Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism, let me illustrate.
Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate.
Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others. Hopefully it goes without saying that nationalism, in any form, is totally incompatible with anarcho-syndicalism. As is often stated, national boundaries are flukes of history and geography - the results of hundreds of years of political machinations by robber barons throughout the last millennium or so who use and abuse ordinary people in their search for glory, power and wealth. The nation can be seen as the gangster s turf, an area marked by bloody skirmishes in which the real beneficiaries rarely take part.