First off, by itself, the fact that one group is more or less patriotic than another group seems fairly meaningless. Peanuts are less proud to be American than me, and I'm not American at all. At the other end of the scale, someone who was really, very, extremely patriotic could still be said to be less proud to be American than someone who was just outright nutty about it. The statement that Conservatives are more proud to be American than Liberals carries very little actual value, because from the numbers it's more a case that one group is very proud on the whole to be American, and the other group is just a small bit more proud.

But that gets me thinking about other things. You give your statement a thumbs up, implying that you approve of it. But is patriotism an infinitely positive personal feature? I would say that it's not. It's entirely possible to be too patriotic, just as it's possible to be too fundamentally religious or too socialistic or too full of meaty goodness (it makes you a more tempting target for velociraptor attacks). Too much patriotism could in theory lead to unfortunate consequences; for example a person might approve of what the government does no matter how out of line the action, or a person might reach a point where anyone who is not from their country is considered automatically an enemy.

So if it's possible to be too patriotic, then there's no way to tell, from this poll, where that line exists, and whether or not being "more proud to be American" than someone else is a good thing. If, for example, anyone who rolls a 19 or 20 on their Patriotism score qualifies as "too patriotic", then saying Group A (the too patriotic group) is more proud to be American than Group B (the just right patriotic group) is actually a negative statement. It wouldn't deserve your thumbs up at all.

After that, I think about the very nature of equating patriotism with a thumbs up sign on any level. Patriotism by itself is not equated with how good or how bad a person is. It's a powerful force, and it helps to bind people together into nations, but I would argue that it's inherently neither good nor bad. A person can be very patriotic and also a very good person. Someone could also be very unpatriotic, or neutral, and still be a very good person. Likewise, a person can be very patriotic and also be a very bad person, and can be unpatriotic/neutral and still be a very bad person.

So if patriotism is divorced from the concept of personal morality, then how is it either good or bad? And how can having more of less of it than another group be positive or negative?

I suppose it's valid enough if you personally value patriotism as a positive characteristic, ignoring the issue of too much patriotism and ignoring the fact that patriotism doesn't equal morality. But then I fall into another question. How does being proud to be American work, exactly?

I think it's safe to say that most people who are "proud to be American" did not actually do anything to become American. There was no accomplishment involved. They didn't pass a test to become American, or overcome some sort of obstacle. They were simply born that way. If they had been born somewhere else, there's a fair chance they would feel proud to be that other thing instead. It's just an automatic reaction to being born somewhere reasonably good.

But even if we ignore that, what is there for a person to be personally proud of about being American (or any other nationality)? Being American is not an accomplishment (ie. something to be proud of); it's only a state of citizenship/birth. It's a bit like saying you're proud to be a man, isn't it? Unless you're transgendered, you probably didn't do anything to become a man. It's like saying you're proud to breathe air.

I mean, think about it. What's the opposite of pride? Disappointment. So if you weren't an American, would you be ... disappointed in yourself? Of course not. That wouldn't make sense at all. It wouldn't be any fault of yours if you weren't born American. The world has seven billion people, and only about four percent of those are Americans. But if you can't be disappointed to not be an American, then it's hard to say you can be proud of being an American, because it's the same thing.

It would be better, it seems, to say that you're happy to be American. That one makes sense, and no one could begrudge it. I'm certainly happy to be Canadian.

I wonder if the poll would have different results if that were the question being asked. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. If the results were the same, then I suppose you could say that Conservatives are happier to be American than Liberals. And being happy is a positive thing, so I couldn't even worry about the thumbs-up for a statement like that.

Another way to ask the question that I'd be interested in, would be to ask if a person is proud of what America does. That's something you can be legitimately proud or not proud of, since America's actions are influenced by its voters, and so each individual has a small role to play in those actions. You'd have to get more specific, though; America does a lot of things, it's like the world's greatest multi-tasker.

If I had a point, I'm fairly certain I lost it somewhere. But the short version is, your poll is causing me to think too much.