What founding American documents can you point to that espouse an egalitarian belief? I would submit that freedom (America's true consistent ideal) and "equality" are mutually exclusive ends.
The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the second sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence which states that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
It seems to me that you're trying to interpret that into a Harrison Bergeron society [1].
The way I read this passage of the Declaration is twofold:
A. In the eyes of the law (that is, the only way that the government can view us), all men enjoy the same rights, privileges, and protections.
B. We are clearly diverse; it is obvious that no two of us are exactly alike, or in any way interchangeable. However, it's not possible to assign a value to those differences. The way each of us fit into the grand scheme of society is far too complex to tease apart.
It seems to me that you and previous commenter accept only binary outcomes:
0) either there is 100% inequality (which is where America seems to be headed now)
1) or there is 100% equality (that previous commenter likens to nuclear war)
That seems to me to stem from polarisation of those issues by American media: you're either rich hard working patriotic american or muslim terrorist commie.
No wonder you get the same partisan politics in Parliament and Obamas and Palins as leaders.
Well, in my world aka ROW there are larger inequalities and there are smaller inequalities and when the pendulum swings too much in one direction it's time for society to rethink something, not engage in witch hunt.
Anyway, this whole topic is too tiresome by now. After all it's called American Dream, not European or Asian Dream. Go figure it out for yourselves!
maybe you heard about "American Dream" and stuff...