A HUG is Nearly a GUN Backwards

Let's say that your country was against your friend. Which side would you choose? Would you go defend your friend, betraying your loyalty to the country that you devoted yourself to, or would you let yourself be consumed with patriotism, breaking the trust that you and your friend once took years to build. E.M. Foster argued that personal relations are more important than causes of patriotism and I agree. Turning your back on a friend and siding with a bunch of strangers seemed absurd but considering that patriotic people would do just about anything for their country, they might actually do. Some people might ask to why would someone betray their homeland because of some "friends." Because, unlike patriotism, we make friends with people that we have shared interests with, people whom makes us feel happy and people that we generally like. The difference is with partriotism is that we don't choose what country to be patriotic about. It's usually the country you were born in or the country that you were the most associated with. In a way, it's already predetermined. The pride just came around because of how good it feels to be part of something, binding people together as one  nation. However, regardless of how patriotic one can be, they could never know even 1 percent of the people in their country. So when you devote yourself to your country, you devote yourself to strangers. But what if you move to a different country, what happens to your sense of patriotism. Over the years that sense of pride for that country diminishes and your patriotism start to form to another. The thing is, it's really easy to change your pride to another country and your sense of patriotism can easily come back if you were to move back. Granted that nationalism created people who would protect their people and country and would sacrifice themselves for the sake of  their people and also unifying our nation. A bit of country pride won't hurt, but personal relations are more important. With friends, you don't need a country to bind them together. Friends are always there for you, they'll help you when your in need. With patriotism, you can't really trust strangers to do that for you. Patriotism might help our country be unifid nation, but sacrificing friendship over some land that you were born in will later haunt you with full of regrets.