Okay so we are talking about the old world right?

1) Italians fail to unite as a people?
Many reasons, mainly socio-economic. The good ole split between the more Germanic/calm and monetarily wired folks in the North and the swarthy, energetic and creative bambinis of the South goes on and on. You have men who are socialist but don't want abortion, women who are Catholic but want freewheel birth control-communists, facists...it's all considered very cool because everyone seems to be doing their own thing...which makes for a lazy army!

2) Cannot seem to show patriotism?
They do, just not to the government and not to the Vatican...and rightly so. Both entities are antiquated and responsible for idiocy, like stupid divorce laws and colonialism in Africa... so Italians celebrate local politicians, celebrites and the farmers. It's patriotism on a smaller scale. The soccer stuff is out of control in most of Europe-people like to be in packs, what can I say?

3) Cannot seem to grow up and realize there is more to life than soccer and pasta?
Well, we are lazy and it's a problem. My brother, who writes for Rough Guide , put it this way after falling asleep in an Italian post office full of friendly people.:

"...the air in the Roman office was was heavy and still, smelling of paper and ink...the chair was actually quite comfortable...the clock in the office was broken, but that didn't really matter much. Time seemed irrelevant in that room, I became mildly interested in a game of chess...in the Italian post office near the Spanish Steps , there was no hurry at all, and I don't know that there ever will be..."

There you go. We drink a lot of coffee and we still layabout and do nothing.

4) Show more loyalty to their political party then to the country?
Hmmm. If the politcal party hapens to be local then that makes sense because you can control it or at least see what's going on. I would have a hard time being loyal to some of those German clusters in the North, it's just too Weimar Republic for me...