This is not a diary about current events, nor is it about the manifold things wrong with our current government. It is not even a document about activism. Instead it is a document about what I believe in and what I think most Americans believe in. Call it one liberal's agenda. For too long the founding principles of our nation have been hijacked by non-believers. I believe it time and past for those revolutionary principles to be reaffirmed for the profoundly liberating agenda they endorse.
The Liberal Agenda.
The purpose of our government is to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for all Americans.
We believe that Justice is both civil and social and in scope. Civil justice is expressed in the laws and privileges governing civil society. Social justice is expressed in the laws and privileges governing commerce. Equality – and by this we mean that all persons are equally deserving of dignity and respect – is fundamental to justice. All citizens deserve the blessings of justice equally. This is especially true of civil justice where equality under the law is fundamental to our beliefs as Americans. Equality in social justice means that all Americans have equal access to the basic human needs for food, housing, health care, education, and, if able, employment. Basic fairness requires that all have equal opportunity to the attain benefits of our mutual commerce; in order to achieve equal opportunity social justice demands that we take positive steps to assure that the less advantaged among us are able fully participate.
Domestic tranquility meant to the Founders that the federal government has the power to regulate conflicts at lower levels of government. We believe that the rights and privileges guaranteed by the constitution accrue equally to all citizens, regardless of the state in which they reside and therefore that the states themselves must grant these rights and privileges fully and equally to all Americans. We believe in the tenth amendment in which all rights not enumerated in the Constitution are reserved to the people, including the right to privacy.
We believe in a strong defense, with Armed Forces sized and deployed to protect and defend the United States against armed attack. Our Armed forces must be strategically organized, funded, and deployed for the defense of the United States. The mix of personnel, weapons systems and force must be strategically selected, under advice from the military leadership, to defend against current and future threats of armed attack against the United States. Our Armed Forces must never be used in wars of aggression, pre-emptive wars, or other interventions in the internal affairs of other nations where an armed attack on the United States is not imminent. We believe that no war should be initiated by the United States except upon a direct attack on the United States or by a Declaration of War by the United States Congress, as provided by the Constitution. Our Armed Forces do not exist to advance the economic or financial interests of US corporations, nor do they exist for wars of conquest and aggression, but rather are exclusively for the defense of the United States against armed attack.
The Constitution grants the Congress the power to pass laws and levy taxes that promote the general welfare. The general welfare – as opposed to the particular welfare -- means that our government is by and for all Americans, not for elites defined by race, gender, class, religion, wealth or heredity. The general welfare of all surely includes promoting and advancing the health, safety and vitality of our nation, our environment, our communities, our economy, our civil society, the education of our citizens, and civil and social justice. There is no single charge the Founders gave to our Congress that is more profound to the legitimacy of our government and to the sustenance of America than that of providing for the general welfare.
We believe in liberty, the liberty of thought and expression and action. Liberty is fundamental to our well-being as human beings. Liberty is grounded in equality, in the conviction that all persons are equally deserving of dignity and respect. Liberty is grounded in justice, in the conviction that benefits of civil society and commerce are freely available to all. The defense of our nation is meaningless unless it is a defense of liberty. Liberty is advanced when the general welfare of our nation and communities advance. Liberty cannot prosper when individuals do not prosper. Liberty cannot prosper in the presence of social, religious, or economic strife. Liberty cannot prosper except when individuals are secure from need and want. Liberty of some citizens does not diminish the liberty of other citizens: liberty multiplies when all enjoy its benefits and liberty dies when it is denied to some. Liberty is the core and foundation of the liberal belief.