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Thursday, May 25, 2017

What is a "Fake American?"

On Facebook, I've had a few people ask me about this label.  For the most part, I don't engage with them.  Pretty much everybody knows what a Fake American is, so those who are trying to get me to define it with hard edges are usually in one of two classes:
  • They want the hard edges so they can pick it apart, nitpick with it, and argue with it.  For the most part, these people are not asking in good faith, and their requests can and should be ignored.
  • They want the hard edges because they're worried that maybe I mean them (or someone close to them) when I say it.  Some of these are asking in good faith (although some are not), so it is probably useful, for those who are asking in good faith, to have a discussion on what I mean by it.
First, however, let me establish some context.  It's important that certain fallacies that are commonplace (because we have been indoctrinated for decades that these fallacies are true) in American political discourse are understood.  If you accept any of these fallacies, then you will struggle with the concept of Fake Americans, because by and large, these fallacies were promulgated by Fake Americans for their own benefit.
  • Birthright Citizenship.  The original intent of the law was not jus soli citizenship, i.e., citizenship was not granted to "anchor babies."  This is a much more modern corruption of the law.  This concept was created out of thin air in 1982 by Justice Brennan in dicta, and leaped upon by Fake Americans as a super secret trapdoor into American citizenship.  The 14th Amendment was meant to force the issue of the children of slaves, which traditionally had not been citizens prior to Reconstruction, to also be accepted as citizens.  Not that anyone who happened to somehow step foot on America and have a baby here was a citizen.  Read Ann Coulter's column on it for the fuller story (or her book ¡Adios, America! for the really complete story; it's quite impeccably researched.)  
  • Magic Dirt. A related fallacy is the notion that geography can make you something different than what you are.  For example; if you brought a zebra to America, you cannot say that it magically turns into a horse or a donkey or some other animal that is common to America, just because it is in America.  It is still a zebra, which is a specifically African animal.  The same is true if you bring a Guatemalan to America; there is no magical property to the dirt of America (nor is the oath of citizenship, for that matter, a magical spell that transforms you.)  The Guatemalan is still a Guatemalan.  America is more than a geographic expression; it is a specific nation founded on very specific cultural and legal ideas—most of which are not shared by the rest of the world.  The Guatemalan above is extremely unlikely to transform into a person of Hajnal Line culture, valuing high trust societies, rule of law, personal responsibility, limited government, and English common law and Rights of Englishman tradition.  No, he's still going to be a Guatemalan.  America's pretty cool, but it does not have magical properties that change people from one thing to another.
  • Nation of Immigrants.  We are not a nation of immigrants.  Nobody in America claimed that until just the last few decades, when the descendants of a massive wave of immigrants (the Ellis Island folks) started saying that as a way to cement their dubious claim to being as American as actual Americans—instead of being foreigners living in America, which is of course exactly what they actually were.  It is a self-serving myth, and it's being abused even further to justify the further dilution of American legal and cultural traditions—again, to benefit the foreigners living among us who wish to see America changed into something that more closely resemble their cultural and legal traditions.  My line, on both my mother's and father's side, has the first American born child appearing in the late 1600s.  My ancestors did not come to North America and petition any of the Indian nations for citizenship.  They did not become citizens of the Cherokee nation, or the Iroquois League, or the Mohawk tribe.  If they had they would have been immigrants.  What they did do was contribute to the forging of a new nation as settlers and colonists.  This is not the definition of an immigrant.  
  • Land of Opportunity.  The concept of America is not a land of opportunity, and anyone who wants to get ahead in life is welcome to come here and try to do so.  The concept of America is liberty.  From the Preamble to the Constitution (emphasis added:)  "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."  The Founding Fathers fought the Revolutionary War to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves.  And to their posterity.  Not to everyone and anyone.  Everyone and anyone needs to fight their own Revolutionary Wars in their own nations if they want the blessings of liberty; and then they can organize their society in the fashion that best suits them.  The Founding Fathers were also under no illusions whatsoever of the fragility of the blessings of liberty, and were very cautious and concerned that those from other cultural traditions would neither understand nor value it, and therefore not preserve it, which would then jeopardize the blessings of liberty of their own posterity.  The very first act on the very first day of the very first session of the very first Congress following the ratification of the Constitution was the implementation of very strict immigration law to protect the blessings of liberty for the Founding Fathers themselves (and their fellow citizens) and their posterity.
So... if you weren't already aware of those highly pertinent historical facts which our education tries pretty hard to bury and ignore, then having read that (and hopefully been sufficiently intrigued to look further into the concepts summarized above) you'll have sufficient background to discuss what I mean when I say "Fake American."  However... I still think that I'm going to not establish hard edges other than to say, "anyone who works against the interest of America or the American people, yet calls himself and American, is a "'Fake American.'"  Let's illustrate by way of example.
  • A young, healthy male from Syria who doesn't want to fight for his homeland against ISIS, and so comes to America because he's been told that he'll get all kinds of free stuff if he does, and heck, he doesn't even have to pay for the flight thanks to some organization like World Relief that funds it and calls him a "refugee."  Once here, he has little interest in learning English, adapting to American culture or our legal system, and in fact, agitates for sharia law to be implemented in America, and the conversion of Americans to Islam.  He sees the government as a scam to be taken advantage of; because that's how it works in his own culture, and the American government is highly amenable to this particular scam.  He immediately goes on every form of welfare that he can, and starts telling Americans that they're racists for not giving him even more.  American?  Or Fake American?
  • The Cartel Wars in Mexico are actually more dangerous than Afghanistan, and more people have been killed in them than have been killed by the Taliban.  Mexico has a dysfunctional government and economy in almost every respect.  A poor, illiterate, unskilled peasant of largely Aztec ancestry who speaks no English, poor Spanish, and prefers Nahuatl sneaks across the border with his wife, lives under the radar, and works unskilled manual labor for money, much of which he sends back to his extended family and friends in Mexico.  He also immediately goes on every form of welfare that he can qualify for; food stamps, HUD, etc. and sends most of the money he gets from that back to his extended family too.  He believes in the racial supremacist theories of La Raza Cósmica, and Revanchist policies.  At a rally in southern California, he shows up, threatens Americans, waves Mexican flags, and says "Make America Mexico Again."  American? Or Fake American?
  • David Brooks is the "pet" "conservative" columnist for the New York Times.  He has dual citizenship with America and Israel, and his son serves in the IDF (not the American Armed Forces.)  He's a strong supporter of the border wall for Israel (because he knows how effective it is) and a strong opponent of the border wall for America (because he knows how effective it is.)  For the most part, his "conservative" positions consist of trying to convince Americans to go to war and die in behalf of Israel for causes that have no impact on America except in the negative.  American? Or Fake American?
  • Barack Obama is a natural born American citizen, son of an American woman.  Raised by her and her communist parents, often abroad, and taught to despise American culture and institutions, he identified instead most strongly with his absentee Kenyan father, and even wrote (or had ghost written) and entire pseudo-biography about his relationship with his father and the resentment that he feels towards Western "colonialism" that forever changed "his" African culture.  Pampered and entitled his entire life, he was thrust into the American presidency by an accident of social mood and luck, where his stated goals included to "fundamentally transform America" and replace as much as he could of traditional American cultural norms, legal traditions, and even actual Americans when he could ("this is going to be a browner country.")  His wife stated publicly that she never felt any pride in her purported identity as an American until her husband was elected President.  American? Or Fake American?
Anyway, I think you can see where this is going.  Fake Americans—you know them when you see them.  You may even have been suckered into supporting Fake American causes.  I know that I have been, at various times in my life.  It's probably unavoidable, given that the institutional structures in America—academia, the media, entertainment, and even (and most ironically) the federal government, are all rabidly anti-American and inundate us with anti-American propaganda daily, and have done so for decades.  This is exactly why the label is so necessary—so we can have a way to combat the insidiousness of Fake Americanism.  

From Alma 46, and the words and actions of Captain Moroni are still very applicable to this Land of Promise today: "And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole.  And he fastened on his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as there should a band of Christians remain to possess the land—And he said: Surely God shall not suffer that we, who are despised because we take upon us the name of Christ, shall be trodden down and destroyed, until we bring it upon us by our own transgressions.  And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent part of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had written upon the rent part, and crying with a loud voice, saying:  Behold, whosoever will maintain this title upon the land, let them come forth in the strength of the Lord, and enter into a covenant that they will maintain their rights, and their religion, that the Lord God may bless them.  And it came to pass that when Moroni had proclaimed these words, behold, the people came running together with their armor girded about their loins, rending their garments in token, or as a covenant, that they would not forsake the Lord their God; or, in other words, if they should transgress the commandments of God, or fall into transgression, and be ashamed to take upon them the name of Christ, the Lord should rend them even as they had rent their garments.  Now this was the covenant which they made, and they cast their garments at the feet of Moroni, saying: We covenant with our God, that we shall be destroyed, even as our brethren in the land northward, if we shall fall into transgression; yea, he may cast us at the feet of our enemies, even as we have cast our garments at thy feet to be trodden under foot, if we shall fall into transgression."

If we don't defend our birthright; or worse, we simply give it away to those who will not value it and who's clearly stated goals are to destroy or transform it, then we can hardly complain when the blessings of liberty are no longer ours, and we have nothing but ashes to pass on to our posterity.

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