Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.—Thomas Jefferson
As far as our organization being conservative, moderate, or liberal, we're all of the above and so is just about everyone else. Most of us are far too complex to be categorized into just one group—especially since society can't even agree on a consistent definition for each of these groups. Adding to the confusion, many of us harbor misinformation and unjustified prejudices toward "conservatives", "moderates", or "liberals." Proponents of this misinformation like to label all so-called conservatives as heartless, moderates as spineless, and liberals as irresponsible.
While corporations love to divide and conquer citizens by separating them into groups, media producers and advertisers also fan the fires associated with emotional issues like gun control, abortion, same-sex marriages, and so on. They have no genuine interest in resolving these controversial issues. By presenting increasingly outrageous, emotional, and divisive programming, they expose more consumers to advertisements and increase their profits—using bogus talk shows and alleged news commentaries as their weapons of choice. However, political parties, politicians, and populace-nonprofit groups must represent a large spectrum of people to become an effective force for democracy and the environment and not allow divisive groups to commandeer their resources for their own narrow objectives or to splinter the organization.
Emotional and controversial issues need to be debated and resolved among citizens, society, and religious groups before being championed by political parties or populace groups. On many important issues a large percentage of Americans can agree without alienating each other. For example, most Americans agree on campaign finance reform, term limits, the elimination of corporate welfare, establishment of a living wage, affordable health care, and the elimination of unfair taxes on the middle class and poor while ensuring that corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. Other examples of general agreement include proper funding and oversight of all public schools, protection of the environment while facilitating development of sustainable industries and technologies, and discouragement of unsustainable industries and technologies.
Prudent political third parties should merge and champion these types of issues and build unity. If emotional and controversial issues should arise from the legislation of other political parties, prudent politicians should inform their constituents of the legislation, provide leadership, and vote in accordance with the wishes of their constituents as opposed to special-interest groups. To maintain unity and political power among constituents, prudent politicians should cast an "abstention" vote on unresolved and divisive legislation—reserving the "yes" or "no" vote for legislation constituents clearly want or oppose respectively.
We must not allow corporations to eliminate our civility, unity, and political power by using controversial issues to drive wedges between us. Therefore, politically, it's critical to avoid divisive issues and stay focused on reducing corporate power and establishing a higher threshold of democracy for our country—nothing is more important! High levels of gun violence, teen pregnancy, abortion, environmental decay, and a host of other social concerns are a direct result of the value system corporations have fostered with their marketing campaigns, TV programming, and political power. To fight and alienate each other over divisive issues, while losing the gift of democracy, is like fixating and arguing over the medical treatment of symptoms instead of the disease. If voters limit themselves and their political party to just one issue, while ignoring all others, it will maintain political gridlock and corporations will continue to destroy our democracy and the environment.
Reaching democratic and equitable solutions involving individual freedom, public interests, and religious freedom pivots on this first task. Religious groups should concentrate on cultivating a higher level of democracy as one of their primary objectives. Democracy allows humanity the greatest chance to exercise their freewill and face the consequences (good or bad) of those decisions—isn't that what God intended for humanity? Democracy also allows religious groups the greatest liberty to minister to people, and through this ministry, change society. However, democracy doesn't rule America—gigantic corporations do—and they undermine government, society, family, religion, spirituality, and the environment at every level.