As a kid, the Fourth of July was always my favorite holiday: the bike parade with the crepe paper so carefully threaded through the spokes, the afternoon of running and jumping contests where everyone won something, and, of course, the highlight, getting the old ratty beach blanket from my father’s trunk and watching the fireworks.

I didn’t know much about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but I loved that red, white and blue finale. Who couldn’t love America?

Well, quite a few people, as it turns out. When I watch them chant on television and burn our leaders in effigy, my outrage is almost matched by my disbelief. People living lives of poverty and illness, mothers sending their children on rickety boats — we are not doing this to them. Our country would never do this. Save our lives so we can raise our children to hate you? That cannot be right.

Our country is not perfect, but it is nowhere near the disaster the latest round of Republican would-be presidents would have you believe. I worked for the last guy who thought you could win with a strong and positive campaign, and he ended up a gifted professor, among other things, but not president. So as many times as President Reagan used to recite the commandment about Republicans attacking each other, know that they will. And be certain, before it’s over, candidates on both sides will be accusing each other of attacking their patriotism, even as they mouth the words “we all love America.”

If we all love America so much — and I believe, you have to believe, that most Americans do — then how about our candidates show it in this campaign? The First Amendment protects the right of citizens to say almost anything they want about our country, but it doesn’t condone such attacks. It is only that the alternative of government control of free expression is so much worse, a point that any random five minutes of the evening news would confirm.

It’s all just rhetoric, some of my friends say, part of the language of politics, the “red meat” that gets the crowd going. But in the years I’ve been doing this, the red meat has turned almost entirely negative — it’s people shouting “no,” with “yes, we can” an almost nostalgic memory.

The number of candidates only increases the risk of an ugly American campaign, in which those who do not love our country will find plenty of tinder for their fires. After all, with so many candidates that I’ve stopped counting, how do you stand out? Say something nice about one of your opponents? No. Say something positive and unifying? No. Go after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? Sure, but that’s already started to sound old.

It is easy to blur the line between criticizing our leaders and criticizing our country, between recognizing all of the important challenges we face and providing fodder for those who would damn our country. And there is no easier attack line, when you’re on the defense, than accusing the other person of challenging your patriotism so that everyone’s patriotism is tainted.

But this seems an especially important year for the crowd of candidates to stay away from attacks on patriotism. We have been through tough times. No one in a position of leadership can fairly claim to be totally free of responsibility. Things went wrong. But we are still the greatest country on the face of the Earth, and if we — and our candidates — don’t shout that from the rafters, the haters surely will not.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.