I don't see that line as fine at all. It's pretty clear, distinct and a bright flaming florescent green that can be seen for miles.
A patriot is a supporter of ones country. Perhaps more so, a supporter of the Foundation of that country. A distant relative of mine was a Patriot. Here's a snippet that shows a patriotic position surrounded by Like Minded Patriots in a Functioning System.
After the Revolution, Patrick Henry was an outspoken critic of the United States Constitution and urged against its adoption, arguing it gave the federal government too much power. As a leading Antifederalist, he was instrumental in forcing the adoption of the Bill of Rights to amend the new Constitution. He became a strong opponent of James Madison.
By the late 1790s he was a prominent Federalist in support of Washington and Adams. The irony is that most of his followers became Republicans who supported Jefferson's party. President George Washington offered him the post of Secretary of State in 1795, which he declined.
In 1798 President John Adams nominated him special emissary to France, which he had to decline because of failing health. He strongly supported John Marshall and at the urging of Washington stood for the House of Delegates in 1799 as a staunch Federalist. He especially denounced the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which had been secretly written by Jefferson and Madison, and approved by the legislatures of those two states. He warned that civil war was threatened because Virginia, "had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the Constitution, and, in daring to pronounce upon the validity of federal laws, had gone out of her jurisdiction in a manner not warranted by any authority, and in the highest degree alarming to every considerate man; that such opposition, on the part of Virginia, to the acts of the general government, must beget their enforcement by military power; that this would probably produce civil war, civil war foreign alliances, and that foreign alliances must necessarily end in subjugation to the powers called in."
He was elected to the House of Delegates, but died three months prior to taking his seat. [Tyler, 413-20] He died at Red Hill Plantation, Virginia, in 1799 at the age of 63.
Now, a Patriot can disagree, and intelligently debate and cause change if there is a need to change. A Patriot can stand, side by side another Patriot and argue pros and cons of a situation until decisions are made and directions are plotted.
A Zealot, well, a Zealot would have taken the head of Henry on the first hint of any discussion that went contrary to the established rule. A Zealot is close minded, which by the laws of an ever changing and evolving nature Must be infinitely wrong. This is dangerous, in Religion, in Politics, In Marriage, in anything that requires common decency while interacting with fellow human beings.
A Zealot is never elevated to a leadership position by thinking people, but always by the close minded and self righteous.
