Patriotism Should Be A Lot Like Patriotism

Replying earlier this month to his critics, George Kateb continues to miss the point:

If patriotism — devotion to the country and obedience to its state for the wrong reasons — has to exist, it should be defensive in temperament and parsimonious in the expenditure of life, including the lives of its enemies, and not mobilize the energies of self-defense and transmute them into the energies of expansion and imperialism.

But that is exactly what patriotism is: devotion to country(stop talking about the state!) and defensive in nature.  Whatever else he is talking about isn’t patriotism.