So I came across a few things in the last couple of days that I wanted to mention the fold into

this topic here. One was a recent survey in Pew which revealed that Americans are more divided now

than ever before, according to the survey. And we're divided in terms of, you know, not just the

number of issues that we disagree about, which is basically every issue, but also the severity,

the depth of those divisions. And then second, there was an article in the Washington Post a few

weeks ago, which cites a different survey and also argues that the so-called value divide

between Republicans and Democrats is getting wider and wider and wider. Now, I agree with those

surveys. I think it's kind of self-evident that this is a situation. It appears to me that we have

as a country, we have nothing in common anymore. We have no shared value, we have no shared goal,

we have no shared sense of purpose, no shared sense of tradition or identity, nothing,

nothing. I wrote about this a few months ago about our lack of shared values and our shared identity.

And a lot of people, and I know as I say this now, you're probably thinking the same thing,

a lot of people told me they said, well, we do have shared values and those values are freedom and

equality. Americans love freedom and equality. What are you talking about? That's what we all

have in common. We're a free country. Okay, first of all, we are not a free country. We're not,

hey, to break it to you. And second, we are only united by freedom and equality in the sense that

we all like those words. Okay, we all like to use the words freedom and equality, but we do not

all actually value freedom and equality. Okay, if you look at what we consider those words to mean

and how we think they should be applied, you'll find that I have, you know, my definition of freedom

and equality is about as similar to my neighbors as it would be to someone in North Korea. It's about

the same. You're not going to find very many people on earth who profess to despise freedom and

equality in principle, but you will find a lot of people who despise it in practice and a lot of

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