Would you die for your country?and if you would why?

No.

You didn’t ask why I wouldn’t, but whatever. The country you live in is a pretty arbitrary thing to defend, especially with your life.

Depeds on the circumstanses, but generally speaking, yes!

I’m with Ivan – no.

Not for my country. But I would if shit was like Red Dawn. I would unlock the gun cabinet to keep my family safe.

I would defend my wife and children and myself. I would also try to protect someone who is defenseless.

It really depends on the circumstances. I’ve had this discussion before and my point of view is each country is kind of like a ship in the ocean. And if it starts to sink, everyone has an interest in helping and risking their lives to help it because if it goes down, we all drown. I mean if your country gets attacked or is attacking because it needs to survive, or strengthen its position then you risk to gain, and lose everything. I mean if your country was invaded, where would you go? Its not like you can just immigrate in mass to another country at that point, you really are stuck. Would you just accept the shitty circumstances and let everything go to hell, or would you try and fight for the values and life you want/had. I don’t think the question is would you die for your country, no one wants to die for their country. But I think most people would risk their life to keep what they have or improve their situation.

p.s. welcome to fluther.

Yes but not for corporate but for true patriotism.
Jesus said there’s no greater love than for one to die for his friend.

Nope. I can serve it better alive.

No. I assume it means going to war. I would never participate in a war. There is no meaning in being dead. Especially for something so pointless.

I would never die for anything – except if my son needed my body parts for some reason – but I would risk my life for many people.

What @johnpowell said. Exactly.

I might die for the people in it.

No.

No.

I think so.

Yes, Like many people have before me. It will sound stupid to many but I believe in MY country even with all of the problems it has. If some one is not ready to die for thier country, Prepare to be overrun.

No. I would for my family, but not for the country. Depends on the situation though.

I am not a military scientist or psychologist who has deeply studied these things… but from what I have read, men in combat are really more motivated to risk death out of loyalty to their immediate comrades or from fear of “letting them down”/“being seen as a coward” than for abstract principles like patriotism. Not to say that patriotism doesn’t enter into it, but the bonds men form in military units are extremely strong. (I will stick with “men” because these books I’ve read haven’t dealt with the issue of women in ground combat.)

No.

A “country” is an artificial concept and thus I wouldn’t sacrifice myself for it, because “it” isn’t truly real to me – it’s just an arbitrary construct.

Dying for someone is another issue entirely. Unlike a country, that person is a real, tangible, meaningful thing, and thus my answer might be different.

I might sacrifice my life for the lives and/or well-being of other people, but if it goes at the cost of the lives and/or well-being of yet other people, it would be a poor choice. Where all the people involved happen to live would not factor into this consideration.

One of the Things I Do Not Understand is why the stigma around racism has managed to be extended to ridiculous lengths with words like “ageism” and “speciesism”, yet it still hasn’t reached patriotism. You are pretty much saying “everyone living here is superior to everyone living there.”

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen, Dulce Et Decorum Est