When one person's rights and freedoms are on the line, everybody's are on the line. If people don't stick together to defend those rights, they will find themselves broken up into small groups that cannot defend themselves and wait while each of them loses the ability to speak, to pray, to live as they choose, the protections of the law and of citizenship. And once that process starts you have no guarantee it will stop short of you. That's why your help is needed.

If you're male, you need to defend the rights of women and any other possible gender.

If you're a capitalist, you need to defend the rights of socialists and anarchists.

You need to do this, not out of some personal saintliness which you may or may not have, not to signal your virtue to your in-crowd, but because the people who will come after other people's rights aren't picky.

And once they've stripped other people's rights away, they're coming for you.
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Morning thought:

If you're white, you need to defend the rights of black people, Asian people, and all other minorities.

If you're Christian, you need to defend the rights of people of other religions and no religion.

If you're English-speaking, you need to defend the rights of people who primarily use other languages.

If you're straight, you need to defend the rights of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals.

If you're cisgender, you need to defend the rights of transgender and non-binary people.
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I always wondered how so many people could stand behind Hitler when he was murdering millions. Now that I'm alive to watch how people stand behind putin & all other world leaders who are terrorizing and murdering fellow humans, I want to vomit. The world doesn't have to be this way, but egomaniacs find a new way to destroy the world while using religion to manipulate the weak minded. My heart is broken by the sadistic nature of those who govern our planet. All this torture for a dollar. Smh.

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@Eulimnadia
I put the question out, but no replies yet. Everyone is quiet tonight, even normally busy communications routes. I'll keep checking, and let you know when I hear something.

In the meantime:

@OldCountryDoctor @TeelaResists @DrBashir2022

Do you guys know why Aunt Crabby has been silent this month? No tweets since Jan 4, no posts on CoSo since the 8th.

I figured if you don't know why, you'd at least like to know she's gone silent. Hope she's okay! 😳

Our country has enormous problems. One of them is the absence of empathy, due in part to extreme political polarization creating ingroups and outgroups, resulting in "othering" and a breakdown in empathy. We no longer can expect the best, or even neutrality, in those who are not members of our group. #politics