The Difference

[poliphilo]

Here's the difference. You think love of country means "my country right or wrong", whereas I think it means holding my country to a high standard and objecting when it does something stupid or mean. 

Comments

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

...possibly about our own status relative to theirs.

It's worth pointing out that "my country, right or wrong" means that you're not jumping ship; you're not going to simply abandon your country because you disagree with something, you're going to work to change that.

From Wikipedia's entry on Commodore Stephen Decatur:

At one of his social gatherings, Decatur uttered an after-dinner toast that would become famous: "Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!" Carl Schurz would later distill this phrase more famously as, "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like Schurz. That last bit doesn't get quoted so often. In fact I'm not sure I've read it before.

We all recognise limits to patriotism. If a country goes really off the rails- like Nazi Germany for instance- we applaud those who desert her.