I've stewed on this all day and here are some more thoughts.

Gk. patriotes "fellow countryman," from patrios "of one's fathers," patris "fatherland," from pater (gen. patros) "father," with -otes, suffix expressing state or condition.

Children are the most truly conservative people on Earth. They have to be, their present and future depends upon the care others give them. A child will fight moving house UNLESS the parents present it in the right way. The child will fight every change because the child sees it as a threat UNLESS the parents present the change in the right light.

A parent loses a job: "Mom, will we go hungry? Will be still be able to live here?" A parent dies or leaves: "Dad, what will happen to us now?"

The earliest form of patriotism is the self-protection of the child, for a child has its self-interest at heart. It has to because that self-interest means survival, down in the dirt, naked, survival. Adults only exist to help the child survive, from the child's point of view, and the child will resist anything that threatens the status quo.

As we get older our world enlarges: from the immediate family to include relatives (even Aunt Marge, who gives such big sloppy kisses at family gatherings), then the neighbors, then the other kids around us -- perhaps "our gang" or "our friends." And when one of the friends gets into trouble we don't "rat them out" because we are loyal to more than our family now.

Eventually we learn about our town or city, our school, our sports team, and God help anyone who badmouths them! Of course, it's not called "patriotism" at this level, but "loyalty" or "school spirit" or "team support." But it still is patriotism, for we have taken whatever we have taken as part of ourselves, made it "family."

This patriotism creates bonds that are incomprehensible to those who haven't experienced them. Those who have experienced combat -- who have cared for their wounded, dying, or dead friends; who have had those friends kill someone who would have killed them; who have shared their last bit of water during a firefight (combat vets will know what I mean) -- have a bound stronger than love. Cops, firefighters, EMTs, the folks on duty in the Emergency Room (and in Labor and Delivery), in short, those who have been on the front lines of life and death -- form these bonds. They might have a sense of humor that is darker than you can imagine, but it keeps them sane and reinforces the "patriotism" their jobs demand, because in these situations (and others) you must be able to depend upon those with whom you work.

Eventually we expand this still further and apply it to our country. It is here where the trouble starts, for it is here that loyalty to others can be manipulated for the good of a few or for one, a "tyrannos" if you will.

Americans apply patriotism to the ideals upon which their country was founded -- to the ideas written in the Constitution, and even the President is bound by an oath to that document (whether he abides by his oath is another story, and many have not).

I don't think anyone can love an abstraction unless you know what it really means. "Love"? "Country"? Bah. I love my wife and my family and I might learn to love you too, but not until I know you. I attended a reunion of the guys who were part of my National Guard unit when it was activated back in 1968 recently -- I "love" them, but not as I love my brothers or my wife, because I know I can depend upon them, they've proven themselves.

Where I think I'm going with this is that I do not "love my country", but I do love the ideals upon which it was founded by imperfect men trying for perfection.

And look what's happened because of what those men did: revolutions in France, in Ireland, in Russia, in China and in other places -- imperfect as the might have turned out -- were based upon the writings done in Philadelphia in 1789. I could even argue that a revolution took place in the US, starting when a woman didn't give up her seat on a bus.

"The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions and incapacitations are removed." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776.

Unfortunately and all too often, We teach them to take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter--exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place--the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan. - Mark Twain, a Biography.

And In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. - Mark Twain, Notebook, 1904.

To be a true patriot requires work and courage. To conclude what has already become too long, a long quote, again from Mark Twain:

A man can be a Christian or a patriot, but he can't legally be a Christian and a patriot--except in the usual way: one of the two with the mouth, the other with the heart. The spirit of Christianity proclaims the brotherhood of the race and the meaning of that strong word has not been left to guesswork, but made tremendously definite- the Christian must forgive his brother man all crimes he can imagine and commit, and all insults he can conceive and utter- forgive these injuries how many times?--seventy times seven--another way of saying there shall be no limit to this forgiveness. That is the spirit and the law of Christianity. Well--Patriotism has its laws. And it also is a perfectly definite one, there are not vaguenesses about it. It commands that the brother over the border shall be sharply watched and brought to book every time he does us a hurt or offends us with an insult. Word it as softly as you please, the spirit of patriotism is the spirit of the dog and wolf. The moment there is a misunderstanding about a boundary line or a hamper of fish or some other squalid matter, see patriotism rise, and hear him split the universe with is war-whoop. The spirit of patriotism being in its nature jealous and selfish, is just in man's line, it comes natural to him- he can live up to all its requirements to the letter; but the spirit of Christianity is not in its entirety possible to him.

The prayers concealed in what I have been saying is, not that patriotism should cease and not that the talk about universal brotherhood should cease, but that the incongruous firm be dissolved and each limb of it be required to transact business by itself, for the future. - Mark Twain's Notebook.

Yeah, perhaps this should have been on MOAB.