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I for my part think that if you were born in a land and it's worth it, some patriotism cannot hurt. But I'm pretty much against being fanatically patriotic, like some people are. It can never hurt to see things critically, to always be aware of something is wrong or right. And if it's worth it to do some things because of patriotism that better shouldn't be done.
I for my part like my birth-country, Russia. But I got used to Germany too, though. I live for too long time here already to not being used to it. Should there be a war between these two countries, though (god beware), I would fight for Russia, not for Germany.
And I know that Russia is now not the most established / best country to live in, but it's certainly worth it to love it.

But what do you think, is patriotism a stupid thing or is it naturally te be patriotic?

[TaloN]

its the natural feeling of competiion and want for those who share a background wiht you to do well...

frankly in this day and age governments and people take "patriotism" to mean nationalism and in turn racism, which is just wrong.

Nationalism is seen as a "dirty" word these days... but it shouldnt be. Nationalism itself is fine,but in history people have taken it too far and done veyr bad things in its name.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

There's nothing wrong with being patriotic, or overly patriotic. But depending how you go about being partiotic can lead to problems.

Actually, we never should forget that all our nations originally came from one place and became spreaded around the world in the following time then. And this place is Tibet, where our new civilization was created after the Great Disaster.
So we all are basically the same people.
Some competition is ok. But when this results in wars and ignorance of the poverty of other countries, best example of which are USA - India or similar, it's not ok anymore.

[Stroggy]

Lets say Patriotism is like Nationalism.

There are two kinds of nationalism:

Postive emancipating nationalism.
This is the original kind of nationalism which was born after the Vienna Congress. People then were thrown into all kinds of empires they didn't really belong to (like Venice suddenly becoming a part of the Austrian empire)
It moved people to delve deeper into their nationalist background and revive their culture and eventually moved them to found their own country and to maintain hold of their own cultural identity while living in peace next to other countries.

This in itself is good, since without it many countries would never exist.
Basically this idea is: "our people too"

and then there is Negative Agressive Nationalism.
This is the nationalism that most of us know. Namely the bad kind. "our people first" countries felt their culture was superior.
This kind of nationalism led to conflicts and wars like WW1 and WW2.

Same goes for patriotism.

[Yavor]

Originally posted by Iron_Scarecrow@Dec 11 2004, 02:53 PM
There's nothing wrong with being patriotic, or overly patriotic. But depending how you go about being partiotic can lead to problems.

You read my mind. :bye:

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Great minds think alike. k:

[bohor]

I for one think that nationalism is a bad thingie...
...and if a war began between Croatia and Serbia (again) I would not fight, but run away to a country where there would be no war (Slovenia probably ).

[Rogue]

As I was able to see nationalism and patriotism in its darkest presence, I would say that both should be forbidden. :not_ok:

Both are used just to separate people and make them angry at the others (rising any of this always comes at cost of somebody else’s).

[Stroggy]

You can't forbid nationalism.
Again you are forgetting all the good things nationalism did.
Without it we'd all be living in some gigantic empire run by powerhungry monarchs who only use people as pions in their own powerstruggle.

Peaceful Emancipating Nationalism is a good thing, its a pity most, if not all, have forgotten that that kind of Nationalism existed long before the darker kind of nationalism stepped in.