REFLECTIONS Are we doing our freedom proud? BY MARY ANN SORRENTINO

Patriotism comes easier when we have thousands of our children fighting wars in places whose names we can’t even pronounce or find on a map.

Old Glory will fly effortlessly in the summer breezes along Independence Day parade routes, having returned proudly to the top of the flagpole after we buried a former commander-in-chief. Across America, citizens will celebrate what many consider the greatest country on earth, while around the globe, the world’s love affair with the United States has grown cold and even died.

These red, white, and blue times present a perfect moment to examine how free we really are. In the shadow of such new infringements as the Patriot Act and other attacks on personal liberties, many wonder where liberty has gone. Those who confuse paternalism with patriotism do not question. They long for and accept DC control over what they think, whom they befriend, whether they pray. They respond viscerally to the call to watch their neighbors and report any "suspicious activity."

Some of us check our calendars again to be sure it isn’t 1954 or 1984.

We are told we must endure sacrifices for the sake of national security. We lie on the altar of the war on terrorism, surrounded by the kindling of political propaganda, awaiting the match that will set any remaining freedoms aflame.

No one on the street can remember what today’s color is. Maybe, as the July 4 bands march by us in musical oblivion, the threat is orange, red, or yellow?

Visionary Camus foresaw such times when he wrote, "There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don’t want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive."

Justice is a complicated concept — too complicated perhaps for those who govern simplistically. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a lie for a lie, and, "Bring ’em on!"

Fireworks will fly in the July 4 skies across the nation. In Baghdad and Falluja, the pyrotechnics are bigger, brighter, and more deadly. In Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, detainees, and a few of those guarding them, wonder what this holiday really means.

Some of us at home wonder with them.