I had a grim epiphany of sorts today while reading an educationrealist article. It's here, if you care to look.
educationrealist.wordpress.com
In it, the author states that Omar Mateen, while an American citizen, was not an American, namely because he did not aspire to the qualities that we usually consider prerequisites to being an American. The United States, being without a native geographical claim or clear ethnic majority, is a proposition nation, and the author states that because Mateen did not subscribe to the basic American proposition, he did not belong in this country, nor can real Americans be blamed for his actions.
These are all points without controversy, at least on this board, and I agree fully with them. What troubles me is that our position has a disturbing lack of permanency.
When Muslim refugees invade Germany, for example, Germans can say, this is our home. That is to say, most people living in Germany have Germanic roots; their lineage traces back to the area we know as Germany since prehistory. Most Old World nations are similar. The US is different. I am of Irish, Scotch (interestingly, not Scotch-Irish) and British lineage. While my family has lived in this particular area of the US for hundreds of years, predating the US itself, we are obviously not native to this land. However, if I can be forward, we are model citizens of this proposition nation: self-sufficient, patriotic, individualist, etc.
The default position of many people on this board, including myself, is that the average German has as much right to claim Germany as I and my family would America. Perhaps the infestation of r-strategists in the Western world would object to both. And therein lies the problem: one is based on concrete history, while the other is based on a malleable concept.
(to be continued)
(also, pic unrelated, though if you knew of other photos in this set you'd make me a very happy man)