no, that's not true. The nation of Germany might not have existed, but the ethnic groups who would later define Germany very much did.

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dghlsakjg 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Your argument is that a group of independent states spanning a huge part of a continent that banded together into a country in the 1800s forms a country that is also an ethnicity, but that a group of independent states spanning a huge part of a continent that banded together even longer ago is not a country that is also an ethnicity?

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stickfigure 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The difference is that - excepting about 1.4% of the population - everyone here in the US is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants. Most of them long after the Mayflower sailed. However long it takes to create a new capital-E Ethnicity, it hasn't been long enough.

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dghlsakjg 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Who cares if most people in the US had ancestors that came from somewhere else? My English ancestors have precisely no bearing on the way I live my life any more than my German, Dutch or Polish (well, they came from what is now Poland, but would never have thought of themselves as polish). The child of immigrants in Germany is going to be far more German than I am despite my ancestry.

American culture is undeniably real. American values and beliefs likewise.

Is the only thing that decides an ethnicity how far back your ancestors have been procreating within a country’s current borders?

Culture and values is a better delineator, and it is pretty undeniable that America has a distinct culture and value set.

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stickfigure 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Ethnicity is a social construct with some fuzzy boundaries, but I don't think anyone credible tries to claim that there is an "American Ethnicity". Usually when that term comes up it's from some racist overly proud that someone in their ancestry came over on the Mayflower.

Personally I think it's one of the strengths of this country that a first generation immigrant can come here and become an American. I don't think this is very common around the world.

	▲	Amezarak 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Census-2... Large numbers of people report their ancestry simply as "American." I would actually argue this is the origin of a lot of political divisiveness in the US. It also sort of boils down to the "America as an immigrant/proposition nation" vs "America as a settler nation" debate. The former seems to be ascendant in the past few decades but it's definitely not consensus.

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mr_toad an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

German citizens didn’t evolve in Germany. Any attempt to delineate ethnicity based on how long you ancestors have been in a country is just a veiled attempt to argue that you belong and they don’t.

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warumdarum 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And that is what binds them together, they all took the leap of faith, they all seperated from the old world, they all brought only their work and their spirit. The us is a phyle of choice and you must have made that choice to belong to it. This Choice is also the freedom so often referenced. Which also means you can leave the us by abandoning its values.

	▲	mr_toad an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> The us is a phyle of choice Well, except for the people who didn’t have any choice.

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baranul 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> excepting about 1.4% of the population - everyone here in the US is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants

Your data and percentage, is very wrong. America has significant Black and Indigenous (usually referred to as Indian or Native) populations. Around 15% Black and 3% Indigenous. Combined, they make up around 18% of the US population, with wild and vigorous arguments they are even a greater percentage than that (20% or so).

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stickfigure 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The black population of the US is unquestionably descended from immigrants.

1.4% of the U.S. population is "American Indian and Alaska Native alone". 2.9% is "alone or in combination with another race" per the 2020 census.

I have no idea what you're going on about.

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baranul 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Slavery and indigenous are not considered immigration. You might want to study again about this.

Being multiracial, and of indigenous ancestry, does not necessarily mean or always count as immigrant. It is nebulous. No definitive conclusions, in regards to immigration, is made about those of mixed and indigenous ancestry. Speaking of mixed ancestry, the US has a very significant percentage in that category, from both the census and DNA testing.

There are also Canadian and Mexican indigenous people, who refute or argue about immigrant status, regardless of their present citizenship. Making the argument that their people were already in America or pushed out of their lands.

	▲	Dylan16807 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I don't know what pedantic definition you're using, but the context was clearly about indigenous or not. Insisting on a definition from a completely different context doesn't make you right, it makes you annoying.