[Jack_]

See, whilst it's all well and good for everyone to adopt a sense of community spirit, or in this sense national spirit - that sort of attitude doesn't seem to apply when it comes to international spirit, and our love for the planet and its inhabitants. This is where the problem lies for me.

On the whole I think the entire idea of being proud of where you're born, and flashing it around like it's some fancy car is pretty stupid, but it depends how it's done I suppose. Political parties like the BNP disgust me, and their supposed patriotism is just blatant racism and xenophobia, really. I'm all for coming together as a nation when it comes to big events, a bit like the Olympics this year. It's good to be united - but as I've said, the same attitudes never seen to really be applied to the entire world. And this is a problem - because it allows for too much patriotism, where people become obsessed with their country, and start forming xenophobic beliefs and become blinded by their love of it.

I definitely do oppose it in some way, because it just essentially spurs rivalry between other nations...and well, that's not really always a great idea. If people's sense of community spirit was also applied when it came to being proud of this planet and everybody on it, and people could be accepting of that whilst also every now and then adopting some form of competitiveness, then I'd see no problem. Patriotism in its current form...well, it has it's good points like I've listed, but it's often pretty stupid. And of course, like everything, some people have to go overboard.