What was America?

Manners-impaired Northeastern Americans and brainwashed, self-hating Southerners poke fun at the Sons of Confederate Veterans for honoring a nation that no longer exists. But if you're celebrating the Fourth of July, you're doing the same thing, and don't even realize it. The land of the free, says James Ostrowski, no longer exists:

You can say the pledge of allegiance and sing the national anthem all you want but please don’t pretend you are honoring the land of Washington and Jefferson. It has been many decades since America was governed by Jeffersonian principles of limited government or Washington’s foreign policy of minding our own damn business. Having a global military empire is not what I would call minding our own business.

The sad thing is that Americans have no grasp of what they've lost. Worse, they've swallowed their handlers' fairy tales that eternal war and big government are the natural legacy of 1776. Bill Bennett isn't the only one peddling these lies. Here's another example:

America's reflex -- our natural position as a country -- is to stand with a people against their government when that government is infringing upon their natural rights. But our president chose the course of deference to an authoritarian government as it repressed its own people...

Tell that to the 200,000 Christians of East Timor slaughtered by Suharto in 1975-6 with American weapons and support. Or to the Iranians whose republic was overthrown by the CIA in 1953.

And yes, while there's praise for the "Tea Party" protests against "Big Government," the same blog defends warrantless wiretapping and the torture and indefinite detention of terror suspects. Hello?

As Ostrowski pointed out, the Founders wouldn't recognize the DC Empire as their legacy. We've clearly lost our way. But there's a way back home -- and that's to salvage what's left.