Following through on your analogy, though, this would be akin to "secondary patriotism" - responding to criticism of your country with mitigation: "well, we've

Following through on your analogy, though, this would be akin to "secondary patriotism" - responding to criticism of your country with mitigation: "well, we've done bad things, but at least we have mechanisms for internal criticism and improvement". Put that way it doesn't sound so bad.