Patriotism is Justifiable

I appreciate my opponent's response, despite evident errors in his reasoning. "Each person is influenced by their culture, and his language, beliefs, customs, and where he lives are all generated from it. He is "part" of the ethnocultural group in the same way a star is part of a galaxy. To reduce nations to mere collections of humans is utilizing part-ontology which states that the subject is the parts." What my opponent fails to recognize here is that the statement "that the subject is the parts" is TRUE! Anything that is made up of separate individual parts IS them, otherwise it could not exist. As a matter of fact, a nation IS a collection of individuals, and should be treated as such. After all, boundaries are artificially created more often than not - this is most evident in the turmoil that central Africa has gone through in recent years concerning border disputes between tribes. "He does not judge his home to be somehow "superior" to any other place, but simply prefers it. America and Australia, for starters, are some of the most patriotic countries in the world [1. http://arminius1871.deviantart.com......] but both countries also happen to be some of the most tolerant [2. http://www.rankopedia.com......]." In preferring something one is certainly suggesting that it is superior. Let us take a parallel situation, in which an individual born into a white community "prefers" whites to blacks. Most of us would consider this racist, however, it is, according to my opponent, acceptable to "prefer" your own nation (that nation BEING the people of your nation) to others - why is this? I repeat - you do not choose where you are born any more than you choose to be dark or light of pigmentation. As for America and Australia being the most tolerant countries in the world, the exact graph was not shown. I can believe that they are the most patriotic, but tolerant of immigrants? Are there not paranoid Republicans who want to build a border fence with Mexico? Are there not stories of "boat people" being sent away from Australia with no supplies and starving in the process? The examples I have given in the first point prove that patriotism does not necessarily equal racism. Simply the fact that nations are no longer purely defined by ethnicity shows that progress has been made since the time of Rome. I don't feel that I have to respond to my opponent's arguments about colonialism, war, or racism unless he demonstrates that patriotism inevitably leads to them. If he does not, then bringing those examples up are quite irrelevant to the resolution." My opponent makes several errors here, the first, of course, is historical. Rome was certainly not defined by ethnicity - anyone could become a part of the Roman Empire (and later a full Roman citizen) and many did. In fact, many emperors were not even from Italy yet were capable of committing mass slaughter in the name of Rome - so have we made progress? I wonder. To say that I have to prove that patriotism "inevitably" leads to colonialism, war, or racism is like saying that I have to prove that Nazism inevitably leads to holocausts, or that material wealth inevitably leads to greed - it has, and that is what matters. The examples I gave are extremely relevant because there were few causes other than patriotism in Manifest Destiny, whereas in most historical conflicts there were many multiple causes. "My opponent makes the association with causation fallacy when he provides examples of terrorism and other atrocities that were justified by patriotism. More enlightened or pacifistic people would likely not resort to terrorism to unify their country. Again, there is no direct, unvarying link between patriotism and terrorism. Con must prove that for this point to be valid that patriotism invariably causes terrorism." Here, unfortunately, my opponent has made the same mistake - the idea that patriotism MUST lead to something for it to be incriminated. By this definition we should repeal all laws. Attempting to commit murder isn't ALWAYS successful, and racism can't be considered bad for being one of the causes of genocide because it doesn't ALWAYS result in genocide. Hell, maybe having a hereditary monarchy isn't so bad because hereditary monarchies CAN be good. Going back to Ancient Rome, maybe slavery wasn't bad because, after all, some slaves had really pleasant lives, even if many were thrown into the gutter after death. "This involves ideology and not necessarily patriotism. Fear of communism was not caused by patriotism but rather a strong abhorrence toward it as a concept. Simply because patriotism was used as a weapon against communism does not mean that it directly caused the anti-communist movement, much less the "witch-hunts" themselves." My opponent concedes here that "patriotism was used as a weapon" which goes back to what I mentioned earlier - that the idea in itself is capable of inciting to violence. If not, then why was it used? "Again, for these points to be valid my opponent must establish that patriotism necessarily leads to the extreme nationalism that was seen in those countries at the time rather than simply being used as a propaganda tool. Simply the fact this is not observed in all countries disproves this point." It is ludicrous to suggest that something must happen all the time or none of the time and that there is no in - between. Why do we have constitutions if democracy does not inevitably lead to chaos? This same thing could be said of greed - greed is not bad because it does not ALWAYS cause theft, even if it is one of the main factors. Incidentally virtually anything could get off the hook if my opponent was to have his way. I have already demonstrated that slavery, hereditary monarchy and the like are perfectly acceptable by my opponent's reasoning. "I'm not sure where Con is getting this viewpoint. Being patriotic does not necessarily mean believing that everything a country does is right. As I have shown, America is among the most patriotic countries in the world, but it is also sharply divided by politics. Conservatives, liberals, and libertarians all disagree on their fundamental worldviews and each group believes that it's own belief system can solve the current dilemmas or promote a more ethical society." What is patriotic, then, if not standing by one's country? If my opponent agrees with my statement that it is not always right to stand with one's country, then was it patriotic, for example, to be on the Soviet side in the cold war if one believes that it would benefit America to be Soviet controlled? In fact, what we have here is now a meaningless term. If love of one's country means maybe loving one's country sometimes, then means not loving one's country if it chose the wrong system, then you are no longer loving your country, and patriotism is reduced to a 10 letter word with no meaning. "Don't take only America as an example- there are inumerable countries with their own unique cultures that still have internal disparities of values, ethics and politics. While patriotism may influence some of these beliefs, it does not control them entirely and certainly does not prevent a rational judgment of them. It could easily be argued that ideology itself creates more blindness and conflict than patriotism does. Thus, the resolution is affirmed." Is patriotism not an ideology? Once more, if patriotism does not control one's beliefs, values, ethics etc. entirely then it cannot control them at all, as the two will inevitably conflict - see my above reasoning. One additional argument - what if you were born in France, but grew up in Belgium - are you part of France, or are you part of Belgium? Should you be patriotic to France because it is where you were born, or Belgium because it is where you grew up? To say either is to reduce patriotism to a meaningless word. Which, of course, it is.