Posted on 10/14/2025 9:33:28 PM PDT by DavidThomas
The first sentence of my intellectual biography of National Review’s co-founder read: “James Burnham began his intellectual career in the 1930s as one of Leon Trotsky’s leading American exponents and ended it as a senior editor for America’s preeminent conservative magazine, National Review.” At least it did until an editor changed “American exponents” to “U.S. exponents.” The clearest explanation for the change comes from an Atlantic journalist who decries using the term “America” as a synonym for the United States of America. Her article declares, “America is a region, not a country.” It even notes that people from Latin America — presumably the “real” America — associate the term with U.S. imperialism.
As a logician who was steeped in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, Burnham would have recognized the fallacies in all of this. For example, most nations have a formal name that is used in treaties and an informal popular name. The first three nations in alphabetical order reveal this: Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Republic of Albania, and People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. United States of America can be added to this list.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Besides that, words can have more than one meaning.
Did you know that Mexico’s official name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos which is translated as “United Mexican States.”
I thought they changed that and was going to comment, but I guess the change didn’t go through after all.
Is James Burnham not recognized in the Americas as an exponent of conservative thought? Does Cananda not know of him?
Yes. I had to point out to one of our FRiends that US citizens refer to themselves as Americans, and Honduran citizens refer to themselves as Hondurans, but also claim, as citizens of a Western Hemisphere nation to be Americans. Apples and oranges. German vs European, Asian vs Vietnamese.
Bye bye Miss American pie,
The People’s Republic of Canada.
The Islamic Republic of UK.
Nope. America is a country. Firstly the United States of America’s citizens have been known as Americans for over 2 centuries and America has been the shorthand name for the country since its founding.
Also, the US is the only country in the world with the word “America” in its title.
So yes, its America and its people are Americans. Note, they are not “US Americans”. They are simply Americans. There are no other kind of Americans as a nationality.
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