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Originally posted by STANGPatriotism doesn't mean support of Bush, it means support of your country. People these days can't seem to realize that a country is different than its leaders. Here are some quotes that say what I mean more elequently than I can, turning this into a STANGesque list post. Maybe I'll copy and paste it to every thread here...
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/dis_tsu_tot_aid_pac∫=-1
This shows how little America supported the tsunami victims compared to the rest of the world.
Yet America can spend billions on Iraq. The reason has to be oil.
At the same time, America couldn't help New Orleans.
What a sad nation. It's time to put aside your patriotism.
It's time to put aside Bush.
"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober." -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton
This heroism at command, this senseless violence, this accursed bombast of patriotism--how intensely I despise them! -- Albert Einstein
Patriotism has become a mere national self assertion, a sentimentality of flag-cheering with no constructive duties. -- H.G. Wells
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first. -- Charles de Gaulle
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last refuge of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first. -- Ambrose Bierce
A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. -- George William Curtis
My three all-time favorites:
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -- Edward Abbey
You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it. -- Malcolm X
Our country, right or wrong! When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right! -- Karl Schurz
"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober." -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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Poor analogy if the aim is to discredit the first part of the equation.
Your mother IS your mother, drunk or sober. Being drunk doesn't make her not your mother, just as being wrong doesn't not make America ones country.
The only way, IMO, to make it "not your country" when you judge it wrong would be to leave.
I suggest Canada.
America ... love it or leave it, but don't live here and claim it's only your country when you judge it to be right.