See the thread about the honking duck site being up and raring again today, with all those old 78s of American music from the 30s and 30s and so forth; that's a proper July 4th celebration.

It seems to me the thing to do is to value the things that are good about the place or system you are proud of, and never pretend the bad things are good just because they are yours.

Celebration should always be tempered by owning up to those kinds of things (such as the system of slavery and its aftermath, and the genocide and expropriation of the first Americans), and in recognising what still needs to be done to undo a little bit of the damage done.

That applies to the rest of us too - all countries have dark pasts that people are tempted to turn away from. True patriotism keeps those kinds of things in sharp focus.