Author: Pat

REMOVING HATE & VIOLENCE FROM THE POLICE

Some people truly believe that all police officers are bad. There are also some who are certain all police officers hate minorities. When you look at the actual numbers, neither of these views are correct. But that doesn’t mean all police officers are perfect, either. There are bad people everywhere, including in the police. They’re a small percentage, but they are still out there. Those few bad police officers are actively fueling these beliefs, making it tougher for the police to do their job and the community to prosper. Getting rid of those few bad police officers would stop creating the horrible situations that fuel these beliefs.

There’s an elephant in the room preventing that from happening: the police unions. Most police chiefs know who the bad apples are. They know which officers are bigots and racists, which ones are extra violent, and which ones have substance abuse issues. But union regulations keep these officers from being dismissed before they cause problems. Police chiefs need to be able to fire cops that aren’t doing their job correctly or might cause trouble through their habits.

That doesn’t mean that the union should be dissolved. By all means, have an organized workforce. Just don’t let that labor organization run the entire workforce. That power needs to be with the labor force themselves, the ones who are in the thick of it day in, day out, not the ones who are paid millions to govern from afar.

When you get right down to it, the police put their lives on the line for us every day. And God bless them for it! They need to have the freedom and respect to police the bad apples they know are in their midst.

A good start to the change would be to strengthen the role and place of the police in the community. The community should reach out to the police force, and the police force should reach back. Community events like potlucks, brunches, festivals, and more are great ways to do this. Connecting the people directly to the police will show that they’re not all bad, and connecting the police to the people will help the good ones feel better about what they do. It just might even convince the bad ones to start changing their tune.

Who is No Hate No Violence?

A letter from our founder on the importance of free speech and debate theory:

I am 71 years old and I have experienced and have seen a lot in my lifetime. I’ve watched our world evolve in so many ways.  Because of this I know that we are fully capable of changing from a bad attitude to a good increasing our happiness. And I know we will continue to make this world a better place for future generations.

This is why I started the No Hate No Violence blog.  I started it because I truly believe there is no place in the world for hate or violence.  I believe we CAN make our world a better place.  And I want to help do this.  So, I began by writing posts trying to encourage others to embrace this ideology.  This is my pay it forward.

Our team here created NO HATE NO VIOLENCE signs and took them to the streets to be carried at the different marches and protests.  All in the hopes of reducing the tensions and encourage peaceful demonstrations and dialog.  I’m not going to lie.  It was intimidating for us to do this.  But it was successful.  We found that it didn’t make a difference what position a person stood on in the matter. Most were receptive and wanted to hold our signs.  This gave us hope.

But, in my process of learning how to be a blogger (and yes, I am still learning how all of this works), I have spent many hours researching various topics.  And as does everyone, I too have my own personal beliefs.  But above all I believe in free speech.  So, when I came across debate teams and the rules of debate I thought AHA!  This is what we need.  This can help!

No Hate No Violence believes in free speech with open and respectful dialog.  So, we began developing the No Hate No Violence Debate Forums.

If we could promote free speech and reduce today’s angry rhetoric using facts we could encourage people to actually listen to each other.

We could get people to really hear different points of views objectively. What better way to start than to encourage healthy respectful debates.  Especially in our youth.

In today’s world when we follow our politicians and media we become more and more exposed to so much negativity, mistruths, and corruption.  Sadly, we are teaching our youth how to be corrupt, how to lie, how to be self-absorbed and how to be closed off to differing points of view.  Much of our society claims to be enlightened and open-minded in today’s age, but in reality, many have become more intolerant.

I think that our issues with bullying alone, is an indicator of what our society and social media is teaching our youth.  Our political leaders and their rhetoric spread all across the media spectrum just screams intolerance and is the epitome of bullying.

We want to change that.  We want to bring the fine art of debating back to the forefront of American society.  We want to re-open the dialogue.

Let’s encourage and support the benefits of debating.  Debating promotes open dialogue and respect and tolerance for others.  It teaches people how to think objectively and quickly.  After all, to be objective you must be able to hear both sides of an issue.

The more we thought about debating the more we realized that we need to expand and promote these programs nationwide from grade school through university.  Especially to those schools needing assistance.  We want to get these debates recorded and publicized to provide ongoing education and awareness to the general public.

There are so many benefits that debating can offer.

Teaching our children to debate at the grade school level will develop their cognitive skills giving them greater confidence and self-esteem.  It will improve their study habits and encourage them to take more interest in subjects they may otherwise shy away from. Click on this link to check out 3rd graders debating!

Debating at both the grade school and high school levels gives the teachers fun opportunities to engage their students in some of the more challenging or “boring” topics.  It’s also a great avenue of redirection for kids lacking in social skills.  The child identified as a “bully” could redirect their aggressive behavior in a more productive way.  And the “shy” kid can find their voice.

These skills carried through high school and college will provide far better opportunities for success in life.  High school debaters will improve their future college and scholarship opportunities.  And those who choose not to go to college have gained invaluable skills to promote themselves in the workforce and their future careers.

Benefiting our youth with these skills benefits our society.

As you can probably tell, we are very passionate about this.  But we are small and have been self-funding everything.  We need your help.  To fully make this a reality we need volunteers and donations to enable us to develop and distribute our systems, market the program, provide outreach and training, and to fundraise and secure sponsors.  We hope you will join us on this journey to pay it forward.

There is no debate…debating can make the world a better place!

 

Unplanned VS Planned

The topic of abortion certainly is one that carries a lot of debate. As does the movie “Unplanned”.

But rather than debate the topic of abortion we wanted to bring up the topic of censorship.

Many of you may have seen the movie “Unplanned” which tells the story of Abby Johnson, a young clinic director for Planned Parenthood who ultimately becomes an anti-abortion activist.  It’s an interesting movie.

But the making of the movie is an interesting story in itself.

The writer and directors of the movie have faced quite a bit of opposition in marketing this film.  So much so they testified at a Congressional Committee meeting on “Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse”.

Their testimony includes reports of being blocked or suspended from Google Ads, Twitter, and other social media.

The NPAA gave them an “R” rating limiting their ability to market to a Christian base.  These are just naming a few examples of the challenges they faced.  Their testimony was very interesting.  We encourage you to check out the link “Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse”.  It is quite enlightening.

We are supposed to be a country who supports free speech.  Yet, here we find big tech companies trying to restrict our rights.  How is this right or legal?  What they are doing is censorship and seems discriminatory.  Our moral compass needs to get back on course.

This type of censorship is an insult to the intelligence of American adults.

We should always be free to hear both sides of a debate and be free to make our own educated decisions on what we choose to believe in.  Or what we want to watch at a movie.

That’s what makes America great.  We choose which movie ticket we want to purchase.  We choose what we want to believe in.

Snowplow Parenting: The Decline of Our Society

Helicopter parenting, snowplow parenting, all the different versions of it, protecting our kids from having any anxiety as children, is probably the largest source of depression in our country.

These ways of parenting are not preparing your children how to deal with their future anxieties or how to deal with life in general.  We need to shift our attitudes.

Graham C.L. Dewy Davey, PhD talks about the anxiety caused by this in his article “Helicopter, Snowplow, and Bubble-Wrap Parenting – How is anxiety transmitted from parents to their children?” Many times anxiety ultimately ends up in depression.  And we wonder why these kids end up depressed in their 30’s and 40’s. Well it came from our coddling them too much.

There is another version of parenting, which is the old-day proper way called hold your child accountable parenting.  It is a lot firmer and doesn’t let children get away with things.  It holds them accountable as much as possible. For one example, it restricts their use of social media. Social media has been known to be a huge source of depression and suicide among children and students.  The bullying alone is enough reason to limit your child’s access to social media.

Parents have also got to stop trying to get them into colleges they shouldn’t. Stop snowplowing their way in.

Not all kids should go to college. Think about it.  You could go to college to be a teacher making about $45,000 a year. Or you could spend two years in a trade and start out at $80,000 a year.

You could go to work for Google right out of high school.  They won’t pay you but $20 to $25 an hour initially.  But they will pay you $60 to $70 an hour after two years working there.  It’s like Walmart.  Everyone raises hell about Walmart, but their average income is $25 to $30 after three years of employment.

The point is there are many successful people without a college degree.

The main thing today is we’ve got to stop this snowplowing and helicoptering and coddling our kids.

For single parents, we need to figure out how to help them get role models for their children. They don’t have to be the same ethnic upbringing, just a good person who will volunteer to “adopt” a single parent family. There are thousands of great people out there who want to help.  Everyone is trying to be White on White and Black on Black and I firmly disagree with that theory.  If somebody helps make a family stronger, I don’t care what color they are.  I think we should live in a colorless society.

The one thing I’m sure of is that we’ve got to practice more discipline and accountability.

Anyway, let’s get rid of the helicopter and snowplow parenting.  And let’s take responsibility and get these darn smart phones out of our young children’s hands.

There is a great article from Business Insider, “Silicon Valley parents are raising their kids tech-free – and it should be a red flag“, that shows the reason their kids are tech-free.  I think they’re right.  We need to limit our children’s use of technology.  They shouldn’t have a cell phone until they are at least 12 years old.  And even then it should be limited use.  Make your kids earn their tech time. Only allow them to use it after all of their homework and chores are done.

Don’t be afraid to hold your children accountable. Quit snowplowing or helicoptering or bubble wrapping them. They will love and appreciate you more because of it.

Our Moral Compass Needs to Get Back on Course

The moral compass of today’s society has really gone astray.  Not to mention the decline in emotional intelligence.  Between the hate crime accusations from Jussie Smollett and the inappropriate touching claims against Joe Biden, what are we supposed to think? Oh, and let’s not forget the exoneration of President Trump from colluding with the Russians.

When it comes to Jussie who knows if we’ll ever get the truth, but either way that story pans out, hate and resentment were the culprits.  If Jussie is guilty he had enough hate and resentment in him to make false claims. And if he’s innocent then those who attacked him were full of hate and resentment as well.  Either way, it’s an ugly truth.

Then we have President Trump.  The Mueller Report says he didn’t collude with the Russians.  You would think we as a country would be happy to hear that our President is not guilty.  Instead, people are angry and in disbelief.  It really is a sad state of affairs.

The truth is the feelings of hate can go beyond the level of any cognitive thinking or ability to deal with resentments.  We really need to rethink and work on tolerance in our country.  How do we take situations such as these and turn them into a positive?

How do we as a society become truly objective once again?  How do we learn empathy and tolerance?  Especially for a difference of opinion?

First of all, we need to re-embrace freedom of speech and learn to listen respectfully to one another.  It is okay to disagree.  I think a great example of this is in the art of debating.  Debating forces both parties to look at both sides of the issue objectively whether you agree with it or not.  There is a lesson to be re-learned there.

Our society has fought long and hard for many years for free speech and civil rights.  We can’t lose all of the progress we have made because of a current lack of emotional intelligence in our society.

How do we fix this?  No Hate No Violence likes to say Stop Talking Do Something.  But for now, let’s start talking and start to really listen.  Let us know your thoughts!

Let’s Do Something While We’re Talking

 

 

Anti-Free Speech in Our Colleges Is Another Form of Bullying

Anti-free speech in colleges is the ultimate bullying.  The worst bullies there are, is  the people who stop people from free speech.  When they don’t support the first amendment, when millions and millions of people have died to support it, they are believing in breaking the law, and believing in hate and violence.

It’s crazy to think that the Free Speech Movement began in 1964 by UC Berkeley students.  They were all about protesting a ban on on-campus political activities.  All fueled by the struggle for civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War.  What has changed?  Now, fifty-five years later, unless you are promoting Liberal views, you are not allowed to speak.  You are not welcome.  The Liberal moral compass really needs to be looked at.  How can we allow ourselves to take such a huge step back in progress?

Anti-free speech quite simply is bullying, and bullying is hate. That’s it.  It is a hate that people have developed over the years.  And we need to fight it.  We need to continue to fight for free speech.

The people who try and stop free speech are the people who have no answers to whatever the comments are.  They don’t know how to debate because they have no answers to the problem.  They are afraid to have a fair debate.  They want to stack the uninformed odds in their favor.

By stopping discussions, you’re nothing but a bully. And if we are against bullying, we should be against anti-free speech.  That is my opinion.  It’s just not right!

This is being fueled by taxpayer funded College professors, more reasons why we should abolish tenor. Tenor has been greatly abused, often as cover for doing the wrong thing. Questioning American ideals is ok, but encouraging anti-American, anti-free speech, is wrong. Lets do the right thing.

Thank you, President Trump, for signing the executive order protecting free speech on college campuses.  I surely hope this can  get the current college administrations and the American people thinking more about free speech and what we can do to support it.

 

 

BE PROUD TO BE THE BEST GREAT NATION IN THE WORLD

America’s wealthy donates more money on an annual basis to help other countries than anyone else. What many don’t understand is that about 20% of the people in the US pay 80% of the taxes.  Those 20% paying 80% of the taxes are not all wealthy.  Think about that.

Being the greatest nation in the world allows us to help all these other countries in the world. If we don’t continue to work on being the best and greatest nation in the world we won’t be able to help the other countries as much as we do.  President Trump could do a better job of pointing that out.  We have done more to promote equal rights and human rights in the world than all other countries combined. 

We really need to lighten up and focus on what the big issues really are. Can you imagine if we just adopted a more positive attitude moving forward? The Democrats would be so much more productive in a good way rather than creating a divide amongst us.

The Democratic stonewalling needs to stop.  I applaud Nancy Pelosi’s decision to not try to impeach President Trump because, as she says, it will only divide our country.  Though, I will admit, I am not confident in her intentions.

But, I do think the Democratic Party has some good potential presidential candidates for 2020.  If they want to gain momentum with the votes they need to stop the stonewalling Trump Haters at the expense of the voters.  The people are tired of it. They are going to lose their seats in the house and presidential elections if they don’t. 

One man with conviction will overwhelm a hundred who have only opinions. ~ Winston Churchill

So, let’s get a positive attitude and get rid of the hate and violence. Let’s focus on the more positive we can do in the world to benefit everyone.  Remember, the people with good attitudes generally are more successful in life.  So, if you want to continue on with a negative attitude then expect to make less money and be in the lower echelon of democracy.  But if you want to continue to rise…well then embrace the power of positivity and keep a positive attitude!

Do You Think It’s Gotten Better?

Our nation’s crisis hasn’t gone away.  In the 70’s we never thought our issues with drug abuse could get worse. Then came the 80’s.

Now here we are in 2018 with the death toll rising.  We lost approximately 64,000 lives in 2016 to opioid overdoses alone.

That’s roughly the same amount of lives we lost in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.  Every day 116 people die from an overdose and that number is rising.

We are not winning the war on drugs.  We need our wall and we need a plan.  We need our troops to protect our borders.

What happens if the terrorists and the drug lords start working together? American genocide?

Americans Need to Pay Attention to What Unites Us, and Finally Resolve What Divides Us

­Everything in the United States has become polarized – politics, religion, gender, race, identity. We’re segregated geographically, economically and ideologically among too many lines to count.

This is nothing new, and the tension, anger, and resentment that it causes (and that to various degrees has always been there), simmer and sometimes resurface, despite the best efforts by some to keep it under control. Often those least affected by it pretend the problem isn’t as bad as others make it out to be, and when it can’t be denied, those “others” always receive the blame. Too often though, those differences between us are not discussed or addressed rationally, but with a view of dehumanizing those who are different to a point of caricature. All sides do it to some extent or another, some more vocally or cruelly, but nobody wants to accept responsibility for their part in the cycle.

Politically, the sides seem to be formed into unbreakable battle lines. Democrats can’t work with Republicans, conservatives can’t be around liberals, those who don’t fall within those sides aren’t even worthy of a say. Various other groups pick sides, sometimes out of convenience and alliance more so than true belief. The sides vilify each other and reduce them to crude stereotypes – it is easier to criticize if those on the other side aren’t even seen as real people. It’s the poor versus the rich; racial and religious minorities against vocal subsets of the mainstream and majorities; gun owners opposed to any restrictions and those who seek reasonable limits; the LGBT community seeking rights and equality and those who demand traditional gender roles; those seeking more government involvement and support versus those seeking a small government that stays out of their lives (but can intervene in the lives of others as much as it wants). Every issue, ranging from those that define us to those that are merely a passing interest, are used as barriers to divide us, and the personal quickly becomes political. Largely, people want to surround themselves with those that make them comfortable, those who are the same, and not those that challenge their ideas. With these divisions, is it unsurprising that outside forces have been able to so easily penetrate and control our system? They have exploited existing prejudices and resentments to manipulate our beliefs further, stoking fear and hatred to more vocal and visible levels.

And through it all, nobody wants to accept fault for their own actions. It is always “other people” or “the other side” that is to blame. “They” are what is wrong with the country. And, it turns out, you’re right – “they” are what is wrong with the country… just like YOU are what is wrong! Because “they” think the same about “you” as you think about “them.” As long as that mentality continues on all sides, what chance do we have to figure out what is right about the country? Have you ever tried to get to know “them”? Sure, we all sort of have. There’s always “that one relative…” or “that one co-worker…” and “that friend from high school who according to social media has really changed…” and maybe even “that guy I sat next to on an airplane that one time.” But aside from passing pleasantries, or avoiding the complicated discussions for the sake of getting through a necessary dinner peacefully, do people really try to know each other?

You may notice there are plenty of similarities – these can include basic level things like interest in the same movies or sports teams, to bigger issues like the fact that we all want what’s best for our kids and our country, even if we just have different ideas of how to achieve that. Perhaps the biggest necessity if we want to turn “that person I met” into “that person who is truly important despite our differences,” is understanding and respect, not to mention communication. Understanding that asking for tolerance from others means respecting their dissenting opinion and giving them tolerance and understanding in return. Within most faiths (excepting extremist or fanatical groups, of which, sadly, all faiths have their own to deal with), most political ideologies, every ethnicity and each gender, each perspective and person has something that makes it worthy of being heard. This country is built on political rivalries and disagreements resulting in compromise, going back to the Founding Fathers – if they had agreed on everything then, we would have a much different, and possibly much weaker country than what we have. This system of debate and compromise shouldn’t need to be different now. Our similarities bring us together, but if we don’t let them tear us apart, embracing our differences could make us strong.

United We Stand Divided We Fall

So much in life revolves around attitude.  And only we are responsible for our attitudes.  The world presents us with situations.  But it’s our choice.   We choose how we will react to it.  No one else makes that choice for us.

In a time when so many are certain that our country is divided, I think we need to take a closer look at ourselves.  If this country is truly divided, then it is our own fault.  We have no one to blame other than ourselves for allowing ourselves to react the way that we are.

The world is never going to agree on everything.  That is what makes it so beautiful.  If we were all the same there would be no uniqueness and life would be boring.  So, why is it so hard for us to not accept others for who they are?  We need to embrace our uniqueness.

The great thing about attitude is that you can always change it.  It’s never too late.  In a constantly evolving world that continues to become more and more enlightened, we always have the ability to change things.

One of my favorite presidential quotes is from Abraham Lincoln: “I don’t like that man.  I must get to know him better.”  Imagine how much less hate and violence there would be in the world if more people adopted that mind set?  If we took the time to learn about someone rather than cast hate toward them because we don’t like them or what we think they believe, or we don’t understand them.

It seems fitting that perhaps we should reflect on what our country’s great leaders have told us.  The following quotes are some of my favorites:

“To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.”
~ John Adams

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt

“Pessimism never won any battle.”
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Click “Presidential Quotes” to view the inspirational quotes from all 45 of our presidents.

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