“Love for or devotion to one’s country.”  That’s the simple and short definition of “patriotism” found in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.  So, here’s my question, “is it possible to be devoted to one’s country and still want to leave it?”  “To be a patriot of a country in which you don’t want to be a citizen?”

For many years, Americans have heard ‘conservative,’ usually Republican, statements about how they represent the “real America” and are our country’s great patriots.  While in North Carolina during the 2008 Presidential election, then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin referred to small towns as “the real America” and “pro-America areas of this great nation.”  

Tomorrow, the Steven Spielberg movie ‘Lincoln’ will open in theaters around the country.  President Abraham Lincoln famously delivered the Gettysburg Address on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  It was little over four months after the bloody Civil War battle of Gettysburg at which the union armies defeated those of the confederacy.