just to survive but to thrive. I am so exhausted from hearing this business about pulling one’s self up by one’s bootstraps. There are people in our country that are not wearing boots. And that not to understand that it is the responsibility of a society to look out for the least of us is, for me, a very wrong way of looking at life and living. The American Dream is realized only when we come to the point of understanding, when we see a person that is not doing very well in life, if we can understand that “there (but for) the grace of God go I,” and that it is our responsibility to lend a hand, a hand up. People don’t want a handout, they want a hand up. And the American Dream, to me, is understanding and participating in that. Not achieving something on one’s own and letting that be all that happens in one’s life, but to understand sometimes you need to reach back. Sometimes you’ve got to reach on the side and say, “Hey, come along. Don’t be sad. This is going to work out. You’ll never walk alone.”