How do we define good patriots?

Yes, who is a good patriot and why ?

Regards,
Che.

 

Do we define patriots as good?

 

Yep, being a patriot is the best thing, beside being a democrat, why not ?

I should mention that I mean patriots and not nationalists.

Regards,
Che.

 

Isn't a patriot a person who fought on the side of the fledgling rebels against the british , during the war of independence in what is now the united states.

 

A good patriot relises that no country is perfect and readilly admits there countrys mistakes, past or present. They also do not let love of there country from enjoying other culteres.

 

No, that is "The Patriot". It is a movie with Mel Gibson, not to be confused with that other movie called "The Patriot" with Steven Seagal.

Dictionary.com gives this explanation:

I do not really see why a patriot should be good by definition, but I reckon that if you consider "being a patriot" as good, then a good patriot is someone who does the above without breaching any of your other moral values. It's hugely subjective, then.

 

A patriot doesn't have to be good as there were Nazi patriots, Soviet patriots, etc. One could even argue that Stalin was a patriot of mother Russia.

Benedict Arnold was considered a great patriot until he commited treason and went to the side of the British. The British didn't like him though as nobody likes a traitor.

 

Well, King George III greeted Arnold warmly upon his arrival in England, and Mrs. Arnold stuck by him for the rest of his life, so some people do like traitors, it seems.

 

Being on the winning side definately helps

 

Who is a good patriot? not me I'm no patriot
Do we consider a patriot as good? I don't, why be proud that some person in the past "conquered" the piece of land you now call your home nation?
Nobody likes a traitor- it's true I'm not very popular
Being on the winning side helps- ah thanks for the advice, I should try that some time, instead of being on what I feel is the right side.

 

stix wrote:

Forget about who conquered it in the dim past.
What about the guy that more recently stepped up to defend it (and you) from those who despise you and yours and would kill or enslave you/yours?

Sometimes they coincide.
What criteria do you use to determine what is the right side?

 

Ah, but those were foreigners. As was pointed out before, it is not possible to feel patriotic about any country but your own because of the definition of "patriotism".

 

What is the right side?... this could become deep.
In everyday life it's a matter of feel and comparing the cons and pros that are known to me.
In a more dire situation, let's just suppose I could turn the tide of war by crossing sides or not, I would choose the path which I think would have the best results for me in person near-regardless of anything else.

 

roel wrote:

Well, I was speaking hypothetically. Stix stated that he couldn't be proud of some person in the past who conquered his land and my point was that the ususal definition of a patriot is one who his people/country.

stix wrote:

There is nothing wrong with self interest. Selfishness is a virtue. There are exceptions (mostly biologically based) though. Many people would risk their lives for their family for instance even if they wouldn't do so under other circumstances and for strangers.

 

No , a person who fought against the british in the american revolution was called a patriot . Also , the dictionary meaning also applies to the name.

 

Yes, but that is a twisted line of reasoning.

Those who fought for the independence of the United States were patriots - true.

Patriots were those who fought for the independence of the United States - false, because not all patriots did, and it is not a part of being a patriot that you must fight for the US.

 

Hmm...

Technically, you cannot be a 'Nazi Patriot', as Patriot relates to a country or nationality, and Nazi is a political ideology. German patriots between 1933 & 1945 were not neccessarily Nazi.

Stalin may or may not have been a Russian patriot - but he certainly was a Georgian patriot.

Again, on a technicality, the American rebels cannot have been patriots (yes, I know that they called themselves patriots), as they were actually inciting a rebellion / civil war to ease the hold of their government, which ended up becoming the establishment of a new country - you cannot be a patriot if you are not defending/supporting an existing country.

And why did we end up on selfishness etc? :roll:

 

To answer the origional question, a 'good patriot' is (IMO) one whose liking for his own country does not become xenophobic.

 

Im not sure they meant patriot in the sense of someone brave , I think it was a nickname.

Like how the brits called germans Jerries in WW2 , or how the germans called the brits tommies , or how americans in ww1 were called "doughboys"

 

No, "patriot" is not a nickname, it is directly derived from "patria" which is Latin for "fatherland".