Time was, not so long ago, if you were getting to know someone, there would be a lengthy ritual to establish whether or not there was sufficient common ground between you to proceed further. There would be the religion talk (So how do you handle the idea of God?); there’d be the politics talk (Really? You voted for him?) there’d be the economics talk (oh; so you don’t think true Socialism has ever been tried?)

Eventually, you’d evolve a map of common ground, with various regions. There’d be the “Sympatico” regions, there’d be the “Tread Lightly,” regions, and the “Best Steer Clear” areas. But the thing was, you could still have relationships with people even if you disagreed on some things. More to the point, you could discuss those disagreements, even debate them.

And there were shades of common ground. You could think, “Ok, he says The Beatles suck, but at least he recognizes “The Godfather” as the greatest movie of all time, so there’s hope.

Those days are gone. The divide has become an irreparable rift. For me, there is only one question that needs to be answered:

Do you support and embrace The Constitution of the United States of America, The Bill of Rights, and the founding documents?

That’s it. And the only acceptable answer is Yes. Not interested in weasel words. Don’t want to hear “Well, it’s a living document. It needs to evolve.” Obama summed it up when he said it was written by a bunch of “landowners.” We hadn’t yet reached the point where the whole enterprise could be dismissed as racist, designed by racists. I also loved how he called it an unfinished document, in that “It laid out what the people could do, but not what the government could do.”

We have no American culture; no American religion; no American music; no ancestor worship; no deification of our founders (and don’t waste time railing against the Washington Monument—Lenin’s fucking body still is on view in Red Square.)

None of those things has anything to do with patriotism. All we have is an idea enshrined in some 225 year-old parchments and a flag to symbolize them. That’s what bound us together, what allowed us to get along despite disagreements over this or that— belief in that idea.

But no longer. That’s why the answer to that question is so crucial. A Yes answer simply means you are a patriot. Anything else makes you a traitor, and I swear this day to actively work towards your destruction, as you are so diligently working towards mine.