[ALawPoker]

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Patriotism is devotion or love for your country.

Patriotism is neither positive or negative in the abstract.

"My country right or wrong" is an emotional sentiment, just like "blood is thicker than water." It is neither inherently wrong nor inherently stupid to form emotional attachments, even to one's country.

Many angry liberals are patriotic. They are angry because something they care about is being screwed up. Patriotism may be devotion to one's country, but it doesn't have to be mindless devotion and it doesn't have to be devotion to the government.

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Quoted for perhaps being the only intelligent thing said in this thread.

OP, and hmk, and company, what's the big deal? Whether the pledge should be forced upon people in schools is a seperate issue, and one I tend to agree with you guys on, but what's so wrong about patriotism in its pure, voluntary sense?? Seriously, answer me. What's the big deal and why does it bother you?

Not everyone who is proud of their country ends up contributing to some sort of holocaust, as the strawmen in this thread would like you to believe (for what motivations, I'm still unaware).

I happen to love living in this country. I happen to love our lifestyle, and disagreeing with most of what Washington thinks doesn't really make me any less proud to be an American. It doesn't mean that I think my country is objectively superior to anyone else's. I love my family too, and to some degree feel my family is the best one in the world. Is this wrong? Most people have a common emotional attachment to whatever region or society they hail from. Are you wrong to be proud of who you are and where you come from?

Seriously, if someone from Germany or whatever came to you and said "Ya know, I'm damn proud to call myself a German!" then you (I guess I'm looking at hmk here) would probably be like ya man, that's cool. Somehow your hatred of American politics leads you to believe that Americans don't have this same right, without you looking down on them. It's really a [censored] up view (especially considering its place in your overall political ideology), and you should probably put more thought into it.