33:15 PM 3/18/2006 Macro90
What are laws? Government is defined at the entity that has most power among a group of people. Thus if the mafia controls the government then the mafia is by definition the government since the mafia has most power. Government with this monopoly on power uses it to set a standard of right or wrong and enforces this standard with its power.
An alternate definition of patriotism is not love of government but love of the people ruled by the government. Government and people are different things. Imagine a group of kids in a pre-school and the strongest boy in the group uses his muscles to gather all the males together and form a group. The group of all boys is a country ruled by that strongest boy, who is the government. Patriotism occurs when the boys who are members of this country (1) love this strong boy and this is like loyalty to government and/or (2) love other boys, i.e. love members of the same group. Either way, the members of this country have a bias towards members of their own group and the group is defined by the strongest boy. In other words, patriotism is love of select people and this selective love is in the hands of the entity with the most power. The boys under the control of this strongest boy, if they have patriotism, will show a bias towards members of their own group and thus they like less those not in the group, i.e. all females in the pre-school. In this example, patriotism sexism simply because the entity in power has selective groups based upon whether they are male or female. The entity in power has control of who is a member or not and since a patriot likes people who the entity in power choses, then whomever a patriot likes is in the hands of the government.
So in that way, patriotism is obedience to government since government defines those you like.