Google "Transnational Progressivism"; there's an excellent essay describing a decidedly unpatriotic ideology. In the essay, you'll note many attitudes and characteristics that align with significant interest groups within the Democratic party.

It's not difficult to imagine why liberals have their patriotism questioned more than conservatives. Conservatives actually like the country the way it is, or in some cases, the way they imagine the founders conceived it. Liberals seem to want to make it more like Europe. That's not very patriotic! My forefathers fought and/or fled at risk to life and limb to get away from that place.

Actually, the Republican version of "patriotism" can be defined as the "good enough" philosophy. That philosophy has been the guiding principle of the American auto industry. It turns out that it isn't a good way to run things.

Are there things to take pride in America? Of course. I think out Constitution is a gift to the world, and I cannot imagine any other country in the world topping it. The brilliant things is that is was designed with an amendment process in mind because our Founders were not disciples of the "good enough" philosophy.

And, yet, this "good enough" form of patriotism has consistently won over the last fifty years. And in that fifty years, much like our auto industry that followed the national trends, we have fallen behind other countries.

You see, I believe our place is number one. I am tired of leadership pretending that anything else is good enough.

hear, hear!

I love my country, and I don't want to live anywhere else... but it isn't perfect. My patriotism is that I'm not blind to that. Our freedoms *are* always under attack- and not just from enemies outside our border. sometimes bad people do bad things. sometimes good people do bad things. we can't ever be complacent and say that someone else will take care of it. It's our "patriotic" duty to question our government and ensure that is does it's job. it works for us- not the other way around.

Deah: I see what you're saying, but it often seems to me that the liberal view of patriotism is "If it isn't in the Constitution, ignore the Constitution and do it anyway."

That's how we got the huge government we have today, compared to the small government we had before World War II. There is no constitutional authority for much of this, and many of the New Deal programs were turned down by the Supreme Court for that reason. Then Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court, and it reversed itself on the Constitution, and so we have Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and a host of other neo-socialist and welfare state practices that simply aren't authorized as powers given to the U.S. government in the Constitution. I'm not saying these practices are wrong, or bad for the country, or immoral, or anything else negative about them. I am saying that they aren't authorized by any language I can find in the Constitution, and that the liberals who supported them should have passed Constitutional amendments granting the government those powers.

That isn't a statement that the government we have is "good enough." It is a statement that a strong and flexible system devised for organizing and maintaining a national government has been ignored for 70 years -- and the movement and the party that had the power during most of that period was the same movement that is now described as "liberal" and was once described as "populist." It may intend to be patriotic, but when it ignores in its practices the very Constitution you say is a gift to the world, it doesn't come off as very patriotic.

There is a thin line between Patriotism and the beginnings of Fascism

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That line is crossed all the time by Republicans who seek to elevate national pride (aka patriotism) to the status of deity for themselves and weapon against all others.

I doubt that. Making law invasive. Increasing debt to unprecedented levels. Over-Extending our military. Not too dammed patriotic, in fact it's indefensible.

Trapdoor, our large government is mostly due to military expenditures. Don't blame 'Big Government' liberals for that. The size of our government falls squarely on the shoulders of 20th century hawks and those who profited from unchecked military spending.

Sickday: There's a difference between "big government" -- by which I mean intrusive agencies whose actions and regulations have the force of law, but for which there is no constitutional authority, and "big budget" or "big deficit."

While military expenditures are indeed leading to the latter two, at least there is a constitutional authority for funding for defense.

I'm wondering if any thread can go more than five posts without a liberal calling the other side "fascist."