What happened to the American Dream?

As I listen to the two presidential nominees argue against one another as a way to somehow win the hearts and votes of the populous, I can't help but wonder what happened to America?
When the Founding Fathers laid down the Constitution for the United States, they did so with the great ideals, hopes of freedom and dreams of liberty. Their stance against the tyrannical monarchy of oppression, from which all colonists fled, was a radical new idea. The idea that all are created equal. When were Liberty and hard work replaced with the socialistic ideas of governmental control and handouts?
The current administration as well as the upcoming administration that is to be elected in November have much more in common than they would have us believe. The so-called partisanship of Washington fades away when citizens see the voting records of those running. Both John McCain and Barack Hussein Obama have voted with the Bush administration; they have also both voted against it. When will the American people wake up and realize that the freedoms they once enjoyed in this country have been traded away for a false sense of so-called, “safety?”
Benjamin Franklin once said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
The Founding Fathers would never have agreed to things like the recent government buy out or the Patriot Act of 2001. These blatant power grabs are just two examples of the extent of corruption that the powers that be have jumped into.
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy,” James Madison said.
Our government has scared its people into blind submission through threats of terror and foreign enemies. They have policed the world as a way to slowly leech our liberty.
They have perverted the very foundation of our nation – the Constitution – into some kind of living document that should be changed instead of followed.
“Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government,” Madison said.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press as a way for the government to be held in check. Constitutionally, the media should be having a field day with this current way the government is being run. Why is the media so slanted towards push one party's rhetoric or the next? Those who would say that the media should not criticize and critique the government are not in agreement with the Founding Fathers.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public,” Theodore Roosevelt said.
These are just some examples of how far the United States have fallen from grace and how very close we are to becoming a completely socialistic society. Short of a violent revolution, which none truly want to see, the only way to change this reality is to lobby and vote for the men and women who do hold to the values the Founding Fathers held.
In the words of John Quincy Adams, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”