Run This Up Your Flagpole: Our Favorite Hot Patriots!

Monday is July 4th, on which Americans celebrate their independence from good taste and in some cases, fingers (fireworks go "BOOM!"). It's the one day of the year that common sense is replaced by drunken rounds of Marco Polo and dangerous and unnecessary pyrotechnics.

It's all ooh's and aah's until the Catherine Wheel breaks from its moorings and rolls down the hillside, as screaming children and inebriated fools in porkpie flag hats run for cover.

Or at least, that's what I'm always secretly praying for.

In the spirit of the holiday, we've decided to honor some of our favorite all-American patriots!

Okay, some of these guys may not actually be American, and we may be stretching the use of "patriot" a bit, but these are all guys we have no problem saluting (and they can pull off red, white, and blue).

Gabriel Martin, The Patriot

Played by Australian Heath Ledger, Gabriel was a soldier in the Continental Army who suffers the tragic indignity of dying in Mel Gibson's arms. Okay, let's be honest. He's here because this was Heath Ledger in his freshly-scrubbed Goldilocks Teen Beat days.

Truth be told, William Tavington (played by the not-freshly-scrubbed Jason Isaacs) was just as hot in this movie, but he was the rat bastard who killed Gabriel, so we feel bad for lusting after him. But not really.

Stephen Colbert

Television's greatest American patriot, Stephen Colbert is Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh rolled into one ... but without the crying, bad toupee, loofahs, and Oxy-Contin.

And he doesn't just wrap himself in the American flag, he rolls around naked in it, anointing the stars and stripes with the manly musk of his Yankee doodle.

As you can see below, Stephen doesn't need your namby-pamby flag lapel pins, he's willing to go that extra step to show his patriotism