Core Values

American Values

Core American Values

These are non-negotiable values that I would expect every single American citizen to have in common. If American were to stand for or represent any kind of ethnonational idea, this is what it would represent:

1. A broad adherence to concepts of Liberalism.
   1. A strong, constitutionally rooted and protected deference to individual freedoms, including things such as: private property rights, the right to start and invest in businesses, the right to speak freely and criticize others without fear from government persecution, a free press that can operate without fear.
      1. There is nothing “un-American” about arguing to the extent that any of these rights should be regulated, however, any proposed regulation should necessarily be in the furtherance of the “idealized” form of the right.
2. Respect for rule of law.
   1. An understanding among the population that we recognize a legal system that, irrespective of our disagreements, we all agree to follow and apply to every American citizen.
      1. What about immoral laws, or things we find morally reprehensible?
         1. Some things you could say about “unjust laws”, according to MLK, expanded on in a letter he wrote in a jail in Birmingham:
            1. A law which dictates treatment to a minority, passed without any fair input from said minority.
            2. A law which seeks to doll out different rights to different groups of people.
            3. A law which is expected to be followed by some and not others, especially when those who must follow the law are given the law from those who will not follow said law.
            4. A law that seeks to dehumanize or deprive an individual of the rights that the Constitution (natural, moral, religious, etc…) affords us all.
         2. When opposing a particular law that one finds unjust, the means should keep the ends in mind. Every legal avenue should be exhausted before non-violent means are attempted, and then finally, if compelled to do so for strong moral reasons, limited, intentional and precise violence to effect whatever end is in mind.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

August 1963 Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

2. To be represented by Democratically elected governments.
   1. A respect is given to the separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution, and we recognize simultaneously that a delicate balance is struck between and inside of our separate branches, that ensures an elite is not able to rule over all of us and a majority is not able to impose their tyranny on us.
      1. How Democratic does this need to be?
3. We are a nation of many different people’s.
   1. The United States has no officially recognized “superior” ethnic or racial categories, the things that unite us as American citizens are the core values we share and the government that emerges from the Constitution.