Because no one I know uses the P word anymore. I enjoyed the movie. Watching a story line like that is always a relief. It was the most fun I've had in months, taking the moral high ground on a topic free of the pitfalls of Cuban children or Palestinian statehood. I'm part spoilsport, on my father's side, and I felt nagged with quandaries every few minutes during the three-hour film.
American history is a quagmire, and the more one knows about it, the quaggier the mire gets.
For example, Mel Gibson's character, Benjamin Martin, doesn't want to fight the British at the beginning because he still feels bad about chopping up some Cherokee into little pieces during the French and Indian War. So at the end of the movie, you just look at the youngest Mel junior bundled in his mother's arms and think, Mel just risked his life so that that kid's kids can rape their slaves and vote to be the first state to secede from the Union. I always liked George fine, though I dismissed him as a mere soldier. I prefer the pen to the sword, so I've always been more of a Jeffersonhead. The words of the Declaration of Independence are so right and true that it seems like its poetry alone would have knocked King George III in the head.