It should - but it's not so much about a piece of land, it's about what it represents. As a non-American, the US does still seem to be a 'very patriotic countr

It should - but it's not so much about a piece of land, it's about what it represents. As a non-American, the US does still seem to be a 'very patriotic country' - national anthems played for any reason, standing for flags, pledging allegiance to abstract concepts, USA*n chants to fellow americans etc etc. Not in itself wrong - but always struck me as a bit try-hard on the homogeneity. Darker edge is that it means you (not you specifically, but <i>you</i>) still label people as being "unamerican". Even in political discourse - there seems to be an abstract "America" (that everybody loves) and then criticism from both sides is couched in terms of how the other side is trying to destroy this great abstract. I was just thinking of Eileen Gu and the whole balagan when she chose to compete for China. She's a skier. I can't think of any other country that would get so upset that a national would choose to perform sports for another country.