http://american-rattlesnake.org/2012...-a-good-thing/

One of the unofficial mottos of the United States, this phrase-which is minted on this country’s coins and emblazoned upon our paper bills-embodies the common heritage of the American nation, which was created from the union of thirteen distinct, unique former British colonies. Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it came to symbolize the melting pot forged from a collection of people who came to the United States from various European nations in order to reconstitute their lives.
It is a concept that, like many of its inhabitants, has become alien to contemporary America. We now live in a country comprised from a polyglot agglomeration of foreign tribes, individuals and extended families, many of whom would beunable to assimilate to American culture even if a coherent one still existed and they were encouraged to do so, bothdubious propositions.
One of the most persistent questions raised by the September 11th attacks, and recurring periodically since, e.g. during the debate over the construction of Park 51, the debacle that the trial of Ft. Hood jihadist Nidal Malik Hasan has occasioned, and other terrorist attacks conceived by native or naturalized American citizens, has revolved around whether Islam as it’s practiced today can be reconciled with traditional American values embodied in documents like the United States Constitution.