We are ready for a new political label.
We need a new word which cuts across the words we use now, words which are essentially meaningless due to the abuse they have suffered during the political process. This new descriptor should apply to persons who are dedicated to the following ideals and explicitly not apply to persons who do not recognize these tenets as their own.
Our nation should profess and honor an absolute commitment to full civil rights for each citizen, and to promote this principle as the best policy for all governments.
Protection and preservation of the environment is a national goal.
The government should regulate a market-based economy that explicitly condemns abuse of workers, is transparent in its accounting practices and criminalizes misrepresentation to consumers.
Healthy citizens being necessary to the security of a free state, a well-regulated system providing the means to ensure medical care to all who want it shall be maintained in such a manner that it not be ruinous to any individual, family, or society.
Our country needs a military whose members are respected and able to protect the nation utilizing resources procured by the Congress. While ably prepared to take on missions planned by competent military leaders whose advice informs the civilian leaders, the armed forces should only be deployed when a legitimate case can be made to the citizenry, especially in the event of an emergency when the accounting must be made after the fact of armed action.
The commander in chief should constantly remind the populace that he or she is a civilian, not a military officer; any act that willfully ignores military experts in the effort to promote a civilian political agenda should be labeled treasonous.
Our political leaders should make a commitment to fiscal responsibility.
The United States should have an outspoken dedication to education and the use of science; a factual instruction in history with a special emphasis on the value of learning from mistakes of the past should become a part of a national learning agenda.
We should maintain our devotion to religious freedom of expression, but a dedication to keeping religious doctrine from inhibiting any of the listed ideals shall never waver.
A national guideline for the conduct of elections, designed to enable the greatest number of voters and to produce results which un-questionably satisfy the conditions that elections are conducted fairly and openly shall be established.
Any efforts to obscure factual debate about current events shall be specifically condemned.
These and other principles are common to many people in this country.
It could be argued that a person of almost any political, religious and other identity-based group could identify these principles as of great importance.
Having asserted that these basic principles are central to the best interests of our nation, let everyone to whom this new label applies participate in discussion and debate, in a democratic manner, to determine the best way to achieve these goals.
After all, we have nice buildings, and elaborate rules already in place to facilitate the process.
And, of course, when the new label becomes abused, we can dispose of it and reconsider its original meaning.