Hello Ruth!
Sorry for the late reply...I was helping another site owner track down some issues and it turned into a 3 hour long project.
I am glad to hear I am not the only one who feels it doesn't make one unpatriotic just because we see things with our nation's policies that are wrong. To me, it is the true patriot who stands up and states what they think would make their nation better, even when it is not the popular view.
Oh, I saw your post about eliminating chat threads from the featured threads nominations. In a staff discussion, we agreed that we wanted more thought-provoking threads in the list, but this is certainly not set in stone and if we get enough feedback that people would like for them to be included, we will certainly consider it. I will see how Romanos feels about starting a poll to let everyone vote on this matter. Many times people won't express their views explicitly, but if given an anonymous poll they are more likely to vote.
See you around, Ruth!