It seems that American patriotism measures itself against an outcast group. The right Americans are the right Americans because they're not like the wrong Americans who are not really Americans.
There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made between patriotism which is attachment to a way of life and nationalism which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.
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The higher American patriotism on the other hand combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise.
