The other aspect of American identity worth focusing on is the concept of America as a nation of immigrants. That certainly is a partial truth. But it is often assumed to be the total truth.
We really only came around to accepting and integrating the propositional dimension of identity into a concept of ourselves at the time of the American Revolution.
The great problem there is we have to have the cooperation of those other Asian countries.
It was one thing to contain the Soviet Union in Europe because Britain, France, and Germany were all willing to join in. But will Japan and other Asian countries be willing to join in the containment of China?
But then I came to the conclusion that no, while there may be an immigration problem, it isn't really a serious problem. The really serious problem is assimilation.
Much of what we now consider to be problems concerning immigration and assimilation really concern Mexican immigration and assimilation.
And the big question for the West, of course, and to the Europeans is, what other countries, which were formerly part of the Soviet bloc, should be incorporated into western institutions?
Total falsehoods can be easily exposed for what they are by citing exceptions to their claims. Hence, they are less likely to be accepted as the total truth.
It was this society and culture that among other things - including economic opportunities here and repression in Europe - attracted subsequent generations of immigrants to this country.
Partial truths or half-truths are often more insidious than total falsehoods.
The British were white, English, and Protestant, just as we were. They had to have some other basis on which to justify independence, and happily they were able to formulate the inalienable truths set forth in the Declaration.
In 1920, the West ruled huge amounts of the world.
The West hasn't reached its universal state as yet, although its close to it, but it certainly has evolved out of its warring state phase, which it was in for a couple of centuries.
