than about, say, Lithuania or Chad? Most Americans, if pressed for an answer, would reply, “Because America is a free country.” What else can be said of the place? Its landmass is as varied as the Earth itself. Inhabiting the sands of Tucson as well as the steppes of Alaska, Americans could as well be called a desert race as an Arctic one. Its religions are equally diverse – from mossbacked Episcopalians of the Virginia Tidewater to the holy rollers of east Texas and the Muslims of east Harlem. Nor does blood itself give the country any mark of distinction. The individual American has more in common genetically with the people his people come from than with his fellow Americans. In a DNA test, this writer is more likely to be mistaken for an IRA hit man than a Baltimore drug dealer. No Common History America never was a nation in the usual sense of the word. Though there are plenty of exceptions – especially among the made-up nations of former European colonies – nations are usually composed of groups of people who share common blood, a common culture, and a common language. Americans mostly speak English, but they might just as well speak Spanish. And at the
debut of the republic, the Founding Fathers narrowly avoided declaring German the official language – at least that is the legend. A Frenchman has to speak French. A German has to speak the language of the Vaterland. But an American can speak anything... and often does. Nor is there even a common history. The average immigrant didn’t arrive until the early 20th century. By then, America’s history was already three centuries old. The average family missed the whole thing. If Americans weren’t united by blood, history, religion, or language – what else is left? Only an idea: that you could come to America and be whatever you wanted to be. You might have been a bogtrotter in Ireland or a baron in Silesia – in America, you were free to become whatever you could make of yourself. “Give me liberty or give me death!” said Patrick Henry, raising the rhetorical stakes and praying no one would call him on it. Yet the average man at the time lived in near- perfect freedom. There were few books and few laws on them. And there were fewer people to enforce them.
If Americans weren’t united by blood, history, religion, or language – what else is left?
American Consequences 29
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