Essential Political Principles
By Tom Snyder
1. A personal God exists. He has ordained a transcendent moral order, which
all human beings everywhere must obey.
2. The ethical principles of right and wrong of that transcendent moral
order are set forth primarily in the Hebrew-Christian Bible and in the
traditions of the first 1,000 years of the Christian Church, composed of
both Jews and Gentiles, but also in the basic moral and cultural traditions
of Western Civilization, especially the conservative, Christian traditions
of America, England, Scotland, Ireland, John Calvin's Geneva, the original
Lutheran authorities in Western Europe, and the original intent of the Magna
Carta, the British Common Law, the Declaration of Independence, and the
United States Constitution.
3. Truth and Morality transcend sex, race, ethnicity, and culture.
4. Political issues are, at bottom, philosophical, religious, and moral
issues.
5. Prudent thought and action should be a primary character trait of all
politics.
6. Because human beings are full of sin, violence, disobedience, and evil,
God's moral order limits the power of the State and the power of the Church.
Therefore, governments should not own churches, and governments must be run
according to the principles of representative democracy; separated,
enumerated powers; and due process. Also, churches cannot execute people or
put people into prison, but they do have the power to discipline their
members, including excommunicating members who are unrepentant.
7. Because human beings are full of sin, violence, disobedience, and evil,
conservatives believe that individuals, groups, institutions, and society
should preserve the traditions of Western Civilization that reflect God's
Transcendent Moral Order.
8. The right to own private property is the basis for all political freedom
and should not be abridged. Thus, all people, including immoral people,
criminals and unborn children, have the right to due process before their
property, life, or liberty are taken away.
9. The first duty of civilian government should be to protect the human life
and property of its citizens, and the sovereignty of its counties, states,
nation, and borders.
10. Abortion is murder. Local governments should execute people who perform
abortions or at least put them in jail for 25 years to life. Mothers who
get an abortion should be fined a significant amount of money, or put in a
work program for 5-10 years, with part of the proceeds going to crisis
pregnancy clinics that help poor, unwed mothers.
11. A pluralistic society is one in which members of diverse groups maintain
some of their traditional culture or special interest, but within the
confines of a common civilization. In other words, all Americans must share
in a common language, which is English!!!
12. Civilian governments can organize citizen militias, police departments,
immigration agents, and military organizations, but these groups should not
get involved in foreign military adventures that don't affect the security,
freedom, and sovereignty of the county, state, and national entities.
13. If they have no record of violent crime or mental incapacity, the right
of all adults age 18 or older to bear firearms should be absolute. In fact,
scientific studies prove that gun control on firearms increases violent
crime but private ownership of firearms helps prevent crime.
14. High taxes and complicated laws are evil. Therefore, we must abolish
all income and property taxes, reduce all other taxes (except perhaps
tariffs) to less than 10 percent, and simplify or eliminate complicated
laws.
15. Culture and Family are vitally important. Federal, state, and local
governments should help protect married heterosexual families and their
children from such things as violent crime and depictions of pornography,
sexual nudity, media violence, and sexual perversion, including
homosexuality. Victims of adultery deserve protection in family courts and
divorce courts.
16. Governments should not run education systems. Such a policy is clearly
unconstitutional, anti-democratic, and anti-American.
17. Local families, church leaders, businesspeople, and private charity
groups should control their own education systems.
18. Governments should not give charitable gifts to the poor. Such a policy
is clearly unconstitutional, anti-democratic, and anti-American.
19. Helping poor people is the moral and religious responsibility of
families, churches, private charities, and individuals but not governments.
Able-bodied poor people, however, bear the primary responsibility to take
care of themselves and to take care of their own needy family members.
20. Instead of formal prisons for non-violent crimes, conservatives believe
in the biblical concept of restitution whereby those convicted of a
non-violent crime must be forced to pay back their victims and, instead of
the State taking care of their every need in a prison building, the
criminals should be required to take care of their own personal needs, such
as shelter, food, clothing, and healthcare. Likewise, violent criminals who
are incarcerated must work at a private job, or on the local/state
infrastructure, to pay back their victims and provide for their personal
needs.
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These principles are based on the work of Edmund Burke, the founder of the
conservative movement, and on the work of Russell Kirk, the father of the
modern conservative movement that elected President Ronald Reagan, and on
the Word of God.
ts
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