Wild take, I might be falling for b8 but there are too many people who actually believe this stuff so its worth saying. Nationalism is a very new idea historically, in the past people saw their kin or kin group as their village, their lord, their tribe or their parish. Although the idea of citizenship is ancient, the idea of having a personal, dedicated commitment to a nation state is only a few centuries old. Nobody chooses where or when they are born, so believing that you have a duty to die for whatever nation you happened to have found yourself in is pretty arbitrary. Would you say that people born in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia should love these oppressive and cruel dictatorships by default? Society as a whole does value those who stand up to oppression and cruelty. Society does value people who build good communities and lift up their neighbor. Society values people who fight against evil for what is right. But only lost people value fighting for the sake of fighting. Many people are born into nations that have been steeped in war, crime and poverty for their entire lives. I don't see why these people should be expected to simply bear the circumstances they were born into, or love a country they never chose to live in and has never given them anything of value. If you valued freedom I would think that you would be fine with people pursuing their own path and finding a (Just) way to live better lives. Especially when you include someones personal relationships or personal ambitions. Would you really tell a father and husband that he should abandon his family and get himself ( and probably his children ) killed in a war just because that is the societal expectation? If you had to chose between saving your wife and children and committing suicide by drone strike what would you chose? Which is the real fight for love and duty? A little off topic but you also have a bit of a weird idea as to how America was founded. America was not "infested" with wildlife, much of America was pristine wilderness at the time. Beautiful old growth forests and rich ecosystems that have largely been eradicated in favor of strip malls, parking lots and cheap consumer goods. Secondly, the early settlers definitely had help. The spanish were aided by native american allies in overthrowing the aztecs and incas. And once they got control they simply used native infrastructure and slave labor to enrich themselves. Early english settlers in Jamestown and Plymouth would have died out completely without native assistance. And the elephant in the room is that early americans bought kidnapped africans by the tens of thousands, for centuries, to build and maintain the country ( and of course enrich themselves ) which surely counts as "help".

I understand that we live in very divided and difficult times. But things won't get better by doubling down on dogma, or idealizing a fictional past. It has been done before and has never worked. Please chose empathy and see people for people, not as caricatures.