For years I've struggled with my feelings toward my home country, the U.S.A.
When I was a kid there were a lot of bumper stickers that said things like, "America, Love It or Leave It" and "My Country, Right or Wrong." I would see my uncle get teary-eyed listening to the Star Spangled Banner, I pledged allegiance to the flag every morning in school, and I was raised by my (liberal Democratic) parents to salute it when I'd see it in a parade.
But even as a young kid I never understood blind allegiance to something so fluid, multi-faceted and obviously flaw-riddled as a country (though I wasn't able to think it through quite that way). I felt bad or vaguely criminal for not wanting to defend America simply because it was where I was born. I felt there must be something wrong with me.
To this day I've never understood the "God Bless America" bumper stickers which imply that the U.S. is somehow a better country than others. When people say, "Well we may have our flaws, but we're still the greatest country in the world," I want to ask, "How would you know? Have you lived in other countries?"
I'm reminded that we're responsible for the greatest genocide (Native Americans) in history and that our country was made possible and founded upon it. I remember that we're the only country in history to have dropped not one but two nuclear bombs on civilian populations. Slavery. Internment camps. Jim Crow. The invasion of multiple sovereign nations. My Lai. Waterboarding. The list goes on.
Obviously, other countries have their own laundry list of historical horrors, but I don't think that any other proclaims its greatness so relentlessly. Other countries don't fly logos of their flags on their news stations or deride their politicians for not wearing a flag lapel pin.
How am I supposed to feel proud of a country that has used its awesome power and wealth to destroy so much?
I think of the things I do love, mostly people (Eleanor Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Studs Terkel, Martin Luther King...), but then I think of how Americans themselves stack up against many foreign populations I've come to know; we're more entitled, more acquisitive, and more reckless. I love the genius of what the Founding Fathers intended, but when people say things like, "I trust the wisdom of the American people," I think, "You mean the same American people who were led by the nose into Iraq and who gave Bush a 3,000,000 vote victory in 2004?
I'm not an America hater and I've given short shrift here to those things which do stand this country in a noble light. But I wonder how other people here define patriotism. If you love America, what, specifically do you love? How do you feel when you see an American flag waving in the breeze? Do you think America is the greatest country in the world and if so, why?
Non-Americans welcome to contribute, please.
I'm sorry that I'm late to this party, and without reading the other responses to this thread, please allow me to answer from the first post.
Several years ago I was driving a shuttle van from the United States Coast Guard base in San Juan, Puerto Rico to historic "
Old San Juan."
Behind me were my C.O., and my X.O., and my X.O. asked, "
Do Puerto Ricans consider themselves Americans first, or Puerto Ricans first?"
My C.O., who I admired and respected, knew that I was from Texas.
He responded, "
Puerto Ricans are like Texans, they're Puerto Ricans FIRST, and Americans second. Just like Texans are Texans first and Americans second."
There is some truth behind his words.
However, my fellow American/Puerto Ricans don't share statehood status with me, despite being an American territory dating back to 1917.
There was a time when, your words here:
byro said:
I'm reminded that we're responsible for the greatest genocide (Native Americans) in history and that our country was made possible and founded upon it. I remember that we're the only country in history to have dropped not one but two nuclear bombs on civilian populations. Slavery. Internment camps. Jim Crow. The invasion of multiple sovereign nations. My Lai. Waterboarding. The list goes on.
..and to outline the truth behind them, would have been considered "
Soviet Propaganda," or the very utterances of those truths as "
Anti-American."
But hiding the truth doesn't make it a lie, but the omission of the truth makes it a sin.
Texas isn't so much a place, as it is a "State of Mind."
I think that the same can be said of America.
There are so many things that are wrong with the dichotomy of America.
But in my travels, especially within Latin America, whatever faults that my (and your country) may have, there is a certain dream and a hope for the potential that exists within our history, our founding Fathers, and most especially within our Constitution, that continues to make this "Great Experiment" fluid.
Anyone can own it.
Anyone can make it their own.
Yankees, Southerners, Texans, Puerto Ricans, immigrants, and those who hope one day to make America their home.
America isn't a "
one size fits all" country, but rather a country of divergent cultures, histories, mind sets, and idealogies that, with all of our day to day contradictions, manages to survive without losing any of that, or having one becoming superior to the other.
I believe that it's not within us, as Americans, to allow that to happen.
America, and Americans cannot be defined.
We cannot be pigeon holed, and the only standard that we can be compared against is the standard that we set for ourselves.
We are not French, or English, or Spanish, we are American, and all that entails.
It doesn't make us better, or superior, or even necessarily different, but it makes us what we are; a threat to some, hypocrites to some, and a hope for something better for others.
I think that sometimes, as Americans, we become self-conscious of who we are, compared to who we're supposed to be in our own eyes, and the eyes of the rest of the world, that we question whether or not any of our feelings about our home country are justified.
My apologies for any offenses that may have been rendered by my perspective on this topic. 
