Of Mutts And Men

I'm an American. I was born and raised here. My ancestors were German, Irish, and I don't give a flying fuck what else, if you go back far enough. But again, I was born and raised here. Not in Germany, not in Ireland, America.
Why is it that other people born and raised here are not as proud and satisfied with being an Americans?
I guess I just don't get it.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all… The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic… There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

-Teddy Roosevelt

Via Michelle Malkin, my blogging dreamgirl.

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