Our Guiding Principles

Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: “We the People.” “We the People” tell the government what to do, it doesn’t tell us. “We the People” are the driver—the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast.

— Ronald Reagan

Our guiding principles are the true American principles — the original and most basic American conceptions and principles of government that inspire freedom-loving people around the world but have been lost, hidden or even stolen from you.

THE BASICS

Pulling from the Declaration of Independence, our source document:

We are created equal.
We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
We institute governments to secure these rights.
Governments derive their just powers from our consent.

The most crucial, fundamental, and transforming of the original American conceptions of government are:

I. Sovereignty

II. Representation & Consent

III. Rights & Constitutions

Guiding Principle I: Sovereignty

We Must Be Savvy About Our Sovereignty:

America was founded on the assumption that the ultimate sovereignty rests with the people.
This means We the People are the ultimate power and authority in society.
We are made in God’s image and, here on Earth, We the People are the highest authority.
Governments must serve and report to us.

Guiding Principle II: Representation & Consent

Representation is Made Up of Two Ancient & Unalienable Rights:

The right of freemen and women not merely to choose representatives but to bind them with instructions is an ancient and unalienable right in the people.
We the People have nothing less than an inherent right to give instructions to our representatives… and they are to be held strictly “accountable for the use of that power which is delegated unto them.”
The Massachusetts town meetings began the practice of voting instructions to their deputies in the first years of settlement, and they continued to do so whenever it seemed useful throughout the subsequent century and a half.
The “persuasive influence” if not the “obligatory force” of instructions should be insisted upon.
What counts is the extent to which representation works to protect the interests of the people against the encroachments of government.

Consent of the People Must Be a Continuous Process:

Direct consent of the people must be a continuous, everyday process.
No longer merely an ultimate check on government, we are in some sense the government.
Government should have no separate existence apart from us; it should be of the people and by the people as well as for the people; it gains its authority from our continuous consent.
The binding power of law flows from the continuous consent of the people.
“The only reason why a free and independent man was bound by human laws was this — that he bound himself.”

Guiding Principle III: Rights & Constitutions

Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which “We the People” tell the government what it is allowed to do.

“We the People” are free.

— Ronald Reagan

Limiting the Power of Governments to Secure Our Rights:

Constitutions exist to protect our rights.
The heart of the problem is the extent to which, indeed the sense in which, the “constitution” is conceived of as a limitation on the power of lawmaking bodies.
Prior to the American revolution, the traditional view referred to constitutions as fundamental laws, the common law, Parliament, and as the whole complex of existing laws and public institutions.
America affected a transition to more advanced ground, which was forced forward by the continuing need, after 1764, to distinguish and separate principles and fundamentals from institutions and the actions of government so that they (principles, fundamentals, and constitutions) would serve as limits and controls (on institutions and the actions of government).
American principles and constitutions are conceived of as fixed sets of rules and boundaries.