A Short Essay on The Reality of Conflict and Patriotism

About three million years ago, when men first assembled into tribes, first for hunting and gathering so that all in the tribes might survive, then to annihilate if possible the men, and sometimes the women and children, of other tribes whom they’d learned posed a threat to them, actual or imagined or falsely stated, it sometimes occurred after some of these expeditions that a small party of the new veterans returned to the home sites of their tribes, to declare that the killing they had committed was wrong, particularly as their rulers had been mistaken, or had intentionally mislead the tribe, just as they mislead themselves for the sake of treacherous aims.  

  “Why do you hate your country?” the tribes peoples asked, when their rulers were spoken about in this way. “Why do you not support the troops?” they asked, jumping to another delusion.       And so this missing of the point, this misrepresentation of those with sight by those who need to blind all others, this subsequent self-deception en mass, illustrated and pronounced by simplistic questions and statements, over what is right and what is not, what is good and what is evil, and the confusion that patriotism is obedience to the designs of the government and not loyalty to the best, developed instincts such as may exist in a nation, continues. 
 I honor the men, and now women, who face violence in our name, whether honestly or dishonestly, or mistakenly, sent to places of violence, for their personal courage and stamina against fear. For me and others like me, on the matter of patriotism, we do not confuse agreement with government policy, with the President, for that loyalty which we freely give by rational choice and love of real democracy to The Constitution of the United States, and to the very best of American values.   

  We support the troops, not in carrying out any mission that may be wrongful or stupid, but because they are our fellow citizens, and as such deserve the right to live in relative peace. We support the troops perhaps better than many others: we would bring them home, return them from harm’s way, from those places and situations where they need not actually be.