PROUD

Even though the Catholic Church considers pride to be one of the seven deadly sins, this doesn't stop a representative cross-section of Americans, who presumably consider themselves Christians, from being either "extremely proud" or "very proud" of their country.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1649/proudest-patriots-most-critical-of-government-and-obama has detals.
Now this has led Ned to wonder what, exactly, these people are "proud" of: probably not their government, since most people say over and over again that they have low opinions of representatives and gummint employees, and now fewer than half say they approve of Obama. And most were rightly contemptuous of Bush and his criminal regime.
So what is it they are proud of? Ned confesses to be bewildered, unless it is the "idea" of America. The "land of the free, home of the brave."
Let's assume it is the things that America stands for that most people express "pride" in.
What is it this country stands for? Well, you could go to two disparate sources: Fox News and the Radical Right Media, or Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." Check them both out if you have the stomach for the former.
Here are some of the things Ned presumes our friends and neighbors are proud of:
* Freedom--Oops, what about all those pesky black folks we lynched and cheated out of an education and opportunity until Lyndon Johnson pushed through Civil Rights laws, and as a result saw the migration of southern Democrats into the waiting arms of the Republicans, who now croak endlessly about "less government" and "states rights"?
* What about Franklin Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms?" Oops, we can't even guarantee all of our people health care, a decent job, or a decent place to live, especially the most frail and helpless of them. And the Right wants to destroy medicare and Social Security.
* Exporting democracy. We say we want everyone to be "free." But this doesn't apparently mean, "free to hate America."
And our attempt to export freedom to Iraq didn't work so well. But it did kill more than 100,000 Iraqis and at least 5,000 American troops. Moreover, it cost upwards of one TRILLION dollars and the cost in destroyed lives is going to haunt us for decades to come, just as thousands of mentally ill Vietnam veterans live under bridges and on heating grates. And those other experiments at "exporting democracy" to places like Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Chile, etc--they didn't work out too well either.
Not to mention at least one MILLION Vietnamese killed by American bombing and troops, as well as countless species eradicated by systematic defoliation of rainforests using one of the most toxic compounds ever invented, "Agent Orange."
* Maybe it's the "opportunity" this country offers. Well, there is a certain "Lotto mentality" that seems to be more and more prevalent, as the mega-rich keep getting richer and the middle class, backbone of the country, withers away. The working class, once a true American success story, has been systematically decimated (yes, Ned knows what 'decimate' means, thank you) by de-unionization, illegal immigration, drugs and the gradual destruction of state and local programs to help working class people get and maintain jobs and health care.
* Maybe it's the "quality of life"-- Oops, that's the one thing that is rapidly declining as companies drop pension plans, export jobs to third world countries, and state governments slash spending on higher education. Ned was astonished to find out that it costs $11,000 a year to attend graduate school at his local state university, not counting room and board. So, even if our students manage to get an education, they are saddled with crushing debt that they may never be able to repay.
* Maybe it's the "promise" of the U.S. Constitution, which in its Preamble, clearly states that one of the duties of the federal government is to "promote the general welfare." Ned wonders how that grabs those who want to strangle the federal government and flush it down the toilet.
* One thing we DO have that we can be proud of is one of the cleanest environments in the world, at least for most of us. But Ned worries that this clean environment is purchased at the cost of destroyed ecosystems all over the world, from rivers in China too polluted for INDUSTRIAL use, to clearcut rainforest in the tropics and the Arctic to give us our disposable diapers and junk mail, to seas depleted of fish.
Ned would have liked the pollsters to ask our friends and neighbors what is was they were "proud" of indeed.