The other day, I saw a makeshift banner in the back window of a car that expressed strong support for President Bush, and my thoughts were:
1. I'm proud to be an American, where "American" stands for freedom and justice for all.
2. I'm proud of our troops, who have done an excellent job at the task they were assigned.
3. I'm embarrassed as hell to be represented by a President who has demonstrated to the world that what he thinks "American" means is "might makes right", "vigilante justice" and the freedom only to be or do what the religious right theocracy approves of, and only then if someone doesn't whisper that you might be a terrorist.
4. I'm embarrassed that freedom and privacy have come to mean so little to fellow Americans, that it's being denigrated: I overheard some people talking about GM's "OnStar" system in the theater recently. What they said was that having something track them was a good thing and that people who worried about being tracked were paranoid. I guess Ben Franklin was paranoid too, when he said:
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."