Patriotism

[Gabu]

Neutral.  Patriotism can be the motive behind great things, and it can also be the motive behind horrible things.

[Gabu]

These last 4 years have made "Patriotism" a bad word.

How exactly?

That everyone who has ever criticized Bush has been called "un-patriotic" for the last 4 years. Patriotic is now a loaded word here. MSNBC just today called Bush protestors un-patriotic.

Personally, I've always found the action of challenging a fellow countryman's patriotism (or of calling him or her something like "un-American" or whatever) to be somewhat odd.  As far as I know, nothing like that ever happens in Canada.  It's just assumed and taken as given that a politician loves their country in Canada, regardless of what he or she does.  I don't even know if "un-Canadian" is a word.

[Gabu]

StatesRights and Preston, patriotism is also standing up and disagreeing with certain people.  TakeOurCountryBack clearly doesn't 'hate' America - he hates the people that he feels are destroying it.  Which shows that he's just as patriotic as all the flag-waving warmongerers.

If undermining a war effort is "patriotic" then this country is f*ed.

pa·tri·ot·ic
adj.

    Feeling, expressing, or inspired by love for one's country.

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There's nothing in that definition that requires one to support a war in order to be patriotic.  From his perception, the war is likely a stain on America's reputation, and his opposition to it comes just as much out of love for his country as your support for the war does.

[Gabu]

Overall it is positive, though to the extent that it blinds people to rational analysis, it can become negative.

Pretty much the only time that patriotism becomes a bad thing is when it's used as a threat, as in, "You hold opinion X?  Why?  You don't want to be unpatriotic, do you?"

[Gabu]

Overall it is positive, though to the extent that it blinds people to rational analysis, it can become negative.

Pretty much the only time that patriotism becomes a bad thing is when it's used as a threat, as in, "You hold opinion X?  Why?  You don't want to be unpatriotic, do you?"

That's not necesarily a bad thing.  Some opinions are superior to others.  I think that the US right now needs a health dose of heavy nationalism.  People are motivated by their country to succeed and adhere to a higher moral and productive standard of life.  We could acomplish great things.

In your opinion, some opinions are superior to others, and shockingly, the superior ones are most likely your own.

I'm not even going to get into the fact that calling someone unpatriotic to refute that person's argument is a horrible logical fallacy.

[Gabu]

Which according to your avatar color is also your political faction.

For examples of very nationalistic governments look at Saddam's Iraq, the Lebanese Falange, and oh, Germany in the late 30s/early 40s...

I'm not arguing that what Germany did was right.  However, you have to admit that nationalism was very effective for one country to steamroll across Europle.  The people were dedicated to the sucess of their country.

If being nationalistic would enable the USA to take over a whole continent, I'd be as anti-nationalistic as I could.

Whole continent.  The USA could take North America with our standing armies for crying out loud.  With a fierce nationalism movement and a healthy investment in nukes the US could take the whole world -being allied with Russia and maybe India, of course.

With a healthy investment in nukes the US could also make the entire Earth uninhabitable by any form of life, but I don't see why this would be a good thing.  Nationalism makes human beings hate and/or feel superior to other human beings over, at the heart of it, completely arbitrary borders, nothing more.

[Gabu]

Which according to your avatar color is also your political faction.

For examples of very nationalistic governments look at Saddam's Iraq, the Lebanese Falange, and oh, Germany in the late 30s/early 40s...

I'm not arguing that what Germany did was right.  However, you have to admit that nationalism was very effective for one country to steamroll across Europle.  The people were dedicated to the sucess of their country.

If being nationalistic would enable the USA to take over a whole continent, I'd be as anti-nationalistic as I could.

Whole continent.  The USA could take North America with our standing armies for crying out loud.  With a fierce nationalism movement and a healthy investment in nukes the US could take the whole world -being allied with Russia and maybe India, of course.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you were on crack cocaine when you posted this.

No, I'm just feeling very patriotic at the moment.

You're feeling very patriotic, so you enjoy the thought of your country recklessly trashing current global stability and killing tens of millions of people through nukes and full-scale global war?

I don't entirely see how this follows...