What is an American?

Cartoon by BALOO

What are the rules about being an American?  I don't mean a legal American citizen — there aren't any more rules about that.  Never mind what it says on paper, nowadays you don't even have to know the English language.  They print voting ballots in everything from Tagalog to Mandarin, you know, and only citizens (hah!) can vote, so obviously that standard is gone.  And again, in spite of the laws on the books, you no longer have to give up your original citizenship.  The Mexican government counts everybody with a Mexican origin as a Mexican citizen, even if they're born in the US.  Isn't that nice?  And in the case of Israel, if you're Jewish, you can go right over there and claim citizenship, and retain your US citizenship. This stinks, and needs to be changed ASAP, but it's a separate issue.  What do you need to be to be an American in a meaningful, cultural sense?  Do you have to be White?  Do you have to be of European origin?  Do you have to be a Christian, or at least a skeptic of Christian orientation?  That all certainly helps, because this has always been a White nation, and a Christian one, distinctly of European origin.  And if you're born a US citzen, and fit all those things, you have a leg up on everybody else.  It's easy for you to feel and be American.  Or it used to be....

The new paradigm is that none of those things matter, and we hear from idiots in the liberal/neocon/libertarian coalition that anybody can be an American, all he has to be is believe in the American paradigm of freedom, blah blah blah.  Baloney.  Believing in the principles in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence certainly help one to be an American, because the nation was forged on that basis in addition to its genetic one, but more important than that is a notion of heritage — Saner contries, like Japan and Israel, know very well that heredity and heritage is most of what makes their nations.  Japan only very reluctantly lets anybody of nonJapanese blood become a citizen, and Israel won't let any Gentile become a citizen, simple as that.  Are these two nations a bunch of mouth-breathing racists, or are they just sensible and prudent.  I say the latter.

The current atmosphere suggests that those of us of actual American origin are somehow second-best.  That we're somehow inferior to just about everybody else, and that it's a big plus to America to have a horde or two of Somalis or Montagnards or Haitians or what-have-you come here with their vibrant cultures and set us straight.

Here's what I say.  It's not completely necessary for a person to be of American or European origin to be a good American, but it sure does help.  And all other people have one more requirement, in my thinking.  They have to feel the way I do. That is, they have to admire, respect, and nearly worship that old American stock, and recognize that all that America is, and that which makes it unique, was created, not by the Tsar or the Sanhedrin or the Mufti of Jerusalem or Chaka Zulu, but by those old Dead White Guys, the Founders, and those who followed them and developed the nation following their blueprint — From Andy Jackson to Robert E. Lee to H. L. Mencken to Smedley Butler.  Agree with me on this, and you very well might become a good American, because you're showing, first of all, an understanding of what America is, and implicitly, wanting to become a part of it.

There's more on American identity and race and culture over at OneSTDV HERE.