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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies?
Will you, O professor of true virtue, pretend that you are justified in
this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is
more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any
ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of
understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when
angry, even more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not
persuaded, to be obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with
imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if
she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right;
neither may any one yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in
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