The flag fetish strikes me as a case of Protesting Too Much. If you’re confident in your possession of something, you don’t have to wear it on your sleeve, your gable, your bumper, or your T-shirt. In fact, the latter used to be considered disrespectful, a kind of desecration.

Americans live surrounded by other Americans; there’s no need for a show of defiance. We’re not like the English and the French, who fought one another for centuries, still have cultural misunderstandings, and can see each other’s countries on a clear day. So why this bravado, even insecurity, which I think must lie beneath gratuitious, context-free displays of patriotic devotion