WE NEED TO LEARN ABOUT AND GET BACK TO THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF OUR NATION

    We are losing our nation because we have drifted away from the first (foundational) principles upon which are nation was founded.  These are enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution.  

The First Principles are as follows:  

• The Rule of Law;
• The recognition and protection of the unalienable rights of individuals;
• The equality of individuals;
• The Social Compact (i.e. That governments are instituted by the people, and derive their just powers from the consent of the governed); and
• The protects of the unalienable rights as the legitimate purpose and limit of government (i.e., the government must have the authority and strength to protect the unalienable rights of the people, but only have such power as is necessary to fulfill that purpose.

      Our challenge is no longer a foreign nation or even terrorists armed with weapons of massed destruction, but preserving our liberty despite ourselves.  The most powerful weapons against America are not guns and missiles, but ignorance, complacency and disdain of our history and of the first principles. America is dangerously close to allowing the Flame of Liberty to die out.  We are patriotic, but have almost forgotten why. We are becoming puppet patriots-hollow and empty in meaning.

     Let there be no mistake.  We may be fighting a hot war against militant Islamic terrorists today, but there is also a cold war raging, right here, and right now for the hearts and minds of our citizens---and we are losing.  The terrorists have reminded us that some things are worth dying for.  The rule of law, equality, empowering the people, unalienable rights, and limited government are such things.  Our freedom was won with the blood and treasure of hundreds of thousands of our forebears.  We must not allow their sacrifices to have  been in vain.  The crisis is here!  We must dedicate ourselves to fanning the flame of liberty, or risk it dying out.  The terrorists and all enemies of freedom will win if we simply forget, or reject what we are, and the principles for which we stand

The following was taken from Chapter 1 of America's Survival Guide by Michael Warren; pp. 4, 14