[quote=mdk]
It's a mistaken perception. Everyone's fighting for a different and more personally-relatable notion of community. For the conservative camp, this usually sounds like 'Founding fathers!' and 'Speak English!' and 'Founded on such-and-such principles!' For the liberal camp, it sounds like 'Racism!' and 'Inequality!' and 'Offensive!' A lot of us want to see power become less federally-centralized. That's not because we 'oppose the existence of any cohesive society,' we simply reject the notion that a 'cohesive society' must be established by the government. Most of us play football, watch FOX and go to church. All of these are expressions of communal identity.
[/quote]

A society isn't just made up of communal identity, though, is it? I'm not arguing that there's no sense of American communal identity. I'm arguing that Americans often seem opposed to the idea of participating in and contributing to their wider, "American" society. They take care of themselves, and they may take care of their local communities (as So Boerd highlighted with the generosity article), but in terms of working together, as a part of a cohesive American society? There's no desire to. There's no desire to help American people in dire straits if they're not a part of your locale. And what I struggle to understand is how someone can take pride in [i]America[/i], and [i]American[/i] society, and yet not want to have fuck all to do with [i]American[/i] society, outside of, perhaps, that sense of communal identity. 

An "every man for themselves" attitude does not gel with the fervour of patriotism many Americans show, regardless of how much they recognise that "every man" likes football.