I'm with you most the way, Art--but you lost me at "to not fly anywhere" and being tethered to the earth has never been my nature. But I have absolutely no wish to impose my nature to fly and soar far beyond the environs where I was born, and the people to whom I was born--upon you or anyone else.

Not to the point of a "Don't Tread On Me" Ben Franklin's mindset, which many Americans in colonial times did embrace. And of course, that is the current mindset of many Americans in the post 9/11 era too. Libertarians especially love to fly that flag, as do some reactionary younguns, who use it as a touchstone in their rock, rap, and punk music ethos.

I am more from the "Live and Let Live, and Harm None" school. I don't like the idea of having to "defend" turf. At all. So appreciate living in the civilizations of today where I have never been forced to do that (I was a tad too young for the Vietnam draft, thankfully). And I hate the hegemonic coercion in the post 9/11 era that has driven people to invent their own "brand" of patriotism, in order to be viewed as "acceptable" socially to their fellow Americans.

It makes me really soul sick, in this time of war, to read that Obama referred to the US as "the greatest nation in the world". We are not. We are the greatest nation builders the world has ever seen, perhaps. But that is another kettle of fish entirely.