Bill Moyers on his blog asked the following: "We're asking our guests and our viewers what is their vision for the future of the American Dream — and how we can achieve those visions."

The American Dream, in my opinion, has always been and, I believe, continues to be an idea of hope. It is the hope that one's economic progression can can spread and, indeed, improve from generation to generation. It is the idea that the achievement of a comfortable existence can cut across class and social lines. The old rigid class monarchical structure that was much European and world history is not, at least ideally, cemented in the American system. Our system allows for the possibility or at least the hope that one can, irrespective of class and, in more recent history, race, incrementally achieve a better life. It is the hope that the ossification of a rigid class system will not prevent that achievement.

The ideals of that hope, though, walk hand-in-hand with the freedoms and Constitutional protections our form of government provides. The security that prevents the threat of government usurping those freedoms without just cause makes, in my opinion, our American Dream possible. It allows the individual the opportunity to devote his or her energy to that personal improvement and to that pursuit of happiness making the expenditure of the adrenaline imperative of basic physical survival unnecessary. Our Constitutional protections ALLOW us the luxury to develop our own happiness. I believe, the American Dream is not possible without one ensuring the other.