Tancredo -- America is not a proposition nation

In a column published at Worldnetdaily.com and Vdare.com, former Congressman Tom Tancredo argues that America is not a “proposition nation.”

He states –

Lynn Holland, who apparently teaches something called “comparative politics” at the University of Denver, says, “Tancredo misunderstands the fundamental nature of American citizenship.”[U.S. Citizenship Is Based on Principles, Not Heritage, History News Service, September 8, 2011]

My offense? I urge Americans “to be proud of our Western civilization.” I say “Western civilization is our history.” And I warn that “The countries of Western Europe are being invaded by ‘Islamo-fascists,’ while here in the United States we face ‘multiculturalism’ that blocks immigrants from assimilating American values.”

My plea: guilty–along with the overwhelming majority of the American people. For example, 87 percent of Americans told Rasmussen Reports last year that English should be the official language of the United States. How multicultural is that?

Holland [Email her] claims that “in this country, citizenship is not about cultural identity; it is about constitutional principles. From the beginning, Americans embraced a new definition of citizenship and a new process of naturalization that set the nation apart from its European heritage.”

Bunk. This is simply a myth invented by anti-national liberal intellectuals in hysterical reaction to the trauma of World War II. 

In contrast, back in the 18th century the founders explicitly said, in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, that their purpose was “to secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”–their posterity, not the people of the world but the posterity of aspecific, essentially British, community that–in the case of New England, for example–had grown rapidly through natural increase with essentially no immigration for nearly 200 years.

Similarly, John Jay’s first essay in The Federalist Papers, written as part of the campaign to get the Constitution ratified, explained that the federal experiment could work precisely because Americans were “one united people–a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs … a band of brethren. …” [my emphasis] 

Read the whole thing.