Speaker 1: We understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's
a symbol, an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
not because I put my hand on a book and
made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast, hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2: Well. Here we are at the two hundred and fiftieth
birthday of the United States for many a day of
great celebration, but not for me and maybe not for you.
And there's a lot of debate about how we're supposed
to approach this particular occasion. Of course, I wake up
this morning and I read that Donald Trump is still
petitioning to have his own face put on Mount Rushmore.
How much of the two hundred and fiftieth birthday can
be hijacked so that he can masturbate I just and
he's still polling around thirty percent in this country, and
of course, we've all been laughing at the big fair
at the National Ball, which you know, they've got this
big strip of grass in the middle, and then they've
got the booths on either side. Nobody's going and even
the live feed from Fox News shows what looks like
a giant bear pasture, and I am here for it.
I love the there is schadenfreude. I love the idea
that they're rarely struggling with attendance and the weather kind
of sucks, and maybe the universe has a sense of
justice after all, I'll admit, does it make me petty? Okay,
I'm petty. But a few days ago, even on this show,
we talked about how this administration and the culture that
has really emerged over the past ten years or so
has ruined the stars and stripes the American flag. Right,
the fifty stars that represent the fifty US states and
the thirteen stripes that alternate, and they represent the British
colonies that declared independence. It's supposed to represent who we are.
Too often in the past it has been kind of
a statement of national or global superiority. Right, we're America
and America is the world. We're greater than everybody else,
and I'm so glad I'm American and I don't live
in another part of the world where their freedom is
less freedom me. Okay, Now I come to the point.
I'm cruising down the road. Truck drives by, got an
American flag on the window. You know, he's got one
of those stickers. I judge that person. I got a neighbor,
he's got an American flag in his yard this weekend.
I judge that person. I'm like, I know who they
voted for. I see somebody walking through the grocery store
and they're dressed like a Roman candle. They've got a
flag and they've got an eagle, and there's some platitude
or empty calorie slogan like freedom isn't free, or I'm
proud to be an American. They talk about are saying
that Lee Greenwood song, who made it big with the
tune I'm proud to be an American where at least
done no, I'm free, And everybody gets all misty eyed,
and I won't forget the men who died who gave
that right to me. And I'd gladly stand up next
to you and defend her. Still today, you know the
song because there ain't no doubt. I love this lane.
God bless the you is a here in this country,
especially in my part of the country. People eat it up.
They just eat that stuff up right. And it's a
little tricky because when they invoke those who have legitimately
died to provide the freedoms that we have. We don't
want to dismiss the sacrifices that have been legitimately made
for those freedoms. But if you have noticed throughout our history,
many of the times that we've gone into combat and
people have died on every side, we've called that fight
or we've excused that fight with the hashtag freedom right.
I mean the Vietnam War, which was a massive calamity.
It cost fifty five thousand American lives two million Vietnamese lives.
We were talking the whole time about how this is
necessary for global freedom, which is necessary for American freedom,
And the truth was it was just a fiasco. It
was a bloody calamity. And historians have come to realize
what a clusterfuck the Vietnam War was. But the whole
narrative at the time was freedom America. Freedom America. Soldiers
died if you won't stand behind our soldiers. Why don't
you go stand in front of them? And this is
supposed to be a conversation stopper about whether or not
we are colonizers, conquerors, oppressors in this country and around
the rest of the world. And so we see the
weaponization of the red, white, and blue. And there are
a lot of outlets who have been reporting about the
polarized country that we live in. Some people on the
two hundred and fiftieth are thankful for their freedom. Certainly,
I know I am. I'm thankful to be free. I
could living in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, or it could
be living in an impoverished place where you know, we
are under the guns of a co opted government that
is oppressing on all of its people, starving its people, etc.
I mean, I get that, but I also am watching
the step by step dismantling what was it Rolling Stone
who called it a rolling coup of the United States,
the oligarchy, the autocracy, the fascist state that is being
installed on a day by day basis, and the cult
of personality. As I watched Donald Trump reach out with
his big meat arms and wrap him around the flag,
and he then has decided he and the flag are married.
So if you love Trump, you love America. And if
you don't love Trump, you hate America. By the way,
those are his words. NBC had an article that came
out just a few weeks or a few days ago. It said,
a nation turns two fifty and any Americans say the
stars and stripes is now a red flag. Part of
the article to fly or not to fly an American flag?
That was never a question for Bruce Watson, who has
put his national pride on display for years and nudges
neighbors in his small New England town to do the same.
He said, I'm very proud of our flag. It's the
symbol of we the people. But as the polarized nation
marks its two hundred and fiftieth birthday, Watson, seventy two,
worries his stars and stripes may now need an asterisk.
If we do fly the flag, we'll also put out
signs to make it clear we are not to maga.
The American flag is a symbol striped with many meanings,
whether it's hung on front porches, waved in parades, protests
and World Cup matches, or stamped on lapel pins and
boxing trunks. Like so much else in American life, it
has also been tangled up in politics and the policies
of President Donald Trump. NBC News ask readers to share
their feelings and practices around the flag. In a moment
Poles suggest when patriotism, national pride, and optimism for the
country's future are all freeing. Like Watson, some say the
flag can be taken as an endorsement of the current administration.
For others, it isn't tied to any one party, but
is a way of life. Rather than not fly the flag,
several readers said they planned to show their patriotism and
protest Trump by flying it upside down to signal that
the country is in distress. Donald Trump has turned everything
upside down, so it makes sense our flag should be
upside down, said Dina Bannick, sixty one, who lives outside
Des Moines, Iowa. It's a shame. We used to be
a proud nation. Now our country's in distress. Trump supporters
such as Dave Cavanaugh of Months in Massachusetts, question such protests.
The professional wood carver is so devoted to Trump that
he's busy chiseling a statue of him that right now
sits partially finished on his front lawn. I couldn't be
prouder to be an American, Kavanaugh, forty nine said. I
believe Americans should be proud to fly the flag and
fly it the right way. What shameful is that people
who hate Trump are flying the flag upside down. By
the way, you should see the wood carving of Donald Trump.
You know what, I may put it on the show
thumbnail or are linked to it in the notes. Maybe
I'll just link to the article. Oh, it's you know
what it looks like. What does it look It looks
like an alien, except it has Donald Trump's hair in
wood and the face looks like the twisted cousin of Pinocchio. Okay,
back to the article. Trump supporters have also flown the
flag upside down, most notably after his defeat in the
twenty twenty election to Joe Biden. An upside down flag
was also spotted flying outside the Virginia home of conservative
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito January twenty twenty one, the
month pro Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. Rather than fly
the stars and stripes, Master Sergeant Frank Chappelle of the
Air National Guard has gone with an alternate flag. He said.
Part of what makes us Americans is that we can
meet in the middle. We can come together in the
center and find things we can all agree on. Chapels
assigned to the one hundred and seventy first Air Refueling
Wing outside Pittsburgh, and stress that he was speaking only
for himself. He said, but what Trump's been doing through
some of his rhetorican policies is driving a wedge between Americans,
dividing us even further. So when I bought my home,
I replaced the US flag with the state flag of Pennsylvania.
Chappelle is a religious affairs airman, and wait a minute,
why do we have a religious affairs air? Never mind,
he provides crisis counseling and spiritual care for people from
all faiths or none. He said he plans to fly
the flag again. Quote once, I believe that the States
are more united in vision, tolerance, and empathy toward our
fellow Americans. I am not holding my breath. There's a
section of the article that is subtitled poll pressure. It
says some readers said they were motivated by peer pressure
more than patriotism. I display my flag outside my home
mainly because everyone else around my neighborhood does it, even
though I'm not one hundred percent proud to be American,
said a woman from Newtown, Pennsylvania. She hasked to remain anonymous.
I feel that if I don't have a flag displayed somewhere,
people will think I'm against our country or something. And
then there were readers like Rebecca Dyer, mother of five,
who lives outside Salt Lake City, who said she flies
the flag no matter who occupies the White House or
how disappointed she may feel about the state of the Union.
I'm not flying the flag. I mean, I've never been
that guy. I've never gotten misty eyed when they play
the anthem, you know. I mean maybe more so when
I was religious a little bit, but it always seemed
a little performative, or very much performative. It's a cheaply
bought nobility. You bring out a piece of fabric and
you put your hand over your heart, and you play
a song, and essentially you are acting like you are
something special. And I've become convinced that we really ain't.
I talked to Magus all the time, like, you know,
what's so special about, what's so great about what is
it about the United States? And it always one word freedom.
We have freedom. And I wrote about this in my
book Confessions of a Former Fox News Christian. I'm like, well,
Australia has got freedom. Yeah, the UK's got freedom, Canada's
got freedom. What are you talking about? Switzerland's got freedom.
And then, of course we fail in all the major
metrics when it comes to the quality of being alive, education,
don't get me started. We are way down the list,
cost of living, quality of health care, violent crime statistics, attc.
You know, we suck in so many ways. What am
I proud of? What am I proud of? Just being? Well,
that's not patriotism, that's just tribalism. That's in grouping and
out grouping. And it's a totally emotional response. And so
here we are at two point fifty and everybody around
me seems to be split. I've got one group of
people who are dressed up like a Roman candle and
they're saluting in handover heart and they're puffing out about
our greatness and how it's amazing to be an American.
I'm so lucky to be American. There's a bunch of
other people going, what the hell do we have to
be proud of you're kidnapping people in the streets. We've
got a president who has enriched himself to the tune
of what three and a half billion dollars by weaponizing
our government against us. He's got the DOJ and the
Department of Education in pieces. He's got a plumber running
the Department of Homeland Security. He is surrounded by sick
of fans, and all he talks about is himself, not America.
Unless he's linking the two. He has to be part
of the equation. Recently, he did like an interview where
he was asked what he reads when you're reading about
the world. And by the way, this man does not read.
He doesn't read. He gets all of his information by
watching TV. Right, he has to be spoon fed. I
guarantee you this man does not read. But his answer was, well,
you know, I read lots of news stories, mostly the
ones about me. So we live in the United States
of me and more me. What am I proud of?
What am I proud of? Our allies are issuing her,
former allies are issuing. Travel warnings. Be careful if you
travel to the United States, because you could get messed up?
What am I proud of? We're declaring ideological war and
often real war on people of other nations with no accountability.
What am I proud of? The leader of this country
is labeling entire demographics garbage people, garbage people. A racist, sexist, sociopathic,
grifting manchild of extreme privilege has taken over the United States?
What am I proud of? And I know that you
may feel the same, and I wish it wasn't the case.
I agree. What was it that Martin Luther King Junior said? Right,
I don't criticize America because I hate her. I criticize
her because I love her. I want her to see
the best version of itself. That's a paraphrase. I'm doing
it from memory. I should have pulled up the quote directly,
but you can look it up. And that's the gist. Right,
I criticize because I love her In that way, I
don't feel affection, but I do want the United States
to heal and reverse course and achieve the best version
of itself. In that sense, do I love my country?
I love it in the way that I would love
a loved one who is life had gone off the
rails and I say, man, I sure would like to
see them recover and be better and do better, right.
I would love to see them maximize the best versions
of themselves and spread goodness into this world. I care
about them in that way. So in that way, I
love my country. But in some ways the two hundred
and fifty it feels like a funeral, doesn't it. It feels
like a funeral. Well, doctor Christen Dumay, who is a Christian.
She is a Christian, but she's also a fierce champion
for state church separation. She recently released a piece that
invoked Civil War era civil rights icon Frederick Douglass and
talked about how the slaves might have felt about the
United States as everybody else was handover heart, bloviating about
greatness and how you know, if you're a slave in
this country, you're not exactly singing the songs of liberty.
And when I read it, I thought, wow, this is remarkable.
She did a great job of summing up what I
was thinking and how I was feeling. Let me take
a very short break and I'll come back with a
piece that published just today called Oppression makes a Wise
Man Mad. With her permission, allow me to read for You,
an article that was published today, the fourth of July,
on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary by doctor Christin Dumay,
a historian of gender, faith politics and author of the
New York Times best selling book Jesus and John Wayne.
She is a believer, and she is also a humanist
and fierce advocate for justice, state, church separation, and basic
human decency. I am a fan of doctor Christin Dumay
and with her blessing. The words that she wrote, which
I have linked in the description box are these. Earlier
this week, a Gallup survey reported that quote American pride
falls to twenty five year record low. It's especially low
among Democrats and independents. There are all sorts of reasons
for this, some obvious and others perhaps less obvious, but
it's worth pointing out that pride in one's nation and
love for that nation are not the same thing. I'm
not particularly proud of my country right now, but I
think it's fair to say that I've never felt more
patriotic because I love this country. I think it's worth
fighting for. All week, I found myself wavering between celebration
and lament. If you listened on our live episode of
the Convocation unscripted on Thursday. You heard all of us
moving back and forth between the two what is and
what could be. We dreamed of what we could be celebrating,
But by yesterday my positivity had faltered. I started to
draft a more sober posts for today, titled what We Lost,
thinking it was perhaps best to save that for another day.
I tried to return to a sense of optimism, or
at the very least, resilience. At the very least. I
thought I could write about what I was going to
do to celebrate. I'm hoping to take at least one
kid to the celebration and historical reenactments at the gerald
Ford Museum here in Grand Rapids. And I could share
a recipe I found online that I hope to make,
or better yet, get my daughter to make. That's a
layer of cheesecake in the middle, by the way, and
she's got a photograph of something that looks delicious, she says.
I thought I could also share a couple of verses
of America, the beautiful versus that hold intention, the nation's
promise and its shortcomings. So beautiful for pilgrim feet whose
stern impassioned stress a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the
wilderness America, America. God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy
soul and self control, Thy liberty in law, Oh beautiful,
for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self
their country, love and mercy more than life. America America.
May God thy gold fine till all success be nobleness
and every gain divine. But then came this video across
my feet. It is a recitation of Frederick Douglas's What
to the Slave is the fourth of July by his
own descendants, and that is linked in the description box.
And I encourage you to go back and watch this
on YouTube. I will read the words myself, but it's
pretty remarkable. Douglas holds the nation up to the standards
of their founding, to the ideals they celebrated with their
picnics and fireworks, and he finds it woefully wanting. He
doesn't flinch from the darkness, but he ends with a
gritty and hard earned hope. By the way, I am
a huge fan of Frederick Douglas. His values were secular values.
He was a fierce critic of religion. The article says
he writes in a different time and addresses a different
set of circumstances, but not entirely different. I found the
words words resonating with me this year in a different way.
Oppression makes a wise man mad, Douglas said to the
crowd of white Americans. He said, your fathers were wise men,
and if they did not go mad, they became restive
under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs,
wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men, there
was always a remedy for oppression. Just here the idea
of total separation of the colonies from the crown was born.
It was a startling idea, much more so than we
at this distance of time regarded the timid and the prudent,
as has been intimated of that day, were of course
shocked and alarmed by it. Citizens, your fathers made good
that resolution. They succeeded, and today you reap the fruits
of their success, the freedom gained as yours, and you
therefore may properly celebrate this anniversary. The fourth of July
is the first great fact in your nation's history, the
very ring bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.
The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified,
and sublime. The population of the country at the time
stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country
was poor in the munitions of war, the population was
weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There
were then no means of concert and combinations such as
exists now. Neither steam nor lightning had been reduced to
order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was
a journey of many days under these and innumerable other disadvantages.
Your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed fellow citizens.
I'm not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men.
They were great men, too great enough to give fame
to a great age. It does not often happen to
a nation to raise at one time such a number
of truly great men. The point from which I am
compelled to view them is not certainly the most favorable,
and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less
than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots, and heroes, and for
the good they did, and the principles they contended for.
I will unite with you to honor their memory. They
loved their country better than their own private interests. And
though this is not the highest form of human excellence,
all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and
when it's exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who
will intelligently lay down his life or his country is
a man whom it is not in human nature to despise.
Your father staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor on the cause of their country. In their admiration
of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. They
were peace men, but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission
to bondage. They were quiet men, but they did not
shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance, but they
knew its limits. They believed in order, but not in
the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was settled that
was not right. With them. Justice, liberty, and humanity were final,
not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory
of such men. They were great in their day and generation.
Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast
it with these degenerate times. How circumspect, exact, and proportionate
were all their movements. How unlike the politicians of an hour,
their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment and stretched away
and strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal
principle and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them,
fully appreciating the hardships to be encountered, firmly believing in
the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of
an onlooking world, reverently appealing to Heaven to attest their sincerity,
soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume,
wisely measuring the terrible odds against them. Your fathers, the
fathers of this Republic, did most deliberately, under the inspiration
of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in
the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the
cornerstone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still
rises in grandeur around you. We have to do with
the past only as we make it useful to the
present and to the future. I say it with a
sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not
included within the pale of this glorious anniversary. Your high
independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings
in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common.
The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed
by your fathers is shared by you, not by me.
The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has
brought stripes and death to me. This fourth July is yours,
not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn at a
time like this, scorching irony. Not convincing argument is needed.
Oh had I the ability and could I reach the
nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream
of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
For it is not light that is needed, but fire.
It is not the gentle shower but thunder. You need
the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of
the nation must be quickened, The conscience of the nation
must be roused, The propriety of the nation must be startled.
The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed, and its
crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What to the American slave is the fourth of July
I answer a day that reveals to him, more than
all other days in the year, the gross injustice and
cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him,
your celebration is a sham, Your boasted liberty, an unholy license,
Your national greatness swelling vanity. Your sounds are rejoicing, are
empty and heartless. Your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence.
Your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery. Your prayers
and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings with you, your religious
parade and solemnity are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety,
and hypocrisy, a thin veil to cover up crimes which
would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a
nation on this earth guilty of practices more shocking and
bloody than are the people of these United States at
this very hour. Go where you may search, Where you
will roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the
old world. Travel through South America, search out every abuse,
and when you found the last, Lay your facts by
the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and
you will say with me that for revolting barbarity and
shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. At the very
moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of
civil and religious liberty and for the right to worship
God according to the dictates of their own count they
are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs
religion of its chief significance and makes it utterly worthless
to a world lying in wickedness. But the Church of
this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of
the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It
has made itself the bulwark of American slavery and the
shield of American slave hunters. Many of its most eloquent divines,
who stand as the very lights of the Church, have
shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to
the whole slave system. They've taught that man may properly
be a slave, that the relation of masterman slave is
ordained of God, that to send back an escaped bondman
to his master is clearly the duty of all the
followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this horrible blasphemy
is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. For my part,
I would say, welcome infidelity, Welcome atheism, Welcome anything in
preference to the Gospel as preached by those diminds. They
convert the very name of religion into an engine of
tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels
in this age that all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine,
Voltaire and Bowlingbroke put together have done. These ministers make
religion a cold and flinty hearted thing, having neither principles
of right action nor bowels of compassion. They strip the
love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne
of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a
religion for oppressors, tyrants, man stealers, and thugs. It is
not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above,
and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hippocri,
but a religion which favors the rich against the poor,
which exalts the proud above the humble, which divides mankind
into two classes, tyrants and slaves, which says to the
man in chains, stay there, and to the oppressor oppress on.
It is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed
by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind. It makes
God a respector of persons, denies his fatherhood of that race,
and tramples in the dust the great truth of the
brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true
of the popular Church and the popular worship of our
land and nation. A religion, a church, and a worship which,
on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be
an abomination in the sight of God. In the language
of Isaiah, the American Church might well be addressed, bring
no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto me.
The new moons and sam the calling of assemblies I
cannot away with. It is antiquity. Even the solemn meeting,
your new moons and your appointed feasts, My soul hateist.
They're a trouble to me. I am weary to bear them.
And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide
mine eyes from you. Yeay, when you make many prayers,
I will not hear your hands are full of blood.
Cease to do evil, learn to do well, Seek judgment,
Relieve the oppressed, Judge for the fatherless, plead for the widow.
My spirit wearies of such blasphemy. And how such men
can be supported as the standing types and representatives of
Jesus Christ is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. Americans,
your Republican politics, not less than your Republican religion, are
flagrantly inconsistent. Your boast of your love of liberty, your
superior civilization, and your pure Christianity. While the whole political
power of the nation has embodied and the two great
political parties is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the
enslavement of three million of your countrymen. You hurl your
anathemis at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria,
and pride yourselves on your democratic institutions, while you yourselves
contend to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the
tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. Fellow citizens, I will not
enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery
in this country brands your Republicanism as a sham, your
humanity is a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie.
It destroys your moral power abroad, It corrupts your politicians
at home. It SAPs the foundation of religion. It makes
your name a hissing and a byword to a mocking earth.
It is an antagonistic force, and your government the only
thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your union. It fetters
your progress. It is the enemy of improvement, the deadly
foe of education. It fosters pride, it breeds insolence, It
promotes vice, It shelters crime. It is a curse to
the earth that supports it, and yet you cling to
it as if it were the sheet anchor of all
your hopes. Oh, be warned, Be warned. A horrible reptile
is coiled up in your nation's bosom. The venomous creature
is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic.
For the love of God, tear away and fling from
you this hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty
millions crush and destroy it forever. Allow me to say
in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day
presented of the state of the Union, I do not
despair of this country. There are forces in operation which
must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. The arm of
the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery
is certain. I therefore leave off where I began with hope,
while drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great
principles it contains, and the genius of American institutions. My
spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.
God speed the year of Jubilee. Now, Frederick Douglas was
a complicated man. I believe he was devoutly Christian, and
his religious beliefs kind of shifted. You heard some invocations
of God in the writings that I just read. But
he was also the guy who was a tremendous admirer
of the atheist and brilliant writer Robert green Engersol. Ultimately,
the message about Douglas is he was a human sanitarian
and humanist first, and he was a fierce champion for
the oppressed and a fierce critic of the oppressors. And
his words can be applied in so many other contexts
or related context today. I wonder what Frederick Douglass would
have said, and he looked around today, on our two
hundred and fiftieth and seen what we have become. Whether
you celebrate or not, whether you fly the flag or not,
just know that you are seen and heard. If you
grieve about where we have come and where we might
still go, and yet you hold on to a sliver
of hope that if we keep fighting, maybe we can
reverse or alter course and become one day a nation
we can truly be proud of. Thank you so much
for listening.
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