Position Statement

First Principles

1. We are philosophically and practically committed to principles of historic American constitutional government, as specifically enumerated in the U.S. and Colorado Constitutions, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the other writings of the American Founders.

2. We believe American founding documents hold this weight not merely because of their human genius, but because they correspond more closely than any other positive legal system to the law of nature and of nature's God. We hold the historic doctrine of natural law to be the foundation of any human political system and believe all earthly governments surrender their legitimacy to the degree they abandon obedience to this law, which is stamped on the nature of things and on every human soul.

3. We acknowledge that God exists, that the four references to Him in the Declaration of Independence, the reference in the preamble to the Colorado Constitution, and the similar references in all 50 state constitutions are not sentimental or rhetorical flourishes, but qualitative statements by the Founders of the United States, the State of Colorado, and all other states regarding the nature of the created order, including government. We believe this understanding of government is the only one which provides a foundation for a durable state, for religious and political freedom, and for charitable and just religious and political co-existence by diverse groups. We commit to uphold both the formal and public acknowledgement by government of God's existence and authority, as well as the right of all Colorado citizens and groups to legitimate practice of their religion, both public and private.

Political Philosophy

4. We acknowledge that the right to life as articulated by the Declaration of Independence is the most fundamental human right possessed by all human beings, from fertilization to natural death, preceding all other political rights, and we commit to champion that right in the public square. We further hold that to execute a child who results from rape or incest is to punish the child for the sin of the father and compound the initial crime. A bona fide medical threat to the mother's life is the only justification for terminating a pregnancy and has always been recognized as such by western medicine.

5. We acknowledge that civil government is only one of many institutions of human society, with definite limitations to its jurisdiction, and we commit both to oppose any expansion of government beyond the limitations prescribed in American founding documents and to support efforts to roll back the welfare state by eliminating current government involvement in areas of social welfare and economic regulation that are clearly beyond those limitations.

6. We acknowledge that the purpose of law is to positively reflect in human life transcendent moral standards that safeguard and maximize the freedom of innocent people and appropriately punish and restrict the freedom of people guilty of crime, and we commit to resist the trend in government toward arbitrarily restricting the freedoms of law-abiding people while at the same time softening the treatment and mitigating the sentences of criminals. We believe both trends are contrary to justice and commit to support efforts to reverse both.

7. We acknowledge the inherent tendency of bureaucracies, particularly in government, to develop mechanisms of self-protection, rationalizations for continuous growth, large-scale waste, and resistance to accountability and restraint. We further acknowledge the inordinate growth in the size of American governments at all levels during the latter half of the 20th century, including the State of Colorado, and we commit not only to resist further increases in the size and scope of Colorado governments, but to support efforts to positively reduce the same.

8. We acknowledge the historic role of churches, synagogues, faith-based charities, and non-profit groups in American and Colorado culture, we believe these institutions to be indispensable to a humane and just society, we believe government to be both a poor substitute for them and, where it subsidizes them, a threat to their religious and sociological integrity. We commit to preserve and actively advance the role of such groups in providing privately-funded and higher-quality care for the poor, elderly, and handicapped in our communities.

9. We acknowledge the right to keep and bear arms as an inherent right possessed by all human beings, preceding government, and that both the power of self-defense and the popular check on government power which that right confers are essential elements of a free society. Moreover, not only does gun control fail to deter crime, but widespread gun ownership by law-abiding citizens demonstrably increases public safety. Since this right is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution against any infringement, since it may be restricted or removed only after due process of law, and since criteria for the exercise of constitutional rights by law-abiding people must not be imposed by government, we commit to defend the right to keep and bear arms, even against popular political compromises.

10. We acknowledge that public finance is a sacred trust, and we commit to advocate a balanced state budget and oppose superficial accounting adjustments, inappropriate cost shifting, and illegitimate use of earmarked funds, to resist spending increases before appropriate cuts have been made, to privatize state functions wherever possible and reasonable, and, when necessary and required by consistent principle, to advocate meaningful cuts in public programs.

11. We acknowledge that, because it involves the mandatory collection of privately-earned wealth to be used for public purposes, taxation is a fundamentally social and moral process, is directly connected to economic growth and wealth creation in the private sector, and thus has dynamic effects on government revenue that are often ignored by static fiscal projections, and we commit to oppose graduated schemes of taxation, a tax rate above that which is necessary to meet the cost of legitimate government functions, alteration or circumvention of TABOR, and any use of surplus tax revenues other than a return of them to those who paid them into the public treasury.

12. We acknowledge that judicial activism represents both a usurpation of legislative authority by the judicial branch and a major threat to constitutional self-government, and we commit to resist such activism and, if necessary, support the impeachment of judges who ignore the limits of their authority.

13. We acknowledge that marriage, like all other authentic human rights, precedes government and is the union of one man and one woman only, and we commit both to support all policy that legally establishes this family definition and to oppose all policy that undermines it. We believe the purpose of government is to defend and establish marriage in law, not engineer, improve, or re-define it. We further believe that, in the absence of sound family law which establishes the marital contract by restricting divorce, government-funded therapy programs do little to restore and protect families, grow the welfare state, and give the illusion that the problem of marital breakdown has been substantively addressed. We believe government must establish marriage in law while leaving therapy to the more successful, efficient, and personal private sector.

14. We deny that homosexuality creates any basis for human identity, marriage, family, adoption, or family employment benefits, nor does it entitle any individual or group to special legal status or protection. We believe homosexuality to be behavioral, and thus qualitatively different from race, ethnicity, or gender in its relation to human identity, and we oppose legal and political policies that attempt to draw any analogy with race, ethnicity, or gender. We believe homosexuality represents a moral, spiritual, emotional, and physical threat to individuals who engage in it, and a sociological, political, and public health threat to the family, society, and the state. We commit to oppose public policy that legitimizes or condones homosexual behavior and relationships, and to advocate policies which defend the historic understanding of gender, sexuality, family, and society.

15. We acknowledge that private property rights precede government and that a reason governments are instituted among men is to protect property rights, and we commit to oppose any policy which undermines the right of any citizen, poor or wealthy, to own, trade, invest, or dispose of his/her property free from government interference, and to pass along an inheritance to his/her descendants free from repeat or oppressive taxation.

16. We acknowledge that the environment exists to be harnessed and creatively mastered by mankind, that productive development of the environment is necessary to sustain human life in a growing society, and that good stewardship of resources is, in general, better handled by a private owner than by government, and we commit to defend economic freedom and the means of wealth creation for all Coloradans by opposing government acquisition and ownership of land and resources beyond what is needed for legitimate government functions, resisting restrictions on land use which hinder goals such as affordable housing and injure the poor more than anyone, and opposing all other arbitrary and bureaucratic regulations on private enterprise.

17. We acknowledge that the process of education is the means by which our way of life, our history, and our state and national identity are communicated to our descendants, that the primary responsibility for this process lies with parents and must be delegated by them to educators of their choice, and that a government monopoly on education mandatorily funded by parents not only violates the rights of parents but works against both the integrity and preservation of public education, and we commit to promote maximum freedom and choice in education.

18. We acknowledge that the current prevailing philosophy in the public education system could be characterized as secular humanism, promotes a form of moral and cultural relativism which undermines the acquisition of real knowledge, contains inherent assumptions and prejudices against much of the conservative platform, the United States, and western European culture and history, discriminates against non-conforming administrators, instructors, and students, and works against intellectual freedom and full intellectual development. We commit to advance intellectual freedom and balance, academic impartiality, proper appreciation for American and European culture and history, and accountability for performance in public educational circles.

19. We acknowledge that the leadership of labor unions today is almost uniformly opposed to historic principles of economic freedom and private property, is guided by a predominantly Marxist view of man and society which positions labor not only against legitimate management, but against wealth creation, economic progress, and the true interests of the workers they represent, and we commit to oppose such union leadership to the degree they espouse this philosophy, to empower the individual worker to choose his own public representation or to go without it, and to protect the legitimate legal rights of management.

20. We acknowledge that fertilization creates a human life, with all the wonder, variety, dignity, individuality, and spirituality, as well as the legal rights and protections, pertaining thereto, that non-reproductive cloning of human beings for scientific, economic, or medical purposes, as well as reproductive cloning for family-planning purposes, are destructive of the dignity and spirituality of mankind, and we commit to oppose cloning in any form and to support efforts to legally prohibit the same.

21. We acknowledge that race relations in the United States are often delicate and emotionally charged, we believe racial preferences and the reverse racial discrimination often practiced by people claiming to advocate civil rights have contributed significantly toward antagonizing these relations, we believe the solution to this problem is equal justice under law for all people, a key principle running throughout traditional American political philosophy, and while it does not guarantee equality of results or material condition, it does guarantee equality of legal treatment and equal protection of inalienable human rights for all people. We commit to oppose racial or ethnic discrimination in any form, including affirmative action, and we presume all people innocent of racial prejudice until they demonstrate otherwise with their actions or words.

22. We acknowledge that the feminine nature is an invaluable, unique creation distinct from the masculine nature, we believe the two human genders were designed by the Creator as complementary components of the human family and as the foundation of the human social order, and we oppose combination, confusion, or destruction of either unique gender identity. We believe much of the modern women's rights movement is characterized by unwarranted prejudice against men and unwarranted hostility to historic standards of family and society, is thus positioned against the true interests of women, we believe equal justice under law is the foundation of peaceful, happy, and productive gender relations, and we commit to defend and promote traditional gender and sexuality, and the legal protections thereof.

23. We acknowledge the legitimacy of historic American and Colorado prohibitions on social vices such as illicit drugs, prostitution, gambling, and pornography, we believe these vices to be destructive of both individuals and communities, we believe their regulation, as well as the regulation of alcohol, to be a legitimate expression of moral self-government, and we commit to defend these regulations from repeal or decay and to promote their strict enforcement.

24. We acknowledge that the First Amendment right to freedom of speech encompasses the free donation, collection, and expenditure of campaign funds, and we commit to oppose policies that restrict or encumber this freedom.

25. We believe the concept of citizenship to be an indispensable one for any free state, and we view growing illegal immigration as both a threat to national and state security and a weakening of civil integrity. We commit to support the enforcement of duly enacted immigration laws, the restriction of the benefits of American citizenship to legal citizens only, and the benefits of legal alien status to legal aliens only.

26. We believe the trend toward weakening identification requirements for voting, as well as insecure and unproven voting systems, are a threat to the integrity of representative government, we deny that increased voter turnout is a legitimate or achievable goal of a voting system, and we commit to oppose the use of insecure voting systems, including mail ballot elections and internet voting, as well as the centralization of power over voting systems at either the state or federal level.

27. We believe the term limits movement, while well-intentioned, locates the guilt for bad government in the electoral system rather than in those elected, restricts the power of good officials as much as bad officials, tends toward the empowerment of bureaucracies, courts, lobbyists, and media at the expense of elected legislatures and the people, and thus tends toward the erosion of republican government. Term limits were debated by the American Founders and uniformly opposed for these reasons. We believe their formula of frequent elections is still the best prescription for good behavior by elected officials, and we commit to oppose term limits, both voluntary and mandatory.

28. We believe the United States to be a sovereign nation whose supreme authority resides with the people of the United States. Their will is expressed within the boundaries of their highest positive law, the U.S. Constitution. We further hold that the United States cannot subordinate her sovereignty to the United Nations or any other international body without doing violence to her Constitution and the liberty of her people. We believe the virtue, wisdom, and charity of the American people to be the greatest of any nation in the world, the basis for the unmatched freedom and economic and military strength of the United States, and a far more trustworthy guide to American foreign and military policy than the judgments of international bodies. We believe the spirit guiding the UN and other international bodies to be fundamentally at odds with the American spirit and a threat to international justice, security, and economic development. We commit to oppose subordination of American policy to international bodies, efforts to obtain UN sanction of independent American action, and the service of American soldiers under international authority. We commit to support efforts to reduce or eliminate American financial support of and diplomatic reliance on international political and economic bodies.

29. We believe the American conservative movement represents the last and strongest remnant of historic western civilization and the last, best political hope of the world, and we believe consistent, comprehensive conservative principle is the most faithful representation of the authentic American idea.

Signed,

The Staff and Board of Directors
Wilberforce Center for Colorado Statesmanship