Why are Republicans generally more patriotic than Democrats?

In addition to the tribalism mentioned by Wesley Clark, the converse side is that many Democrats have more of a “I am a citizen of the world” or “American arrogance and jingoism needs to be taken down a peg, from within” attitude.

I think that what the stats you posted point out is that more Democrats than Republicans realize that extremism is not usually a good thing.

Sorry, second link was bad, let me try again.

And remember, self-defined patriots were responsible for the second largest terrorist attack on American soil.

I don’t think so, but admit it’s possible. I think his point was something along the lines of ‘flag-waving is jingoistic and stupid’. I wonder how committed he is to that view. I hope Sage Rat comes back to clarify.

I don’t think so, or at least, not very much of the Left recoils from the dirty word. 89% of Democrats told Gallup that supposedly-dirty word described them, in varying degrees.

That’s a good point – Tim McVeigh was affiliated (in his own statements) with the “Patriot movement”, and likely considered himself extremely patriotic (when arrested, he was wearing a t-shirt with the Jefferson quote “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”).

I’m responding to this post of yours:

You’re the one who said self-identified patriotism is a fine measure of one’s patriotism. I don’t understand the confusion, except the part where you expect the burden of quantifying patriotism to fall on everybody except yourself, the one who is making the original claim.

At any rate it should be evident that most Democrats seem to equate patriotism with service and citizenship, whereas most Republicans do not. That’s pretty striking if true. Of course, if I’m wrong, all you have to do is explain how to quantify Republican patriotism. Easy enough, right?

The problem with defining patriotism is that virtually anyone can claim that their actions represent “patriotism.” Even if someone bombs his own country, he can claim he’s doing it for the good of his country. Even if someone engages in numerous anti-American protests and flag-burnings all day long, she can claim she’s doing it “to protest against what America has become.”

No.

They’re too smart.

Smart enough to get what a poll question like that is really asking, anyway.

Then you missed his point. I would say his point was that just waving a flag does not make you a patriot. There are other things that indicate your level of devotion to preserving the ideals and health of the country. IMHO, the harder one waves that flag, the less likely they are committed to actually sacrificing their comfort or convenience for the good of the country. For instance, you consider yourself to be patriotic, right? And yet, you have claimed on several occasions that your highest priority when it comes to the healthcare bill is lowering your personal costs, even if that is detrimental to your fellow citizens.

Patriotism isn’t what you say, whether it be singing the national anthem louder, waving the flag harder, eating more hot dogs on the fourth of july, or even how you answer a question on a survey. Patriotism is what you do. Patriotism is the ideals that you uphold. Patriotism is helping out your fellow citizens, whether they are poor, minorities, gay or transgendered. Patriotism is putting the needs of the country above your personal wants or desires.

Add another question to the survey, “Would you be willing to take a 4% cut on your insurance premiums if it means that tens of millions of your fellow americans will not be able to get health insurance?” Be interesting to see how that lines up with self identified “patriots”.

Obviously that’s more than flag waving. A soldier who made a real commitment is on military duty honoring a fallen soldier who made a total commitment. This is much different than sitting in the audience, waving a flag, and saying “yay team.”

I said that I think self-identified patriotism is a reasonably good (“fine” was the word I used I think) measurement of patriotism, or at least I don’t think we’ve identified a better one yet. You twisted that into “so many Republicans [are] content to define patriotism as saying the magic phrase “I am a patriot””. Do you understand the difference between a measurement and a definition?

More Republicans than Democrats felt that they came closer to meeting their own definition of patriotism, whatever that definition is. Measuring that fact is not the same as saying that their definition of patriotism consists solely of saying a magic phrase, which appears to be your claim.

I think you mean analogies, not apologies. :smiley: And it is a good one.

So now they’re deciphering the secret meaning behind the question “How patriotic are you?”

Your posts get more and more entertaining with each iteration. Please continue.

I suspect you’re right about that. My post was about Happy Fun Ball’s level of knowledge vs the average immigrant citizen. I made no comment about natural born citizens.

Any theory on why he didn’t use the word “just” in his post then?

Oh I don’t know about that. The Honor Guard “waves the flag” pretty damn hard, but I think they’re quite committed to “actually sacrificing their comfort or convenience for the good of the country”.

I applaud you for having the courage to offer your own definition of patriotism.

Do you have a cite for this? The video you linked doesn’t include any actual flag waving (the only flags touched by the guard are tiny, and they are not waved at all – just very gently and carefully placed around the tomb).

In fact, in my years in the military, I don’t ever recall seeing a servicemember in uniform actually waving a flag – carrying and placing, sure… but waving? I don’t remember a single instance.

Oh, it’s no big secret when a question is that loaded. Obviously, it’s enough to fool Republicans, though.

Somehow, I doubt you’re actually all that entertained.

You left out his interesting points about insurance premiums.

I thought k9bfriender and I both (and Sage Rat, but I’ll leave it to him to tell me if I’m right or wrong) understood “wave the flag” as a metaphor for overt displays of what-is-traditionally-thought-of-as patriotism: things like saying the Pledge of Allegiance, singing the national anthem, flying an American flag, etc. If he was actually talking about the physical act of ‘waving’ a flag, then I don’t have a cite for that, and I’m not going to bother to look for one.

Do you feel like Gallup is a pollster who has exhibited a past pattern of asking “loaded” questions?