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October 2013 -
The Worthy Politician’s Blueprint:
Verities, Virtues, and Values
How can we determine which politicians will
best serve the people of the United States? I offer the following
suggestions for your consideration as we approach the 2014 national elections:
First, list the fundamental principles of
life that you hold to be undeniably true. These are verities. Whether
religious or secular, they should apply to political issues of the day.
For example, a fundamental principle of truth for me is that the Founders of
the United States were unique and inspired men. They lived in a world of
rigid autocracy, political/religious melding, and slavery, which they openly
defied when they codified the freedoms we take for granted today.
Another verity, or principle of truth, is
that the products of their rebellion, the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution, are the greatest expressions of political freedom and governance
in the history of the world, breathtaking in their scope. An accompanying
fundamental principle of truth is that the United States of America is
exceptional. Its physical location in the world, its resources, its
people, the idea that opportunity is based on individual freedom and not on
genealogy — all were unique in the late 1700s and inspire us today.
Finally, the government was formed to be limited in its scope and
responsibilities. Sovereignty rested with the people and the society we
formed.
These principles are among the applicable
verities, the fundamentally true principles that should be the basis of
political decision-making.
The next step is to act on these
principles. Over time, we form and refine our character traits--our
virtues—as we act upon principles we hold to be true. For example, the
virtue of tolerating others’ beliefs comes from maintaining that the rights in
our founding documents are as applicable and necessary today as they were 237
years ago. But how far should we go in tolerating the inflation of
freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly in society? One classic
answer: you should be able to do anything you want as long as it doesn’t scare
the horses. What constitutes scaring the horses, i.e., eroding
society’s cohesion and wearing away the nation’s sovereignty, is a compelling
issue of our day. I suggest that our elected officials do not need
progressive principles to help decide these issues; they can apply the
inspired, durable ideals laid out more than two centuries ago.
Another key virtue is courage. Courage
to defend individual rights against those who would abridge them for their own
purposes, and courage to defend the Constitution itself against all enemies,
foreign and domestic. The freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, bearing
arms, and the inviolability of home and property, among others, are critical to
a free society; it takes courage to defend them. Elected officials should
be courageous enough to risk their political lives to defend our rights,
especially when other politicians want to abridge them in order to “help and
protect us” in times of so-called crisis. Pledging life, fortune, and
sacred honor in the maintenance of such rights is as necessary today as it ever
was.
An accompanying national virtue is thrift,
which results from preserving the principle of limited government and respect
for other peoples’ property. Most of what our government spends money on
today is not the government’s business. Nothing corrupts government
officials more than perpetually centralizing power and spending other peoples’
money. Property rights were sacred to our Founders; they are sacred
to me. Our elected officials should spend our money judiciously and
only on those programs set forth in the Constitution. Other social
spending should rest on us and on private organizations.
Finally, our values are what we are willing
to pay for—what we spend time, money, and effort to acquire. They are the
visible results of what we believe and how we act. If an elected
official’s values are to spend money, raise taxes, and go into debt in the name
of every cause du jour, then I know his standards are not in line with the
virtue of thrift. I know that his fundamental views of truth bear
little resemblance to those of our nation’s Founders. And there is
no reason to believe he is courageous if he does not stand against the
continuing hemorrhage of our national capital.
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