So the American dream is dead but some just haven't noticed yet?

I've never quite believed in American exceptionalism the way some people do. But I do believe there was something mighty special about America for a while. Read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Praire. Read any number of heroic stories from WWII, like Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken. Or drive across America on her impressive system of Interstate highways. Or listen to Jeff Daniels' terrific speech (if you can get past the 'f-bombs') in this opening segment of the series, Newsroom.

Some scenarios about the present and future are pretty grim. I admit to being pretty grim myself sometimes, though I'm basically pretty upbeat as you'd know if you talked to me. Yet there's something in the grim picture that has a ring of truth, at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays, if you know what I mean.

Take this email I received referencing a speech by Franklin Graham, for instance. It starts with a third party introducing Graham's words like this:

Time is like a river. You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.Franklin Graham was speaking at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, when he said America will not come back. He wrote:

The American dream ended on November 6th, 2012 in Ohio. The second term of Barack Obama has been the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest republic in the history of mankind.

A coalition of blacks, Latinos, feminists, gays, government workers, union members, environmental extremists, the media, Hollywood, uninformed young people, the "forever needy," the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other "fellow travelers" have ended Norman Rockwell's America.

You will never again out-vote these people. It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away. It will take zealots, not moderates and shy, reach-across-the-aisle RINOs to right this ship and restore our beloved country to its former status.

People like me are completely politically irrelevant, and I will probably never again be able to legally comment on or concern myself with the aforementioned coalition which has surrendered our culture, our heritage and our traditions without a shot being fired.

The Cocker spaniel is off the front porch, the pit bull is in the back yard. The American Constitution has been replaced with Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and the likes of Chicago shyster David Axelrod along with international socialist George Soros have been pulling the strings on their beige puppet have brought us Act 2 of the New World Order.

The curtain will come down but the damage has been done, the story has been told.

Those who come after us will once again have to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring back the Republic that this generation has timidly frittered away due to white guilt and political correctness...

At the same time, I realize that the vast majority of foreign refugees and would-be immigrants clamouring to get into our country are still motivated by the icon of hope that is America. At least most of them are flying from oppressive regimes in countries where the daily possibility is life or death; and they come to America because there is promise of relative security, food, shelter, clothing, and opportunities to live and prosper here. That fact alone tells us that the glass is still half full, that the water hasn't been entirely drained yet. That's positive. Even if it isn't much.