The United Countries of America

Ian showed me an American flag that he colored today in school. I turned it into civics pop-quiz time:

Me: How many stars are there on the flag?

Ian: Fifty.

Me: Why are there 50 stars on the flag?

Ian: "Because there's 50 countries in the anited states."*

*Ian sometimes seems to believe that New Hampshire is his country, and that the center of our town is actually the "center of New Hampshire". When I tell him American history stories sometimes, he re-construes them as the the history of New Hampshire - along the lines of "So when did the New Hampshire soldiers fight the British soldiers?"

This seems to reflect a more confederate constitutional model. One historian said that Jefferson Davis loved his country, but unfortunately, his "country" happened to be Virginia.