Isn't it rather narcissistic to love (or hate) your country? You are it and it is you. Before you love something in one of the usual senses, doesn't there have to be a distance? We love what we have (de)parted from. Unless we delude ourselves with mirrors.
I find America fascinating, but I'm an extraterrestrial and it's a circus and I know that any morning, even before the stars have faded, the stakes may be pulled, the tents folded, the wagons rolling down the road, leaving me in the fields with nothing but a used ticket and no idea when the mother ship is going to return.
-- Gordon