The Baton Rouge Tea Party Core Values and Mission Statement
The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending, and the intrusion of government into areas for which it has no constitutional sanction. The following core values bind us together as a group:
Core Values
• Uphold the Constitution of the United States of America
• Free Markets
• Limited Government
• Fiscal Responsibility
Mission Statement
Our mission is to organize, educate, and inform our fellow citizens for the purpose of securing public policy consistent with our core values. We will unify and we will exercise through all legal means available to us, our power to effect the election of local, state, and federal candidates who espouse our core values.
Principles of the Baton Rouge Tea Party
Baton Rouge Tea Party as an organization believes in the Constitution of the United States, Free Markets, Limited Government, and Fiscal Responsibility. The Baton Rouge Tea Party is a non-partisan grassroots organization of individuals united by our core values derived from the Constitution of the United States of America, the Bill Of Rights, the Federalist Papers, and the Declaration of Independence.
Core values:
Uphold the Constitution: The core values of Baton Rouge Tea Party are the same values upon which the United States of America was founded, and are rooted in our belief in Natural Law. They derive from a belief in free will, the primacy of individual, and personal responsibility. We will uphold and follow the original intent of the Constitution of the United States.
Free Markets: A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government’s interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty; therefore, we demand limited government.
Limited Government: We, the members of The Baton Rouge Tea Party, are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is possible to know the original intent of the government our founders set forth, and stand in support of that intent. Like the founders, we support states' rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law.
Fiscal Responsibility: A limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible. Our current governments’ actions have resulted in onerous burdens of taxation.
This increasing taxation unjustly restricts the very liberty limited government is designed to protect and abrogates the rights the Constitution is designed to secure. In addition, the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty. We therefore demand from our governments: fiscal responsibility, a plan of reduced spending, and balanced budgets without the creation of further debt.
Political Action:
We, the people of the Baton Rouge Tea Party, will take political action to secure a government that is constitutionally limited, and will actively oppose all government officials, elected or appointed, that violate their oath of office. To that end, we are committed to work with any party or group of individuals who are in support of our core values, thereby leaving social issues to be decided at the state or local level as the Constitution intends. We are not in support of, or supported by, any political party. We will not be influenced by any special interest. We will accept nothing less than a government that operates under the strict limitations contained in our Constitution, which best serves and protects its citizen's liberty.
Our Philosophy:
We believe that social issues are best decided at the state and local levels. We recognize and support the strength of grassroots organization powered by activism and civic responsibility at a local level.
We hold that the United States is a Republic conceived by its architects as a nation whose people were granted "unalienable rights" by our Creator. Chiefly among these are the rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Baton Rouge Tea Party stand with our Founding Fathers, as heirs to the republic, to claim our rights and duties which preserve their legacy and our own. We hold, as did the Founders, that there exists an inherent benefit to our country when private property and prosperity is secured by Natural Law and the rights of the individual.