An Important Distinction [Saturday Morning Breakfast cereal]

Nah.

Patriots would be there waving a giant flag saying we’re the best house ever, despite not actually being involved in building the house or having anything to do with the state of it outside of living in it.

Patriotism and nationalism has zero place in society.

We need to build a shared culture so that we can work together.
My house will become the best house should be a message we all can get around. Otherwise, why should I work with you to build society?
If you don't like shared work or shared culture to begin with, it's a bit problematic in that your own political ideologies are destined to die. At the very minimum, your ideology must be self sustaining.
- Why this house should be the best? Why make it a competition? Who cares about the house?
  We care about the people living in the house. And about the people living in other houses too.
Patriotism and nationalism has zero place in society.
Not true. Patriotism is wanting and seeking the best for your country. Because our society relies on those physical divides, patriotism would actually improve society. Nationalism is deciding that whatever your country is doing already is the best simply by virtue of self-identification. There is no desire for improvement outside of an individual perception so it, functionally, can never offer any improvement for society.
One is potentially beneficial. The other is cancerous.
- One is cancerous, the other is a benign tumor (for now).
Yup. The main difference between a patriot and a nationalist - or fascist - is a few years and an opportunity.
- Last time I checked, we were able to deploy the Office of Censorship to censor US Postal Mail. Conscript Disney and Loony Tunes to build up a massive database of wartime propaganda. Use it to influence the entirety of the US Civilians. Use it to drum up support for War Bonds to help expand the US Debt to pay for the war, raise taxes to 90% on the highest end and build a better country while defeating both Fascism and Communism.
  We, as a country, decided that desperate times called for desperate measures. And not only that, we also got rid of these dangerous emergency powers (of explicit Censorship / War Information / Propaganda) before we corrupted our society into an irreversible state.
  And therein lies the problem with people who just yell "fascism" whenever they disagree with someone. Yall obviously don't know the history of this country.
Ok so let's entertain the opposite of patriotism and talk about self distane what is going to drive you to fix the crumbling rotting foundation or leaky roof because who cares if this crummy house rots and collapses on me if you don't care about your county then you won't have the drive to maintain it sure some might but those people who don't need motivation to do things are rare and far between if the world is hopeless then what hope is there of fixing it
- Is pride the only reason you take care of your health?
  Because the motivation to not live in a shit place should be that you wouldn’t want to be living in a shit place, not because you think it’s great.

I take issue with the first panel.

To me, patriotism is "I'm going to work on my house because I love the people who live in it and I want them all to have the best house."

If you start from the assumption that your country is the "best" that's nationalism and straying too close to the roots of xenophobia.

Yeah, it's maybe the greatest difference between Patriotism and Nationalism: the former is all about "I'll work to make my house the best house" whilst the latter is about "Yield to me, as I am from the best house".
Patriots want their country to be the best country, Nationalist want to extract gains from living in what they think is the best country.
You'll notice that the only things Nationalists ever do for their country are things like "stopping others from coming here" or "celebrating the greatness of their country", which aren't at all about making the country better.
Words are defined by how they're used.

Conservative's patriotism is mostly virtue signaling in my experience.

You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares “that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient.”
Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.

Mark Twain, "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court"

Patriotism and Nationalism are basically the same thing. The distinction is nonsensical, especially in this context.

good ol' Lemmy's lack of nuance.
- Also, if you vote, you are ethnically tied to, and guilty of, every decision and moral misstep of that politician until the end of time.

Can we not do politics? I generally like the comics sub, but my exposure to politics on lemmy, social media, wherever is at such all time peak nonsensical levels that I just block all politic related subs, and would like this not to be one of them.

That's a fair point. I can try to avoid politics in this community in the future.
As for this post, I'll defer to the community mod to either leave it up or take it down. No hard feelings from me either way.

What a dumbass take.

The difference is much simpler. Patriotism for internal conflicts, nationalism for external conflicts. Both for manufactured Boogeymen fueled by malicious propaganda.

Talk about dumbass takes..
- I did talk. You didn't. This comment of yours.... Zero substance. Not even dumb, just empty.

Also patriotism: This house sucks, and it's because of these fucking immigrants

Are you voting Republican or Libertarian?

I am the queen of France (drums start) (wavy arm dance begin)

But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile. - Patrick O'Brien

Chauvinism ≠ nationalism

Ireland and quebec are nationalist, they want to become independent from englad. Its about sovereignty.

Chauvinism is fanatical adoration of a person, a group or a belief like the maga side of the republican.

I would say patriotism is when you love the ideas a nation is built on and stands for, while nationalism is when you love the people and history of a nation.

As a european it's very hard to love the former, since we've been here for more than a thousand years meaning whatever ideas our forefathers might have had in mind are rightfully gone now. However over this time we developed our own culture and became a nation of people which we can love instead.

Nationalism doesn't have to be toxic as it's often depicted, if someone belives their nation is "better" that's called chauvinism. Nationalism is just when you feel your nation is special for you at least and that makes you want to better it.

if you want to make up new definitions for your own language that is similar to, but not quite like English, that's up to you.
I don't think that your differentiazion between patriotism and nationalism is correct. Nationalism always began with the invention of nations through national movements. The nation building in europe began in the 18th century, not a thousand years ago. Nationalism always refers to the invented history of a nation ("a thousand years ago"), while patriotism can refer to the political system or the constitutional documents.
I think both are awful because there is a really fine line to chauvinism. The positive view of oneselfes too often comes with the devaluation of others.

Ironic if P had a bit more of N he wouldn't be absorbed that easy

Patriotism also sucks, because it implements a bias that can then be exploited, and brings very little to the table.

State-level patriotism also makes you complicit in the division of people by countries and nations, as opposed to classes and other valid groups of people.

And there is no valid reason to have some special relation to your country. It is natural to feel ties with the place you were born or the place you spent a lot of time in, this is human psychology, but your country is nothing but a piece of land that was marked by somebody as belonging to some virtual entity.

We should ditch state-level patriotism as a concept and treat local-level patriotism as a natural bias. We should strive to help people of all places and origins, and come together as one.

Instead of local-level should it not be headed towards planet-level?
There’s no “special” reason to view the adults you grew up with as better or worse caretakers. Statistically, it’s likely they’re equivalent to many others.
Still, this over application of logic refuses to let us be enthusiastic about anything unless there’s a scientifically documented reason towards it. It’s nice to have reasons to adore something, even if that thing is a country - but the comic is making the point that you should still want to find flaws in and improve that thing.

How many languages outside of English even have a word for patriotism?