Contents
WePEG1787
We the People’s Principles of Effective Governing
FIVE GOVERNING PRINCIPLES
Truth • Liberty • Government • Economics • Elections
GROUP 1:WHAT IS TRUE
GP1 – Government Is Subject to Truth
Government does not create Truth. Governmental authority, legislation, regulation, administration, and public claims remain subject to reality and should be corrected when material facts prove them wrong.
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GP2 – Material Governmental Claims Require Evidence
When government relies upon a factual claim to justify an action that materially affects Liberty, Rights, property, responsibility, or public resources, that claim should be supported by evidence sufficient for meaningful examination.
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GP3 – Causal Claims Require Causal Support
When government claims that an action caused, prevented, or will produce a particular result, the claimed relationship should be supported by evidence rather than assumed from intention, correlation, or political preference.
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GP4 – Material Governmental Evidence Must Be Preserved
Evidence materially supporting governmental decisions, actions, expenditures, or reported results should be preserved long enough to permit legitimate examination, accountability, challenge, and correction.
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GP5 – Material Governmental Evidence Must Be Meaningfully Examinable
Evidence used to support consequential governmental claims or actions should be available for legitimate examination by appropriate persons or institutions, subject to legitimate boundaries such as privacy, security, and lawful confidentiality.
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GROUP 2: WHAT ARE RIGHTS?
GP6 – Liberty Is the Sovereign State of Mankind
Human beings possess Liberty before government acts. Government does not create or grant that Liberty. Therefore, the presumption of civil government should be Liberty, and any governmental restriction of Liberty should require legitimate Authority, a legitimate purpose, and a legitimate boundary.
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GP7 – Equal Liberty
The Liberty possessed by one person is also possessed by others. Government should protect the same legitimate Liberty for similarly situated people and should not expand or restrict a person’s Liberty merely because government agrees or disagrees with that person’s beliefs, associations, or lawful choices.
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GP8 – Natural Rights Precede Government
Natural Rights belong to people before government acts. Government may recognize and protect those Rights, but government does not create them merely by legislation, regulation, judicial decision, or political preference.
A claimed Right does not become a Right simply because someone loudly declares, “We have the right!” Godly CivicsTM calls these Megaphone Rights – claims that must still establish their source, holder, boundaries, corresponding responsibilities, and compatibility with the Equal Liberty and legitimate Rights of others. Before government acts upon a claimed Right, show the chain.
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GP9 – Equal Human Standing Before Government
Every person possesses equal human worth before government. Government should apply legitimate laws and governing boundaries impartially; different treatment requires a legitimate reason, not political favor, status, faction, or preference.
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GP10 – Legitimate Property Rights
Government should recognize and protect legitimate private property and should not take, control, transfer, or materially impair property without legitimate Authority, lawful process, and appropriate protection of the owner’s Rights.
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GP11 – Voluntary Association
People should remain free to form, join, support, leave, or decline lawful associations without government compelling association or penalizing lawful non-association except where a legitimate governmental boundary applies.
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GP12 – Voluntary Exchange
People should generally remain free to enter or decline lawful exchanges by mutual consent. Governmental restrictions on voluntary exchange should require legitimate Authority and justification, not merely a preferred economic outcome.
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GROUP 3: WHAT ARE THE LAWS OF NATURE?
GP13 – The Laws of Nature Are Discovered, Not Created
Laws of Nature are enduring principles and relationships within the order in which human beings and governments operate. Government, political majorities, courts, parties, and Godly CivicsTM do not create them. Our responsibility is to discover them as accurately as possible and correct our understanding when evidence proves it wrong.
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GP14 – Government Operates Within the Laws of Nature
Government does not stand outside the order governing human beings and human society. Governmental action remains subject to human nature, scarcity, incentives, cause and consequence, responsibility, Liberty, and the other enduring realities within which government acts. Government is within the boundaries, not the creator of them.
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GP15 – Human Law Cannot Repeal Natural Consequences
Government can establish human boundaries, prohibit conduct, require conduct, tax, spend, regulate, subsidize, penalize, and redistribute resources. Those actions can alter human choices and circumstances, but legislation cannot eliminate the underlying consequences of the conditions it acts upon. We may move the governing boundary; we cannot entirely choose the consequences.
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GP16 – Governing Principles Must Be Tested Against Reality
A proposed Governing Principle should be examined for universality, identifiable cause and consequence, human experience, repeatability across circumstances and time, and contrary evidence. A principle does not become a Law of Nature merely because a government, Founder, political faction, majority, or Godly CivicsTM declares it to be one.
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GP17 – Our Understanding of the Laws of Nature Must Remain Correctable
The Laws of Nature do not change because our description of them is wrong. When Truth, evidence, experience, or contrary evidence shows that our description is materially mistaken, we must change it. The created order does not need correction. Our understanding of it does.
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GROUP 4:ECONOMICS
The government cannot repeal Economics. Economic policy changes incentives, consumes scarce resources, creates visible and unseen costs, and produces consequences that must be measured.
GP18 – Economic policy must be judged by measurable results and cause-and-effect evidence.
Intentions do not determine economic outcomes; candidates should identify the expected result, evidence, assumptions, costs, and method of measurement.
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GP19 – Economic Liberty protects ownership, work, creation, exchange, investment, and entrepreneurship.
Prosperity depends heavily on WTP retaining broad freedom to use lawful property, labor, knowledge, and capital, and to engage in voluntary exchange.
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GP20 – Government should protect lawful competition against concentrated economic power.
Government should preserve lawful entry and competition and examine monopoly power, whether created by private concentration or governmental privilege.
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GP21 – Every economic policy changes incentives.
Taxes, subsidies, benefits, regulations, penalties, and guarantees alter behavior; proposals should identify what conduct they reward, discourage, or unintentionally create.
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GP22 – Government funding must be judged by whether it solves the stated problem.
Subsidies and spending change incentives and can create dependence or expand the subsidized activity. Success must therefore be measured by outcomes rather than dollars spent.
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GP23 – Taxes affect economic behavior as well as revenue.
Tax analysis should account for effects on work, saving, investment, consumption, location, avoidance, and other behavioral responses, rather than relying solely on static arithmetic.
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GP24 – Every government benefit has a real cost.
Government cannot make resource costs disappear; taxes, borrowing, fees, regulation, and monetary effects shift costs among people and across time.
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GP25 – Economic decisions must count opportunity costs and unseen effects.
Every proposal should identify not only its visible benefit but also what WTP, businesses, communities, or future taxpayers must surrender or forgo.
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GP26 – Major economic policies must identify and measure unintended consequences.
Policy design should identify foreseeable secondary effects and include measurement capable of detecting consequences that were not predicted.
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GP27 – Government spending is an input; results are outcomes.
A program should not be judged successful because money was appropriated, employees were hired, or activity occurred; the relevant test is the measurable result.
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GP28 – Government must compare realistic alternatives before major spending.
A proposal should compare realistic alternatives, including private, local, state, charitable, competitive, or no-government options where applicable, and justify the chosen approach by expected results and full cost.
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GP29 – Public money is held in trust for WTP.
Waste, duplication, obsolescence, favoritism, and programs that no longer justify their cost should be corrected or ended rather than automatically funded.
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GP30 – Government financial reporting must reveal its actual financial condition.
WTP should be able to understand current revenues and expenditures, assets, liabilities, cash flows, debt, long-term obligations, and future commitments.
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GP31 – Borrowing does not eliminate cost; it transfers obligation into the future.
Debt should be justified separately from the expenditure it finances, with the future cost and repayment burden disclosed to WTP.
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GP32 – Taxation must be understandable, transparent, politically neutral, and consistently fair.
Candidates should state the standard of tax fairness they support and apply it consistently. Rates, deductions, exemptions, and credits should be visible and justified, not used as hidden political favors.
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GP33 – Government should make rules, not economic winners.
Taxes, subsidies, grants, regulation, contracts, and other governmental powers should not be used primarily to confer economic advantage upon favored private interests.
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GP34 – Government must account for the self-interest created by public institutions and programs.
Public Choice: officials, agencies, contractors, voters, and interest groups respond to incentives. Continued authority and funding therefore require controls, disclosure, competition where appropriate, and demonstrated results.
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GROUP 5: WHEN DOES GOVERNMENT ACT?
GP35 – The Family Precedes the State
The family is a human institution that exists before civil government and ordinarily bears primary responsibility for the care, nurture, formation, and upbringing of children. Government should recognize the family’s legitimate sphere of responsibility and Authority rather than assuming responsibilities merely because government has the power or resources to perform them.
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GP36 – Public Responsibility Should Be Properly Located
Before assigning a responsibility to government – or moving it from individuals, families, voluntary institutions, local communities, or one level of government to another – we should first determine where the responsibility properly belongs and whether government is the legitimate actor.
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GP37 – Governmental Action Requires Legitimate Authority
Once a responsibility is properly governmental, government should act only where legitimate Authority and Jurisdiction exist. The power or practical ability to do something does not by itself establish the Authority to do it.
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GP38 – Authority Should Correspond to Legitimate Responsibility
When government is legitimately assigned a responsibility, it should have sufficient Authority to carry it out; governmental Authority should not extend materially beyond the responsibility for which it was entrusted.
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GP39 – Consequential Power Requires Boundaries, Accountability, and Correctability
The greater government’s power to affect Liberty, Rights, property, responsibility, or practical choices, the more important clearly defined boundaries, meaningful accountability, and effective means of correcting error or abuse become.
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GROUP 6: WHAT WILL THE CANDIDATE DO?
GP40 – Clearly State Proposed Governmental Action
A proposed governmental action should clearly identify what government intends to do, who will do it, under what Authority, and what will materially change if the action is implemented.
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GP41 – State Expected Result
Before consequential governmental action is taken, the expected result should be stated clearly enough that citizens can later compare what government expected with what actually happened.
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GP42 – Identify Material Costs, Trade-offs, and Who Bears Them
A governmental proposal should identify its material financial and nonfinancial costs, significant trade-offs, realistic alternatives, and who is expected to bear the costs or surrender the alternatives.
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GP43 – Examine Incentives
Before acting, government should examine how a proposed law, program, tax, benefit, penalty, subsidy, or regulation is likely to change the choices and behavior of the people and institutions affected by it.
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GP44 – Irreversible Consequences Require Greater Pre-Action Scrutiny
The more difficult, costly, or impossible a governmental action would be to reverse, the more scrutiny Authority, evidence, alternatives, risks, and expected consequences should receive before the action is taken.
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GROUP 7: WHAT WAS THE RESULT?
GP45 – Measure Actual Results and Consequences
Consequential governmental actions should be evaluated by their actual results and material consequences, including significant unintended consequences, rather than by intention, effort, expenditure, or political claims alone.
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GP46 – Compare Actual Results With Expected Results
Government should compare measurable actual results with the results stated or reasonably expected before action was taken and should identify material differences rather than redefining success after the fact.
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GP47 – Results Do Not Override Rights or Legitimate Authority
A favorable result does not by itself create governmental Authority that did not exist or justify violating legitimate Rights. Results should be measured, but results do not replace the boundaries within which government may legitimately act.
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