Let's see if I can accurately put my thoughts on this into words.

First, if you want to go back far enough, we are all colonists from Africa (or Asia, depending on which theory currently holds sway--and since I'm too lazy to go look it up, I won't worry about it too much).

To me, the argument of who was here first or who has been here longer is irrelevent, and in it's own way, a needlessly divisive argument. History is littered with examples of horrible and nasty things people have done to each other. One might even argue that history basically *is* the record of all the horrible and nasty things people have done to each other. And while I think it's necessary to remember these things and take steps to prevent them from happening again, I don't feel at all that any present day people need feel any responsibility for the things their ancestors did. Do modern Germans need to bear any responsibility for what their grandfathers did during WWII? Do modern Spaniards need to feel responsible for the wholesale slaughter of the indiginous people of Mexico and South America? Do modern Scandinavians need to feel responsible for the pillaging and looting of the Vikings?

My answer to all of those questions is "no". Surely we need to learn of these things. We need to know what was done and we need to understand the cultures and the situations that would give rise to these things. But the sins of the father do not pass to the son or the daughter, in my opinion. I need not pay the price for something my grandfather did. I might feel shame or I might voluntarily take steps to set right something my ancestors did if that were possible, but I do not bear any responsibility for it. There's nothing I can do now to set right the fact that my great great great grandfather might have killed natives and taken their land, any more than a modern German can do anything about the fact that his grandfather might have helped kill Jews.

I suppose there could be an argument that all the people of European descent could leave the Americas and "give it back" to the natives. But if that's a valid argument, then we'd all better just pile back into Africa where we all came from and stay the hell out of the rest of the world.

As for how Americans feel about their country knowing it was based on taking land away from natives, all I can say is that every country has events in their past that the current people aren't proud of. Modern Japanese aren't proud of the raping and pillaging their grandfathers did in China and Korea during WWII. Modern Russians aren't proud that Stalin killed tons of people during his reign. I'm not proud that my country enslaved Africans for several hundred years. But does that mean that Russians and Japanese and Americans can't feel proud of their country?

Some might argue that what I'm saying is that you should take credit for the good things your country has accomplished and deny responsibility for the bad things. But that's not really what I'm saying at all. Personally, my pride in America is pride in what the country stands for. I see the accomplishments of my country as being products of and a validation of that foundation. I see the bad things as challenges to those founding principles that needed to be overcome. The US was founded on the principle that "all men are created equal." At the time of the founding, the word "men" was defined as "white males over 21 who own property." Africans weren't considered "men". Neither were natives, nor women of any race. But it was the very nature of those founding principles and ideals that caused that narrow interpretation to be challenged and eventually expanded. I take pride in our accomplishments, and I take equal pride that we have overcome most of the challenges and roadblocks (sometimes of our own making) in our path.

What I am perhaps most proud of, though, is the fact we are one of the only nations on Earth where it is possible to instantly have the right to use the adjective form of the country or culture name to describe yourself. If that makes no sense, bear with me for a second. You can move to Japan, you can live there your whole life, you can become a citizen of the nation of Japan, but you can never *be* Japanese if you weren't *born* Japanese. You can move to France and become a French national, but I'm willing to bet it'd be at least a generation before anyone would let your decendants get away with calling themselves "French". But here, as soon as you are naturalized, you *are* an American. You can be Chinese, African, French, Indian--it doesn't matter. As soon as you are naturalized, you instantly become an American.

In short, my attachment to my country has very little to do with my ancestors. And to me, that's one of the great things *about* my country.

-- Dave