Patriotism has nothing to do with values

Anne Maria Waters  (former leading figure in the British party UKIP) said today:

"It's very interesting to discover that "patriots" in Europe and America actually hate our beautiful Western civilisation and would prefer to live under the tyranny of monsters like Putin." 

I largely agree but want to say something about patriots.

I do not like Putin or what I suppose is his tyranny, but patriotism is nothing to do with civilisation - or democracy or values. 

It's simply love of ones country and ones forefathers.

Mr Trump reminds me of Enoch Powell talking about this with Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Philosophy Group at Peterhouse, Cambridge (the college I wish I'd gone to), as described by John Casey.

'Edward Norman (then Dean of Peterhouse) had attempted to mount a Christian argument for nuclear weapons. The discussion moved on to ‘Western values’. Mrs Thatcher said (in effect) that Norman had shown that the Bomb was necessary for the defence of our values. Powell: ‘No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government.’ Thatcher (it was just before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands): ‘Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.’ ‘No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.’ Mrs Thatcher looked utterly baffled. She had just been presented with the difference between Toryism and American Republicanism. (Mr Blair would have been equally baffled.)'