Are you onboard the 3:12 Empathy to Freedom Train?
Welcome to my Freedom for People First post at cwatts.us. I appreciate you. Empathy is the soul of democracy and crucial for expanding freedoms for all. I'm here to encourage you to make empathy (care) central to constant public discourse. All Aboard the 3:12 Empathy to Freedom Train is on page 8. Listen to Hidden Brain Innovation 2.0: The Influence You Have to learn how effective you could be in expanding our freedoms.
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I live in rural Ohio, where the Putin wing of the GOP threatens everyone and everything we love. As you know, I apply what I’ve learned from George Lakoff and Empathy Surplus Network USA to advocate for progressive candidates, especially President Joe Biden, Senator Sherrod Brown, and Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo. Your support and engagement are crucial in this advocacy. I’m also a proposer of CARE Education. You can help with this cause by becoming a proposer.
Democrats care about our freedoms. So why isn't CARE central to the debate and election rhetoric for Democratic candidates and representatives?
Ohio's Democratic Rural Caucus convened on Saturday, June 1, 2024, in Yellow Springs. I attended one-third of it. It was great. I loved it. There was lots of energy and lots of smiles. During the networking period, I asked Southwest Ohio Rural Democrats; You are probably here because you care about your neighbors. Am I right?
They all said YES.
I asked a second question. "You are also probably here because the opposition doesn't care. Am I right?"
They all said YES. (A couple said the opposition's care is limited. That makes sense because conservatism's limited government means limited care for billionaires only.)
I asked a third question: Do you think care and mutual responsibility for all are core Democratic values?
They all said YES.
I asked a fourth question: Should empathy or care be our central core value of debate?
They all said YES.
My two candidates for the Ohio General Assembly House - Krista Magaw - and Senate - Dan McGregar - were the two candidates that I got to mingle with before the plenary session opened with short stump speeches by the candidates. The two stump speeches of my two candidates were the only ones where we heard anyone tell us they cared for us.
Boarding the 3:12 Empathy to Freedom Train is essential for a strong democracy that thwarts billionaire privateering.
Freedom is a core value of every American, but its meaning is contested between progressives and conservatives. According to progressives, empathy is the soul of democracy and freedom. According to conservatives, obedience to white male landowners is the soul of democracy and freedom, which is what their limited government means. Progressives want ethical businesses. Conservatives want unethical businesses.
Put simply: Progressives care for everyone. Conservatives care for themselves only.
For example, when the New York State decided Donald Trump had violated business accounting and campaign finance law, they didn't order a SWAT team to execute him - they activated their duty to care through the judicial system that assumes everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of one's fellow citizens. No one, not even a POTUS, is above the law. But the GOP felon running for POTUS has told the Supreme Court that he wants immunity to execute his political rivals.
In contrast, progressives I talk to all want the freedom defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Our human rights are as strong as our commitment to repeatedly promoting empathy for and responsibility to humanity, which is pretty weak at the moment. The USA has not enabled any human rights treaty, which Americans helped write. The UDHR Preamble Declaration says that "every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching an education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms ... by progressive measures..."
Some people have never heard of or seen the UDHR.
This year, I met six people ranging in age from 15-37 in Southwest Ohio who had never heard of or seen the UDHR before. One was a 37-year-old male computer programmer, a 27-year-old female librarian, and four high schoolers from the Dayton area.
Progressives must stand up for CARE Education if we are to protect human rights with the rule of law. Conservatives have done a credible job at denigrating the United Nations, democracy, and human rights - the antidote to fascism. Consequently, billionaires and their unethical corporations are running and ruining our lives through privateering - shifting the moral mission of accountable public government to protect and empower us to unaccountable businesses - moving from a democracy to a slave state.
Cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff says that "the only way the public can become conscious of the privateering (of human rights) is if it's framed correctly and powerfully. Anything anyone learns is a matter of BRAIN CHANGE. You can't learn anything without your synapses physically changing. And the brains of the public change only when a given frame is activated (through language) over and over."
Democrats must improve our statements of core values linked to policy, including our commitment to acting on our care for and responsibility to others.
Policies express our values but are not themselves values. Cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff explains that all policies, rules, laws, legislation, etc., have two components to make sense of them: the material and the moral components. The material components are the nuts and bolts of policy, i.e., the facts, which are important but secondary to the moral component. The moral components are the core values and the moral WHY of the policy. Too many progressives think just stating facts is effective. Facts need a moral context that must be stated.
For example, nurturing parents give their children family rules, saying, "I love you and want you to be safe, so always look both ways before crossing the street." They do this again and again.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was formulated and passed by the United Nations, which defeated fascism in World War II. It has 30 original articles, but only 26 of them, Articles 3-28, enumerate specific human rights. The Preamble, through Articles 1-2 and Articles 29-30, spells out the moral why of human rights. We must openly, honestly, and repeatedly link our communication of Articles 3-28 to the core values spelled out in Articles 1,2,29, and 30. We must repeat our care for each other over and over again.
Proposing CARE Education model legislation can help Democrats and their candidates and representatives get out of issue silos and UNITE around CARE.
Human rights are not protected by the rule of law in the United States of America because of our national empathy deficit, first identified by Barack Obama. Pro-empathy freedom voters in and out of office are the solution to creating a caring society. Look at the UDHR Articles 3-28 and some will resonate with you more than others. All progressives have their particular human rights issue that is their favorite. We can change the brains of the public for good and unite our siloed human rights causes around the core values of human rights - a commitment to the legal concept of the duty of care. Let's use the S.H.O.E.S. acronym to promote CARE Education.
S - Show up at public and private meetings to cultivate empathy for CARE Education
H - Help colleagues and neighbors cultivate empathy in civic tasks for CARE Education
O - Organize friends to cultivate empathy in civic tasks for CARE Education
E - Educate about human rights empathy, the soul of democracy, by promoting CARE Education
S - Start over each day to publicly cultivate empathy with CARE Education
#GoEmpathySurplus - Thanks for reading. Consider a PAID subscription.
Chuck
