What makes you an American?

ClimateSanity

New member
What do you say it is? What makes us Americans?
We have lost most of what it used to mean to be American. Right now America is synonymous with consumerism and celebrity worship. But the biggest thing being an American used to mean was solidarity where your ethnicity took a back seat to the culture as a whole. The things that made you different than the larger culture and made you very similar to a smaller sub culture were considered very insignificant compared to what you shared with the larger culture. For instance, the larger culture was drenched in the customs that came from a Christian background and the sub cultures either participated in these customs or peacefully ignored them. There was not this boiling rage over them and a determination to rid the larger culture of these customs.
 

glassjester

Well-known member
For instance, the larger culture was drenched in the customs that came from a Christian background and the sub cultures either participated in these customs or peacefully ignored them. There was not this boiling rage over them and a determination to rid the larger culture of customs.

And what customs are those?
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
What makes you an American other than citizenship?

i believe that america has the potential to be the greatest nation on earth, a shining beacon to other nations

IOW, what's the essential difference between you and a Brit?

effective dental care? :idunno:

What's the essential difference between you and a Muslim Pakistani?

well, for one thing, i don't worship satan
 

patrick jane

BANNED
Banned
We have lost most of what it used to mean to be American. Right now America is synonymous with consumerism and celebrity worship. But the biggest thing being an American used to mean was solidarity where your ethnicity took a back seat to the culture as a whole. The things that made you different than the larger culture and made you very similar to a smaller sub culture were considered very insignificant compared to what you shared with the larger culture. For instance, the larger culture was drenched in the customs that came from a Christian background and the sub cultures either participated in these customs or peacefully ignored them. There was not this boiling rage over them and a determination to rid the larger culture of these customs.
Christianity and free speech are under attack now more than ever. I'm glad I won't be here in 50 years
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
What makes you an American other than citizenship? IOW, what's the essential difference between you and a Brit? What's the essential difference between you and a Muslim Pakistani? What is it about you that makes you uniquely American?
I'd say there's likely a different answers for each comparison. We're the product of our culture. A Southerner has a different version of that than his Yankee cousin, or Western brother. All of us have a collective sense of pride, I think, in being a people dedicated to the notion of equality before the law and the inheritors of an opportunity to realize our dreams, that we hail from a land of wide spaces and possibility.
 

The Barbarian

BANNED
Banned
Being an American means adhering to the Constitution, to the idea that everyone is equal in the sense of entitlement to dignity, opportunity, and justice.
 

ClimateSanity

New member
Being an American means adhering to the Constitution, to the idea that everyone is equal in the sense of entitlement to dignity, opportunity, and justice.
Is there a shared American culture?
Also, many other countries also have those entitlements. What separates America from them?
 

Ktoyou

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Americans are the descendants of tired, poor, and huddled masses who were/are part of an experiment begun in 1776 and ratified 1787. The experiment is still running, obviously...

Baloney.There were wealthy persons who came to America for land grants.
 

Ktoyou

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
What I have stated is historical fact. I didn't say it was exclusive fact.

You say it in such a manner, which seems to dismiss the framers of the Constitution and overlook the founders of this nation, who were, more often than not, very wealthy.
 

rexlunae

New member
Is our history part of being American? If that is removed and taken away from our national consciousness, are future inhabitants of this country as much American as we are or does that make them radically different than us?

I was going to say history as well, once removed, the future inhabitants will be uninformed. Maybe not radically different than us but missing significant parts of who we are.

How do you remove history from someone? With a weaponized time machine?
 

The Barbarian

BANNED
Banned
You say it in such a manner, which seems to dismiss the framers of the Constitution and overlook the founders of this nation, who were, more often than not, very wealthy.

How many of them were born to wealth, and how many of them made themselves wealthy?

The notion of equality of opportunity,social respect, and rights was a new and radical one.

Indeed Alex de Toqueville, in Democracy in America, mentioned it as the salient characteristic of America, and the major difference between Americans and Englishmen.
 
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