George Orwell had an interesting take on this distinction….

“Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally”

“Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.”

“Nationalist political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties”

“All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts…….

The Past

…..Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labor, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral color when committed by ‘our’ side.…

….The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

“Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connection with the physical world”

Happy b’day America.