Human Rights

Empathy Education – Public

Pro-Empathy Freedom Voters Are the Solution for a Caring Society

You’re invited to join our 501c3 membership-driven human rights empathy education collective, applying the latest cognitive science to communication and advocacy, to make empathy central to constant public discourse.

What Is Empathy Intelligence (EI) Governance?

Freedom from fear and want is possible when ordinary citizens care about other people outside their families. However, the inability of caring citizens to govern public discourse around empathy is the number one symptom of our national empathy deficit. Death threats against lawmakers who stand up for human rights empathy reached an all-time high of 8,000 in 2023. EI governance is the ability to reframe public discourse around empathy to govern debate. Pro-empathy freedom voters in and out of elected office could govern their daily discourse to make empathy central. Will we?

Empathy is the soul of democracy; citizens invest in people first for broader prosperity. Our private lives depend on the investment of time and money in governing our individual public lives with care for a better tomorrow. Children are shaped by their communities to become strong nurturers of democracy or weak bullies of dictatorships. Effective government is learned in strong, diverse communities of nurturing families, ethical businesses, and civil society, fostering mutual responsibility to others. 

Human rights empathy education is our moral duty.

The UDHR Preamble and Articles 1, 2, 29, and 30 say that the moral duty of  “every individual and every organ of society” is to protect Human Rights Articles 3-28 with the rule of law by keeping human rights empathy “constantly in mind” and teach, educate, and “promote respect for these rights and freedoms by progressive measures.” You can help.

Sign on to the CARE Education Bill

CARE is an acronym that means – Cultivate All (human) Rights Empathy. The CARE Education Bill is a simple model bill for any state legislature. Sign on at this link. The Bill seeks to amend our 50 states academic standards for all students in grades K-12 to:

  1. Cultivate empathy for and responsibility to humanity, and
  2. Learn how to apply these core values to promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Our endemic pandemic of extreme conservatism is a nightmare infecting us all. 79 years ago, United Nations allies defeated extreme conservative fascism. And they created what was supposed to be a peace-creation organization with the same name “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women in nations large and small.” Three years later, in 1948, the UN passed unanimously with abstentions the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in 1951,

The real change, which must give to people throughout the world their human rights, must come about in the hearts of people. We must want our fellow human beings to have rights and freedoms which give them dignity and which will give them a sense that they are human beings that can walk the earth with their heads high and look all men in the face. If we observe these rights, for ourselves and for others, I think we will find that it is easier in the world to build peace because war destroys all human rights and freedoms, so in fighting for those we fight for peace.

who cares wins

EI Competent People Focus on 4 Areas!

  1. EI “Trust” Competence – Caring people and organizations focus on building trust in the rule of human rights law through committed, honest, open, and repeated framing of every possible political issue with empathy for and responsibility to humanity. 
  2. EI “Protection” Competence – Caring people and organizations focus on protecting humanity from billionaires with an effective, democratic politics of care so that everyone can fulfill their full potential and be treated fairly, equitably, and with dignity. 
  3. EI “Collaboration” Competence – Caring people and organizations focus on shaping future generations of diverse nurturing family communities through service in partnerships that collaborate with a politics of care in both the private and public sectors.
  4. EI “Freedom” Competence – Caring people and organizations focus on developing caring economies free from the fear of billionaires with sufficient prosperity and opportunities for all to reduce our carbon pollution blanket and thrive.

Join Our Substack and Make Human Rights Empathy the Center of Your Daily Discourse

Reframing IS social change. Become a free Substack subscriber to our Pro-Empathy Voters Are the Solution Substack. Paid Substack subscribers can join our Empathy Surplus Zoom Forums and help us make human rights empathy the center of constant public debate. Check out George Lakoff’s books.

Consider Joining the UN Global Compact

Reframing IS social change. Empathy Surplus Network USA has been a member of the UN Global Compact since 2014. We use the latest insights of the brain from cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff. Dr. Lakoff says you must repeatedly talk about what you want to get what you want. Limited-empathy billionaires are good at this. Democracy-loving progressives in both US political parties must get better at framing the protection and empowerment of human rights with the rule of law.

Why Join Our Zoom Forums?

Empathy Surplus Network USA Zoom Forum members aspire to make ESNU a progressive educational alternative to conservative forums like ALEC, reverse our national empathy deficit, and make empathy the center of constant public debate and the MORAL WHY of all legislation. Our membership dues of $10/month are a token of one’s commitment to govern with empathy for and responsibility to humanity. Members receive a login email address in the following format first.last@empathysurplus.com.

Download the Illustrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights pdf

This Illustrated UDHR pdf download includes a 2-page pdf version at the end of the illustrated version. Confirmation of contact information has the download link. 

Caring Thought Leaders Core Values

Empathy

the soul of democracy

Responsibility

both personal and social

Commitment

to govern with empathy and responsibility

Pro-Empathy Freedom Voters

Cultivate Empathy with

Culture Diplomacy S.H.O.E.S.

S - Show up at public and private meetings to cultivate empathy

H - Help elected officials cultivate empathy in civic tasks

O - Organize to cultivate empathy in civic tasks

E - Educate about human rights empathy, the soul of democracy

S - Start each day to publicly cultivate empathy

George Lakoff's Resources

The basic idea is this: Dr. Lakoff's resources are free and open to all. He will provide framing suggestions regularly over social media, and whoever receives them can decide how to use them, and whether to share them or retweet them.  Dr. Lakoff's process is bottom-up.

Dr. Lakoff also offers this framing service to activist organizations, media folks, and elected officials and their staff.

Pro-Empathy Pledge to the People of the World

(Recited while holding a neighbor's hand. People from other countries may insert the name of their country.)

I pledge allegiance to the people of the world

and to my neighbors in the United States of America

and to our human rights, which I defend and promote,

one world governed with empathy and responsibility,

with liberty and justice for all.

Empathy Surplus Network USA is a 501c3 local human rights empathy education community of practice that applies the latest brain insights of George Lakoff to moral and political discourse to protect human rights with the rule of law. To reverse our national empathy deficit, we invite you to join our culture diplomacy initiative to make empathy, the soul of democracy and ethical business, the center of public and private debate. Donations are exempt from federal income taxation under section 501(a) and described in section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

UNITED NATIONS GLOBAL compact resources

Pro-Empathy Freedom Declaration

I am a progressive -
caring human being
in a strong, diverse community
of nurturing families.
I am a pro-empathy voter and
govern with empathy for and
responsibility to others.
I here highly resolve that
this nation shall have
a new birth of freedom
- and that government
of the people,
by the people,
for the people
shall not perish
from the earth.
I am a person
with human rights.
I care for my own
Safety and Happiness
and that of others.
I am the solution to
expanding life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.
And for the support of this
declaration, joining
progressive human rights
advocates and
pro-empathy voters,
we mutually pledge
to each other
our Lives, our Fortunes,
and our sacred Honor.

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