What We Believe

“Public Policy should be made by people with liberal hearts and conservative brains.”

Our Mission

At CenterMovement.org, our mission is to reform, reinvigorate and depolarize American politics and public policy; to pull public policy to the philosophical center; and to improve the general functioning of American democracy and government.

Our Beliefs

We believe in the American Dream. We favor vigorous free markets and a strong social safety net.

A strong free-market system is the only proven route to long-term economic growth and prosperity. Only free-market capitalism can keep the American Dream alive at home and lift the world’s poor out of poverty. Public policy must endeavor to keep the cost of doing business in the United States low and the incentives to save and invest high.

The regulation of business is often necessary, but the benefits of regulation should always be balanced against the cost to business and to the economy as a whole.

A nation with a strong free-market economy will be a wealthy nation, and a wealthy nation can afford a strong social safety net, including a health-care system that serves all of its people. We have a duty to care for our fellow citizens and neighbors who through physical disability or mental illness cannot care for themselves.

The American primary and secondary educational system is failing many children, and the nation as a whole. It must be substantially reformed to keep the economy strong and to insure that every child has a chance to reach his or her potential.

We believe in civil society, civil discourse, and compromise on social issues.

We honor all reasoned debate and respect all well-intentioned and well-informed points of view. We embrace all kinds of diversity within our society, but especially intellectual diversity. We recognize that strong and passionate beliefs are woven into the fabric of a healthy pluralistic society, but when ideology serves its own end rather than the greater good of the nation it becomes pernicious.

We favor compromise on all intractable social issues. For example, early-term abortions should remain legal, but with parental notification in the cases of minors, and without state funding so that those who find the procedure morally offensive will not be compelled to support it.

Likewise, same-sex partners should be entitled to form “civil unions” with all of the rights of lawful marriage, but the term “marriage” should not be used in the legal terminology out of respect for the nation’s many orthodox religious citizens for whom “marriage” is a religious sacrament.

We believe in strictly upholding the US Constitution.

The US Constitution should always be held sacred and read literally, with its understanding informed by the debates that occurred during its formation, as well as by legal precedent. The Constitution should not be changed lightly or allowed to evolve outside of the democratic process. Most specifically, we believe that the Executive and Judicial branches need to be better held within the limits established in the Constitution, as understood by its framers. If a particular approach of the framers of the Constitution is found inadequate to current circumstances, then the Constitution should be amended through a lawful process established for that purpose.

We believe in vigilantly maintaining, and when necessary reforming, our democratic institutions.

Elections in the United States should always be fair. Legislative districts should be drawn in an apolitical manner, the fundraising advantages of incumbent office holders eliminated, and turnover in our legislatures encouraged.

The American system of elections and government should, as the founders envisioned, serve the broad and long-term interests of the nation, as opposed to the narrow special interests of certain industries, trade organizations, unions, and ideologically-charged groups, or the perpetual reelections of incumbent politicians.

We believe in new foreign and defense policies for the 21st Century.

American diplomacy and defense should further adjust to the reality of a multi-polar world in an age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction proliferation. Defense planning and US diplomacy should be concerned, first and foremost, with the gravest and most direct threats to US national security.

Strategic and homeland defense should be top priorities.

The United States should be a leader of the free world and not the policeman of the whole world. American diplomacy should press for a new system of common defense and foreign policy shared more equally with democratic allies.

The waging of war should always be an absolute last resort, and any long-term deployment of American forces should require a declaration of war by the US Congress, as stated in the Constitution.

The United States should continue to support globalization and free trade.

The United States should always stand ready to help any democratic nation defend itself, support human rights around the globe, and be an advocate for peace. We appreciate the complexity of furthering both American interests and ideals globally.

We have a duty to protect our natural environment and improve our living environment.

It is the role of government to prevent environmental degradation, locally and globally. Environmental policy must be driven by science, but scientific conclusions about anything as complicated and consequential as climate change should always be subject to a vigorous and ongoing debate. We believe the United States should err on the side of protection when it comes to the natural environment, but also that no environmental regulation should be enacted without first considering its economic impact.

We believe that the furthering of innovative urban planning, green spaces, pedestrian areas, bike paths, public transportation, and clean air and water greatly contribute to health and happiness.

About our Statement of Beliefs

The above statement of what we believe represents a set of general political principles set down for the sake of providing a framework for our publication and attracting people who are mostly like-minded. In some cases the above principles are vague and will be the subject of debate on the pages of CenterMovement.org. In other cases the principles are fairly specific and set down primarily to illustrate the organization’s perspective and philosophy. In all cases, these principles will face the possibility of reform at that point in the future when our members will vote on them.

It is unlikely that each member will agree to all of the principles, but citizens who agree to 80% or more of the above principles probably have more in common with our perspective than they do with the prevailing extreme “liberal” and “conservative” ideologies in which all policy positions follow in lockstep under the banner of each respective label. From the above belief statements it should be clear that we are conservatives, liberals, libertarians, reformists and environmentalists, depending on the issue, and overall we strive to be temperamentally moderate enough to weigh our priorities rationally when faced with complex issues or conflicting agenda.