<The fact that the United States has expanded to envelope a good part of a continent, though it contains about nine distinct super-regions and myriad cultural groups scattered throughout, and has had only two real civil wars (the Indian Wars and the War Between The States), is something of a miracle. It really isn't the norm at all. Those of us who grew up here tend to think it is.

Not entirely a miracle. The United States was founded on the principle that the individual ruled his own life, and that governments were instituted primarily to protect such individuals from force and fraud both domestic and foreign. A government that was ideally founded on a philosophical principle, rather than on the tenets of a certain group, religion, skin color, or ancestry. Granted, it took some growing pains to put it into full practice. We had to work hard to discard the last remnants of "some people are more equal than others." A large number of societies in the rest of the world are still based on that principle.

Anybody can become an American. From anywhere. What does it take to be a Frenchman? A Japanese?