from the back of a Ford Expedition with NH plates:
Quote:
Don't Apologize for America
One Country, One Language, One Flag
A nice logical sequence, to be sure.
One country: yup, definitely one sovereign political unit. No secessionists outside of Montana to speak of. Check.
One language: well, 82 percent of us speak English, so that's not so bad. If you're expecting just one language to be spoken in a country of 300 million with no coherent national identity, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
One flag: at first this seemed like a given, but we do have those pesky 50 states, as well as various districts and territories with their own flags. Guam has a pretty sweet one.
Seriously though, I do think this bumper sticker misses a larger point about American civic culture. It is funny that the same people that adhere these to their motor vehicles also espouse the "states' rights" argument, because this bumper sticker seems to me to go against the idea that Americans are essentially a local people brought together by their federal system (see Tocqueville, Federalist 10). A coerced national identity is a bad idea and this is essentially what the bumper is supporting.
I kind of over did that.
One country: yup, definitely one sovereign political unit. No secessionists outside of Montana to speak of. Check.
One language: well, 82 percent of us speak English, so that's not so bad. If you're expecting just one language to be spoken in a country of 300 million with no coherent national identity, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
One flag: at first this seemed like a given, but we do have those pesky 50 states, as well as various districts and territories with their own flags. Guam has a pretty sweet one.
Seriously though, I do think this bumper sticker misses a larger point about American civic culture. It is funny that the same people that adhere these to their motor vehicles also espouse the "states' rights" argument, because this bumper sticker seems to me to go against the idea that Americans are essentially a local people brought together by their federal system (see Tocqueville, Federalist 10). A coerced national identity is a bad idea and this is essentially what the bumper is supporting.
I kind of over did that.
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