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Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,

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an idea.

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Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.

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Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If

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I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,

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not because I put my hand on a book and

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made a wish and working together for a more rational world.

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Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.

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Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.

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Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the

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Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.

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Speaker 2: These are just a few thoughts I have released in

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video for that YouTube link is in the description box,

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but the audio is right here and it runs about

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thirteen minutes. I know that you and I are doing

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our best to engage with our day, do our jobs,

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take care of our families, fulfill our obligations. But when

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you have just watched seventy two million of your fellow

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country men and women vote to set fire to the

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Western world, it's hard to focus. And so I thought

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I would just say out loud what I think a

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lot of us are feeling quietly. I remember twenty sixteen,

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the unexpected Trump victory felt like an electrical shock. I

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was so mad, I was so indignant. It motivated me

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to express every ounce of outrage verbally in writing online.

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Eight years later, I still feel shock and indignation, but

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the electricity not as much. It feels overshadowed by a

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kind of numb resignation. I just look around. I can't

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believe it. Seventy million Americans looked at the grifter, the predator,

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the bully, the child, the Khan, the anti democracy want

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to be king, and they said, yeah, I want that.

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It is hard not to feel the way that gor

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Vidal felt about Western democracy. He wrote these words. He said,

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as societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent too. Words

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are used to disguise, not to illuminate action. You liberate

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a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse,

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so that at election time people will solemnly vote against

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their own interests. You know, today I feel two sensations.

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First of all, the idea of spending any time in

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the direct vicinity of family members, friends, associates, people that

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I bump into in my life. The idea of being

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in a physical space next to them sickens me right,

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the people who voted for an assault on democracy and decency,

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I just feel resentful. And two, while I will continue

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to speak to my values, I am also preparing to

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watch people gleefully destroy the American experiments. You know, this

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country may well choke to death on the smoke of

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its own bonfires. And sometimes it feels like all the

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rest of us can do is put on a gas

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mask and point garden hoses at the flames. I mean,

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I still feel like a crusader for what is just,

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but I also feel like a spectator. You know, I'm

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standing behind the led she in advance of the dirty bomb,

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hoping people might survive this. My evangelical trumper associates right now,

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people that I know personally, they are likely celebrating. It's

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probably a party. They're high fiving and thanking Jesus right

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and whatever their intentions may be, maybe they think they

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are being noble, it's about the abortion debates or something else.

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Or maybe they bought into the myth of the billionaire genius.

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Maybe they believe in divine destiny. Whatever their glee makes

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me sick, God's sheep are likely thanking their sweet Lord

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for bringing unto them. A shepherd, and they see these

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events as destiny biblical. They have combined the cult of

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Christianity with the cult of Maga. All the while they

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are discarding the best teachings of Jesus Christ, humility, general charity.

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Their bibles say that the love of money is the

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root of all evil. They worship rich people. Their bibles say,

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don't take vengeance. They cheer the guy who says, get

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even with your enemies. You have so much to do.

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You don't have time to get even.

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Speaker 1: You only have time to get right. Well, revenge does

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take time. I will say that does, and sometimes revenge

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can be justified.

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Speaker 2: Their bibles say to forgive. They admire the guy who

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holds grudges and threatens the rights of those who criticize.

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Their bibles say, do not oppress the foreigner. Meanwhile, they

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are vilifying immigrants. Their Bible declares in Matthew that those

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who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble

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themselves will be exalted. They love the egomaniac. Their bibles

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say not to perform their prayers in public. Go to

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your quiet room. Right. They applaud Christian nationalist prayer theater

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in the halls of power. Their Bibles say they should

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commit themselves to serving others, and then they turn around

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and send their money and give their allegiance and adoration

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to someone who serves only himself. Self service seems to

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be part of the MAGA movement. You and I express

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real concern, right great concern about the rights of women,

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the rights and the safety and the equality of marginalized groups,

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minority groups, the victims of atrocities in foreign lands, the

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cruelty and the bullying, and the crazy word salad disinformation

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that defines most of Trump cult. And these people look

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at us, and what do they do? They complain about

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the price of a dozen ages or many of these people,

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immigrants are both lazy leeches who are milking the system

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without paying any taxes or having any societal responsibility, and

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they are also hard workers coming to steal their jobs.

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They're convinced that devil democrats want to padlock their churches

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and come into their private homes and confiscate their bibles

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and make Christianity illegal, which is crazy because these supposedly

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persecuted American Christians are the least victimized, persecuted, and endangered

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demographic in the entire country. They seem to value things

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based on borderlines that were subjectively drawn by people that

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they don't even know. They hold up their fingers and

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they say, we're number one, talking about a nation that

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fails next to all other developed nations in almost every

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metric healthcare, cost of living, education, violent crime, etc. They

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don't see the whole world because to them, the US

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is the world, and everybody else is somehow less important,

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less interesting, less valuable. I think it's ironic that we

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are still called the United States of America United, except

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that we're split in regard to almost every opinion that

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we have. And sometimes I have this thought, I wonder,

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I wonder what might happen if we divided the United

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States into two separate countries, Nation A and Nation B.

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So Nation A could discover what MAGA really means. A

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dictatorship at the mercy of Trump and Vance and the

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rfks and the elons, and the demagogues and the oligarchs,

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the agents of religious and financial privilege, the managers of wombs,

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the purity police, the school boards who are writing mythology

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into school curriculums. It could erase or at least airbrush history.

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So lessons from history would not be learned by future generations.

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Nation A could make scientists the bad guys. It could

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ignore deadly viruses and reject vaccines. It could choke the

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planet with unregulated industry. It could pray to the sky

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against all these afflictions happening on the ground. It could

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pretend that the rest of the world doesn't even exist

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or it doesn't matter. Nation A would be an alternate reality.

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It could be a place where people were finally forced

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to experience the consequences of ignoring the true reality. And

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on the other side would be Nation B. And this

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is where I would like to live. Nation BE would

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return to the original motto of the United States, e

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pluribus unum out of many one. Our diversity would be

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something to embrace and celebrate. We wouldn't vilify the immigrant.

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We could disagree and discuss, even argue about things, without

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fear for our rights, or our safety or our lives.

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We could recognize that we are both individuals and we

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are a community. We could enjoy personal liberties while also

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embracing collectivist values. We would be both one of us

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and all of us. We would protect and empower science

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and scientists. We would use our great advances to inoculate

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and improve and save people's lives. We could make sure

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that people had individual rights to be religious. We would

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find for their right to be personally religious, but we

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would also ensure that government never became a church. We'd

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see ourselves as citizens of America, but also citizens of

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the world. Everybody a part of the human condition. We

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are all brothers and sisters. We take better care of

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our environment, serving the planet that has served us. We

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would teach our history without air brushing or erasing it.

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We would be honest about what our country has been

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and what it's done for better and worse, to help

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educate and inform the future. We'd celebrate success without allowing

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the oligarchs and the hoarders. We would elect an accountable

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president and not a king. And I wonder how these

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two nations would fare against each other, You know, you

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have to wonder. Would Nation A come knocking on the

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doors of nation be begging for equal rights that they

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had eventually lost, Begging for medicines that they had previously

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thrown in the trash. Can you know, give me a vaccine,

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give me prevention, give me a cure. They would beg

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for cleaner air and water. They would beg for safe

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haven against bigots. They would beg for teachers instead of preachers.

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They would beg for leaders that didn't act like gods.

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Questions like these, scenarios, like these, realities like these, they

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are why we should seriously be teaching our history. You know,

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you and I know that the historians of the future

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are going to look back at the United States today

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and they're going to look at us much the same

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way that some of the rest of the world is

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looking at us right now. They're going to say, what

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the hell happened? And for my parts, while I do

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feel real despair, I'm going to try not to look

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at the headlines as much as I look at the people.

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Tens of millions of people voted for authoritarianism, corruption, grift, oppression, division, hatred.

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I'm going to try to remember them, But I'm also

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going to remember the tens of millions that resisted. And

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I refuse to do what MAGA culture wants me to do,

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give up and let them operate unchecked and uncriticized. They

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want us to check out, right, because if we check out,

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then nation A becomes Nation A and B. Standing against

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the threat is the only hope we've got of somehow

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salvaging what the United States was supposed to be. The

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agents of harm must be they must be confronted by

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the advocates for humanity. And even if this country self

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destructs all around us, we can hold our heads up

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and say that we never gave up, we never stopped fighting,

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we never surrendered our values, our humanity. We can say

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proudly that our conscience is clean. Let's work together to

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make sure historians also remember that.

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Speaker 1: Follow the Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a

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