[mechanical_fish]

So can you be both deep and happy go lucky patriotic in America?

This is an impossible question to answer. It depends too much on the definitions of "deep" and "patriotic"... words which are fuzzy enough to span continents. "Patriot", in particular, is almost impossible to define objectively... you start out with some reasonable definition, and ten minutes later you discover -- possibly to your horror -- that the word has shifted to mean "someone who supports my position on Issue X". Everyone agrees that George Washington was, objectively, a patriot -- except for his Tory contemporaries.

But, if we insist on trying to answer this unanswerable question, my answer would have to be "yes". Give me one or another popularly-accepted definition of "happy-go-lucky patriot" and "intellectual" and I'll bet you we can find plenty of people who fit both categories.

[biohacker42]

Excellent point.

However, I still think that if you're a bit of an airhead and someone drops a knowledge bomb about the darkest parts of US history on you. It will take some time before you can reason out why the ideals of America are absolutely still worth fighting for. That or you go into cognitive dissonance.