So that's what it isn't, eh?

To me, patriotism is love of my country, even when its leadership perpetrates things that are wrong. It is the moral obligation to speak out against and to try fix these things, within a complex political system designed to assure at least some semblance of majority rule. It is the understanding that what I think, and everyone around me seems to think, isn't necessarily the majority opinion. It is the understanding that we are a very diverse nation, and that it is this diversity that has made us great.