George Bush on America

On April 13th of this year, President George Bush delivered a speech in Montgomery (AL), in which he stated, in the clearest possible terms, his conception of what America means. It is certainly different from that of the founding fathers, who wrote the Constitution to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

"What defines this nation?" asked the President. "What makes us America is not our ties to a piece of territory or bonds of blood; what makes us American is our allegiance to an idea that all people everywhere must be free." No, it is not a shared culture, a common history, a sense of peoplehood, or anything else that has always defined nations. Think one particular thing (and an entirely abstract one at that), and anyone can be an American.

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