You remind me of a debate between Bill O'Reily and Bill Maher, where O'Reily said: "People don't want progressivism, they don't want the country to change, they like the country".
My answer to him is: yes, a lot of people like America, a lot more than 50 years ago actually, much more than 70 years ago and way more (all percentage-wise to population at the time) than a hundred and fifty years ago. The reason each generation has more people who like America is because each generation has fewer groups of people who are not being disenfranchised and having their rights denied by government and the beneficiaries of unequal rights. That philosophy which, with each generation, has recognized and extended basic rights to more and more of those groups who are denied it, that is progressivism. That is what gave the vote to black people, to women, and as recently as 1992 only to people of Romani descent (aka gypsies). We still need to be progressive because, today, there are still many people in the USA whose rights are not truly recognized and who are not truly equal before the law. The gay community for one, the children of illegal immigrants for another (recently a republican congressman suggested denying foodstamps to illegal immigrants, since any child born in the US is automatically a citizen, this would mean - literally - starving American babies because their PARENTS broke the law).
We can stop being progressive, when we have nobody left who desperately needs progress to happen."
Bias disclosure: I am not an American, nor do I ever want to be one, but I do follow your news and events (since they directly impact my life - you choose a bad president and I get poorer even though I got no vote, seems rather undemocratic in my view, that's about the only thing I actually AGREE with Ron Paul on - stay the hell out of other people's countries, you do not get to mess with OUR democratic choices to serve YOUR interests).