While JB makes some valid points, he also sets off some alarms. It is not America that is great, but the people that make it great. I cringed at the use of the communal 'we'. The greatest heritage of our country is it's commitment to individual freedom.
While denouncing the 'me first' school of thought, there has to be a degree of acceptance to individuals who subscribe to that selfish position. To champion individual freedom means to accept some of the inherent inequities and negative aspects that come with it.
The real threat to our country from within, is not the 'me firsters', but those who seek to manipulate them in collectivist fashion to further entrench their reliance on government for the sustenance of that selfishness. Those that seek to mislead the citizenry into believing that compassion is not an individual trait, but something doled out by government. That is the premise behind entitlement programs, defining compassion as a willingness to not give of oneself, but to take from some to redistribute to others. All the while, abdicating the individuals personal responsibility to show compassion to their fellow man, because government will do it for them.
Defend individual freedom and liberty, and you defend what makes this country great. 'We the people' refers to the people as individuals, not as a collective. The Bill of Rights spells out individual rights, the rights of each person. If, in the effort to champion our individual beliefs, we lose sight of this basic concept, we begin to erode those very individual freedoms we all hold dear.
I think you summed up a lot of what I was trying to say in post 11.