"Wargaming & Patriotism? Yes!" Topic

You were asked – TMP link

Do you have any armies from your country?

50% said "I have armies from my own country"
31% said "I have armies from my own country, but not because of patriotism"
9% said "I do not have armies from my own country"

This poll made no sense. By adding the line to the second choice "…But not because of patriotism." Changed the entire poll. There should have been only two choices the 1st choice or the third one. Either you have figures from your own country or you don't.

If you want to address the motivation for it. Then you need to change #1 and #3 to conform to #2. "Why do you or don't you have armies from your own country. Otherwise it is a loaded question. It's like the old line, Yes or no, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

If you picked number two or three then your not a patriot. So weird. Useless poll.

It allowed you to indicate if you had armies for your own country, and if it was related to patriotism or not.

I guess I have a difficult time equating wargaming and patriotism. The poll made no sense to me. It was set up to give the answer the pollster wanted.

I also had a hard time equating which wargaming armies I have to patriotism. That's why the second choice made sense to me.

Not a loaded question at all. If I were asked "Do you have roast turkey lunchmeat as a symbol of your patriotism?" I would want the option to say "I have roast turkey lunchmeat, and have no idea how that relates to patriotism."

Without that option, it is a loaded question. It conflates an objective fact (which armies I have) with a cognitive state (for what do I feel patriotism) and a decision process (why did I pick those armies).

Are the people from countries not involved in WW2 but play Flame of War (or any other set of WW2 rules) unpatriotic? What about the British, American, French people who German armies?

Are Americans who wargame the Zulu war unpatriotic?

In this day and age the last thing we need is people being judged on their level of patriotism due to the toys they own.

My first choices in wargaming were because of Wargamer's Digest. They were based on whatever articles I read Re: American Civil War, a favorite period of mine, and Napoleonic Wars, a newer favorite. My first historical ACW game was with Bill Rutherford at a mixed gaming group in McLean VA. Yep. D and D and fantasy. I later looked at AWI, Ancients, ECW, and WW2. Much later the Franco-Prussian War caught my eye with the Foundry figures. You could have put Ancient Biblical Chinese Chaldeans in there and I might have wanted it. An idea I did like was to play the American topics mainly like ACW, AWI, the Old West etc. Those who may have proposed these periods likely had some multi-period rules sets that could be adapted one to another. Of course Empire came along. I played it.
Although there is a patriotic motivation for some of this for me, it did not directly influence what I played or who I played it with. It takes all kinds and by golly we've got all kinds in wargaming.

No, not currently, I don't think the US, aka the colonies, had any troops in Europe during the SYW, and would somebody please tell me how exactly does a persons choice of wargames armies relate to patriotism?