What Is an American?

“An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German,Spanish, Polish, Russian, or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan.

“An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

“An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist,or Muslim.

“In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan.The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

“An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

“An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

“The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness..."

“So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself, because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.”—Anonymous, From the April 2007 edition of the free Summit Ministries Publication JOURNAL, at http://www.summit.org/pdf/resource/journal/archive/2007/0407.pdf .April 2007