Beginning shortly after 9/11, President Bush and others began to wear flag pins on their lapels to symbolize our unity as a nation, and to show their support of our troops in the field. Especially as months and years went by, however, many detractors of Operation Iraqi Freedom and other measures taken in the name of national security interests grew increasingly skeptical of the gesture, some going so far as to adopt a mantra of, "I don't need to wear my patriotism on my sleeve to love my country."

In quite a literal way, they were entirely correct - nobody needs to wear any token symbol to be a true patriot. What's more, there's no denying that a certain hesitation by thinking persons is both natural and preferential when any person or group tries to justify extreme measures with skimming appeals to patriotic sensibilities, just as we have a right to be critical of anybody who couches their principal policy arguments in ways that seize upon our core belief structures and nothing more. We learned as children that "Because I said so" with its only clear support being the status of the person saying it, is an impossible predicament. It appears to be a mere conclusion, not grounded in any logic against which we are free to measure its virtues, nor weigh its costs and benefits.

But we have also learned as we've grown older that just because our parents so often resorted to base-conclusions without apparent reason, what they compelled us to do (or not do) was not necessarily wrong. Indeed, more often than not, their laziness in explanation was merely that, and did not stem from a carelessness of their reasoning.

This is not to argue that President Bush's policies, particularly the ones noted above, were right or wrong, but only is intended to acknowledge that the patriotism reflected by his and many others' flag pins is very real and noble indeed, and that the frustration of those who exhibited such hostility to overt displays of patriotism was very much misplaced. There were reasons behind the pins - good ones. The flag itself was President Bush's expression of hope, faith, and above all, unity.

The irony now, however, is that many of those same Americans who refused for one reason or another to wear a flag pin, are to this day wearing Obama pins. Four and a half months after the election, and more than a month since President Obama came to office, campaign pins are still worn by people all over town. This is not a sign of unity, or a sign of patriotism, but rather a suggestive of more narrowly-tailored pride, and faith placed in a single man rather than a nation. While Candidate Obama came to symbolize the many aspirations we maintain and achievements for which we aim, President Obama is nothing above the ideals of this nation, and his graven image does not supplant the flag. Indeed, even all of the tensions of the election largely boiled down to the fact that Obama embodied the flag's promises; McCain, its principles.

For a plethora of reasons, examined exhaustively in these pages and elsewhere, the flag's promises prevailed at the polls. And we were all of us, regardless of our votes, blessed with Hope for Change. And still, immediately, expectation management began, and we knew we were in for a long haul. And because of this, only a month into the new administration, nobody can really fault the Change for being slow coming. But what is troubling is how the Hope has dimmed smewhat, the Change does not appear to be grounded in sound logic, and the Unity, diminished by Obama pins in place of flag pins, is one built as much upon anxiety, fear, and for some, outright despair. The problems that we face are far greater than what can be accomplished by one man, no matter how patriotic he might be. It will take a nation, unified by principles rather than emotions, to bring the change we seek.

At the extremes on both sides of the aisle, we see the stigmata of their faithful. The Liberal Left has appears to be blindly throwing darts at an economic problem they have yet to truly define, making many realize for the first time the nuanced reality that economic stimulus really does involve more than just increasing spending. The hallmarks, the earmarks, of either faith or greed found throughout statutes authorizing trillions of dollars of federal liabilities over the next decade, "stimulata," if you will, are likely only to slow our long-term recovery. This is their equivalent of lacking a viable exit strategy.

The Conservative Right is playing its minority role, generally offering criticism and road blocks, without presenting viable alternatives of its own. One wonders if this might be an opportunity for a rebirth of true conservatism, in a way that reverses the trend of both vocabulary and practice. The decline of the conservative movement, which might have begun with then-Governor Bush's campaign of nominally qualified, "compassionate" conservatism, and proceeded with a total detachment from its small-government, decreased-spending platform, gives us little reason to believe that legislators who profess to possess those ideals actually have the discipline to practice them.

With neither side offering much that makes sense, what are we, as common Americans, to do? What are we left with, besides a broken system, highlighted by schizophrenic rumors about whether the banks are going to be nationalized, and a media that does not respect the role of consumer confidence in economic health but instead treats the beginning of every night as though they were brow-beaten into shock that our economy, one day after the last newscast, still hasn't recovered?

We try to grow. We try harder to put aside the pettiness that often divides us. We refuse to allow business bandits and self-interested politicos belittle us by their own blatant ethics flaps. We put our efforts toward true progress, and programs that will actually work. We accept our history, but refuse to accept the notion that we continue to be a nation of cowards with respect to anything - race, spirit, ingenuity - and instead choose to shine in the resilience we have proved time and again. We put away our campaign regalia and begin once again to think of ourselves as one Nation, indivisible.