@silentsoundsystem - Thanks for commenting.

 My love and loyalty(and not pride) is to the land where I was born, not the political system that governs it. I take pride in my own accomplishments, not those of others. A competitive spirit is good if others were respected. I'm not against pride all together. But, judging by what I've seen so far, people have no competitive spirit whatsoever. If one team is beaten in a game, its people start bashing the wining one out of (too much pride) to accept the end result.

As far as I can see, no real patriot harbors much of a respect to any other nation.

I'll give you an example from the same environment where I grew. No reformist, writer or thinker , or even a normal citizen is allowed to give a single honest opinion about something negative in his own society before he is totally bashed and considered an infidel as if that person denied the very existence of god! How are we supposed to move forward if we are being held back by blind patriots who thing that the nation where they live is perfect?! how are we supposed to protect other nations from this pride and arrogance that nearly caused the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan?

I'll give you an example from history. England, and other European nations thought of African countries as inferior to them and sought out to (reform) them and ended up making their lives a living hell! Did those patriots see the suffering of those people? no, they couldn't. why? cause too much pride in their country prevented them from seeing the truth. that their country was actually robbing people off their lives rather than making them better as they claimed...

if people can't see the right and wrong even in matters of war, matters of massacring people like cattle, how will they be able to accept something of a less importance like games??

If those proud blind creatures did not exist, if the concept of patriotism did not exist, we would have been able to put an end to the governments' foolishness. but because people are too blind to see their countries' shortcomings, because their countries are always right, because their countries can never do something wrong, injustice against weaker nations will prevail.

I admit that my views are the somewhat other extreme of patriotism, but it's only a reaction to what I see around. My country itself, has the largest number of blind patriots. only one country in my mind can be compared with my own in number over the extreme patriotism thing, and I'm not going to mention the name of that country to avoid misunderstandings

I'm not going to use a theological point of view and tell you that pride is a sin; however, what did people gain from too much pride anyways?

@bricebanner - thank you so much for such a wonderful comment.

George Bernard Shaw is the greatest writer ever!

I've never came across those qoutes before. thank you so much for adding them