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Re: Re: patriot
robert — (archived)

That's not an incompatible definition, I think. Regardles of where it comes from, collectivism requires some psychological mechanism indistinguishable from patriotism to simply conform to the definition of the thing: A society whose members feel obliged (for whatever reason) to work for its best interests.

The weakness in your definition, though, is that "intelligent criticism" is a fuzzy term just begging for a partisan definition. Which you obligingly provided in the form of the made-up straw-mannish psuedoquote "my country, always wrong". It's not logically impossible that somebody could criticise the government 100% of the time if it genuinely fails to represent one's sincere values and principles 100% of the time.

Teabaggers believe that the government is at least 100% wrong at least 100% of the time. Are their criticisms not "intelligent"?

The teabagger example points to a more precise demarcation of the dividing line intelligent criticism motivated by patriotism and sheer batshit lunacy. The teabagger isn't content to think that Barack Obama is 100% wrong according to his lights. He hates Barack Obama so much that he needs to make up an additional pile of bullshit to try to make Barack Obama 200% wrong.

That's sheer batshit lunacy. And that's clearly on the other side of the line. And that's the sickness that's powering the Net of a million lies that I wrote of elsewhere.

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