Bill Armstrong and I as conveners of Western Conservative Summit 2010, together with Centennial Institute Fellows Kevin Miller and Greg Schaller, have drafted a statement of vision and principles for American conservatives in the coming decade, entitled “Freedom in the Balance: The Lone Tree Declaration.”
The declaration will be taken up on Saturday, July 10, by participants at the Summit, which is scheduled for July 9-11 at the Denver Marriott South. (The hotel is in a town called Lone Tree, with mountain views south to Pike’s Peak and north to Long’s Peak.)
We will invite all to add their names as signers. Afterward, the Lone Tree Declaration will remain on a dedicated website where conservatives across the country can affix their signatures as well. Here is the text:
FREEDOM IN THE BALANCE
The Lone Tree Declaration
Proposed for Signing by Participants at
Western Conservative Summit 2010
July 9-11, 2010
We gather as grateful Americans, on the week of Independence Day, in the shadow of the Continental Divide at Lone Tree, Colorado. Our signatures on this declaration, to which we invite others not present to add their names as well, affirm six tenets of who we are and what we stand for:
1. In our adherence to the self-evident truths of the American Founding, we are conservatives.
2. In our debt to the civilizational heritage of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia, we are Westerners.
3. In our concern for the mounting threat to liberty, seeing freedom in the balance, we convene with solemn purpose at this Summit.
4. We seek a conservative renewal for our country through civic action that puts principle above party, resists the corruption of power, bridges intramural disagreements or rivalries, and protects an open public square centered on the nation’s Judeo-Christian core.
5. We commit ourselves unswervingly to a political and social order that upholds individual freedom and personal responsibility, limited government and the rule of law, free enterprise and private property, traditional family values and sanctity of life, compassion for the poor and voluntarism in service to others, natural law and morality, strong defense and secure borders, all in keeping with the original intent of the Constitution.
6. We reject, and will resist, the socialist temptation, transnational progressivism, secular utopian illusions, appeasement, disarmament, or capitulation to jihad and sharia.
Reminding our compatriots that with 2010 America enters a decisive decade for its survival as a free society, and appealing to God for His mercy and help, we declare our fidelity to the Spirit of 1776. To its revival we mutually pledge our solemn faith.
Proposed on July 2, 2010, by:
John Andrews
Director, Centennial Institute
William L. Armstrong
President, Colorado Christian University
Kevin Miller
Chairman, National Freedom Initiative
Gregory Schaller
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Colorado Christian University
