In many regards, I'm not a spectacular American. I got kicked out of the Boy Scouts. I can't remember all the words to the pledge of allegiance. I think baseball is monumentally dull, dislike apple pie, and have often wondered what bald eagle tastes like. John Birch Society members aren't exactly lining up to introduce me to their daughters.
Patriotism is an odd thing to try and cultivate in people.
Yes, I think the majority of us have some abstract sense that we're glad, perhaps even a little proud, to be living in the United States, but I tend to think of my citizenship in the same manner I think of my gender. Nor are you going to make me any happier by blowing a bunch of rhetoric up my ass. Used to be that America would have a war every generation or so, and this would instill a deep sense of patriotism in everybody, moving it from the abstract into the concrete. Not that I'm complaining, but folks around my age haven't had the benefit of this particular experience, and the last three presidents haven't exactly been the sort who really inspire an abiding faith in the system. This is where Graceland comes in.