Here is Joel Berry (former Babylon Bee chief): “Israel is a proposition nation, like America.” A proposition nation is one in which, we are told, its citizens hold with a proposition. Some say “idea” rather than proposition. As in “America is an idea.”
I asked Berry, “Who decides what the proposition is?” Alas, he could not find it in his heart to reply. At any rate, you will have heard Berry’s phrase many times.
Even though it’s common, good luck finding anybody who holds with “Israel is a proposition nation” (or any country) to (1) define what the proposition is, or (2) say who has the power to define what the proposition is.
Let’s think. Is there, are can there be, some truth in the phrase “Israel is a proposition nation”? (Or any country, which I will from herein stop writing for sake of brevity.) Let’s explore this idea.
Some claim The Proposition for America is the Declaration of Independence, a document which has no force of law, and is therefore mere sentiment. Not that this is a bar to it being The Proposition. But since both law and sentiment are themselves (complex) propositions, we begin to understand what is before us.
The phrase in the Declaration people have in mind that is The Proposition is this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The rest of the Declaration, such as “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power”, are ignored or are unknown. Anyway, suppose this is in fact The Proposition.
I do not agree with that proposition. It is neither self-evident nor is it true that all men are created equal. Both elements, I say, are false. It does not matter if both are true and I am mistaken. The point is, I say they are false: I do not agree with them. If this is The Proposition, then since America is a proposition nation, I must therefore be ineligible for citizenship or am of some secondary class.
Atheists would be entirely precluded for citizenship in America, since they hold no truck with “Creators”. Professors and Experts, largely the same class, would also be booted, since they do not hold with the general populace having Liberty, a kind of freedom that lets the unwashed uncredentialed populace challenge professors and Experts, which they cannot abide.
Indeed, only a handful of folks know and agree with this candidate for The Proposition, and are therefore eligible for inclusion in America.
Infants believe no proposition other than “Boobs!” Are they excluded from citizenship? If you say their parents, or some other adults, are in charge of these young people until they come of age, then you are admitting there are classes of people who do not have to hold with The Proposition to be citizens. So, logically speaking, America cannot be a proposition nation after all. Or is so only for a defined range of adults.
Is the Constitution The Proposition? It’s a long and complex proposition, but one nonetheless. The meaning of that proposition changes in time. For instance, who remembers how Justice Gorsuch discovered the “right” for men who pretend to be women to demand that you call them women lurking in Constitution? Every time it changes meaning, and if the Constitution is The Proposition, how do we assess who still holds with the changed proposition? What about those who refuse to change their mind?
Foreigners could believe The Proposition: we are often told they do. Are any who profess belief in The Proposition therefore citizens? Or do they have to first be standing on our magic soil to profess? How much ought we to spend to bring sincere believers who are not yet there to Berry’s Israel? If believers are citizens for believing, they ought to be welcomed. There is no reason to talk of assimilation, not beyond professing belief, because those that arrive come pre-assimilated because they say they believe The Proposition.
It is known some people lie. Sad, but true. Some people will say they believe The Proposition, but they will be lying. How can we know? What happens when we discover the lie? Automatic ejection?
Many who welcomed in on the premise we were a proposition nation reject The Proposition, are still allowed to stayt, and are open in their desire for changing The Proposition to something in their own image, as Helen Andrews documents here:
In February 2026, a video went viral of Texas state representative Gene Wu saying in a 2024 interview, “The day the Latino, African-American, Asian, and other communities realize that they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning, because we are the majority in this country now. We have the ability to take over this country.”
Since I am an oppressor, being white, I will therefore not believe in Wu’s candidate proposition for America, to where shall I be exiled? What if I can find no other nation whose Propositions I do not agree with? Incarceration? Immediate execution? What? What exactly befalls someone who does not hold with The Proposition?
Suppose I and some friends arrive at a set of propositions on which we share complete agreement. This becomes our The Proposition. Are we then a nation? Must you respect our right to exist? If you send armed men to disabuse us of our beliefs, is it you who have sinned?
I and my friends will share belief in a set of propositions, as said. But we will not, as any two people do not, believe equally in all propositions put before us. Any two of us won’t even know of all the same propositions up for assent or denial. Which brings us to this question: How many propositions does it take to constitute a nation? Who decides what these propositions are and their number?
I’m asking: who decides what these propositions are and their number?
Berry had no answer, either. I don’t think anybody does, or can. Not to this, or to any of the questions above, or to any of the several more which will have occurred to you (my set not being exhaustive). Because, as is obvious, there can be no “proposition nations” in the senses used above. They are great nonsense, the idea is a fallacy, they are an impossibility.
We Hold These Ideas
While there cannot proposition nations in the sense used above, there can be proposition nations in a broader and more intelligent, but far weaker, sense.
The blacktop in front of my house is a road, and if I drive my car on it, I can get to various places. This is a proposition I believe. I also believe that if veer off this path onto the grass of my neighbors, I will suffer for the act in some way.
I further believe the proposition that if I were to venture where creatures called politicians live, and there me and my friends try to overthrow those who declare themselves to be our rulers, the women who preach “Violence is never the answer!” will send armed men to stop me. They will, at certain times, also send armed men ready to use violence to stop those who would stop those from crossing into this country “without documents”, people these ladies (and many men) say believe in some mysterious proposition they never define.
I know the proposition, and many share the proposition, of where our borders are, more of less, anyway. And I know that many share the huge number of propositions that rule our daily life. I know that I don’t know even many of what these propositions are, since rulers keep adding to their number.
These are all humble propositions. It is obvious enough that they do the job of definition, stating what are a nation’s lands and rules and who are its peoples.
Included are a set of propositions about who belongs. Berry knows, but is curiously anxious to deny, that (to coin a phrase) Blood and Soil are an important set of propositions that help define nations. For his favored nation, see “the right of the return” for Blood. We all recall the Constitution was recently discovered to have defined Blood for America as those who are born on its magic soil (which include their numerous blood and marital relatives wherever they may be). Berry, one guesses, would not like this proposition for his chosen country. I don’t like it for mine.
Land is of obvious concern. Who gets what Soil is an area of particular and active dispute for Berry’s chosen country, but which is more or less settled for America.
Yet Blood is of even greater importance, as it has always been for man. People enjoy living with those who are like them, especially children with their blood-parents. Indeed, there’s nobody as alike as a blood relatives. Those more distantly related, if at all, are Strangers, and at the least are distrusted because Strangers, like natives, also believe in the primacy of their Blood.
Many propositions in daily life flow from these things. Berry’s chosen nation, and nations, say, like China would not accept the Blood rule recently discovered to be hiding in our Constitution. A document, as is obvious, about which most are oblivious.
Berry does not want America to have something equivalent or similar to the right of return for his chosen country, mostly because (it seems) he enjoys terrorizing himself with scenarios belonging to history, and which have no possibility of re-occurring. To avoid the obvious charge of hypocrisy is why he wrote today’s opening words. But we have seen those words fail, and must fail.
Conclusion: No land is or can be a Proposition Nation, but every land is a Nation of Propositions.
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I’m English. They try this nonsense – they call it “British values” – here. It’s not clear to me how these “British values”, which our rulers laud, differ from, say, French values. They would never bother themselves with the differences between “British values” and, say, “Nigerian values” or “Pakistani values” because, presumably, they realise that implying the superiority of “British values” would be, in their own terms, “racist”.
But there’s more, as you say. I find myself in a position like yours – almost precisely the same as yours. Increasingly, I suspect that my values do not align with “British values”. And our rulers say things like “anyone can be British if they share our values”. Do they think I can’t be British? Or, perhaps, less British than some others? Less British than, for example, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood? Than Leader of the Opposition, “Kemi” Badenoch (she of the “ethnic enemies”)? Than the recently-arrived Africans across the street? Or the second-generation Indians at the end of the street? Based on my … opinions? Attitudes? I begin to fear that they do, indeed, think that.