My computer is rather strident in its definition of "patriotism." It talks about a person who is willing, ready and able to fight for his country. My regular dictionary is a little less, well, militaristic about it all: love or devotion to one's country. And since we like to talk about freedom in this country, that's what I choose to be a red, white and blue patriot for.

I'm not all hot on our leaders most of the time. I have no love for the "might is right" doctrine we seem to be swimming in. I'm a freedom guy. I like freedoms. And I'd like to keep them.

There might come a time when we have to fight for these freedoms, but we haven't for a long time. Of course, we've found other reasons to fight (and then said we're fighting for freedom, because rationales are comforting). At times the majority of the country has been all for this ridiculous fighting.

And this is when our freedoms get strange.

It's a few days after Independence Day now. A few days after we heard the presidential candidates give their definitions of patriotism. A few days after all the dogs and cats in the country had minor heart attacks from random explosions from all sides.

I think we're still free.

I recently watched the Dixie Chicks documentary about their struggles with freedom of speech around the time we went to war with Iraq for the second time. I'm not a fan of the music. Don't plan to be buying any of their CDs. But it was a little scary seeing the reaction to their remark about not being proud Bush was from Texas (their home state as well). I'm on the Chicks side with this one.

There was a time when we were really scary and patriotic like my computer defines it (also similar to McCain's definition). Not only did I feel like I was in the minority in the early years of this millennium, I was in the extreme minority. Things have eased since then, but looking back a few years, it's not hard to realize what happened in Germany after the first world war. And maybe we haven't gone to war with the entire world, and we certainly haven't killed millions in our zeal for revenge, but we weren't necessarily honorable citizens of the world following 9/11.

And since I'm free to say these things, I'm guessing we're not completely a police state and without freedoms in this country.

I saw the Unbearable Lightness of Being last week, too. About living behind the Iron Curtain in the early 60s. It's way too long (by at least an hour), and not real entertaining (even with all the sex), but it does have a nice point buried in there. The main character (a doctor played by Daniel Day-Lewis, although not nearly one of his finest performances) writes an essay about the leaders who ran the Eastern Bloc. They were still in power, even though they had also been in charge when Stalin was murdering millions of the USSR's citizens. Their defense was they didn't know it was going on. They were in charge, but didn't know. His counter was that Oedipus didn't know he was killing his father and sleeping with his mother--but when he found out, he took responsibility for it (cutting out his eyes and stepping down from his kingdom to wander about for a couple more plays). The good doctor pretty much dies for writing this essay, although somewhat indirectly.

Maybe there's a bit of responsibility in freedom, too. There should be a little reflection by those who were beating their chests about how they loved this country so much, we needed to destroy other countries to show how much we love our country. But I guess they're free not to.

But when you bring up the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, they, to this day, say the same thing: everyone thought Iraq had them. How were we to know?

So because everyone was wrong, you're still right?

No one has been held responsible for this massive gaffe of intelligence--except millions of Iraqis who were killed or displaced.

I love this country. And I love the freedom we have. So much so, I get a little scared at the thought of what we are free to do with it.

Matt's band felt free to cover songs written by women about sleeping and breaking up with guys last night.