I just watched the documentary "Michael Moore Hates America". I've always enjoyed Moore's films, and I've always done so with a grain of salt/peering through the sensationalism. Overall this movie wasn't exactly cohesive, but also wasn't the Glenn Beck inspired witch hunt I expected. It certainly left me thinking that Michael Moore seems far more concerned with entertainment over truth (more so than I had believed), nor much with change. His documentaries are certainly more "personalized" than most, and he may also possibly be a bit of a martyr jackass.
The one phrase in this movie that caught my ear (that surfaces in so many left vs right movies) is the idea of Americans being self-reliant. This more than anything is probably the true American dream. The concept has changed though. For me the idea of self reliance would mean that you can work hard and take care of yourself, and I would unquestioningly embrace and defend that idea. The modern American pattern for the overwhelming majority is that, if you are reasonably successful, you work hard and pay to depend on other people. Mortgages, insurance, and to a far lesser extent car loans (lesser but part of the aggregate): all cover those wants and needs that have become inaccessible through hard work alone yet are a staple of modern life. Though it may be easy to diminish their roles when divided up into convenient payments, the water that they are holding can easily drown most people.
There is also the money that we are constantly paying the governments for services they provide. And though that may be a heated topic by itself, the necessity of some of those services is inarguable and evolving technology expected in infrastructures increasingly precludes external coordination. The bottom line is that this is another area in which we are not self-reliant.
The time of true (for all intents and purposes) self reliance through hard work alone wasn't that long ago, but for the moment at least, for several reasons (primarily the introduction of prohibitively high costs) it's gone. The one above that can't be responsibly skirted around is insurance, which is also the most directly at odds with the concept of self-reliance. No matter what other argument there may be, insurance amounts to relying on a company to bail you out should you need it. As a quick aside, in the documentary the person touting self-reliance was doing so as they were shouting for the police.
My personal perspective is that it is the fundamental ideas of self-reliance that should be upheld as much as possible. If people work hard, collaborate, & compete society will benefit and that society in return should absorb those obstacles which impede that progress, which can make the independence to perform freely impossible. The original American ethic of work hard and get ahead should not be jeopardized by any forced dependence which could fall through.
No matter what other solutions are envisioned it is presently idealistically short sighted to espouse the idea of true self-reliance and that people are able to take care of themselves, or at least to build themselves up to the point where that is possible through hard work. Any romanticized rhetoric of the truly independent American left to his/her own devices is glossing over all of the dependencies behind the curtain. Anyone who thinks that they are truly their own person financially needs to think more about where their finances are going. It's not nearly as cool, it sucks to admit it, but it's not going to go away and machismo doesn't help.
