The Liberty Tree Society
A fuller statement of the principles that guide our view of citizenship, national sovereignty, government, the economy, foreign policy, culture, and public life.
These values expand upon the Society’s guiding principles and organize them into nine areas of public life. Together, they provide a fuller statement of the ideas informing the organization’s civic and political outlook.
American government exists first and foremost to protect the security, prosperity, liberty, culture, and future of the American people. Domestic and foreign policy should be evaluated according to a simple principle: Does this advance the national interest of the United States and its citizens?
The United States must retain complete authority over its borders, laws, economy, military, and political institutions. International organizations, multinational corporations, foreign governments, and treaties should never supersede the interests or constitutional sovereignty of the American nation.
America must maintain a strong and cohesive national identity rooted in its history, constitutional tradition, language, institutions, culture, and shared civic inheritance. Citizenship should entail loyalty, responsibility, civic participation, and commitment to the continued flourishing of the American nation.
A republic cannot survive on institutions alone. Citizens have obligations to their communities and country. Americans should be encouraged to vote, serve their communities, understand their government, defend their liberties, participate in civic organizations, and preserve the nation for future generations.
Government must remain bound by the Constitution and the rule of law. Individual liberties, due process, representative government, federalism, freedom of speech, religious liberty, and the separation of powers are fundamental components of the American political tradition.
The question should not simply be whether government is large or small, but whether it is effective, accountable, competent, and serving legitimate national purposes. Government should possess sufficient power to defend the border, protect American industry, build infrastructure, maintain public order, counter foreign influence, enforce the law, and advance strategic national interests. At the same time, wasteful agencies, redundant programs, unnecessary bureaucracy, administrative paralysis, corruption, and regulations serving no legitimate public purpose should be aggressively reformed or eliminated.
Public institutions exist to serve citizens—not bureaucracies themselves. Government agencies should operate with clear objectives, measurable results, transparency, congressional oversight, and meaningful accountability for failure.
Complexity should never become an end unto itself. Layers of redundant regulations, agencies, permitting processes, and administrative procedures that obstruct legitimate economic activity or prevent government from accomplishing its mission should be simplified or abolished.
Immigration policy should be determined exclusively by the interests of existing American citizens rather than by the interests of corporations, universities, foreign governments, or prospective migrants. The United States has no inherent obligation to maintain high levels of immigration.
Large-scale immigration—legal or illegal—can place pressure on wages, housing, infrastructure, public services, social cohesion, and labor markets. Immigration levels should therefore be dramatically reduced when they conflict with American economic or national interests.
American workers should receive priority in the American labor market. Immigration programs should not be used as mechanisms for employers to obtain cheaper labor when qualified Americans are available.
Programs such as H-1B should face substantial reform, restriction, or elimination where they permit employers to replace, undercut, or bypass American technical and professional workers. American engineering, technology, medicine, science, skilled trades, and other professional sectors should develop and employ Americans before looking abroad for labor.
The United States must maintain complete operational control of its borders through sufficient personnel, physical infrastructure, surveillance, detention capacity, and enforcement. Illegal entry should produce predictable consequences rather than becoming an alternative immigration system.
Employers who knowingly exploit illegal labor should face meaningful penalties. Immigration enforcement must address both unauthorized workers and the businesses that create demand for unlawful labor.
America must rebuild its industrial capacity. Manufacturing, energy, steel, shipbuilding, aerospace, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, defense production, machine tools, critical minerals, and other strategic industries should be treated as national-security assets.
Government policy should encourage companies to manufacture critical goods inside the United States rather than continuously relocating production overseas.
Government procurement should strongly favor American workers, American companies, and products manufactured in the United States whenever reasonably possible.
Free trade should not become an ideological objective detached from national interest. Tariffs, import restrictions, industrial policy, procurement preferences, and other economic tools may be justified when necessary to protect strategically important American industries and workers.
America should not depend upon geopolitical rivals for critical medicines, energy, technology, military components, food supplies, telecommunications equipment, or essential industrial materials.
A prosperous and independent middle class is essential to republican government. Economic policy should therefore emphasize productive employment, rising wages, homeownership, family formation, skilled trades, domestic manufacturing, entrepreneurship, and opportunities for upward mobility.
Vocational education, apprenticeships, engineering, manufacturing, skilled trades, and technical training should receive significantly greater national attention. America should train Americans to perform the work required by an advanced industrial society.
Corporations should not receive public subsidies, favorable treatment, or government contracts while systematically eliminating American jobs and transferring strategically important production overseas.
Political power should serve citizens rather than professional political classes, corporations, lobbying networks, wealthy donors, foreign interests, NGOs, or entrenched bureaucracies.
Special interests have accumulated disproportionate influence over legislation, regulation, procurement, foreign policy, and elections. The political system should impose significantly stronger restrictions on lobbying, political influence-peddling, conflicts of interest, and the ability of concentrated financial interests to purchase privileged access to government.
Senior government officials should face substantial cooling-off periods before lobbying agencies they formerly controlled or working for industries they previously regulated. Likewise, major industry lobbyists should not move seamlessly into government positions overseeing their former employers and clients.
Lobbyists and organizations attempting to influence government should disclose who funds them, which officials they contact, what policies they are attempting to influence, and how much money is being spent.
Foreign governments, foreign-controlled corporations, foreign-funded lobbying organizations, and other foreign interests should face severe restrictions on their ability to influence American elections, legislation, universities, media institutions, or policymakers.
Government contracts, subsidies, regulatory exemptions, and legislation should never function as rewards for political donations or personal relationships. Competitive bidding, transparency, audits, and public disclosure should be strengthened.
Members of Congress and senior federal officials should face strict restrictions on individual stock trading while exercising authority capable of materially affecting those investments.
Political spending should be transparent enough for Americans to know which major individuals, corporations, organizations, and financial interests are attempting to influence their government.
Public corruption should carry serious consequences regardless of party affiliation, wealth, political connections, or institutional position.
American soldiers and resources should not be committed to endless wars, nation-building projects, ideological crusades, or conflicts with little connection to American national security.
Military intervention should require a compelling American national interest, clearly defined objectives, realistic expectations of success, and an achievable exit strategy.
Non-intervention does not require weakness. The United States should maintain a technologically dominant military capable of defending American territory, citizens, shipping, commerce, and strategic interests.
The security of the Western Hemisphere is uniquely important to the United States. America should prevent hostile foreign powers from establishing military, intelligence, strategic infrastructure, or coercive economic footholds in the hemisphere. This is essentially a modernized Monroe Doctrine approach.
The United States should pursue deeper economic integration and strategically advantageous relationships throughout North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean where doing so strengthens American industry, supply chains, security, and geopolitical influence.
Ports, telecommunications infrastructure, energy facilities, shipping routes, mineral resources, military installations, and other strategically important assets in the Western Hemisphere should not fall under the control of hostile powers.
America should systematically reduce strategic dependence on China while preventing Chinese control over critical American technologies, infrastructure, farmland, industrial capacity, and supply chains.
Military alliances should advance mutual security rather than creating indefinite obligations in which American taxpayers disproportionately subsidize the defense of wealthy countries.
Foreign assistance should have a clearly identifiable strategic, humanitarian, security, or economic justification benefiting the United States. Foreign aid should not become an automatic entitlement for foreign governments.
The United States should maintain the capacity to meet its own energy needs without becoming dangerously dependent on foreign governments.
America should pursue abundant, reliable, affordable energy through oil, natural gas, nuclear power, hydroelectricity, and other economically viable sources.
Advanced nuclear power should play a major role in America's long-term energy and industrial strategy.
Roads, bridges, ports, dams, water systems, railroads, electrical grids, telecommunications infrastructure, and other nationally important systems should be modernized as long-term investments in American productive capacity.
Stable families are fundamental institutions of civilization and should be supported economically, culturally, and politically.
The organization should defend enduring principles including responsibility, duty, family, faith, honesty, discipline, courage, self-reliance, community, and service.
Parents should retain substantial authority over the upbringing and education of their children.
Americans must remain free to practice their religion, express their beliefs publicly, and organize religious communities without unnecessary government interference.
Churches, civic organizations, charities, clubs, volunteer groups, families, and neighborhood institutions should be strengthened as foundations of American civil society.
Americans should understand the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers, American history, and structure of government.
American history should neither be sanitized into mythology nor reduced exclusively to the country's failures. Americans should understand both the nation's accomplishments and its mistakes while recognizing the extraordinary political inheritance they possess.
America needs common institutions, historical knowledge, cultural reference points, civic rituals, and expectations of citizenship capable of binding an enormous country together.
Government, universities, corporations, and cultural institutions should respect the tradition of open debate and intellectual disagreement.
Citizens have a right to safe neighborhoods, functioning public spaces, secure property, and equal enforcement of the law.
Police departments should receive appropriate staffing, training, equipment, and institutional support while remaining accountable for misconduct.
The justice system should distinguish between people capable of rehabilitation and dangerous repeat offenders who pose continuing threats to society.
Drug cartels, human-trafficking networks, transnational gangs, and organized criminal enterprises operating across America's borders should be treated as major national-security threats.
From Principle to Action
The Liberty Tree Society exists to translate conviction into organization, service, public discussion, leadership development, and meaningful participation in American civic life.