I appreciate what you've said in this post and would like to respond to your question at the end. You said, "I've met many people who believe that patriotism means being critical of their country, how did we get to this point?" I think there are several reasons to take a critical stand of this country and I agree with some while disagreeing with others. There seems to me to be ways to criticize that are patriotic and ways that are unpatriotic. Is our criticism meant to call the nation to something better, or is its goal to tear the nation down. Chesterton is very helpful on this issue in the fifth chapter of Orthodoxy, "The Flag of the World." I'll cite a large portion here.

If it be granted that this primary devotion to a place or thing is a source of creative energy, we can pass on to a very peculiar fact. Let us reiterate for an instant that the only right optimism is a sort of universal patriotism. What is the matter with the pessimist? I think it can be stated by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot. And what is the matter with the anti-patriot? I think it can be stated, without undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend. And what is the matter with the candid friend? There we strike the rock of real life and immutable human nature.

I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back -- his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help. This is certainly, I think, what makes a certain sort of anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens. I do not speak (of course) of the anti-patriotism which only irritates feverish stockbrokers and gushing actresses; that is only patriotism speaking plainly. A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of him is, I think, what I have suggested: he is the uncandid candid friend; the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at all. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor; for he is using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army, to discourage people from joining it. Because he is allowed to be pessimistic as a military adviser he is being pessimistic as a recruiting sergeant. Just in the same way the pessimist (who is the cosmic anti-patriot) uses the freedom that life allows to her counsellors to lure away the people from her flag. Granted that he states only facts, it is still essential to know what are his emotions, what is his motive. It may be that twelve hundred men in Tottenham are down with smallpox; but we want to know whether this is stated by some great philosopher who wants to curse the gods, or only by some common clergyman who wants to help the men.

The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises gods and men, but that he does not love what he chastises -- he has not this primary and supernatural loyalty to things. What is the evil of the man commonly called an optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing to defend the honour of this world, will defend the indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe; he will say, "My cosmos, right or wrong." He will be less inclined to the reform of things; more inclined to a sort of front-bench official answer to all attacks, soothing every one with assurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world. All this (which is true of a type of optimist) leads us to the one really interesting point of psychology, which could not be explained without it.

I have been critical of our nation when I have seen actions or stances not in line with the ideals our nation has traditionally stood for, such as, in my opinion, the means by which we entered and prosecuted this war. And granted, as a Christian, I try to make the revelation of God the supreme measure of nations. The beauty of the US is that we have generally understood ourselves as a nation on a journey and have built within our systems means of criticism, petition, debate, and ultimately transition.

What exactly are the historical American ideals?
Slavery and Lynchings?
The Trail of Tears?
Wars of Conquest and Imperialism? - (Spanish-American War, Mexican-American War, Vietnam, The Oil Rich Middle East)
The A-Bomb

I don't think its a matter of the people we are fighting being good or evil. Most agree that they are evil. It's a matter of what and who are we, and what we actually want.

All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." Rom 3:12

If there is something inherently good in the American ideal, it's not an American thing. It's a Christ thing. If that is the case than these Christ things should be witnessed to in a manner consistent with the teaching of Christ.

See Matthew 5

There are good things in our history, the end of slavery for instance, but it is not a unilaterally beautiful history. As history marches forward, it is the role of the Church to bear witness to and call to account the state and culture.

I've talked about this on my post - Our Sometimes Christian Heritage

ps I am a war veteran - I know what it means to fight for my country. I'm trying to understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

David, I think you make some great points -- emphasis on great, not on some. When I speak of "the ideals our nation has traditionally stood for" I mean those best ideals of equality, justice, prudence, etc. (I know each of those terms needs their own defining, but I won't go into them now.) These ideals are often more theoretical than practiced; goals towards which we strive. You rightly show historical examples where we have failed miserably as a nation in embodying those ideals. And I think one can make the argument that our real ideals are those that we express. It is the tension and conflict between the stated ideals and expressed values that gives us the room to critique and call for change.

I believe that our nation has a tradition that it can point to in order to bring about good. For example, you bring up slavery and lynchings, great evils from which I don't know our nation has recovered. But it was the ability of some to look at both biblical texts and the stated -- but not entirely expressed -- ideals of the US that allowed them to criticize the practices of the US from within its own understanding of itself. The US has been hypocritical, but it has also been self-critical, which I think is an impetus for the change. For example, the US was certainly right in criticizing the racism of the Axis powers in WWII, but it was also hypocritical since within our own nation, people of color were second class citizens at best. It was the ability for some in the nation to look at what we tried to stop in Europe and apply that morality here that allowed us in part to move towards justice for all people in the nation. We haven't reached that ideal, and there were other factors in the criticism (most importantly, biblical texts), but we are closer to the stated ideals of our nation now than we were during Jim Crowism.

And I absolutely agree with you that many times if not most of the time, the US' actions and expressed values have not jived with those that Christ lays out in Matthew 5.

I suppose my point in all of this is to say that because our expressed values do not match our stated ideals as a nation, does not mean that our ideals have no power. I think we can use churches as an example. Churches have wonderful texts full of good (and I would argue achievable) ideals such as being communities that reconcile when conflict arises. Yet we all know that many of our congregations are splitting apart because of festering anger and long grudges. That does make us hypocrites, but that does not negate the fact that our ideals, those that the Spirit calls us to and shapes us for, are good and real and really apply to us.

By the way, I read your post "Our Sometimes Christian Heritage" and commented on it. I liked it a lot.