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In: Father's Hood
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My biggest inspiration for starting Spree Speech is to try to leave this world a better place for my son. To do so, I need to learn to be a better parent and, if, in the process, I can help others, all the better. With that in mind, I’m creating a section with posts that may be of interest to all parents, but with a focus on fathers. While you can find these articles on the main page of this site, I am also collecting them in the Father’s Hood page so that those of you who do not want to be bothered with politicalRead More →

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My definition of “father” is very different from most dictionaries. For example, dictionary.com offers this as the first definition, “a male parent.” Okay, from a technical, genetic, standpoint, this is true. But, we are more than just a grouping of genes. We are social creatures and, as such, are as defined by our social nature as our, biological nature (I really wanted to say, “natural nature,” as it is more fun, but biological nature makes more sense). From a social nature (i.e. a family group) standpoint, a father is much more than that. To be a father, you have to be involved with your offspring’sRead More →

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In: Bias, Political Parties, Religious Bias, Terrorism
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The Republican Party is partially correct on the issue of terrorism. It is one of biggest threats we face as a country today. However, they are completely wrong when they single out just one source. To see what I mean, let’s start with a definition. Dictionary.com defines “terrorism” as “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.” Okay, so far this does nothing to repudiate the GOP’s position. Let’s see what happens when we put this in practice with some examples. Extremists twist the words of a religion into an excuse to commit acts of violence against political foes.Read More →

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In: Political Parties, Terrorism
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“Let’s make America great again.” That’s the Trump slogan that is now, officially, the rallying cry for GOP. On the surface, it seems innocuous enough, until you start thinking about it.  It implies that we, as a nation, have somehow lost our greatness. Couple that with the main theme flowing through most of the speeches, you would think that we have devolved into a lawless nation/state that is on the brink of self-destruction. This view is just plain wrong. It is true that our nation is not perfect, and we have major problems we have to deal with, but one does not achieve greatness byRead More →

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The shootings of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge remind us of how dangerous of a job it is to be a police officer. The fact that the shooters tried to tie their terrorist attacks to some type of moral outrage at police brutality makes it even worse. There is no justification for killing innocent people. The officers who were killed and injured did nothing more than put on their uniforms and go out to do their duties. If, in any way, you feel that these shootings were the least bit justifiable, you are wrong. As outraged as I get when one police officer abusesRead More →

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In: Freedom, Independence Day, Unity
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I wrote and posted this to Facebook on July 2, 2015, after an emotional and controversial week where we had events that could have come from today’s headlines like, cases of police brutality and racially-motivated killings, as well as unique headlines like the Supreme Court rulings on gay marriage and the Affordable Care Act, and the decisions of several states to remove the confederate flag. The feelings expressed below motivated me to start the Spree Speech Blog. So it is a great way to start it off. With all of the division, debates, criticisms, etc, I would like to take a moment and try to bringRead More →

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In: Bias, Freedom, Harassment, Uncategorized
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For everyone who is saying they support the police after the shootings of Anton Sterling and Philando Castile. I’m glad that you do, and you should. Police officers risk their lives so the rest of us can be safe. However, I would argue that those of us who demanding that the officers who use unreasonable force be held accountable, are doing more to support the good officers than those of you who are unwilling accept the fact that there are way too many officers who will overreact because of the color of a person’s skin. Remember, the job of the police is to keep everyoneRead More →

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In: Freedom, Independence Day
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July 4th, more than a day of fireworks and feasting. This is the day that we memorialize our notion of freedom. The Forth of July represents, not just the day the US colonies declared independence from England, but when we, as a people defined our concept of freedom and realized our moral obligation to defend this ideal. Freedom to practice the religion of our choice, not one dictated by a government. Freedom to express our thoughts and opinions without fear of retribution. Freedom to be whomever we wanted to be. So today, I challenge you to not only celebrate the day this nation declared independenceRead More →