Patriotism?

patriotism: (dicionary.reference.com)
love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it
and
devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.


There is, I believe, a big difference in these definitions and the contemporary notion of patriotism. Many people today appear to believe that patriotism is equivocal to blindly following the government and the rest of the majority. This may be considered patriotism in totalitarian countries, but not in any free nation. In a free nation, part of showing your love for the rights you have is using those rights. Speak up when you disagree, make changes.

There are at least two things that I have found that may be part of the problem (I am sure I can think of more, given time):

1. People don't know what it means to be patriotic
2. People don't know their rights. I commented on this on one of Nick's blog entries. People don't know enough about their rights to realize when to use them and when they are taken away. If they knew about this, then I think that a lot more people would be standing up for what they believe in and being truly American.