What do foreigners think of America's cult like Patriotism?

[notimportant1234]

Ohh patriotism, the ideology that killed the most people by far.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

What do foreigners think of America's cult like Patriotism?

Honestly puzzled by it.  Nothing wrong with loving your country, but this rabid enthusiasm that the US can never do anything wrong, is the best of all possible places, and is what the rest of the world should emulate is a head scratcher.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

What do foreigners think of America's cult like Patriotism?

Honestly puzzled by it.  Nothing wrong with loving your country, but this rabid enthusiasm that the US can never do anything wrong, is the best of all possible places, and is what the rest of the world should emulate is a head scratcher.

Boru

There is everything wrong with loving one's country merely because it is one's country..   One should love what is detachedly assessed to be good about one's country, and hate what is bad.  Loving one's country irrespective of the good or bad is infamous.

If a country is good, no patriotism is needed to love it.  If it is bad, it is wicked to love it. There is no room for for patriotism in the enlightened mind.

[mlmooney89]

Honestly puzzled by it.  Nothing wrong with loving your country, but this rabid enthusiasm that the US can never do anything wrong, is the best of all possible places, and is what the rest of the world should emulate is a head scratcher.

Boru

There is everything wrong with loving one's country.   One should live what is detachedly assessed to be good about one's country, and hate what is bad.  Loving one's country irrespective of the good or bad is infamous.

If a country is good, no patriotism is needed to love it. If it is bad, it is wicked to live it.

Being patriotic and loving your country doesn't mean that you don't realize there are faults with it. It's not equivalent to thinking it is perfect.

[Anomalocaris]

There is everything wrong with loving one's country.   One should live what is detachedly assessed to be good about one's country, and hate what is bad.  Loving one's country irrespective of the good or bad is infamous.

If a country is good, no patriotism is needed to love it.  If it is bad, it is wicked to live it.

Being patriotic and loving your country doesn't mean that you don't realize there are faults with it. It's not equivalent to thinking it is perfect.

I think there is a great deal wrong with loving one's own country more than another imrrely because it is one's own country and regardless of the fact that one's own country does not out perform the other in accruing good characteristics and disposing of the bad one's.  It is what makes it acceptable for good many otherwise good man to further the wickedness of one's own country.

[mlmooney89]

Being patriotic and loving your country doesn't mean that you don't realize there are faults with it. It's not equivalent to thinking it is perfect.

I think there is a great deal wrong with loving one's own country more than another imrrely because it is one's own country and regardless of the fact that one's own country does not out perform the other in accruing good characteristics and disposing of the bad one's.  It is what makes it acceptable for good many otherwise good man to further the wickedness of one's own country.

I'm not sure where you're getting the aspects of patriotism. I'm patriotic because I love my country because it's home. It's the culture I know and love, it has the kind of people that I'm used to. I am relieved when I'm in Texas because I know that I won't stand out wearing a cowboy hat and boots. I won't be looked down on for my hick accent. I'm comfortable here therefore I am happy here and I love that I can be myself here. Doesn't mean I dislike another country nor does it mean that I think it's better than another country it just means I love my country and home.

[Whateverist]

I never understood patriotism.  I'm with the big shrimp on all his points.  Be critical in all things.  I mean I loved my mother but I don't think she is the best, most exceptional mother in the world.  When I was really young (2nd grade) I thought an atheist was just an ingrate, someone I'd look at the same way Mooney does a flag burner.  I kind of like my little college town home city, but I'm very critical of it as well.  I can list what is good about living here but also tell you about how the city government is notorious for caring more about which city to become sisters with in each country than it is with maintaining the roads.  Idealism is off charts but practicality suffers.

---

As an aside my wife probably feels the way I do most of the time. But when we were in Paris one summer and in an intensive language class most mornings she really got riled up when her teacher (who happened to be in to film making) would bash Hollywood. Weird because we bash aspects of Hollywood all the time. But she obviously too offense at hearing from an 'outsider'. If I had been in the smart class with her, I'd have copped to the criticisms I agreed with and put out points that contradicted some of the teachers statements. But I wouldn't have taken it to heart like that.

[WinterHold]

I think there's a problem with nationalism as a whole; the extreme patriotic sense that dominates the American stereotype is not limited to America. That's what I think of as a foreigner.

Certain other nations proved to have similar insanity concerning their patriotic sense embedded in their culture. So I would just say to myself when I see an American too engulfed in his patriotism: "Another human clown that can't see beyond their own shadow".

A patriot is a slave of the state, so....the world is full of slaves of the state : Still, many Americans proved to be very decent and way ahead of the shadow of nationalism.

[zebo-the-fat]

So many flags in America, it seems to me that the country has so little self confidence that it needs to constantly remind itself what it is.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's a false and hollow patriotism that loves home simply for being home, rather than for being a good home.  When we lose sight of the necessity that civic virtue be leveraged for that greater cause, it becomes chauvinism, jingoism.   Sloganeering and merchandising opportunities.  Pretext for war.  The object of a perverted fetish, ultimately self-serving and so...fundamentally unpatriotic.  

The types of people many seem to be thinking of, are not patriots.  They are people who employ the language of patriotism as a disguise for their own hatred of others..not any love of country or countrymen.

/twocents