Welcome back to Pro-Empathy Freedom Voters are the Solution and a big hello to all free Pro-Empathy Freedom subscribers. Our Fall one-hour-long Zoom discussions about applying cognitive science to political and moral discourse have recessed until the second and third Tuesdays in November, all at 6:45 p.m. Our 3rd-Trimester Zoom forums are focusing on George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. Click the blue button on our website for enrollment information. Please consider helping our Zoom forum members choose what we’ll study in 2024 with this rank-choice ballot of Lakoff and non-Lakoff books.
My prayer to the people . . .
My prayer1 TO “the people” on Veterans Day is to cultivate more empathy. On Veterans Day, we could recommit to reversing the ongoing, conservative-induced empathy deficit of American citizens. Empathy is the soul of democracy,2 nurturing families, public education, ethical businesses, every major world religion, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights3 by the United Nations forever historically linked to Veterans Day. Pro-empathy freedom petitioners and voters in and out of office are the solutions to reversing conservative-induced empathy deficits.
Empathy is the soul of democracy
If you’re a Christian, Jesus’s Two Great Commandments4 require prayers of petition of love from the people to God and from the people to each other. Rendering unto Ceasar in 21st-century democracies is rendering each other the care and love we expect from each other just because we are human beings.5 When “We the People” ordained and established the Constitution, we required our President in Article II. Section 3 to “Take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The Presidential Take Care Clause and the 1st Amendment Establishment Clause6 are two examples of why empathy for humanity is the soul of democracy. The Golden Rule is part of every major religion. Nevertheless, our empathy deficit persists.
CARE must become the focal point of any public issue.
On Veterans Day, my Wilmington, Ohio, rural community could reflect on why virtually half of the voters don’t care enough to pass a school levy, which failed by 63 votes. Providing “a safe and caring environment,” Wilmington City Schools' mission,7 is only possible if voters CARE. We should expect public school advocates to promote the levy by first telling us that they care - and that voters have a moral duty to care. They should say if you don’t vote for the levy or demand our General Assembly to fund our schools equally, it means that you don’t care. CARE must become the focal point of any public issue. Progressivism cares for everyone. Conservatism cares for conservatives, especially billionaires or Christian nationalists.
Our children are not free from fear of mass murder.
Children are shaped by their communities to be nurturers or bullies.8 Our children are not free from fear of mass murder if they don’t have a safe and caring environment. We need more pro-empathy freedom petitioners and voters in and out of office to provide state funding for safe and caring schools and make school levies obsolete. But those of us who do care must make care and safety the center of constant public discourse - constant public prayers to our neighbors, especially in office - which is not happening. We can cultivate empathy.
Advocates of conservatism continue to disregard and heap contempt on human rights empathy.
The 1918 Veterans Day9 vision10 of ending “the war to end all wars” created the United Nations 27 years later and promoted a world of strong, diverse communities of nurturing families caring for each other to expand freedom and fairness for all. American progressives share that vision. American conservatism does not. Autocratic conservatism continues to infect and fail humanity with culture wars and attacks on the US Constitution. George Washington said, “A primary objective should be the education of our youth in the science of government.”11 Advocates of conservatism continue to disregard and heap contempt for human rights empathy locally and abroad, with their government limited to billionaires and their lackeys.
Progressives persist.
Meanwhile, rural Clinton County progressives persist because we care for veterans and are committed to culture diplomacy and peace here and abroad. We love our neighbors and want the most caring and safest schools for all families, not just billionaire or Christian nationalist families. That means we must nurture empathy for each other that human rights Article 1 proclaims: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. (We) are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
In addition, we are committed to exercising human rights Article 29“duties to the community - respecting the rights and duties of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.”
Show up with empathy.
My prayer to you, dear reader, is that you persist in making Veterans Day a recommitment day to the “progressive measures” called for in the Proclamation Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Let’s make the use of our military obsolete. As you consider Veterans Day and as Thanksgiving approaches, I pray that you consider putting on the SHOES of culture diplomacy:
S - Show up at public and private meetings to cultivate empathy
H - Help colleagues and neighbors cultivate empathy in civic tasks
O - Organize friends to cultivate empathy in civic tasks
E - Educate about human rights empathy, the soul of democracy
S - Start over each day to publicly cultivate empathy
Prayer defined, Legal Dictionary, https://proempathy.us/legalprayer
We the People, Article II Section 3 of the US Constitution “Take Care Clause” requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” because empathy or care is the soul of democracy. https://proempathy.us/takecare
United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights Preamble Proclamation, 1948, https://proempathy.us/iudhrbk
Matthew 22:36-40, https://proempathy.us/matt2236
IBID., United Nations UDHR Article 1, 2, 29, and 30
IBID., We the People, 1st Amendment, https://proempathy.us/1stamend
Wilmington City Schools’ Mission, https://proempathy.us/wcscares
St. George, Donna, When bullied students end their lives, parents are suing. And schools are paying., Washington Post, 11/11/2023, https://proempathy.us/bullies
United States Government, Department of Veterans Affairs, History of Veterans Day, https://proempathy.us/veterans
Lakoff, George, Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, Chapter 14, What Unites Progressives, p 137, Chelsea Green, VT, 2014
National Center for Constitutional Studies, https://proempathy.us/constitution
Thanks, Jan, for the Restack.