How to govern

The way to govern (for good or ill) is to know your values, know your goals, and then maintain a consistency from top to bottom and beginning to end. To govern humanely requires having humane values and humane goals. America is supposed to be humane, just in case anyone wonders.

To wit, the overall values and goals for our government are stated in the Preamble of the Contsitution of the United States of America:

• We the People (this means everyone)
  
• form a more perfect union (come together and understand each other better)
  
• establish justice (have fairness and equity for everyone)
  
• insure domestic tranquility (resolve conflicts and get along with one another)
  
• provide for the common defense (protect our country and its people)
  
• promote the general welfare (everyone benefits, no one left out)
  
• secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity (protect our rights and freedoms against any who would take them away from us or any who come after us)
  

These are the values universally binding that define us as a country and a people. These are the things we are pledging allegiance to when pledging to the flag and the republic for which it stands. These are also the things every elected official and military personnel take an oath to uphold and defend.

Since we are a republic, meaning a representative democracy where the general population elect people to be their voice and represent them in discussions of policy, we need to be clear about how policy-making should be done.

Policy-making begins with knowing our priorities. Our guide is the Preamble. It establishes the things that are most important for the country and its people as a whole. It sets the criteria by which all policies, laws, and decisions are to be made and sets the standard by which they are to be judged.

This means everyone has a duty to know and uphold the Preamble in their lives, and, to ensure that those we elect will do the same. If the elected do not seek to hear the people and do not honor the fiduciary trust they have been given, it is the duty of the people to remove them and find others who will. This is how consistency is maintained from top to bottom and beginning to end.