For the purpose of this poll I am using the definition of Patriot as, a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion. My contention is that although you can be a citizen of any number of countries or choose to live in another country you can only be a true patriot of one. Ultimately you must put the interests of one country above those of another. This may only manifest itself in small biases towards one country but it still exists. Interested to know others opinions.
It's not about dividing your loyalty, but about adding a country to be loyal to. Think to the Atlantic Alliance: an Italian soldier is expected to be loyal also to US, UK, France, Germany ... in a few words to all NATO commanders, despite their nationality and their citizenship. An Italian patriot fighting for NATO, without serving directly Italian interests, would anyway show loyalty to Italy. So that, in case of international alliance, to be a real patriot, you have to show loyalty also to the allies.
I think you need to look at this from a wider point of view. Loyalty to a nation (or nations) isn’t the only element. We all inevitably have multiple loyalties to different groupings and organisations, be they towns, counties/states, nations, regions or families, friends, religions, companies, charities etc. Most of the time these loyalties won’t come in to conflict but there will always be situations where we’re forced to choose between two (or more!). Sometime we might have fundamental priorities (e.g. “family always comes first”, others we might make individual case-by-case decisions or try to find compromises. Regardless, we’re all going to face times where we have to address such conflicts of interest one way or another. In that context, having a two or more countries to which you hold some loyalty isn’t a special issue and there are clearly individual circumstances where that would be an entirely natural position for some people to take. There will be some special situations where determining where an individual’s loyalty would lie in the case of national conflicts but the vast majority of the time, there is no reason for it to cause any greater problem that any of the other divided loyalties I mentioned above.
There is no way that anyone should or can split his loyalties between two countries no more than anyone should have so called dual citizenship. Anyone who claims to be a patriot of two or more countries is first of all a liar and secondly a traitor. Can Weasel Cruz be a patriot of Canada, Cuba, and the USA ? Can RoboRubio be a patriot of Cuba and the USA ? Can Obama be a patriot of the USA and Hawaii ?
So, how did you considered Schwarzenegger? He kept his dual citizenship [and note that Austria concedes dual citizenship only in particular cases]. Was he the governor of California or an Austrian spy infiltrated among the US institutions? Moreover ... if I had to follow your opinion, I would refuse to obey NATO orders not coming from Italian commands, since I can avoid to be loyal to not Italian authorities ... Reality is well more complicated than this: until there is an international alliance, also US soldiers have to be loyal to EU NATO countries [you know, art. 5 ... we have to react to any attack, regardless which NATO member has attacked]. In the moment the international alliance or the bilateral relation ended ... it's all evident that we will be loyal to our own homelands. What else?
We have to make it clear that to be loyal doesn't mean to serve. We all know that it's simply not only wrong, but illegal to "serve" for two countries. But this modern world offers a lot of circumstances in which we work for more than a country, we cooperate with different international subjects, we take part to international military operations [being loyal to whom?] ... so I wouldn't simplify the matter. Otherwise, for extension, we should imagine that we can avoid to honor international trade contracts [why to be loyal to a piece of paper signed with someone who is not loyal to our country?]. In fact we ignore international trade contracts in case of war [contracts with subjects in an enemy country can be ignored, it's obvious]. This is an evidence that at the end there is a limit which cannot be passed about loyalty: conflict [hot or cold, at any level].
I would not see this as an issue, I would expect an Italian Patriot to be loyal to Italy, if Italy is loyal to NATO then it follows that the Italian patriot would be loyal to NATO. However what about someone who considers themselves an Italian Patriot and say a Russian Patriot, if NATO was in conflict with Russia, how could anyone a patriot to both countries?
I was born in England , but I have lived most of my life in America. I'm an American citizen, and America comes first for me. However, I do feel a bond with England.
"All of them" was not a choice. It's only when a conflict arises am that I am forced to choose sides. For instance: I am an ECU fan, and my wife is a UNC fan. We will both support UNC when they're playing, and ECU with they're playing. Only if they play each other do I have to choose sides. I can be a Canadian patriot and a US patriot, and only when there is a conflict between the US and Canada will I have to choose.
I am a Welshman living in England, I think Wales is better off in union with England and the rest of the UK, but if Scotland was to leave the UK I think that Wales would be better off leaving the union. I admit that I would rather see England do a slightly poor deal for England and keep Scotland in the UK because that is what is best for Wales. But If I claimed to be a English and Welsh patriot I would surely be lying?
Are you saying to Italians not to be loyal to President Obama as our Commander in Chief? Good to know ... About Russia ... eh, reality about Italians is that we have been and we are divided between Moscow and Washington. Still today a good part of Italians prefer Moscow to Washington ... and that part of Italians doesn't stand that Italy is member of NATO. Italy is complicated. Those Italians who prefer Moscow to Washington, simply don't recognize NATO treaty, they consider it something coming from NWO or something like that. Many of them are members of the party of our present Prime Minister, Renzi, btw ...
You could well be but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for other people to be patriotic towards both England and Wales and it’s certainly possible to be patriotic towards both Britain and Wales, especially for someone who definitively supports the union. It’s exactly the kind of layered and overlapping reality that leads me to say the simplistic idea that no person could be patriotic to more than one country (certainly to more than one place or grouping alone) is flawed.
