I think I do love England, much to my surprise. I like the irreverent humour and the feeling that despite the patriotism (as displayed upthread by Mr chowder) I have rarely seen this twisted into real xenophobia. A lot of seeming xenophobia (such as anti-French sentiment) is meant ironically enough, and I’ve generally found people surprisingly accepting and kind.
But then I’ve never visited London much.
Edit:I wasn’t trying to suggest that I’m French. Just to make that clear…
To me it means that I’m one of those people who, during free-association exercises, answer “chains” with “freedom.” To a non-Navarrese, this is absurd; other Navarrese find it perfectly logical.
Our coat-of-arms is a combination of two war trophies: the iron chains which bound slave warriors around the tent of an enemy general (and which our king broke), plus the gold-chains-and-emerald decoration said general wore (until our king demonstrated why he liked morningstars).
Soy navarro lo primero,
y por navarro, español,
y antes que perder mis Fueros,
prefiero perderme yo.
I’m Navarrese first of all,
and for Navarrese a Spaniard;
I would rather lose my soul
than lose our Law and Tradition.
(in Navarra, Law is… traditionally… understood to be the laying-down of Tradition; if custom and law don’t match, you change the law; the Spanish term is derecho consuetudinario, law by agreement; law is what the people say and not what some “authority” says)
When my PhD advisor tried to get me to take 11 years for a PhD, which included 4 years of stertching my fellowship from the Navarrese government, he didn’t realize that he wasn’t just trying to abuse me: he was trying to use me to steal from my family. That is the one thing I could simply not take. Had I had, say, a fellowship from a bank, the offense would have been only personal; using me to attack my people pissed me off in a way that would have made Shakespeare’s scorned woman cower into a corner.
It means that I’m grateful to be from a place where
But also that I’d like to kick the ass of the people who take money from us to buy votes elsewhere.
It means that I’m happy when my different governments (local, Navarra, Spain, EU) do things right and sad when they do things wrong. It’s like a part of me is doing right, or a part of me is doing wrong, whether I voted for the particular guy or not.
It means I get warm fuzzy feelings when people tell me they were in my country and liked it, or when people from our ex-colonies greet me with something along the lines of “how cool, from the mother country!”. I’m happy that we’re getting a lot of “second choice immigrants” (people who went to a big city and then move to the provinces). I get “damn, we’re doing that wrong” when they tell me of a bad experience. And I get angry when someone who’s never set foot in the country hops on a soap box and starts explaining to me things like that Spain is a Jesuitocracy or what nice boys those fellows from ETA are.
If I were from Sudan or Dardur, I’d probably have a different take on the whole issue. I’ve not been exposed to grisly civil war, or genocide. I’ve gotten used to freedom to travel, teach, learn, consume, give back etc…etc… I love these traits of the country I was born. I’m not trying to translate that into a national pride shtick, I’m saying I love many things about this country… And the nationalistic pride I do have, comes from the ability to delve into my own place in this world, and in the country, and create from it whatever I wish.
The more time I spend away from America, the more I realize that I am very much, for better or for worse, an American, and even more a Californian. I will live a long time and I think I will end up in many places, but there is something in me- how I look at the world, how I work, how I experience life- that is essentially American. I could no more seperate that part of me from myself than I could cut off my arm. I think we spend so much time thinking America is the “default” culture- or that we have no culture- that we don’t notice how much a part of us it really is sometimes.
So in the sense that I love myself, I love my country. It’s a part of me and I can’t imagine life- or even my very identity- without it.
This, along with the response about it being like a family, has made it clearer to me, thank you. I feel this way about my hometown, though for me it’s not quite love; just the keen awareness that its uniqueness is part of mine. That I can understand, so thanks again. The question of why it’s often seen as a virtue (at least in that lacking it is seen as a major flaw) is probably better suited for GD anyway.
IMO “your country” is little more than an accident of birth.
I can feel fondness for and an attachment to a variety of countries I have links with, including the country of my birth, countries I have lived in, countries I have visited, including countries I have family/historic ties to.
Like Nava, I also feel annoyed when someone who knows less than I do about any of them takes it upon themselves to pontificate, but am not averse to informed criticism or piss-taking of any of these countries.
I assume fishbicycle is just kidding, while Canadiangirl is just repeating the party line we’re all trained to say.
Canadians are in fact some of the loudest and most irritating patriots on the planet, known for trumpeting their Canadianness at almost every opportunity. Are we as bad as Americans? Some of us sure are; we’re almost as bad as Australians. You’d be hard pressed to find a nationality as likely to proclaim their nationality as much as Canadians do. I’ve started noticing my compatriots when I’m in the States on business, and quite honestly they’re embarassing with their arrogance and ignorance.
I guess I don’t really understand this; you’re basing your “love of country” on the policy stance of the federal government as of today? Does this mean you were less of a patriot five years ago when gay marriage wasn’t the law? Was Paul Martin not a loyal Canadian when he voted against gay marriage? (Yes, he did.) Does the fact that Canada DOESN’T eschew violence, and has a fairly coloful military history, reduce your love for it? Do you love it less for going to war in Afghanistan? Was it unlovable in 1943 when it was fighting Nazis?
Had you been born in Canada fifty years earlier would you have disliked it since “social conservatism” would have been the norm then? Will you dislike it thirty years from now when its values have moved on from what you currently hold dear - as is virtually inevitable?
And do you think people who DON’T share your values aren’t good Canadians? After all, millions of Canadians don’t like gay marriage. Do they therefore dislike the country? What about your other personal political beliefs? Is disagreement with those evidence a person doesn’t like Canada?
My guess is that the answer to all those questions is that you’d still love Canada, and you’d rationalize all the differences.
What you like, and what I like, about Canada, and what MOST Canadians like about it, is that it’s familiar to you. Of course, it happens that we were born in a place that’s safer and wealthier than most, but there are plenty of other countries where you could move to and be just as well off. The United States, Australia, Norway, Sweden, France, the UK, Japan, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, what’s wrong with them? They all love their countries too and, objectively speaking, the difference in standard of living is pretty inconsequential.
Canadians love Canada as opposed to the USA, or Italy, or what have you because they’re used to it. They grew up with it and so the language, culture, economics, sociopolitical nature, and geography are what they’re accustomed to and comfortable with. The Netherlands is a peace-loving, safe, prosperous and culturally vibrant nation but I would not want to move there because it’s just too alien to me; the language is different, the customs are different, it’s way more crowded (but a Dutch person may well find Canada too empty) and I can’t get Shreddies and Smarties at the grocery store.
I live my country from the soft sensual curves of her Appalachians to the undulating peaks of her Rockies. Waves of grain flow like silk across her soft midsection, and her gulf is moist and warm.
I love my country (the US), but I recognize that, had I been born in another, I’d probably love it, since a lot of it is based on love of home. I understand how Americans think, and I think like them. The land in this country looks like I feel land should look. I realize these are loosely-worded statements, but then I see the concept of love of country as being, in large part, pretty fuzzy.
But I also love this country because it was founded on a set of ideals that I hold dear. To me, it’s fairly clearly spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist, and other documents, as well as in our literature, what those ideals are. You know, life, liberty, rights, and the like. We are not like other most other countries. When our ideals are violated (which has been happening a lot lately), we feel violated, and eventually the pendulum swings. We can do that because we have a certain degree of power over our government (although I wish we had more, especially when it’s in bed with big corporations). It seems to be human nature to be tribal, and we have problems along those lines. We have, whether we admit it or not, nagging guilt over our treatment of Native Americans and blacks. But still, anyone who comes to America can be an American. Certainly, any group can be the subject of xenophobia, but at bottom we are not bound to an ethnically-defined national identity. Looking at the problems much of the rest of the world has in that regard, I think we’re pretty lucky.
But no mountains or oceans near Newmarket, right? 
But are you, by nature, a loudly patriotic person? 
I’m more of a Bud man, m’self …
Thanks for the responses so far.
Often, I find it useful to examine distinctions as a way of understanding a concept.
I wonder if someone would care to explain the following differences (if any):
For your consideration, a quotation from William Damon (of Stanford University):
Thank you.
What does “one’s society” mean? Could be very narrow or very broad. Doesn’t seem to isolate love of country.
“a sense of attachment, a sense of affiliation”. It’s probably these two “senses” that I have difficulty understanding.
“a sense of love for noble purposes larger than oneself”. Again, seems to have little direct connection with country.
“a sense of inspiration fostered by one’s role as citizen”. This suggests a civic duty, which, I guess, can lead to a desire to improve one’s country, and a willingness to defend it against adversaries, and to fight to uphold its principles.
In my earlier post I said that my country means everything to me, allow me to expand on that.
Her countryside is among the most beautiful on Gods earth.
The lakes and fells of England are a marvel, carved out of the ages by a benevolence we know not of.
Anyone who has seen the early morning mist on an English meadow and heard the call of the wood pigeon or the song of the skylark cannot be unmoved by this.
It rains here, quite a lot, but that rain is a soft rain, a softer rain felt nowhere else.
At dusk on a summers night the smell of the countryside, the rustling of small creatures in the hedgegrow, the slow lazy flight of birds returning home to roost…all of this and so much more is the England I love and all the torments of hell would never force me to deny her, she is my country.
Yes, I love my country. I love it because of the bloody brilliance of our constitution, flawed though it is. It is for this reason that I so despise the current administration.
I also love my country because of its diversity, its vigor, its beauty, and its history.
There’s things about it I don’t love, particularly things about the area I live in now. But I am proud to be an American. I think the Star Spangled Banner is a beautiful song, and you mangle it in my hearing at my peril. I will defend your right to burn our flag without legal consequence because of my aforementioned love of the constitution, but I will also slap you silly if you try burning my particular flag or burning any American flag on my property. I will oppose any person who tries to pervert the best of American traditions for temporary advantage, and yes, Mr. President, I mean you. (I also want to apologize to everyone for voting for Mr. Bush in 2000.) But I will also insist on addressing the President with appropriate respect and teach childrento do so as well.
I’m certainly not “proud” to be American (whoo, go me, I was born!). Nor do I particularly love America. America - like everywhere - is flawed. More often than not lately America frustrates me and annoys me and sometimes flat-out pisses me off.
But: Read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They’re beautifully, elegantly written, at once classy and accessible to anyone with basic literacy skills. And I do love the ideas espoused in them. Don’t let people kick you around. If you can solve a problem, solve it. Everyone is inherently equal. “We the people”, not ‘us versus them’ or ‘follow me’ or anything like that: We. Us. Americans. Everyone has the right to live, to live free, and to search for happiness. It’s our obligation - again, that’s Us, ‘we the people’ - to strive for perfection. We’re not perfect, and we probably won’t ever get actual perfection, but damn if we won’t try.
Government answers to the people, not the other way around. You have the right to speak, to write and publish, to pray or not pray. You have the right to justice. Here’s how a government should work. We’ll write it all down very clearly for future generations. And we know that maybe it won’t work out in the future, so as long as you do it in an orderly, just manner, you can change it if need be.
That’s what I love. I don’t love “America”, I love the ideas it tries to represent. I know that there’s dozens of other countries where I’d have the exact same rights and have an equal or higher quality of life. But I find those documents that created America beautiful the same way I find art or music beautiful.
“Proud” has more than one meaning. I don’t count myself as having accomplished anything by being born here. I count myself as fortunate to be a citizen of a country whose ideals (if not always practices) I admire.
This is one of the counter-opinions in this thread I agree with. Actually, I can’t understand the question in reverse. I can understand how someone might not like the U.S. but I don’t see how someone wouldn’t understand loving it. I AM American and always will be. I travel far and wide but I am fairly certain that I would have an identity disturbance if I moved somewhere else in the long-term. I could do it of course but I don’t think I could ever convince myself that I am not American even if I was banished into exhile forever.
Part of this question is confusing. Do you love a part of your body, your gifted abilities, or one of your personality traits? There are tons of things you can love without directly causing or have direct responsibility for. I love the fact that I am tall. The only thing I did to get that way is to choose good parents.
I think the family argument is a good one. I don’t wait until something is absolutley perfect until I decide to love it.
I am a proud Canadian. I love Canada. You would be hard pressed to find a more patriotic Canuck.
I wear my CF uniform with pride.
That said, ask me again end of January and I may be tempted to defect someplace tropical 
Just kidding. I love most everything about my country. I know we have a long way to go on a lot of issues, but overall it’s my home and I love it. I love to travel and have enjoyed everywhere I have been, but this is home.
Warts and all.
My home and native land.
Generally I can be a loud, boisterous Canuck, especially with liberal amounts of beer applied.
I’m not sure which is my country exactly. I was born in Germany (German mom, American dad. No military base involved!). Although I am fluent in the language and have visited my extended family often, I only lived there when I was very small and don’t feel a strong connection to that country. So let’s strike it off the list.
Spent most of my childhood in Canada, through college. My parents still live there. Have lived the last 18 years in the US. I carry a US passport, for what that’s worth. In many ways, each is home to me.
Although each country has its positive and negative qualities, I would have to pick Canada as the one I love – warts and all – for the sheer beauty and size of its wildernesses, for the slightly more humane aspects of its society (e.g. universal healthcare and more liberal outlook on social issues), for less of a religious presence in the political sphere, less aggressive presence internationally, and so on. And my marriage counts there – which may be the biggest reason why I feel a stronger sense of gratitude for the place.