Again, from the current issue of National Review, Charles C.W. Cooke, an immigrant, responds to Vivek Ramaswamy's definition of what it means to be an American. Ramaswamy, himself the child of immigrants, was reacting in turn to some on the Right who advocate for something called "heritage" Americans:
On the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, Vivek Ramaswamy offered up a definition of what it means to be an American. “Americanness,” he wrote in the New York Times, “isn’t a scalar quality that varies based on your ancestry.” Rather, “you are an American if you believe in the rule of law, in freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, in colorblind meritocracy, in the U.S. Constitution, in the American dream, and if you are a citizen who swears exclusive allegiance to our nation.”As a strong advocate of the notion that America, in a meaningful sense, represents an idea, I found a lot to like in this explication. Nevertheless, I think that it’s missing a crucial word: “good.” What Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate now running for governor of Ohio, describes is a good American, an ideal American, an American as Americans are imagined in our founding documents. It is true, in my estimation, that to be a good American is to believe in the rule of law, and in freedom of conscience and expression, and in colorblind meritocracy, and in the Constitution, and in the American dream, and to swear exclusive allegiance to our nation. It is not true, however, that the Americans who do none of these things aren’t American. An American who opposes the First Amendment or wishes to implement a caste system or loathes the U.S. Constitution is a bad American, certainly. But he is still an American — with the same rights and status as everyone else. ....On America’s 150th birthday, Calvin Coolidge remarked, “About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful.” He submitted that “if all men are created equal, that is final”: “If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.”
Taken seriously, Coolidge’s construction suggests that the United States has no choice but to insist on the continuation of its fundamental ideals — which are not merely some ideals among many but the only ideals suitable to a free country. Naturally, these ideals cannot be maintained by our pivoting to an interest in “heritage Americans.” .... (more)
