There is nothing more anti-American in the world today than the American government. I am proud to be a traitor and a patriot. I am a patriot because I love my country. Not only the people and land and culture contained within our arbitrary government borders, but what makes a true American patriot is a belief in the ideal of America as a free country and an inherent faith in the self-evident truths the nation was founded on.

It's 2011 and the true patriot is still a scarce figure. Brave, hated, scorned. In America today, the patriot is a traitor to a government that has demonstrated itself to be an enemy of freedom.

The anniversary of our independence is approaching and it is time to take it back. The founders never intended the 4th of July to be marked by blind nationalism and petty indulgences. If you think everything is hunky dory in America, wear red white and blue on Independence Day and celebrate the illusion of freedoms Americans pretend to enjoy.

If you feel as I feel that America is a shadow what it could be, a nation on the precipice even, then I ask you to join me in making this Independence Day a chance to reclaim what it means to be American, what it means to be a patriot. If you want to do something about getting those freedoms back, wear black on Independence Day and tell people why. Tell them what you would do to make America better.

I hope you'll join me in this simple act of defiance and create an opportunity to have a forthright conversation about where we are as a country. Maybe next year, we'll actually have something worth celebrating.