system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Loving your country is an archaic, nationalistic practice and has no place in modern society.

Edit: My title is flawed in that when addressing nationalism I failed to account for countries where people choose to be proud of their country and its spirit after being properly and fairly educated. In this CMV, I am mainly targeting "forced nationalism," where this pride is instilled through predatory, dishonest means such as America. Here's a better title:

A government that uses dishonest and predatory means to generate love for its country fosters a hostile, ignorant environment that has no place in modern society.

I still remember the sound of children droning the pledge of allegiance to the flag every morning before school started. It felt so creepy now that I think about it. Replace the flag with any other object and it would literally be an image of a fanatical cult, worshipping an object that doesn't really have any true significance.

From birth, we are taught to love our country unconditionally. Now, with Trump presenting an idea called "patriotic education," where history is literally rewritten to present America as a country that can do no wrong in order to make is sickening. We all know what grooming is- it's a creepy adult taking advantage of a child's naivete to manipulate them to behave in a way that benefits the adult. This is no different. We are grooming children through biased history in order to have them place their complete trust in a country that, honestly, doesn't deserve that trust. The scariest part is that the government knows exactly what it's doing. It knows that people are thinking too much for themselves, and Americans are no longer the sheep that they can just fire up and weaponize with some buzzwords like "patriotic," "freedom," and "liberty." The government needs to indoctrinate the children while they're young because it **knows** that they'll hate the country if they're shown the truth, so instead of owning up to it, the government hides the truth. See how Tiananmen Squarey this sounds? You should trust a country on your own accord, not because someone forced those beliefs onto you in your impressionable youth.

At the core of it, pledge of allegiance and patriotic education notwithstanding, the entire idea of loving your own country is just plain weird. Like sure, I happened to be born on this part of the giant rock we call Earth. That doesn't mean I have to love the land, I just live here. The idea of "loving your country" only serves as a purpose to brainwash its people and use "the country" as an excuse for the government to do whatever they please to the people. "You're going to war to die **for our country**." It's like they are trying to train every child to be like a sleeper agent that will only be activated through patriotic spirit- it clouds logical reasoning, and it promotes thinking based on emotions- after all, love is an inherently obsessive emotion- it causes you to see the subject in rose colored lens, and still be attracted to them no matter what. It's ok to be proud that you get to live in a good country. But to be forced to obsessively love it no matter how much wrong it has done has no place in a modern, civilized society.

Sure, this type of thinking may have gotten us through the old times as tribal people when it was important that every man was able to fight for their clan with no hesitation, nowadays it's meaningless. If anything, it only promotes violence between countries, and hostility between people; all because they happened to be born in different places. It causes people in more powerful countries to feel a superiority complex, which is a precursor to racism, and ultimately drives humanity as a whole further apart.
gpt
Love of country is a subjective value.  It can and is destructive, but so is any value structure where you prioritize a group over non-group or place over another place.  All of these are equally so, so which is unethical?

1. Love of family
2. Love of neighborhood
3. Love of city
4. Love of region
5. Love of like-minded people
6. Love of country

For places:

1. Love of your home (property/land)
2. Love of neighborhood
3. Love of city
4. Love of region
5. Love of this ecological system
6. Love of country

Where do you draw the line, and how is that philosophically justified?