Yes, I divided his post up and left out the parts that I wasn’t responding to. It was an interesting point, but I’d prefer if this thread did not devolve into an attack on and defense of my personal level of patriotism. The points I chose not to respond to seem like they might lead things that way, and I’d rather avoid that.
Bullshit. Next?
No, it was as poisoned as this new OP, not “reasonable” at all. You present no factual evidence to support the claim, as has already been pounded into you.
No, that was an attempt to get you to admit the idea you somehow have that equates patriotism with jingoism, a point you have made no sign of understanding. It was so “nitpicky” that you thought it appropriate to start a whole new thread, one which I hope has enlightened you somewhat.
Even if this is the case, ceremonies like the flag-placing at the Tomb are much more subtle and dignified than overt. If this is what they meant, I’d say that flag-bedecked pickup trucks, giant flags over one’s property, giant flag pins, and the like, are much better examples of this metaphorical “waving the flag” than the very quiet, understated, and dignified cermonies like those at the Tomb.
This is rather hard to believe. If you weren’t intending to belittle Democrats, then why didn’t you phrase the thread title more accurately with respect to the poll – something like “Why do more Republicans identify as patriotic than Democrats?”? That would have been a fact-based way to begin this discussion.
It’s similar to my suspicion of folks who start threads titled something like “why are black people inherently stupider than white people?” based on test scores statistics, when a fact-based title would have been “why do black people, on average, score lower on various tests than white people”?
Only that it would be assumed by most who read his phrase. If he would like to clarify, he is welcome to, but I do not believe he meant it exclusively.
As iiandyiiii pointed out they do very little, if any, literal flag waving.
But in any case, are they “just waving a flag”, or are they honoring the flag according to their duties, which they signed up for knowing that there would be sacrifice, hardship, and possibly even death associated with their decision?
IOW, it is not their devotion to a piece of cloth on a stick that matters, but the people and ideals that it represents.
Well, thanks? Is that you disagreeing with it, a different criticism of it, or do you accept it as a valid definition? (One that you may not necessarily hold yourself.)
If I were to define patriotism in those terms in a survey, and then ask you if you were “extremely patriotic”, “very patriotic”, “somewhat patriotic”, or “not very patriotic”, how would you answer?
If you have a different definition of patriotism, I would love to hear it, and I would be willing to answer the survey question in the light of your definition.
What I’ve been enlightened to thus far is that you and I have radically different worldviews, with apparently quite disparate definitions for terms like “factual evidence”.
You have factual evidence that more Republicans self-identify as patriotic (and extremely patriotic) than Democrats. That’s the only evidence that poll provides. Entirely subjective concepts like patriotism don’t exactly lend themselves to factual evidence gathering.
If a poll said that 75% of Americans identify themselves as “morally and spiritually powerful”, and only 35% of Canadians, would you take that as evidence that Americans are significantly more “morally and spiritually powerful” than Canadians, or merely that Americans are more likely to identify themselves as such?
A far-righter could easily say, “Patriotism means not allowing your country to have immoral perversion like same-sex marriage, and preventing the murder of the unborn.” It’s a Rorschach Blot and everyone portrays their political ideals onto their definition of “patriotism.”
And thus a factual discussion (and the OP’s assertion) about non-factual concepts like “patriotism” is pretty silly. We might as well be arguing about which Americans are better-loved by God.
Yeah, I remember those but I’m not sure exactly where to find them. I do know that the thing I hear most often from my Red State family when we are talking about healthcare is “I don’t understand why you care. Your healthcare costs aren’t going to be affected, what’s in it for you?”. And they don’t get it.
But I’m done with reasoned responses to Ditka, this is just another trolling thread like the 4th of July one. I remember a lot of Dems gave very well thought out responses about what their country meant for them and the response was just sort of, “Oh, you are all a bunch of overthinking navel gazers but you still hate America.”
And, BTW, The Chicago Bears suck.
I’ll admit I didn’t read through three pages of posts so I’m just responding to the original post here.
And my response if your premise is flawed. The poll didn’t establish that Republicans are more patriotic than Democrats. It established that Republicans call themselves more patriotic than Democrats do. This may reflect that Democrats have a higher standard for patriotism than Republicans have.
And if there was a poll in which people were asked to define themselves as either
Homosexual
Heterosexual
Very Heterosexual
Extremely Heterosexual
Extremely and Very Heterosexual
The Most Heterosexual Person that ever walked the Freaking Earth
would you suspect that people that ONLY answered “heterosexual” might really be gay? Would you think the guys that answered “The Most Heterosexual Person That Ever Walked The Freaking Earth” was more heterosexual than the guy that just said “heterosexual”?
My opinion?
People need to spend less time worrying about looking patriotic & spend more time being patriotic.
Yes, I do think *factual *has a definition, and so does jingoism. You obviously do not.
Fake news!
Non-debatable points like that don’t belong in Great Debates. 
I’m not disagreeing with it, or criticizing. I’d say that it adds to our discussion here and yes, I’d call it a “valid” definition (one among many possibilities).
I’d probably call myself “very”, according to your definition.
I’ll give it some thought. I haven’t really tried to formulate my own definition yet, but if I come up with something that I think is worth sharing, I will.
The ‘traditional’ definition is something along the lines of this:
That’s silly. Directly in the OP you equated the measurement with the definition when you titled it “Why are Republicans generally more patriotic than Democrats?” Besides, there can be no measurement without a working definition. Again, it’s notable that you seem curiously averse to providing your own definition.
A better question might be “Why are Republicans more likely to say they are patriots?” or “How do you live out patriotic values?” My perception of Republicans is that they put great importance simply on saying that you’re patriotic, sometimes to the exclusion of actual deeds. When I ask them what patriotism means, the answers are usually to the effect of the beliefs you have to state.
Can we just please separate some issues here?
First, there’s clearly a difference in how Americans see themselves in relation to their country. Just look at the fucking poll. Forget political parties, just look at how young people describe their patriotism compared to old people. There are differences, and there’s surely reasons for these differences. It’s just a fact, and it isn’t worth anyone’s time to quibble about it.
Second, there’s an implication – which honestly I don’t believe the OP is arguing in this thread, but I have suspicions that he does indeed harbor – that there is something wrong with people who do not share one’s own opinion of patriotism. An in fact, many of my friends from my side of the aisle are doing the exact same thing: looking down on Republicans as being worse people because they self-identify as being more patriotic. I consider all of this thinking divisive bullshit over a non-issue. Folks from my side want an inclusive United States that doesn’t look down on people because they believe in different gods, or dress funny, or don’t fit into cis gendered hetero whatever whatever buzzword categories. But holy cow, if you put too many American flags on your clothes, car, or house, there’s something wrong with you! Get the hell over it. Same message the conservative side: I think t-shirts that half flag-waving eagles pooping on bin Laden are in terrible taste… so I don’t wear them. That doesn’t make me less of an American.
I agree with the premise of the OP, but what I don’t accept is that this is necessarily a positive attribute. There’s probably not a lot of argument that Republicans would be more likely to adopt a stance like “country first”, whereas Democrats would be more likely to say “principle first”. Which is better? Therein lies part of the ideological divide.
If I were to pick some words at random to describe the two sides, for “Republican” or “conservative” I’d say things like rigid, traditional, conformist; for “Democrat” or “liberal” I’d say flexible, analytical, open-minded. The traditional strain of conservative would probably pick more flattering terms for their side, but that’s the general idea. The downside of the Republican style of patriotism is that it tends to be unconditional – they are patriotic whether it’s deserved or not. Thus when the Vietnam war become hugely controversial, the pro and con sides lined up pretty much along ideological lines, and ditto for the second Iraq war. Similarly, Democrats are more inclined to embrace global initiatives while Republicans are more nationalistic and insular, which makes it harder to achieve initiatives that have to be global like climate change agreements; in fact, thanks mostly to Republican influence, the US has failed to ratify or is not a signatory to a great many UN initiatives. It’s really the Republican regard for personal self-interest over the general public good playing out in the international arena in the form of self-interested nationalism over the global good.
It’s a tad ironic that this came just after I did provide a definition, but I suspect you were typing while I posted. I don’t think it’s typical for pollsters to supply a definition for words when asking survey questions.
I don’t know about Gallup, but the OP seems to be quite proficient at doing so.