[GoNative]

I think over the years MMM, especially in the West we've come to use the pride word overly much. As we grow up most of us are told to be proud of ourselves, proud of our school, proud of our house, proud of our work, proud of this and proud of that. It's become so that we we should take pride in almost everything we do, even the most mundane of things. Even in christian countries like the US in which pride is one of the 7 deadly sins, we see pride being promoted aas one of the great virtues! So yes pride can be completely innocuous. My point though is that it can also be a slippery slope, not that it is always a bad thing but it can be the catalyst for many bad things. It's a matter of degrees. I just always get a little worried when governments try and stir up patriotism. Often precedes them doing some pretty bad stuff in my experience and helps to reduce criticism because any criticism is then labelled unpatriotic.