Brief thought on nationalism vs. patriotism

It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.– Thomas Paine
This quote highlights the difference between patriotism and nationalism as I have come to understand it. Patriotism exults in all that is good about one's homeland, including good government, but encourages people to modify and even replace their government if doing so is in the interest of their countrymen and posterity. Nationalism is where patriotism ends up when people begin to associate country and government too closely; nationalists tend towards tolerating the aggrandizement of their government as an acceptable price for improving the national interest even when it abridges the freedom of other people, at home or abroad.
My distrust of government is simply a distrust of human nature, but in an organized wrapper, because that's all that government really is. When we are governed "of the people, by the people, and for the people", we are governed best. But our current governmental only does lip service to that ideal. It is really ruled by a small band of selfish humans who have concentrated the power for themselves. Their representation of the people's wishes is manipulative and whenever they disagree with "the people" they do what they want behind closed doors.
Sorry to sound so cynical, but that is my experience with reality.
Source: withheld upon request