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Forced retirements and NDAs reveal a strategy of control, not reform.
A foreign buildup without oversight mirrors the erosion of checks and balances at home.
The real test of patriotism now lies in defending institutions from within, not obeying power without question.
Bobby Jones, Lincoln Square Executive Editor Susan J. Demas , and retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling start from different corners of experience but meet at the same unsettling truth: the system built to defend democracy is now being tested by it. The conversation moves beyond the mechanics of command to the moral question of what happens when service is stripped of purpose and obedience becomes the only virtue. Democracies don’t collapse in one dramatic gesture—they erode in small, bureaucratic acts of compliance that hollow out trust and normalize abuse. That’s what makes this moment dangerous: the quiet rewriting of duty as loyalty, of dissent as betrayal.
We also want to thank everyone who sent in photos of their friends and family who have served our nation so we could honor them on all of our shows on Veterans Day. Here are a just a few of Bobby’s photos from his years serving in the Navy.
Tune in to this powerful conversation on duty, democracy, and the fight to make it matter.

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