Someone recently linked an article that I wish I could find again, on the origin of the "my country, right or wrong" phrase. The whole thing was something like "My country, right or wrong... if it's right, then I'll celebrate it, and if it's wrong, then I'll correct it." So it's not a narrow defense of "sticking up for my country doing things that are wrong." Like many popular aphorisms, this one lost much over the years.

Someone recently linked an article that I wish I could find again, on the origin of the "my country, right or wrong" phrase. The whole thing was something like "My country, right or wrong... if it's right, then I'll celebrate it, and if it's wrong, then I'll correct it." So it's not a narrow defense of "sticking up for my country doing things that are wrong." Like many popular aphorisms, this one lost much over the years.

@Paul4747 yeah but many idiots believe the other that's why I said it

I was born in Germany and still have a German passport. So, when people ask me about my nationality, and I want to give a short answer: German.
I feel blessed that, because of the horrors of the Third Reich, neither patriotism nor nationalism (perhaps, especially nationalism), were promoted during my childhood and adolescence.
There are aspects of German culture that I appreciate, but since I didn't majorly contribute, I can't relate to the concept of pride in a nationality.
But I remember when we drove through Paris one summer - it was the summer when some Football (soccer) world championship was absorbing people’s attention - my daughters, none born in Germany, became quite ecstatic when they spotted a cyclist with a German flag on his bike and they started chanting out of the car window: "Deutschland, Deutschland!" My reminder that we were in Paris didn't dampen their enthusiasm.
Were they proud of having partly of German parentage? I doubt it … and they are not even ardent football fans.
If the European Union emancipated into the United States of Europe, I might become slightly more enthusiastic because of the contrast to its past.
My grandfather was a soldier in France during WW1 and his son, my father, a war later. My father-in-law was also a soldier in France … but they were on opposite sides. I found it more pleasing when I saw them sitting on opposite sides of a dining table and the only armament was cutlery and only already dead animals were savagely cut into smaller pieces.
I spent my childhood in fear of our worst enemies in the east, in a country/nation called German Democratic Republic. Travelling along the border where one could the mine fields and barbed wire fences and every km or so a mirador with a machine gun.
The national pride was then divided; there was no German patriotism: there were two different, opposing patriotisms: Eastern flavour and Western aroma. Suddenly the wall opens, and they are all proud to be Germans??? Beats me.
Austria, home to the real Germans, was part of the Third Reich but after the war they opted out and carved and filed and polished their own national patriotism. So they were proud to be German-Austrians for a short while.
Or take the case of the two Chinas: the Peoples Republic of China and the Republic of China.
I am really trying very hard to find the idea of patriotism appealing … unfortunately it is too much of a religious concept.

@PontifexMarximus I can understand your feelings and point of view. Our views are all coloured by our own experiences and past, mine is of course from my own perspective as a Scot, but one who has travelled far and wide and who has resided in Northern Ireland for a large number of years. I feel like a citizen of more than just that small part of the U.K., I think borders are largely artificial and that national identity is just an accident of birth, much the same as religion is. Because of centuries and even eons of migration, there is no such thing as a pure race of anything...especially in Europe, we’re all mongrels. At the same time I recognise a feeling of belonging to the part of the world where I was born, the country of my birth, Scotland, and would like to see it as an independent nation again, not through any narrow nationalistic view, but because the Scottish people have a different view of immigration and being part of the EU from those of the “little Englanders” south of the border. That view may come over to you as contradictory to my assertion that I think that national borders are largely artificial, but above all Im a realist and understand that they exist, so as they do I believe the direction which the Brexit vote is taking the U.K. out of Europe is contrary to the interests of Scotland who sees its future as an independent nation at the heart of Europe. For that reason I favour a new referendum on Scottish Independence as soon as possible.

I heard that several times … but I can't relate to the concept of "love for a country" … Some Bush president once said "If you are not with us, you are against us!'

@PontifexMarximus That's an illustration of nationalism in a nutshell. The inability to conceive that someone might have different views, but not be an enemy. That, for example, opposing the torture of prisoners of war might be a sign of having moral standards, not expressing sympathy for terrorists.

Whereas a patriot would understand that both Americans and Iraqis (for example) equally love their countries, and there's no point in thinking that an American soldier would withstand torture by an enemy without revealing information, but someone from another (and hence lesser) nation would of course break and tell all they know. That kind of thinking comes from watching too many episodes of 24 and believing that anything the good guys do is good, by definition. Wrong. As one of my favorite fictional characters said, "You couldn't call yourselves the good guys and then go around doing bad guy things."

@Paul4747 do you thing that Alaskans love their country in the same way Californians do? Do people from a small countrytown in Alabama have the same patriotic feelings as some public servant from Washington DC?

@PontifexMarximus To answer that question, one must ask; which Alaskan? Which Alabamian?

I suspect that Sarah Palin or Judge Roy Moore have substantially different outlooks than Berta Gardner (D- Alaska) or Billy Beasley (D-Alabama).

Patriotism is an individual feeling and the perception varies from one person to another. In general, those who go around waving American flags (this can be generalized to whatever country) tend to be more nationalistic and unsubtle in their "patriotic" fervor, and assume that anyone who stands up for anything differing from American goals is an enemy, rather than a patriot of their own nation. Others tend to take a more nuanced view and realize that most people feel an affection for their birthplace, which doesn't have to mean a hatred for all others.

@Paul4747 so, in your opinion, it is about the birthplace?

@PontifexMarximus It depends. For most Americans, it is, simply because they have never been anywhere else; and they tend to feel that everyone is attached in the same way to their birthplace. They tend to feel that not feeling tied to your birth nation in that way is some form of character flaw. Most Americans, compared to the world at large, are incredibly parochial people.

However, some people emigrate to a new country and adopt a new homeland, and that place becomes the object of their patriotism. For example, let's say that someone has fled a war zone or an impoverished nation and settled in Germany or Britain or Spain or America (as unlikely as the latter is in these current times). They may then feel themselves patriotic citizens and lovers of the nation that took them in and helped them build a new life. This is as valid a form of patriotism as any other, and it may be a more intense form since a great effort and life change took place... analogous to how a religious convert or an atheist often puts more thought into their belief system than someone raised in a religion.

As I've been saying, "patriotism" is a very complex thing. No single definition can cover how every person feels about it. But I personally believe that narrow, atavistic nationalism is the worst variety of "patriotism" and should not be mistaken for it; the kind that says, "If you're not part of my country, you're a non-person and have no value." Unfortunately, we in America currently have a president who embodies and encourages that kind of "patriotism" among his followers.

@Paul4747 thanks for a very balanced comment/explanation ...

Shameful indeed … I guess Trump might use similar tactics if reelected and promise that those who case the Mexicans across the border can keep their property left behind.

@PontifexMarximus I'm quite sure that Trump caused the Second World War!

@zesty His family has 5 generations of draft dodging... bad knees might be genetic?