Americans can be dangerous. Sometimes, in the exercise of their rights and freedoms, they can get carried away and lose all perspective.

In politics, for instance, the freedom to speak out does not constrain people like retired Gen. Wesley Clark from trying to diminish the military record of Sen. John McCain.

The freedom to espouse one's religion allows a legislator like Daryl Metcalfe of Cranberry to be uncharitable in remarks about members of a faith that is not his own. (Last month he opposed a House resolution commending a Muslim group because they "do not recognize Jesus Christ as God.")

The right to vote in a safe and open election remains a dream for millions of people in places like Zimbabwe and Myanmar, but too many Americans ignore Election Day and indulge in the cynicism that candidates are all alike. Anybody want to replay Nov. 7, 2000?

All of this says something important on the Fourth of July -- that how we exercise our rights reveals as much about us as Americans as the mere fact that we have them. It also says, on this most patriotic of days, that there is more to consider than freedom and liberty.

What about the American character? Is there an American outlook or duty? And, ultimately, what does it mean to be an American? For insights we turn to these words.

Putting people first has always been America's secret weapon. It's the way we've kept the spirit of our revolutions alive -- a spirit that drives us to dream and dare, and take great risks for a greater good.
-- Ronald Reagan

One characteristic of Americans is that they have no tolerance at all of anybody putting up with anything. We believe that whatever is going wrong ought to be fixed.
--Margaret Mead

A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American.
-- Woodrow Wilson

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.
-- H.L. Mencken

What the people want is very simple -- they want an America as good as its promise.
-- Barbara Jordan

America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

I love America more than any country in this world, and exactly for that reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
-- James Baldwin

We are Americans. We have the right to participate and debate any administration.
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton

America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.
-- Louis D. Brandeis

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.
-- Erma Bombeck