You are deeply confused. Liberals do hate freedom of religion (if it is Christianity) and freedom of the press when it says something they don’t like (i.e. The “Fairness Doctrine”). Leftists routinely abolish both of these freedoms as soon as they take power.

Our past contains many mistakes (e.g FDR’s internment camps), but on the whole is a tale that is an inspiration to humanity. I will stand against those who wish to fundamentally “change” America into a multicultural socialist tyranny by rewriting history to focus on the worst of the past in order to deligitimize our culture.

Ashamed of slavery? I never owned a slave. What country in 1776 had outlawed slavery?

I am ashamed of those who display such vast ignorance.

Do us all a favor and don’t waste bandwidth or our time with such braying.

Liberals repudiate the country’s past? You mean, the way they hate freedom of religion and association and the press? (I thought liberals were the press.) Or is it their deep and abiding hatred of the anti-slavery movement. Or perhaps their contempt or women’s suffrage? Or the labor movement. Or Civil Rights. Or their unending hostility toward Jefferson and Lincoln? How about World War II, in which we were led by the ur-liberal, FDR?

Look, genius, this country’s “past” covers a lot of ground. You decide — on some basis that only makes sense to you — that some of our past is our real past, and other parts of our past are somehow not, and then manage to convince yourself that because liberals despise slavery and genocide and Jim Crow that they hate America.

Um . . . what?

Do conservatives somehow honor slavery and genocide and Jim Crow? Are there no parts of our past that trouble conservatives just a bit? Really proud of that whole Mexican-American War thing? That wild-eyed radical Ulysses Grant despised that war. You kind of think what we did to the Cherokee and the Seminoles was no biggie?

Conservatives hate a lot of this nation’s past. They are ashamed of a lot of our past. Liberals hate a lot of it. I think if you put ten minutes thought into the matter you’d discover (surprise!) that there’s about a 90% overlap.

“Thus, patriotism isn’t about honoring and replicating the past; it’s about surpassing it.”

For liberals, I believe “patriotism” is about repudiating the past.

I see you just don’t get the point do you. France had the finest army in Europe yet it was crushed by a smaller force that had better doctriine, technology, morale and organization. Just as France believed its technology was supreme you fall victim to the same mindset. Sadly you ignore the fact or are unaware of the fact that technology rests with no nation. The price the French and the West paid was the Germans marching through Paris.

Indeed a 50% reduction of the military by Clinton has hollowed outthe US military. We see how it is stretched to fight in two relatively minor theaters. One can imagine how well we would do if we had to fight the PRC without nuclear weapons or if North Korea were to become aggressive today. Yes Bush didn’t expand the military, a serious mistake.

But we are treated to the bogus Obama who promises to cut the military.

Thank you for demonstrating your military expertise and years of service sir. Only someone who suffered the rigerous training endured in a sandbox could reach the conclusions you have.

So now we are to thrust the national security of the nation to a party that hasn’t been right about national security in fifty years?

Americans believed they reigned supreme in technology in 1940. It didn’t matter that its army was smaller than Poland’s. It didn’t matter that its aircraft were obsolete. It didn’t matter that the navy’s optics, torpedoes, or fire control were inferior to the Japanese. After all those who were responsible were going to pay the butcher’s bill for being wrong.

As the army discovered when it first met the Germans in North Africa, or the Navy at Guadalcanal or Nidway. Or the thousands of tank crews or aircrews who went to their deaths because their equipment was thought to be effective by people as thoroughly versed with the military as you obviously are.

Let us rather embrace the philosophy of those who tell us not to worry about our freedoms and the safety of those who must guard our freedoms with toss off lines from the DU. The French did as did those at Oxford when they said they wouldn’t fight for King nor country and encouraged those with a more realistic view of politics to plunge the world into war.

But we can be happy that the 65 million who died listened to such tripe.