What does it mean to be american?

It means you pay taxes to the United States government. That's really the only unifying factor with the modern US. American culture has split into distinct subcultures based on where in the country you look.

The best example of this can be found by looking at the US states of Texas and California, but culture will shift from state to state. Not just political culture either.

Be stupid and shoot guns. Yeehaw...

Well the country was founded by people angry about the state of the british empire and the tyrannical laws and especially taxation without representation in parliament. The founding fathers gave alot of context to the amendments they came up with and how they thought the government should be run. They were very libertarian and wanted minimal government. I guess thats not answering what it means to be American but I think thats a good American trait that other westerners cant understand. The country was founded on liberty and a resentment for government control and its a very American thing to choose liberty over security when other westerners choose security over liberty almost always. Its what makes us different.

I'm not American but they're all about FREEDOM so that I guess. Like "thatoneguy" essentially said, there are very varating opinions and less so a unified answer.

I means you have government issued documentation that you are a citizen

It means you're a prisoner in a country disguised as 1st world when it's really 3rd world and shits on you every chance it gets.

It means you live on either the North or South American continent.

Depends where you live in America. For example, for me, it means I cannot tell my mom anything 'cause she can hit me and slap me and the police won't care :)

It means unleashing a bioweapon on the world and not having any accountability for it.

To live in America.

Aw that's pretty honoring. Being the "default"

You can also say we have probably the most varied diet of any country. Name a food and its found somewhere relatively nearby.

Doing the things you want to do that makes you happy (within loose legal considerations)

Americans are given the freedom to do whatever you want.

This shouldnt be confused with the general idea of freedom that most western countries construct their rights from. In america the rights came before the laws. Naturalistic laws of just being human.

(You could go into a speal about slavery but that was during a time where someones actual humanity could be questioned based solely on race, and that practice is barbaric and was patched out)

To be american is to have the freedom to try and fail and try again. You can start a buisness, have it fail... and you can still try again! The only person that can give up on your dreams is you.

My dream is to build my own castle in the woods and have actual cannons. 100% doable. Hell you dont even have to be rich. Just got to build it stone by stone and live in a state that really doesnt give a shit what you build on your land.

Merica is the place to be if you want to acomplish whatever you want to do. As long as it doesnt infringe on someone else's liberty.

The fact you are american is an identity and a nationality. You could be born from somewhere else and be in all intensive purposes american (just got to sign, here, here, and here. And take a test that I'm pretty sure half of us blooded americans would fail)

As long as you are for keeping america as its kickassing self you are welcome. If you want to cut its balls off you are not.

Like purple said it depends on which state you're in. The easiest, most absolute simplest way to look at the USA & it's 50 states is to see the states as separate countries that speak the same language (for the most part) & have their own beliefs & cultures which usually tend to get more & more drastically different the further away the states are & have their own leaders that are governed over by a super leader, a super curt & Congress.

So in all there is no one set meaning at least not anymore like there was 50 to 60 years ago, that kind of blind patriotism is almost extinct in the past 2 generations.

It means to be racist. It means to be transphobic and sexist, sadly that's the modern America we have