I tend to agree with Matt Yglesias that there's not much real difference between the left's version of patriotism and the right's version thereof. The idea that the left sees dissent as the greatest expression of patriotism and that the right just likes what America does, right or wrong, is clearly not correct to anyone who has, well, talked to a conservative person before. They dissent on many things that America does--like, say, abortion rights--and consciously work to make the country better according to the dictates of their respective consciences. Now, I'm not sure this is necessarily out of a patriotic motivation, but it's difficult to argue that dissent and patriotism are incompatible if you're one of these folks. Also, I wonder just how many of these conservatives really believe that liberals hate America. It's always seemed like a pretty cynical construct to me.
I suppose the major difference between the different (outward) forms of patriotism is that the left's version isn't all that exclusionary. I don't recall a single time a liberal has called a conservative unAmerican ever. And I think that's why saying, for example, that America's policy of torturing people is unAmerican would be a good thing for the left, because it is and also because liberals tend to find such charges icky in general but here it's true. America's never done it before. We generally believe in treating people humanely. Most of us, anyway. Hearing, say, Barack Obama tossing around charges that X is anti-American because he/she supports torture would have a certain novelty to it. Liberals have become so stigmatized by patriotism attacks that they no doubt find them distasteful, but in this case it happens to be true. I wonder if there are any other issues where this would work. Maybe immigrant-bashing as America's generally been pretty accepting of outsiders who come here to work, though there's been a pretty strong anti-immigrant tradition in American history as well.
