"Let us pledge that gender-based violence will end with us. For how many generations and centuries will we bear the brunt of gender-based viol
Mr. Jeffrey Imm leader of R.E.A.L speaks on Human Right Day at National Press Club Washington DC on December 10, 2025.
A New Hope: Human Rights and Human Responsibility. By Jeffrey Imm, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
Hello, my name is Jeffrey Imm. I am the leader of the Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) coalition for human rights. The goal of R.E.A.L. is to use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and we commemorate its December 10, 1948 creation every year, as a standard for progress in human rights objectives throughout the world, and as a coalition on together on shared human rights issues. This year we have gone back to having a press conference at the National Press Club, as we have had in the past. The reason the UDHR was created on December 10, 1948, was as a response to the "disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts" during WWII. We have seen such disregard and contempt again over the past few years, and more barbarous acts than we can count.
The list of all of the atrocities and contempt against human rights is almost endless. So instead of only focusing on that horrible list, I come here this year with an offer for new hope. Because so many of us have been dispirited at the willingness of global representatives to commit "barbarous" abuses, which the UDHR was specifically created to discourage and prevent. Let us look at a path for solutions instead.
Even in the dark days of our world, let us find hope to remember that every day is still a Good Day to be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
1. The New Hope Begins with Ourselves
There is a new hope for universal human rights, despite grave injustices and dark days that we live in as human beings on our shared Earth today.
We can make a difference in our world by starting with ourselves and encouraging others on the path of KINDNESS, MERCY, and LOVE to one another. Kind people don't mass murder others. Merciful people don't persecute others. People with love in their hearts don't hate and revile others as non-human beings. The path to degrading human rights through cruelty, mean-spiritedness, and hate is the path that we can change - one person at a time, one example at a time, one life at a time. We can set an example and standard, no matter how difficult the past or our past selves have been, for a new path forward to build the long abandoned infrastructure that a serious movement on universal human rights requires.
Where do the atrocities against human rights come? They came from a normalization of being mean and being cruel towards others. And they come from INDIFFERENCE - which is the true opposite of love - about acts by representatives in world governments and institutions of mean-spiritedness, cruelty, violence, and hate against our fellow human beings. We must find this unacceptable. We have demonstrations by some against such obscene behavior, but daily life shows that clearly those demonstrations are insufficient. We must not fail to recognize that accepting a society where only the smallest number is encouraged to live with a conscience - is not, and will never be enough. The change we must seek is within ourselves, and we must live that change, and THEN we must evangelize that change to the world. In so many other difficult times in history, THIS is how we made meaningful human rights change, by working to change the hearts of ourselves and being a beacon of that change to others. It is not enough to demand that we do not have representatives that reject human rights. Our lives must be a standard to others to embrace kindness, mercy, and love, so that cruel representation is not acceptable to them as well.
We begin to control the state of human rights by first working to control our own behaviors as human beings. The starting point is not someone else’s responsibility. It is not someone else’s problem. It’s not some organization‘s, the United Nations, our various government’s responsibility to begin with. The state of human rights begins the responsibility and accountability of each one of us in our lives with one another. WE.... are the starting point.
We… not they… are the leaders responsible for universal human rights. We… in the choices that we make in our lives - we are the new hope that we seek for universal human rights.
2. Choice of Kindness and Mercy in Ourselves and Our Representatives
We can first choose to be kind and offer mercy to others. We do not have to be mean. I realize that many of us are in difficult situations in many different times of our lives. I realize that we have to stand up for ourselves and protect ourselves and boundaries in our lives.
But we don’t have to choose to be mean. We can choose to be kind and to offer mercy.
There is an addiction and normalization to being mean. We think it’s all right to be mean. We can justify and rationalize it. There are many leaders in our representatives, in society, in the media, in world organizations, and of course, among those in social media, who advocate being mean as being a good thing.
They are wrong. Let us never forget this. But we do not encourage change by adopting the tactics, the views, and values of those choose mean-spiritedness, cruelty, and hate. As the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated "Hate is Too Great A Burden." And it is. We cannot let Hate and Mean-Spiritedness rob us of our ability to inspire, to offer hope, and most importantly to love our fellow human beings, especially those whose views we seek to change.
We change the debate by insisting that we share the common facts that humanity is worth our mercy and kindness, because the reality is that we cannot survive without it.
We must choose the kindness and mercy of offering an outstretched hand. Not just to those like us and to those we like, but also (especially) to those we do not like and those who are not like us. To the weakest. To the most confused. To the most vulnerable. And especially to the most hateful. Because every burden of hate towards others is a burden in our heart to keep us from being strong enough to be a beacon of kindness and hope - that we must be - to call for the institutional changes around the world for representation and for government actions based on our shared universal human rights - and that we reject all "barbarous acts" - for a path of kindness and mercy.
What type of humanity are we, without kindness and mercy?
Who is so deluded in their lives that they believe they will never need kindness and mercy in their life? And if we all need kindness and mercy in some part of our life, how can we receive what we cannot give?
When kindness and mercy become the center of your moral compass, your decisions must change. The choice of cruelty, the choice of hate, the choice of being mean to others may be expedient, but it is NO LONGER YOUR WAY. But you have to choose kindness and mercy first.
A commitment to kindness and mercy is not only karma; it is fundamental to survival of a shared species of life and to life itself. We are constantly every day, every hour, every minute, completely dependent on the kindness and mercy of others. We may not see or hear it. But like air and gravity, kindness and mercy are an existential part of human life.
Kindness and Mercy are fundamental to human rights and human survival. Mercy changes lives and transforms others. We must choose kindness and mercy to be consistent in a path for human rights.
Furthermore, we must reject the perversion of "The Golden Rule" that so many of our representatives and world has chosen - their dystopian view of "Do Unto Others As They Would Do Unto You" - as a rational for cruelty, mean-spiritedness, and hate. No. That was NEVER the intent of "The Golden Rule." And as people of conscience it is NOT OUR WAY. We must choose to offer the outstretched hand - even to those who come to us with an upraised fist. Because we can never progress - by accepting a society of division and mean-spiritedness. We must find the courage and the choice of kindness and mercy - especially when it is hard to do.
3. The Deception of Violence
The greatest advocate for non-violence in modern times, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived in fear of violence against his family. At one point, this great advocate for nonviolence considered buying a gun to protect his family. He did not. But let’s not question the fact that there are those who want to kill and attack other people. We do not survive by being unwilling to defend ourselves if it truly comes to that as the **LAST** option. But we also do not survive by embracing the tactics of criminals, the cruel, and murderers. Becoming them does not make us safer. It simply makes us worse and undermines who and what we are.
Our society glamorizes and normalizes the deception of violence as something that we should use frequently at all the time. Not simply as the last possible resort.
We always have to find other solutions first. We must not choose violence first. The deception of violence as normal is apparent to anyone. If everyone chooses to be violent at whatever they believe is an appropriate provocation, we will literally live in a society of chaos and constant turmoil. This is not “warrior thinking”. This is madness. It is literally and genuinely unbalanced. The deception creates actual imbalance in society itself. Our society and our media popularizes violence as something endlessly good and worthy; not as something that is abused and is mostly disgraceful and shameful.
We - the ones responsible for human rights - must set an example by rejecting the glamorization and normalization of violence as something desirable or entertaining.
The deception of violence only makes humanity less and less safe.
4. Love is All We Need
Love is Life.
Love is clearly the “inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny,” referenced by Dr. King.
If we are unable to open our heart to love, we are unable to open our heart to our society and its universal human rights.
Love is life. Love is the network of life. Love is the destiny of life. Love is the power and the energy and the fuel behind ALL of life.
Without love, there would be NO humanity at all.
So love is not only our oxygen, love is not only our gravity, love is not only our moral compass, love is the network of life and destiny that ties our hearts truly together. Because when we choose to be open enough to love one another, our hearts beat in a way that they cannot beat when we do not accept love into our heart. Love is more than an individual bright light of mercy, kindness, and nonviolence to the world. With love in our hearts, we become human lighthouses that serve as beacons to the world to come together as one.
A new hope for human rights begins with the power of love. To change and be responsible stewards for human rights, and we have to break down the walls and the barriers to giving and receiving love. We must work to reject hard and cold hearts in ourselves. We must strive not for distance, but to embrace love. Life depends on it. Love is life.
Love is life. If we choose a path that love towards ourselves and our fellow human beings are not worth it, then we ultimately choose a path that human life itself is not worth it. How can we lead human rights change if the essential of human life as part of universal human rights is not an essential for us?
Love transcends all. It breaks down the barriers between the artificial categories that we create among our human species. It becomes a fuel for kindness, mercy, dignity, non-violence because who can love one another and still want to do horrible things to one another?
We don’t know how long we have on this Earth. We may think you do. We have no idea. We may have moments; we may have years; we may have something in between. Can we afford to be so recklessly wasteful with our precious lives born from love itself, as to not allow love in our lives?
But if we choose to spend the currency of our life exclusively in the pursuit of material success, what many in our cultures like to call “progress,” we have not invested in the essential part of life that is our love for one another, and we haven’t started towards real responsibility for human rights
Our campaigns for change in human rights must begin with change within ourselves. We cannot ask anyone to change when we are unwilling to change ourselves. That hypocrisy will never work and it never does.
So the fundamental part of being responsible for human rights must include being responsible to live our lives fully enough to open our hearts to give and receive love.
We not only have to be kind; we not only have to have mercy; we not only have to be responsible; we have to be able to actually love our fellow human beings.
When we chose to become a society of loving human beings, this is where responsibility for human rights begins. This is because our true connection to each other is then fully apparent and we are constantly aware of the ability to be connected as “one.”
Life is not practical and rational. Your human life came from the miracle of irrational love. The miracle of life constantly begins with the miracle of love, in some way. You were born in love, with the mission of love as your highest calling. The miracle of love that creates human life transcends all reason. Love transcends all logic. Love makes practicality look like a joke. Love laughs at all the plans, and all the campaigns that we can logically create, and that we logically believe makes sense.
Because when those campaigns or plans are not made out of love for or by people who understand love for their fellow human beings, or who by people whose hearts have been touched by the essential of love towards their fellow human beings - those plans may be well-intentioned, but they miss the energy of human love that is behind all meaningful human rights change.
5. Islands of Isolation
Those who embrace the essential human infrastructure of kindness, mercy, nonviolence, and love - cannot live as islands of isolation. In a world normalizing cruelty, we are taught that the only ones we need to love are ourselves. We are taught and encouraged to become "successful" islands of isolation in our shared world. How can a sane society survive like this?
If we cannot connect with our fellow human beings, how can we work for their shared universal human rights? If we cannot love others, what do we really seek to accomplish with our lives? What accomplishments do we think our hardened hearts will really achieve?
So yes, when the poets say “all you need is love,” from a human rights perspective that is essentially true. Because we need hearts that love to be able to reach out and offer the universal human rights that all people deserve. But we cannot love one another as islands of isolation, we must reach out our outstretched hands to love our fellow human beings as ONE human society and to overcome the divisions that so many seek to promote between us.
6. Coming Together as One
In our case, the concept of sharing our common cause of the objectives of universal human rights is the goal of our coalition.
Given the vast magnitude in dark circumstances regarding universal human rights today, the best use of my limited public attention this day, was not to recite a laundry list all the tragedies, persecutions, and horrific atrocities around the world. Rather, I offer this as an opportunity for a new hope and a new direction for change in human rights, which puts the responsibility for change in the hands of every fellow human being.
We must examine the mirror of our soul and ask ourselves the hard questions if we are doing what we can for universal human rights. Because we are responsible for change in universal human rights.
We must choose to be kind and reject being mean.
We must choose the existential of mercy to one another, especially to those not like us and to those we do not like.
We must reject the deception of violence as the answer, which only leads to a burden of hate and destruction in our own souls.
Finally, most importantly, we must pursue the imperative that love is life. We must open our hearts to give and receive love, not just in theory, but as a reality to bring us together in a oneness of humanity.
The new hope for human rights is there and it always has been. It is simply in our hearts if we choose to see it.
Yes, today, is another Good Day to Be Responsible for Equal
Hello, my name is Jeffrey Imm. I am the leader of the Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) coalition for human rights. The goal of R.E.A.L. is to use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and we commemorate its December 10, 1948 creation every year, as a standard for progress in human rights objectives throughout the world, and as a coalition on together on shared human rights issues. This year we have gone back to having a press conference at the National Press Club, as we have had in the past. The reason the UDHR was created on December 10, 1948, was as a response to the "disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts" during WWII. We have seen such disregard and contempt again over the past few years, and more barbarous acts than we can count.
The list of all of the atrocities and contempt against human rights is almost endless. So instead of only focusing on that horrible list, I come here this year with an offer for new hope. Because so many of us have been dispirited at the willingness of global representatives to commit "barbarous" abuses, which the UDHR was specifically created to discourage and prevent. Let us look at a path for solutions instead.
Even in the dark days of our world, let us find hope to remember that every day is still a Good Day to be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
1. The New Hope Begins with Ourselves
There is a new hope for universal human rights, despite grave injustices and dark days that we live in as human beings on our shared Earth today.
We can make a difference in our world by starting with ourselves and encouraging others on the path of KINDNESS, MERCY, and LOVE to one another. Kind people don't mass murder others. Merciful people don't persecute others. People with love in their hearts don't hate and revile others as non-human beings. The path to degrading human rights through cruelty, mean-spiritedness, and hate is the path that we can change - one person at a time, one example at a time, one life at a time. We can set an example and standard, no matter how difficult the past or our past selves have been, for a new path forward to build the long abandoned infrastructure that a serious movement on universal human rights requires.
Where do the atrocities against human rights come? They came from a normalization of being mean and being cruel towards others. And they come from INDIFFERENCE - which is the true opposite of love - about acts by representatives in world governments and institutions of mean-spiritedness, cruelty, violence, and hate against our fellow human beings. We must find this unacceptable. We have demonstrations by some against such obscene behavior, but daily life shows that clearly those demonstrations are insufficient. We must not fail to recognize that accepting a society where only the smallest number is encouraged to live with a conscience - is not, and will never be enough. The change we must seek is within ourselves, and we must live that change, and THEN we must evangelize that change to the world. In so many other difficult times in history, THIS is how we made meaningful human rights change, by working to change the hearts of ourselves and being a beacon of that change to others. It is not enough to demand that we do not have representatives that reject human rights. Our lives must be a standard to others to embrace kindness, mercy, and love, so that cruel representation is not acceptable to them as well.
We begin to control the state of human rights by first working to control our own behaviors as human beings. The starting point is not someone else’s responsibility. It is not someone else’s problem. It’s not some organization‘s, the United Nations, our various government’s responsibility to begin with. The state of human rights begins the responsibility and accountability of each one of us in our lives with one another. WE.... are the starting point.
We… not they… are the leaders responsible for universal human rights. We… in the choices that we make in our lives - we are the new hope that we seek for universal human rights.
2. Choice of Kindness and Mercy in Ourselves and Our Representatives
We can first choose to be kind and offer mercy to others. We do not have to be mean. I realize that many of us are in difficult situations in many different times of our lives. I realize that we have to stand up for ourselves and protect ourselves and boundaries in our lives.
But we don’t have to choose to be mean. We can choose to be kind and to offer mercy.
There is an addiction and normalization to being mean. We think it’s all right to be mean. We can justify and rationalize it. There are many leaders in our representatives, in society, in the media, in world organizations, and of course, among those in social media, who advocate being mean as being a good thing.
They are wrong. Let us never forget this. But we do not encourage change by adopting the tactics, the views, and values of those choose mean-spiritedness, cruelty, and hate. As the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated "Hate is Too Great A Burden." And it is. We cannot let Hate and Mean-Spiritedness rob us of our ability to inspire, to offer hope, and most importantly to love our fellow human beings, especially those whose views we seek to change.
We change the debate by insisting that we share the common facts that humanity is worth our mercy and kindness, because the reality is that we cannot survive without it.
We must choose the kindness and mercy of offering an outstretched hand. Not just to those like us and to those we like, but also (especially) to those we do not like and those who are not like us. To the weakest. To the most confused. To the most vulnerable. And especially to the most hateful. Because every burden of hate towards others is a burden in our heart to keep us from being strong enough to be a beacon of kindness and hope - that we must be - to call for the institutional changes around the world for representation and for government actions based on our shared universal human rights - and that we reject all "barbarous acts" - for a path of kindness and mercy.
What type of humanity are we, without kindness and mercy?
Who is so deluded in their lives that they believe they will never need kindness and mercy in their life? And if we all need kindness and mercy in some part of our life, how can we receive what we cannot give?
When kindness and mercy become the center of your moral compass, your decisions must change. The choice of cruelty, the choice of hate, the choice of being mean to others may be expedient, but it is NO LONGER YOUR WAY. But you have to choose kindness and mercy first.
A commitment to kindness and mercy is not only karma; it is fundamental to survival of a shared species of life and to life itself. We are constantly every day, every hour, every minute, completely dependent on the kindness and mercy of others. We may not see or hear it. But like air and gravity, kindness and mercy are an existential part of human life.
Kindness and Mercy are fundamental to human rights and human survival. Mercy changes lives and transforms others. We must choose kindness and mercy to be consistent in a path for human rights.
Furthermore, we must reject the perversion of "The Golden Rule" that so many of our representatives and world has chosen - their dystopian view of "Do Unto Others As They Would Do Unto You" - as a rational for cruelty, mean-spiritedness, and hate. No. That was NEVER the intent of "The Golden Rule." And as people of conscience it is NOT OUR WAY. We must choose to offer the outstretched hand - even to those who come to us with an upraised fist. Because we can never progress - by accepting a society of division and mean-spiritedness. We must find the courage and the choice of kindness and mercy - especially when it is hard to do.
3. The Deception of Violence
The greatest advocate for non-violence in modern times, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived in fear of violence against his family. At one point, this great advocate for nonviolence considered buying a gun to protect his family. He did not. But let’s not question the fact that there are those who want to kill and attack other people. We do not survive by being unwilling to defend ourselves if it truly comes to that as the **LAST** option. But we also do not survive by embracing the tactics of criminals, the cruel, and murderers. Becoming them does not make us safer. It simply makes us worse and undermines who and what we are.
Our society glamorizes and normalizes the deception of violence as something that we should use frequently at all the time. Not simply as the last possible resort.
We always have to find other solutions first. We must not choose violence first. The deception of violence as normal is apparent to anyone. If everyone chooses to be violent at whatever they believe is an appropriate provocation, we will literally live in a society of chaos and constant turmoil. This is not “warrior thinking”. This is madness. It is literally and genuinely unbalanced. The deception creates actual imbalance in society itself. Our society and our media popularizes violence as something endlessly good and worthy; not as something that is abused and is mostly disgraceful and shameful.
We - the ones responsible for human rights - must set an example by rejecting the glamorization and normalization of violence as something desirable or entertaining.
The deception of violence only makes humanity less and less safe.
4. Love is All We Need
Love is Life.
Love is clearly the “inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny,” referenced by Dr. King.
If we are unable to open our heart to love, we are unable to open our heart to our society and its universal human rights.
Love is life. Love is the network of life. Love is the destiny of life. Love is the power and the energy and the fuel behind ALL of life.
Without love, there would be NO humanity at all.
So love is not only our oxygen, love is not only our gravity, love is not only our moral compass, love is the network of life and destiny that ties our hearts truly together. Because when we choose to be open enough to love one another, our hearts beat in a way that they cannot beat when we do not accept love into our heart. Love is more than an individual bright light of mercy, kindness, and nonviolence to the world. With love in our hearts, we become human lighthouses that serve as beacons to the world to come together as one.
A new hope for human rights begins with the power of love. To change and be responsible stewards for human rights, and we have to break down the walls and the barriers to giving and receiving love. We must work to reject hard and cold hearts in ourselves. We must strive not for distance, but to embrace love. Life depends on it. Love is life.
Love is life. If we choose a path that love towards ourselves and our fellow human beings are not worth it, then we ultimately choose a path that human life itself is not worth it. How can we lead human rights change if the essential of human life as part of universal human rights is not an essential for us?
Love transcends all. It breaks down the barriers between the artificial categories that we create among our human species. It becomes a fuel for kindness, mercy, dignity, non-violence because who can love one another and still want to do horrible things to one another?
We don’t know how long we have on this Earth. We may think you do. We have no idea. We may have moments; we may have years; we may have something in between. Can we afford to be so recklessly wasteful with our precious lives born from love itself, as to not allow love in our lives?
But if we choose to spend the currency of our life exclusively in the pursuit of material success, what many in our cultures like to call “progress,” we have not invested in the essential part of life that is our love for one another, and we haven’t started towards real responsibility for human rights
Our campaigns for change in human rights must begin with change within ourselves. We cannot ask anyone to change when we are unwilling to change ourselves. That hypocrisy will never work and it never does.
So the fundamental part of being responsible for human rights must include being responsible to live our lives fully enough to open our hearts to give and receive love.
We not only have to be kind; we not only have to have mercy; we not only have to be responsible; we have to be able to actually love our fellow human beings.
When we chose to become a society of loving human beings, this is where responsibility for human rights begins. This is because our true connection to each other is then fully apparent and we are constantly aware of the ability to be connected as “one.”
Life is not practical and rational. Your human life came from the miracle of irrational love. The miracle of life constantly begins with the miracle of love, in some way. You were born in love, with the mission of love as your highest calling. The miracle of love that creates human life transcends all reason. Love transcends all logic. Love makes practicality look like a joke. Love laughs at all the plans, and all the campaigns that we can logically create, and that we logically believe makes sense.
Because when those campaigns or plans are not made out of love for or by people who understand love for their fellow human beings, or who by people whose hearts have been touched by the essential of love towards their fellow human beings - those plans may be well-intentioned, but they miss the energy of human love that is behind all meaningful human rights change.
5. Islands of Isolation
Those who embrace the essential human infrastructure of kindness, mercy, nonviolence, and love - cannot live as islands of isolation. In a world normalizing cruelty, we are taught that the only ones we need to love are ourselves. We are taught and encouraged to become "successful" islands of isolation in our shared world. How can a sane society survive like this?
If we cannot connect with our fellow human beings, how can we work for their shared universal human rights? If we cannot love others, what do we really seek to accomplish with our lives? What accomplishments do we think our hardened hearts will really achieve?
So yes, when the poets say “all you need is love,” from a human rights perspective that is essentially true. Because we need hearts that love to be able to reach out and offer the universal human rights that all people deserve. But we cannot love one another as islands of isolation, we must reach out our outstretched hands to love our fellow human beings as ONE human society and to overcome the divisions that so many seek to promote between us.
6. Coming Together as One
In our case, the concept of sharing our common cause of the objectives of universal human rights is the goal of our coalition.
Given the vast magnitude in dark circumstances regarding universal human rights today, the best use of my limited public attention this day, was not to recite a laundry list all the tragedies, persecutions, and horrific atrocities around the world. Rather, I offer this as an opportunity for a new hope and a new direction for change in human rights, which puts the responsibility for change in the hands of every fellow human being.
We must examine the mirror of our soul and ask ourselves the hard questions if we are doing what we can for universal human rights. Because we are responsible for change in universal human rights.
We must choose to be kind and reject being mean.
We must choose the existential of mercy to one another, especially to those not like us and to those we do not like.
We must reject the deception of violence as the answer, which only leads to a burden of hate and destruction in our own souls.
Finally, most importantly, we must pursue the imperative that love is life. We must open our hearts to give and receive love, not just in theory, but as a reality to bring us together in a oneness of humanity.
The new hope for human rights is there and it always has been. It is simply in our hearts if we choose to see it.
Yes, today, is another Good Day to Be Responsible for Equal
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