PAST: What was your sense of "national identity" like when you were in grade school?

I always thought of myself as an American. Until, that is, I moved to Florida. At the bus stop on my first day of school, I was asked if I was a Yankee or a Rebel. "Huh?" I asked. "Where you from?" they asked, Deliverance-style. I told them and was promptly labeled a Yankee, which amounted to a year of almost Amish-like shunning. The ironic thing is, there were a couple of Confederate soldiers in my mother's family, which makes me more "Rebel" than the little sixth grade taunters, who probably only moved to the South a year before I did.

PRESENT: How patriotic do you feel nowadays?

I love my country and hate seeing what's happening to it - i.e., that the very ideals of freedom (such as freedom of speech, freedom to question the direction the leaders of this nation are taking it) are now considered "unpatriotic".

FUTURE: You and a group of like-minded folk decide to secede and form your own nation-state. What do you call it?

We have - House Sinister!

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