2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life. – NO.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday. – YES.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government. – Yes, when it comes down to matters within the family then the government has no place to dictate it’s internal behavior.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it. – Yes. If you do something that is illegal then you accept the consequences of breaking that law.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results. – Yes. It’s right there in the Decalaration of Independence. While humans in general have those rights it is not the business of the American government to provide those things for peoples in other nations..they will have to do that for themselves just as we did.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable. – Yes. It is not within the Constitution for the federal government to redistribute wealth or provide welfare or health care for that matter. Americans have prospered when the government only did what is within it’s delegated power in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution..Americans have not prospered every time the federal government steps outside that delegated authority and essentially robbed people who have succeeded on their own merit to give to those who have not worked for it. Give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day..teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. – YES.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me. – YES.

A couple quotes I liked, but can’t offhand remember who said them, but one is “when the government is afraid of it’s people there is liberty but when the people are afraid of their government there is tyranny.” and the other is “a government strong enough to give everyone everything they need is also strong enough to take everything you have.”.

It can be dangerous to label a person, nation, or group simply as “good” or “evil.” Good is as good does. Only deeds should be judged as good or evil. Former President Bush tripling funds to combat AIDS in Africa is an example of a good action. Bush lying to invade Iraq and subsequently causing the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people is an example of an evil action. Most of the wrong done in the world has come from one nation or group of people labeling themselves as “good” and finding somebody different than them to label “evil.” It is the quickest path to discrimination, oppression, and genocide.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life. – NO.

This has absolutely nothing to do with America or government. America was founded as a free nation – a nation of liberty. You cannot be both a nation of freedom and liberty and a theocracy. Religion is a personal choice that has no place in government.

If you want to see what happens when fundamentalist religion gets mixed up with politics look to further than the Taliban. To quote founding father Thomas Jefferson, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.”

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday. – YES.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government. – YES. BUT…

The government has no place in deciding who is a family, or who can marry. At the time President Obama was born, it would have been illegal for his parents to have been wed in 16 of the states. In 1967 bigots said “Protect the sanctity of marriage: No interracial marriage.” In 2009 bigots of the same ilk say “Protect the sanctity of marriage: No gay marriage.” If you believe #4 is true, you must demand the government stop meddling in personal freedoms and grant the same civil rights to all.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it. – NO.

The law is not nor ever should be the decider of what is moral. Our understanding of law and morality evolve over time, and will continue to evolve. Slavery, condoned by even the Bible, was an important institution in our country from before its founding until the passing of the 13th Amendment in 1865. Who today would condemn those, like Harriet Tubman, who broke the law to assist escaped slaves before 1865? Martin Luther King spent many a night in prison for breaking laws that today we find offensive and revolting.

In fact, it was from a jail cell in Birmingham that King wrote to his critics, defending his civil disobedience and open defiance of the law, saying, “One may ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’”

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results. – YES. BUT…

We must grand these rights to all people, not simply those who live within some invisible lines arbitrarily drawn on a map. Human rights are for all people, and it is hypocritical and selfish to say only Americans have these rights. People lived in North America long before there ever was a United States, and I’m sure people will inhabit North America long after the United States is nothing but an ancient relic – the lore of history books.

The day I found inner peace was the day I stopped considering myself an American citizen, and started considering myself a neighbor, and brother, to all of humanity – and pledging to support all people to their right of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable. – NO.

Call me a socialist, if you must, but at least call me a Biblical socialist. For that is where I have drawn my guidance on charity and social justice. The truth is we must pay taxes to fund civilization. Civilization should include roads, police, prisons, and fire fighters. It should include transit, arts, basic housing, food, and clothing, hospitals, and health care. Without adequate health care, for example, many live a shortened life – or a life in pain – in direct opposition to principal #6. Health care is a human right.

Taxes should be about equal sacrifice, not equal percentage. If you don’t like funding civilization, you can join your ilk of Jim Jones or David Koresh in a remote compound somewhere. A nation is only as rich as its poorest citizens. I used to be a libertarian, until I found a heart and lost the greed.

As Martin Luther King said, “A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. – YES.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me. – YES.

To quote V for Vendetta, People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Yes! It sounds like he’s going to push for prosecution of Bush and Cheney fro war crimes, and for Cheney and Rove for treason.

1. is absurd. It’s pure Bush-speak: there’s good and evil, good is good and the evil is not. On the face of it, it’s a tautology, but actually it’s a whole program of intolerance and closed-mindedness. A Marxist would call it “metaphysical thinking”. And from theere, there is a logical path towards a static view of the world, including the denial of evolution and the refusal of social progress.

So let’s strike point 1 and replace it with “There’s some good and some bad in the USA [yes, America is a continent, did you know that?]. The good must be cultivated and the bad must be fought”.

2. It’s a joke, right ?

3. OK with me.

4 and 5 are not compatible. Decide yourself. I’d tend to prefer 5. Otherwise, everyone makes their own law, and it’s the Wild West all over again.

6. Yeah, OK. But “no garanty of equal results” doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t help those for who things get bad. Which of course means that those who do very, very well must help more than the others.

7. That’s silly. It’s in the same league as “my health is my own business and the government can’t compel me to vaccine”. Ever heard about general interest? Anyway, if you want more of your tax money to be given to the army and less to education, just vote for those who propose so. It’s as simple as that.

8. Sure !

9. Good words.

As for the values :
Reverence is a behaviour, not a value. And it must be deserved.
Hope… ?
Strike charity and replace it with solidarity.
Personal responsibility is tricky. It’s not bad in itself… until you use it to deny the weight of socio-economical determinations. Which is usually what it’s used for.

Well, I’m not American anyway, so feel free to ignore my comments…

can you clarify what that means?

2. I don’t believe in God and He is not the Center of my Life.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday. OK, but maybe it should just say “Be Honest”

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government. OK, true, but since eminent domain keeps taking people’s property rights, do we really have any rights? Heck I can’t even order fats in some restaurants now

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it. OK, but out last couple sitting presidents have thought they were above it–both R’s and D’s.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results. True, thus the American Dream

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable. Exactly, the government FORCING charity turns it into taxes and NOT charity

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. We wouldn’t be our own country today if our forefathers hadn’t fought against the tyranny

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me. Thus the whole republic thing and not mob rule…It just sucks that pretty much all our representatives and most of the people in the U.S.A. are forgetting about the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence

Since he’s being so theatrical, even Moses-like about his lofty Nine Principles one would think he’d at least get the grammar correct:

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

“with who I want to”? Oh dear, somebody wasn’t paying attention in 5th grade. It’s “with whom I want” or “with whom I please” would be better.

Beck could sell all his property, liquidate everything he has, take all that money to get an actual education and with great perseverance he might some day rise to the level of dork.