Who is American?

Vox Days clarifies for me a confusion I've had for a long time: if "all men are created equal", how then were the Founders justified in perpetuating slavery or subjugating (and eradicating) indigenous native populations, etc.? (I mean, Andrew Jackson was a real bitch to the American Indian....)

The simple truth is more profound and ominous than I imaged: Jefferson's phrase was a rhetorical flourish, nothing more.

The Founders DIDN'T believe in "equality" in any material sense, except under the law. (And, even then, you'd better have a lawyer!) They imagined "equality" only among "free" men -- not slaves, not indentured servants, not "foreigners", not non-property owners, not savages, not pagans, not women, not children!

We are NOT "all...created equal"!

Neither was "America" created for just anybody who happened to come here, or who was dropped by birth on these shores. America was created, primarily, for the posterity of those who founded it! They saw themselves as British colonials and "brethren", transplanted to a new world whereby they gained the God-given right to govern themselves. "America" was the political and corporate legacy bequeathed to their children and to no one else's! The Founders did not consider themselves "equal" to others. (In many ways, they considered themselves superior!)

As Vox wrote, America's founding documents no more empower one to become an "American" than they empower U.S. to become Chinese! You can call me Chinese. You can even give me a certificate declaring me to be Chinese! But does that make me "Chinese"?* Really? In any material respect? 

Hardly.

Many Americans aren't "American" in any real or distinguishable sense either -- other than that they (maybe) dwell here and (maybe) possess a piece of "official" paper with their name on it. Many don't believe in God, yet they appeal to being "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" to justify their "American" existence! How absurd! Many share nothing in common with other "Americans", either linguistically, culturally, historically, religiously, demographically, ethnically, genetically, morally, sexually, or otherwise. Are they "Americans" too?

Who is "American"? Someone with a green card? A passport? A Social Security number? A birth certificate? Is this land "magic dirt" that automatically transforms all those born here (or visiting) into "one nation" -- a "family" -- predisposed to living together in peace, singing kumbaya, sharing a common heritage and bond of brotherhood?

Hardly. This is wishful thinking at best.

America is not a "melting pot".

It is, indeed, melting...but not melding. (If it is, it is transforming into something it wasn't.)

Indiscriminate, largely unregulated immigration is rendering America unrecognizable.

America is NOT a "nation" -- a people united by common bloodlines, history, language and culture -- any more than my wanting to become a member of your family, sneaking into your house, taking over one of your rooms (only later to be discovered), then begging not to be "deported", but relying on your tolerance and good graces until I gain "tenants rights" and status by force (using your laws against you), then raping (or seducing) your daughter and mingling my seed with yours makes me one! Quite frankly, even then, I WOULDN'T be a member of your family! I'd just be a trespasser, a squatter, a rapist or a cad. Not a relative! I'd be what the Founders considered to be an invader worthy of being shot!

All this time I considered myself "American". But I'm not. Inside, I knew I was "cheating". I hadn't "built" this country like others had. My forebears didn't come here and fight and die here to bring forth this great nation. The Founders did! My forefathers came as invited "guests", generations ago. I've been living on "borrowed light" ever since! The Founders -- I've gotten used to calling them our Founders -- created a means by which newcomers might become Americans.

But that mechanism in no way envisioned sneaking into, usurping, violating or "transforming" their nation into someone else's.

***

*Read the comments to the linked articles, they are instructive. 

One observed: 

At least 80% of existing nations are rooted in tribal or clannish ethnicity. Modern China, the largest nation in the history of the world, is entirely run for the Han Chinese and accepts zero immigrants or even permanent residents except other Han, who have always been regarded as citizens anyway.

Another: 

If your country exceeds more than 2-3% muslims then you're in for a bad time. Islam is by definition at war with all of non islamic cultures, and for islam to assimilate or institute liberal reforms would be blasphemy. 

This isn't xenophobia. It's acknowledgment of discernible facts.

This comment is downright "scary" for its truthfulness: 

[You] dumb white people--you keep supporting these Mexicans and Muslims, who come here and crowd your world to where your kids are in trailers / extensions at their elementary public schools, and you, in other contexts bitch that your IT job market is soft, and you can't understand any cashier, and your wife isn't safe, and you can't find "good schools" for your kids.  

So much coding (virtue signaling) and conditioned thought processes from whites--not getting it (as Hotep does), these "people" coming here, legal or illegal, are from tribes COMPETING WITH YOU FOR RESOURCES ... RESOURCES YOUR ANCESTORS (directly or casually) died to develop, protect, etc. They aren't coming here to join in the American "experience" (altruism, civic duty, love of neighbor) that exists only in your mind and re-runs of the My Three Sons. They HATE YOU. THEY WILL KILL YOU WITH A THOUSAND CUTS, or worse.

At least some black Americans are getting it.

And my favorite:

"Well, Jefferson's certainly got my vote for MOST APOCALYPTICALLY DISASTROUS & CALAMITOUS RHETORICAL FLOURISH OF ALL TIME."