Remember this?
Patriotism is so important because it is a form of loyalty. It is a kind of natural affection. And one who is lacking in it always seems to us to be like one who is lacking in proper love and respect for his parents and the other members of his family.
Patriotism is the same sort of thing as the love of one’s home. Anyone who has no attachment to the bit of ground where he was born or where he was brought up seems to us deficient in humanity.
Anyone whose heart and mind, therefore, are wholesome and right, will love his country just because it is his, because it stands for that part of the human race to which he belongs.
The same sense of loyalty should be felt also toward the city where we happen to live, to the school we attend, to the class in which we belong and to our family.
This does not mean that we should hate people who are not of our own family or school or city or nation. We can have for them the warmest feeling, but at the same time our own people should remain a little nearer to our hearts.
To despise anyone who is a foreigner or belongs to a different religion or is a member of another school or has a skin of another color from our own – this shows a low and narrow mind.
Very few people understand properly how to be thoroughly patriotic to their own folks and not be hostile to other folks. Especially the ignorant and prejudiced do not understand this.
Everyone who pretends to any intelligence or culture at all should know that race prejudice, hatred of another nation or bitterness towards other people, simply because they belong to another group of the human race is a shameful thing.
Patriotism is a term that is often abused. Many people think they are not patriotic unless they want to make war on another nation. This is not patriotism; it is sheer vulgar ignorance.
True patriotism is shown by the utmost courtesy and respect for other nations, combined with an honest effort to make our own nation strong, prosperous and happy.
True patriotism is shown by obeying the laws of one’s country, by respect to the flag, by reverence for it’s great heroes, and most of all by striving constantly to make one’s own country the best, the most just and the most free country in the world.
Patriotism Dr. Frank Crane (1861–1928)
Patriotism... why conservatives never shoot first.