Sometimes I like to remember that it's my goddamn country as much as anyone's.

Sometimes I put my hand over my heart and say this out loud.

I'm a patriot. I love my decadent, cosmopolitan, self-indulgent, racially-mixed, godless, intellectually dilettante, drug-abusing, promiscuous, queer-loving country. And its flag is the Stars and Stripes.

--Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Happy Fourth of July, fellow Americans!