Confusing Our Government With Us

"Bad faith in America became virtuous in the '60s when America finally acknowledged so many of its flagrant hypocrisies: the segregation of blacks, the suppression of women, the exploitation of other minorities, the "imperialism" of the Vietnam War, the indifference to the environment, the hypocrisy of puritanical sexual mores and so on. The compounding of all these hypocrisies added up to the crowning idea of the '60s: that America was characterologically evil. Thus the only way back to decency and moral authority was through bad faith in America and its institutions, through the presumption that evil was America's natural default position."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304173704575578363243019000.html

I think this is a sort of illusion that we all suffer to one degree or another.  What is "America"?  By what means should "America" or "The United States of America" be judged?  Are we judged by 'our' government?  I think the entire notion is illusory.  I think wrapping us in a cloth that is defined by our government is a means by which the politically astute gain their significance, to the detriment of "we the people." 

One of John Kennedy's most famous quotes is "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  This is also part of the illusion of what or who we are.  What your government should do for you is to defend your rights as an individual.  What you should want is for your government to do the same for your countrymen.  Part of the role of defending your rights is to defend you and your countrymen from other governments who might use their subjects to attack you.  Beyond that, any use of our government is a violation of individual liberty and constitutes a coercive use of the State's monopoly on force, which allows some (the politically successful) to force others to do their bidding.  Or as Dr. B puts it:

"A theme that runs with approval throughout Jonathan Alter’s review of recent books on modern “liberalism” is that “liberals,” in contrast to their mindless Cro-Magnon opposites, overflow with ideas (“The State of Liberalism <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/books/review/Alter-t.html?scp=1&sq=%22jonathan%20alter%22&st=cse> ,” Oct. 24).

"Indeed they do.  But these ideas are almost exclusively about how other people should live their lives.  These are ideas about how one group of people (the politically successful) should engineer everyone else’s contracts, social relations, diets, habits, and even moral sentiments.

"Put differently, modern “liberalism’s” ideas are about replacing an unimaginably large multitude of diverse and competing ideas – each one individually chosen, practiced, assessed, and modified in light of what F.A. Hayek called “the particular circumstances of time and place <http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html> ” – with a relatively paltry set of ‘Big Ideas’ that are politically selected, centrally imposed, and enforced not by the natural give, take, and compromise of the everyday interactions of millions of people but, rather, by guns wielded by those whose overriding ‘idea’ is among the most simple-minded and antediluvian notions in history, namely, that those with the power of the sword are anointed to lord it over the rest of us.

Sincerely,  Donald J. Boudreaux"

http://www.cafehayek.com/