Rant

Religious types:
Whether you believe in a God or not: I will ignore you as long as you ignore me. I can respect your right to have your belief as long as you don't attempt to make me believe as you do or force me to change how I do things.

Outsiders:
I'm a member of a relatively exclusive club. The membership dues are steep and non-negotiable. There are lots of things we do to honor departed members of our club. One of those things is religious symbols on Government land. We have decided that the non-members do not get a vote about this. We are not establishing a State Religion (tm) by displaying these symbols, we are expressing honor to our fallen comrades. We will broke no attempt to dishonor their memories from people who lack the frame of reference to understand.

Effects of Religion on America:
Although I am not a Christian, I think that those Christian values are part of what made the USA the nation it was (is?). While I abhor the idea of a State Church (tm); I also think that Churches have a valid, active, role in society. The Christian values provided a framework of morality that worked well. I think our current mess is derived in no small part from the destruction of this framework without building a replacement. We've literally gone from Christianesque morality to no morality at all. There needs to be something in its place. Every culture needs guiding principles, and no principles at all cannot be guiding.

The United States has a culture!
Although it's assembled from the parts of the cultures of all the immigrants who abandoned their homelands to come here, it's still a culture. Remember the "melting pot"? They meant crucible. American culture is an alloy made from diverse metals, stronger and better than any single component. It is something to be proud of. It is something that should be emulated. It should not be shunned or ridiculed. Anyone who comes to live here must be processed in the fire. You must become American. If you will not or cannot, you don't get to live here. By the way, this crucible is the method the USA uses (used?) to keep the aforementioned Christian values from becoming a theocracy.

American is a big thing:
A huge expansive tent, covering just about everything! Part of the assimilation where one becomes an American is discarding the rigid values of the "old country". This is, in part, why the Mexican colonization is so irritating. This is why the Muslim demands for concessions to their religion rankle so. This is why our home-grown radical atheist movement is such a thorn. Americans are extremely tolerant, but it's the indulgence of an adult teaching a child. We get that you won't understand at first, so we give you time to learn. America is a big concept to digest. Some people can't; even people born here. I sometimes think that the sexism and racism that it took so long to be rid of were caused by a very patronizing (sexist and racist) attitude that they couldn't digest it, so we won't let them join. Well, the women and the blacks could sure as hell digest it, and they did! Belated welcome, sorry it took so long to trust you. The crucible works at its own pace.

There's a DIY component to being American:
We really are making this up as we go along. We don't have a clear road map ahead of us established by an older, more successful, culture. We do have some guidance in the form of failed cultures. This is where we know that Socialism, Theocracy, Dictatorships and Direct Democracy don't work well. We are guaranteed to make missteps along the way. Some things that will eventually become slag floating in the crucible may be part of the alloy longer than is desirable, but they will become slag!

If the [insert topic here] is really so much better in [insert nation here] MOVE THERE!
For every person who thinks we should adopt some European social(ist) policy or program, I'll bet I can find two people who immigrated to the USA from that named nation because of that policy, program or the taxes it takes to support it. America is different, and better, than those places. We will add your idea to the crucible and see if it alloys or slags.