What We Stand For
by Stephen W. Houghton II
We stand for
the traditional American ideal of a liberal, constitutionally limited,
democratic, federal, republic. Let us break that idea down quickly. By liberal we mean the idea that all
people are born with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and property, in
sum to the pursuit of happiness. By constitutionally
limited, we mean two things, first that all government power is limited by
the principal of natural rights and second that the federal government is
limited to its constitutionally enumerated powers. By democratic, we mean that government officials shall be chosen by
the people, or by their elected representatives, or from among the people by
random selection as in the case of juries. By federal, we mean that the state and national governments are both
independent instrumentalities of the sovereign people, that the states are
supposed to compete with one another to provide just and efficient government,
while the national government deals with foreign matters and keeps the states
within their legitimate bounds. By republic,
we mean not only not a monarchy, but more, as John Adams put it, “A government
of law and not of men.”
We stand for
the idea of the United States as an Anglosphere nation. That is a nation built
of people who embrace the tradition of Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the
English Bill of Rights, the Declaration
of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, the
Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments, and the whole Whig common law tradition.
Anglospherism does not mean
nativism in the sense of believing that only native born Americans or those of
British extraction can make good citizens. Many immigrants have come to our
country because they love our ideals and want to be free, that is part of what
has made our nation great and we welcome them. But we also stand against
politicians who despise our people and way of life and want to import a new
electorate. We believe we should elect new politicians instead.
We stand for the tradition of individual
rights: life, liberty and property, free speech, free press, freedom of
conscience, the right to keep and bear arms, that a person’s home is their
castle, the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures, the right
to a grand jury hearing, the right against self incrimination, the right to
trial by jury, the right not to be subject to arbitrary punishment, the right
to due process of law, the right earn a living without unreasonable government
interference, and many more!
We believe in patriotism and civic government:
the town meeting adapted to meet modern conditions, the militia adapted to meet
the challenges of terrorism and other modern problems, the grand jury to combat
corruption in government, in private associations to meet public needs and for
self help.
We believe in the free and equal
system of English laws, especially in the Whig tradition of Sir Edward Coke and
Lord Camden, applied to government and citizens alike by an independent judiciary.
We believe in
the tradition of representative democracy limited by an upper house, embodied
by the British parliament and our congress.
We believe in
the economic system known variously as liberalism, the free market, manchesterism,
or capitalism. That is to say we believe that people have a right to use their
person and property to engage in the production of goods and services and to trade
freely with others and to keep the fruits of their labor.
We believe in
a foreign policy based on free trade, freedom of the seas, defense of our
interests and our allies, and a naval and trade oriented world order.
We believe in
a defense policy based primarily on naval power and minimal foreign
intervention. We believe that the ground forces should be kept small in time of
peace so that the executive branch cannot get the nation involved in a war
without the consent of Congress.
In short we
stand for Americanism!
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