I’ll expose my take on this subject. Before that, a few warnings:
I’m not too concerned on [dis]agreeing with the original post; instead I’m speaking what I think, in a disordered rambling.
I’ll say things that show clear disdain towards the concept of patriotism, plus towards the idea that you should hold it in high regard. This disdain should not be assumed to apply to the original poster.
I don’t pay taxes to the same gov as OP, and I’m not talking about USA, I’m talking in general grounds.
With that out of the way…
For me a country is solely a government that controls a territory and demands taxes from a population. That’s it; it’s an abstract tool, an “it”, and it should be treated as such. And just like it’s silly to profess your love for a screwdriver or a hammer, it’s also silly to profess your love towards a country = government.
It’s a mistake to associate a country with a nation. And this mistake has name: “nationalism”.
Most of the people from someone’s country are not one’s family, neighbours or friends. They’re people with barely any relevance in one’s life, just like most people paying taxes to other governments. Same deal with the things that they do. It’s silly to pretend that one holds strong feelings for them.
And, if the person does hold strong feelings for others (or their cultural output) as long as they pay taxes to the same government as one does, that only represents bubbling and failure to look at the people paying taxes to other governments. ile another is still lit.
Instead I’d rather love, appreciate, hate, show disdain, or ignore individuals. Regardless of country.
I don’t feel proud for people of the past. I don’t feel shame for them either. I’m not changing this based on which country those dead people paid taxes to.
I know that this will sound rude but I’d rather be honest at the expense of politeness. Every time that I see someone waving a government flag (whichever it might be), I picture a cow shaking its butt, saying “moo! I’m branded! I’m property and I’m proud of that! Gotta show my owner’s brand, moooo!”. Because while the being in question might not be physical property of that government, it (yup) is certainly its intellectual property, accepting that a tool (a government) tells it what it should think.
At the end of the day, “patriotism” is just an euphemism for nationalism. The people who say “I’m not nationalist! I’m a patriot”, in my view, say the same sort of nonsense as someone who said “he is not dead! He just passed away!” or “this is not an dog! This is a Canis familiaris!”.