Okay, I've been around the world a bit. Not as much as some, no doubt, but a bit.
The United States is the only country I've seen where a significant portion of the citizens genuinely identify itself with the government's policy.
For me, what being american means is trying to explain this to foreigners. Heck, this is an equivocal notion. On the one hand, this means that in the US, government bureaucracies, whether we're talking the US Military or social services, actually work. On the other hand, we've got a self-sustaining two-party system that takes advantage of this. (Insert your republican or democratic-party rhetoric here, as interpreted by the other party). The good side is that as a people, we truly believe in what we do; the bad side is that as a country, there are always people eager to take advantage of our nai:vete'.
The ethical solution to this is ugly: either, as a people, we follow the route of those countries that have endured a dictatorship and dissociate ourselves from the country, and thus lose our authority and participation in the government (as has happened in most totalitarian regimes), or we exercise our second-amendment rights and kinetically question the system of government our forefathers have shed blood for (which few have the testes to do), or we shut up and toe the line (as they do in Iraq), or we buy into the rhetoric (which we'd really like to do).
As a choice, it really sucks.
