I know it’s the fifth of July, but I still feel as if it’s Independence Day.  That’s probably because my neighbors finished shooting off their fireworks about ten minutes before I got up this morning.  That’s less outrageous if you know that I get up at 3am.  But still outrageous.

Anyway, this time of year makes me think of patriotism.  Go figure.  And just this morning I found a new ranking of all 50 states according to how patriotic they are.  The study looked at the percentage of people from the state who enlist in the military, how many veterans there are, how many adults voted in the last election, and for some reason, how often people Google the American flag.  I’m not sure that one makes sense, considering that the most patriotic among us probably know exactly what the flag looks like and don’t need to Google it.

According to the results, the state that loves America the most is Virginia.  My in-laws live there, and I know they’re very fond of their country.  My father-in-law joined the Army out of high school, then went to Officer Candidate School and spent 25 years in the Army altogether, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel.  He then worked for a military contractor for 25 years.  Meanwhile, my mother-in-law worked for several years at the Pentagon.

The ten most patriotic states, according to the study, are Virginia, Alaska, Wyoming, South Carolina, Colorado, Washington, Hawaii, Idaho, Georgia and North Carolina.  The least patriotic state is New Jersey, followed by Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

I like to see Idaho in the top ten of something positive.  In most of the state studies I read about, we finish somewhere between 11 and 40.

And just in case you care, in the last election, six of the ten most patriotic states voted Republican, while four voted Democrat.  And of the bottom ten, eight voted Democrat and two voted Republican.  Virginia, at number one, voted Democrat, as did New Jersey, at number 50.