We need a few Tommy Paines about now.
A few TR’s wouldn’t be bad either:
-There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.
-This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.
-But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.
-Where immigrants, or the sons of immigrants, do not heartily and in good faith throw in their lot with us, but cling to the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and the habits of thought of the Old World which they have left, they thereby harm both themselves and us. If they remain alien elements, unassimilated, and with interests separate from ours, they are mere obstructions to the current of our national life, and, moreover, can get no good from it themselves. In fact, though we ourselves also suffer from their perversity, it is they who really suffer most.
-Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
They are here. You are one of them.
We must be firm in our resolve.
To this cause and... with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
His theme of "inevitability", whether it was the eventuality of US independence, or an eventual repetition of the same conflicts if the colonies attempted to reconcile with GB, seem to ring true once more.
We know the break is coming either way. If amnesty passes, we're on to the next stage of the American experiment, with CWII in store for our descendants; if it's somehow defeated, we may forgive, but we'll never forget.