Remember "You're American if you Think You're American"?

That was a post I wrote about Steven Den Beste's post "Non-European Country" back in November. In that piece Steven wrote:

You're French if you're born in France, of French parents. You're English if you're born to English parents (and Welsh if your parents were Welsh). But you're American if you think you're American, and are willing to give up what you used to be in order to be one of us. That's all it takes. But that's a lot, because "thinking you're American" requires you to comprehend that idea we all share. But even the French can do it, and a lot of them have.

I was reminded of that because of a post by the Mad Ogre (no permalinks, just scroll down - past all the other crunchy goodness - to the titled This email comes from a .de address where a commenter says:

"I do not know how many countries you have on you side But what I know is that you have in every country on the planet people like myself Who have been on your side since day one and will remain so come hell or high-water Who actually have come to consider themselves "American" first and anything else a distant second So remember that you are not alone. – Pierre"

Yup.

Somehow I doubt there are people all over the world, born in different nations, who consider themselves French or German, but there are those who look at America and say "Regardless of the nation of my birth, I am an American."

Damn but I love my country and its people.

Now if I could just do something about my government...