Citizens and 'serving your country'
I do not claim to be a "citizen" although the US government would label me in that way. I emphatically assert that I do not belong to any government. I did not consent to be "represented" or ruled. I don't buy into the lie of "implied consent". I did not sign any constitution so I do not agree to be "governed" even if a government actually obeyed that document. I do not need governmental protection from anything. There is nothing in it for me or for anything I value, and there is nothing I am willing to voluntarily give any government, anywhere on this planet or any other. Nothing, that is, except the cold shoulder, or if pressed, contempt. If anything, I am a denizen. I happen to live where I live. That is all.
I love America because this is where most of my friends live and this is the land I am most familiar with. I love its wildlife and its foods. I even love a lot of the cultural frivolity. What fun is life if you don't allow yourself to enjoy it? I do not love America because of the government that infests its every shadow and crevice. No, I love America in spite of the US government and its more local Mini-Mes.
This exposes the ridiculous notion of "serving my country". I know a lot of people who truly serve, maybe not "the country", but the immeasurably more important cause of individual liberty, yet none of them wear a uniform of any sort. They singlehandedly do more for liberty than the entire payroll of the US government put together. People like Claire Wolfe, William N. Grigg, L. Neil Smith, Sharon Harris, Wendy McElroy, and so very many more.
"Serving your country" is detrimental to freedom. Being a willing tool of a government is not service to anyone except those in government, who universally misunderstand, hate, and fear liberty. Such "service" is harmful for freedom, rights, and liberty. You can not "protect freedom" by working for the goals, and at the direction, of the most dangerous enemy of freedom that has ever existed. No one and nothing except government has been a credible threat to liberty in recent history. Even the boogeyman of "terrorism" is only a threat to liberty because government gives it a target to try to extort changes from and then reacts by giving the terrorists exactly what they would do if they ran the government. Government "protects freedom" by imposing things like the Patriot Act, gun control, and airport Pedophile-o-vision. You might as well celebrate life with a murder/suicide. It is just as disingenuous and delusional.
If this hard truth offends you, you need to really reexamine your premises instead of having a knee-jerk reaction, but I know from past experience that saying that is like begging my computer not to crash or the wind not to blow. So, to those who would judge people who refuse to help government kill liberty, you go your way and I'll keep going mine. I'll not let you cast a shadow over my enjoyment of today.