Patriotism is OK, But We Need Facts and Reason, Not Blind Obedience to Authority
ANY outsourcing of "trust" to somebody else is dangerous. It renders oneself subservient to somebody else's interests - potentially competing interests that are harmful to oneself. The example we've just given is GNU/Linux users letting Microsoft decide what's "safe" and what's "unsafe". In wartime that typically means letting some politician or an elected party decide for oneself.
Patriotism typically means loyalty to a group at the level (or scope) of a nation. At a finer scale there are religions, families, trades, and all sorts of other things. It is a macro-versus-micro thing. "Paternalism" and "Patriotism" aren't the same.
A moral society can overcome the concept of groupthink and encourage people to think (and decide) for themselves, especially grown-ups. A lot of "modern" technology, whereby people installing their own software gets maligned/demonised as "sideloading", represents the infantalisation off society. Stop treating all adults like children, sucking off the teat of the 'Bill Gates class'.
The internalisation of self-sufficiency in the digital realm will determine one's mental wellbeing. Thankfully more people learn to reject "smart" phones and social control media, which is all about groupthink. Very seldom in the history of human civilisation has groupthink proven to be of real merit. █