Or, the same thing but without the hard words
What is the State? The State is an instrument of wider society. It's defining characteristic is possession of a monopoly on all forms of violence. The State has no morality, it has no purpose other than the perpetuation and extension of its own existence, and it has no conscience. Neither has it any rival.
The State is not the government. In American terms the government is best described as 'The Administration'. The State is composed of Offices and Institutions. 'The Administration' is composed of people who hold Office as, say, the Secretary of Defence or as the President. Government is people and what they do. The State is the system through which they operate.
The State has three characteristics. The State is Sovereign, Legitimate, and Indifferent to private interest. It's Sovereignty consists precisely in its monopolization of all forces of violence within the body politic, and all means of violence - from nukes to knitting needles, they are all legitimately at the command of the State. Political Legitimacy has two sources in America: the Constitution, and the reaffirmation through due democratic process of all Offices, Institutions and Office-holders. This reaffirmation, it's presumed, means that there is some sense in which the activities of State and government reflect the will of the people. The citizens of America do not govern America, nor are they the State of America; they are the source of the legitimacy of both State and government.
America is not a democracy (for small blessings give praises) though it has a democratic form of government. It is a Republic. A Republic is, simply, a political entity not governed by a hereditary caste based upon blood and familial inheritance. A Republic is any form of political entity which is not Monarchical in nature.
In virtue of the Constitution Americans have political rights. Because they have rights they necessarily have obligations. The idea of rights in the American sense will become self-explanatory to you if you think of the term 'civil rights'. Political rights in America are more extensive than the term 'civil rights' implies - but such is the state of utter ignorance of politics in this country that 'civil rights' will have to do.
There are several formulations of 'Right'. There are Natural Rights - in which, for example, a child has the right to the protection of its parents and to be nurtured to independence by them. With Natural Right goes Natural Obligation - the obligation of parents to provide that protection. There are Political Rights - the right to vote - and political obligations such as the obligation to defend the State, Nation and Society which grants those Rights. There are civil rights - the right not to be discriminated against in any civil activity, such as employment, on grounds that are irrelevant to that employment: race, gender, skin color, religious affiliation or lack of it. And there is the civil obligation not to discriminate against others yourself.
Every right carries with it an obligation. But when did anyone last hear a politician talking about the civil obligations of his constituents, or himself? I believe they were last mentioned when Kennedy said 'Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.'
The citizen of a Republic has rights and obligations. Being Americans I'm certain you all know your rights. You ought to, because you demand them endlessly and at every turn. But you're all curiously silent on the subject of your obligations. The first obligation of the citizen of a Republic is to defend that Republic against its enemies. His second obligation is to promote, support, aid and collaborate with the legitimate authority of State and government in all its policies and endeavours. The citizen has a right to question, assess, critique and protest against those policies and endeavours he thinks are wrong. This being America a citizen has the right, since it's citizens who are the source of legitimacy and therefore authority, to overthrow an oppressive and tyrranous regime.
You do not have the right to give aid or succour, even by way of 'moral' support, to the enemies of the Republic. Every citizen, including soldier-citizens (perhaps especially soldier-citizens) has the right to critically assess and discuss the policies and endeavours of the State and government. This is not the same as claiming that America is a Fascist State (it isn't) or that American troops are traitors and war criminals for doing their sworn duty (they aren't). Is every one of them a hero? Perhaps not. But none of them are traitors or war criminals - and to claim that they are, or to make some similar claim concerning the Republic, is an act of treason for which the proper punishment is execution.
I said above that the State is (ought to be) indifferent to private interest. This includes the interests of oil barons, industrial magnates, 'green' groups, activists involved in gender and sexual politics, the interests of petty race-baiting demagogues such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. It is (ought to be) indifferent to the claims of Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and every other sectional interest within the Republic. At their most significant and public-minded these are no more than civil interests, at their worst and basest they are no more than vehicles for exploitation by greedy and ambitious little men who put their own profit before the good of the Republic. Can the interest of a national political party be private interests? Yes, they can. For example, neither Democrats or Republicans will in any way risk alienating the Hispanic vote. Each party has an interest in acquiring power and keeping power. Not so they can serve the Republic but so they can serve the interests of the various elites to whom they are beholden. Hence Hillary Clinton's difficulties in relation to giving driving licenses to illegal immigrants.
Her concern is not 'how can a resolution to the question be found which serves the Republic?' but 'how can i best turn this to my electoral advantage, or at least avoid causing myself a disadvantage?' Her interest in power is private, personal and uncivil. Her party's interest in power is equally private in this sense because it represents the interests of only those elites that are consistently served by the Democrats. Just as the Republican Party's interest in power is also sectional, private, and uncivil since that party also only represents those elites which are consistently serviced by Republicans. In this sense there is absolutely no difference between the two major parties.
The State is that instrument of public life which is most intimately and actively concerned with that promotion, enhancement, and development. The State is that organization of human life which is entirely independent of and free from the parochial and personal concerns of the citizen of the Republic, or of any group of citizens. It is that instrument of human existence which considers, promotes, develops the general welfare of all without kowtowing to the private interest of any political party, or any organized group of private interests - whether they be rich or poor, powerful or weak, good, bad, or indifferent.
The tragedy of America as she presently stands is that the American State has been entirely captured by these private interests. America, in her present condition, is neither a democracy or a Republic. She is an Oligarchy, in which a patrician caste of the super wealthy rule in their own interest. If that were not so it would not cost millions to run for the Presidency. The reason it does cost millions is not because it is a fundamental necessity that it should be so, but in order to exclude the voice of the common people of America and to restrict access to political power to a revolving caste of parasitic idiots whose only interest in being in power is to remain in power.
In the interest of the American Republic it would not only be proper but right if every member of that caste were exterminated from within the body politic, that body which they have corrupted and traduced and betrayed and made a laughing-stock around the world through their unspeakable inbred stupidity. It is only the State, which stands over and above the body politic, which is sufficiently independent and indifferent to all parochial and particular interests, which is fundamentally concerned with America (rather than with the citizens of America) which is able to make the determination of who should be exterminated and who should not. Every other determination of who should be put against a wall and shot would be nothing more than the enthronement of personal prejudice, and would result in nothing more than the basest and most onerous tyrrany.