Hi JW,
I should have been clearer in my comments - I was only addressing the "genetics" side of the comment, not the cultural side. Really, this is just the old Nature-Nurture debate in a new form (I'm constantly amazed at how long this debate has been around ).
On the cultural side, I don't disagree with you although your description could be more inclusive . For example, I doubt that it is a simple as pointing towards the State - it probably comes in a hierarchy of my family, my kin group, my organization, my community, my state, my country,... I think Heinlein got it right in Starship Troopers (book, not movie!).
There is some evidence to support it and some to contradict it - I suspect that the attitude is probably closer to the ideal is fine, the mechanism needs fixing and many of the people involved are _______ (fill in your own expletive to be deleted ).
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