We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
This is the symptom. The problem is our education system. There is no country and no people in the world who are not the result of violent or terrible acts of their country or their people in the past. But, for political reasons it is desirable to lower the self esteem and pride or Americans and this is how they do it. They are doing it because America is too strong and they want to weaken it. Ask why and you will understand what is going on. That 40% are ignorant, not in an intent to be insulting but simply in the true meaning of the word. And because they are ignorant they are perfect useful idiots.
I am 82 YO. I remember when JFK was elected and my high school teachers were excited to see such a wonderful man become president. I remember when he was first seduced to put soldiers into Vietnam and why he wanted to. I believe he sincerely wanted to free the Vietnamese and to restrain China and Russia. I think, that before his assassination he came to realize that his advisors and the bureaucracy was using him and if he had lived the Vietnam story would be very different. But Johnson was a professional politician and as dirty as they come and he wanted the Vietnam war. And now 55,000+ young American men dead for what? I had friends who went there and never returned. For what? You have to be old enough to remember the national feeling about Vietnam when it started to understand that the useless idiots were all in. It was only when Nixon was elected that they turned against Vietnam and only because they wanted Nixon to fail. Sound familiar?