True patriotism is similar to love for your parents.

You appreciate and acknowledge the traditions and culture of how they raised you. You understand that they aren't perfect, and accept their shortcomings. You are proud to tell people that they are your parents, and share stories of what they have done for you. And you do what you can to protect them if they are in danger or need help.

And false patriotism is a lot like false love for your parents.

Reluctantly obeying your parents out of fear, is not love. Being lied to and manipulated by your parents to trick you into loving them, is not real love.

If you truly loved your parents, and they were making destructive choices, you wouldn't stand by, say "I love them, so they must know best!" and watch them destroy themselves. You would take action to get them help and get them back on track.

No it wasn't...

America was "founded" because the people who got rich early from none forcement of smuggling didn't want to just stand by while the English government started to finally collect on due taxes.

It's fucking crazy people still believe the shit we learned in elementary school.

It was "new money" revolting against "old money" and they only won because the French royal family wouldn't too piss off the English royal so much it cost them their heads.

One of my high school history teachers defined patriotism as questioning your government. "Is this right? Is this best for the majority? How will it help the People instead of the people in charge? etc." I think that's how I would define it now, too. Not blind support but unending questioning to ensure the country and government work for the people it is supposed to represent.

The American war for independence is a pretty anemic "revolution". Think about the material conditions of the average American before and after. Now compare that to revolutionary France, Haiti, or Russia.

It's almost embarrassing to say your fighting for "freedom" when right next door, literal enslaved people were throwing Napoleon's army into the sea with machetes.

The USA was founded in tax cheating and white supremacy.

For clarity: one of "The Intolerable Acts" was that the first nations of North America owned their land, particualrly the Ohio River Valley and all lands east of it and had the right to it.

Another was the stamp act that would stamp out bank fraud that was extremely rampant across the elite of the colonies. Even many of the founding fathers made money with it.

A very specific revolt, not general revolt. There were lots of revolts happening. The native inhabitants were revolting against the white European settlers. The black slaves were revolting against the white European settlers. Hell, the poor working class white European settlers were revolting against the slave-owning white European settlers.

The USA was founded in the revolt of the rich white landowning slave-owning European settlers against the British monarchy because the rich white landowning slave-owning European settlers believed the crown was violating their rights to commit genocide against the natives, steal their land, and make super profits.

The people who won had no problem crushing slave revolts, indian revolts, and working class revolts. By sheer numbers, the USA was built more on crushing revolt than on revolt itself.

Here's a historian's take https://youtu.be/LePA0dHJtZw

During the Revolution, the people who supported Indepndence and the Continental Army were called Patriots. They were the citizens that wanted a free nation. Today, those who still adhere to the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, are Patriots. Those who don't, are Seditious Traitors.

MGA will say they respect those documents, but they spend all their efforts trying to find loopholes, convincing SCOTUS to rule AGAINST it, propagandizing against it, etc. They clearly don't respect the Constitution at all, and that makes them NOT Patriots, it makes them Seditious Traitors.

If you care about a free America, with the Constitution as the law of the land, and not the whims of a psychopath, then you're a Patriot. If you support MAGA and Trump, you are a violent, corrupt, traitor, racist, misogynist, xenophobe, ignorant, incompetent, and a pedophile.