"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."

-Mark Twain

That video shows how the Chimperor takes care of free speech issues...

Let's reflect upon America's Birthday, let's look back on our founding fathers...

CNN poll: Most say Founding Fathers wouldn't be impressed

How would the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin feel about the way the United States has turned out 232 years after declaring its independence?
Most Americans say they're proud to be citizens, but most also think the Founding Fathers wouldn't be pleased.

According to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, 69 percent of adult Americans who responded to a poll June 26-29 said the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed by the way the nation has turned out overall.

Rolling over in their graves...? However 61% of those polled are proud to be American!

Quite a few articles in today's papers and blogs had blistering critiques on on our woeful failure to study our recent failures, running the gamut from the political to our global standing abroad, global warming to lessons lost from the Vietnam debacle...

Many of the articles concentrated on the Democrats' abysmal track record on embracing Patriotism and/or failure to wrest the National Security mantle away from the Republicans...

Here's a good example...

The horror: Vietnam defines another election

Slate offers another take on it...

Waving the Flag

"How the Republicans Claimed the 'Patriotism' Mantle in Presidential Politics

Even Krugman chimed in...

The latest fake scandal fit the usual pattern as an awkwardly phrased remark, lifted out of context and willfully misinterpreted, exploded across the airwaves.

What General Clark actually said was that Mr. McCain’s war service, though heroic, didn’t necessarily constitute a qualification for the presidency. It was a blunt but truthful remark, and not at all outrageous — especially given the fact that General Clark is himself a bona fide war hero.(his Silver Star was earned by taking four rounds from a Viet Cong AK-47 in 1970!)

Yet the Clark affair did reveal something important — not about General Clark, but about Mr. McCain. Now we know what a McCain administration would represent: namely, a third term for Karl Rove.

Just what we need...! I think Adlai Stevenson summed it up beautifully in a speech to the American Legion during the 1952 campaign, he said that "patriotism with us is not the hatred of Russia; it is the love of this republic and of the ideal of liberty of man and mind." "True patriotism," he insisted, was "based on tolerance and a large measure of humility," on respecting dissenting speech in the service of collective improvement.

Amen! God bless America! And, God help us...!

However, Sinclair Lewis did warn us... "Fascism will march in bearing the cross wrapped up in the flag..." De Ja Vu...?

Update: I had to use another YouTube, the CNN clip seems to lock up after 2 secs... I had to settle for the tamer version without the jack-booted thugs, err.. Secret Service 'escorting' the hecklers out...!