Maybe blackbolt lives in Zurich?
There is nowhere else that I would prefer to live.
Don’t love it, don’t hate it, it’s just the country I know.
And I don’t get the warm fuzzies that the USA is exceptional in any way other than our military prowess.
I don’t get that impression from the OP at all.
You bet I love it, warts and all, but we have an open relationship. I love other countries, too.
There’s a wide gulf between having the kind of pride involving chanting “USA! USA!” and being bellicose about America, and having the kind of pride where you recognize the many things we’ve done, how we’ve improved, but you acknowledge that we can always improve more. I’m in the latter camp.
(I’m recycling a post from 2004):
Sure, I love my country, but I keep getting mixed messages from it. The only time it calls is when it wants something from me, like my taxes or Selective Service registration. Of course, I have only myself to blame, giving my heart to a nation that’s already married to conservatism, but still you’d have to have a heart of stone not to understand how I feel sitting by an silent phone on Holidays and Election Eve. Maybe I should make myself more open to other relationships, but most of the other countries I think are kinda of cute, like Ireland and France, who seem to have it all so together, how could they be interested in loosening their immigration policies for someone like me?
I try to bring these issues up in honest discussion with America, and all I get is “Look, what’s wrong with what we have? Let’s just keep things going smoothly they way they are.” When I tell America I love it, it just responds “You don’t love mey - you’re just in love with being in love.” And then I look at it’s purple mountain majesties and Preamble to the Constitution and I get swept up with why I fell for it in the first place. But soon I’m alone again none of my issues have been resolved and I fell like such a fool.
I’m American, and I love my country. Is there stuff I wish were better? Yeah. But my grandparents emigrated here from Post-WWI Germany (1920s), and having heard their stories, I know things could be a hell of a lot worse.
Anyway, part of the fun of being American is having 320 million people duking it out over every issue, profound or ridiculous. Our democracy is messy, contentious, and a total donnybrook, but that shows people care, and how can you not be proud of that?
All four of my grandparents were first-generation immigrants. They were incredibly proud to have become American citizens and repeatedly told me how fortunate I was to be a natural born American. I’m not sure I have the fierce devotion they did to their adopted country, but I’m proud to be an American, too. As a country, we have many flaws, but when the chips are down, we are the first nation to offer aid to others, the country who makes a stink about human rights violations, and the country who (officially or otherwise) opens its heart and wallet to any refugee who can make it across our border. I think those are all things to be proud of and to love about America and Americans.
Nah. The thrill is gone. I just stay here because I am not strong enough to leave.
Mostly, yes.
Not much, and the feeling is mutual. It hasn’t told me it loves me since October 27th, 1995, and I’m not sure it was being entirely honest back then.
Country? More or less.
Sandra Bullock? More.
I signed my life away and lived through it.
I am a born & bread Catholic and I am living through it.
It is about the people for me. I’m 71 so my preferences have been long set or my ability or wanting to change is very small in reality.
Really small countries with many great natural resources may be a better place to actually live but since I was not born in one of them, but born here, I don’t know of any large country that I would or would have wanted to move to in the past.
When I look at the rest of the world as a whole, I won the lottery on where I was born and the parents I got and, and, and so that is about as close to love of a place as I probably get.
But Sandra Bullock is still better.
No I don’t love the U.S. I am glad I was born here though. Since I’ve been of voting age (1994), I have never really been particularly proud to be an American. And the way our country is now, I am embarrassed often to be American. But it could be a lot worse.
I enjoy living here; that’s about it. I also enjoyed living in Europe and Africa. Despite a career or two that were pretty much government service, I have no “love it or leave it” attitude, and am not a flag-waver.
**Do you love your country? **
Well, she thinks I do. But I don’t know if I am just going through the motions or what. Sometimes I think all she wants from me is money. She says she needs it and then after I fork it over, a lot of it just gets spent on her other girlfriend countries. If I try to protest all the laws are on her side and I just end up looking like the bad guy. Sometimes my life seems like an episode of Housewives of the World Powers.
She has been a great partner and even after all of these years, she still comes up with new ways to fuck me. Her stamina and resourcefulness are amazing.
I can hardly wait to find out how she is going to fuck me next. 
Love is too strong a word. I do love the land, the array of all sorts of spectacularly beautiful landscapes. Coastlines and mountain ranges, deserts and prairies, forests and farmed fields. But I don’t know if it’s possible for me to feel love for a political entity.
I feel loyalty to this country, and, as a woman, I am so damn glad I was born here, in this time, and not in so many of the places in the world where women don’t have much of a chance. I’ve traveled some, and have enjoyed and appreciated the cultures of many countries, but there’s no other country where I’d rather live. Perhaps that’s due to familiarity, which appeals more as i age. Though there are places within this country that are more and less appealing. It isn’t perfect, but no place is perfect.
The country my ancestors came from regularly makes the top five of “Best countries in the world” lists, for its honest people/lack of corruption, effective educational system, comprehensive social welfare system, etc. But every time I’ve lived there for more than a month, I’ve fallen into terrible, terrible depressions. Lots of times the factors that make a place look good on paper are meaningless when it comes to intangibles that add up to compatibility and happiness.
Like – not love. Given a few different changes in my life, I could just as easily live in two or three other countries I know of and like them just as much. I appreciate the US and what it did for my family when we came here but I think its a debt the last hundred years have cancelled.
Yes, I do love my country.
Not even then…
You took the Browns leaving Cleveland pretty hard.