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Citizen Integrity: Integrity Stimulus Plan Key #4

America's Mission Statement: Every citizen, business person, media member, educator, advocacy group, lobbyist, and leader needs to take to heart the meaning of a single sentence that lists the core guiding principles for the United States and all democracy-centered republics. That single sentence is the U.S. Constitution's Preamble:

"We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Citizen Integrity starts with understanding each phrase in this powerful mission statement:

• "Union" means we're all in this soup together. We all need each other if our society is to work well and we all have a responsibility to remember this and act accordingly. Not just some of the time and not just when it is convenient for us. All of the time. Not merely because it's the right thing to do, but because our happiness as citizens, and our sustainability as a country, depends on it.
• "Justice" means fairness. Not entitlement, not special privileges for some, and not revenge.
• "Domestic tranquility" means keeping peace as we walk, as a country, the fine line between our desire for stability and our drive toward change, both of which live at the heart of being human.
• "Provide for the common defense" means containing those who would attack our country.
• "Promoting the general welfare" means that flourishing as a just and tranquil society requires responsible stewardship of the common good.
• "Securing the blessings of liberty" means preserving individual freedom and supporting the pursuit of happiness.
• "To ourselves and our posterity" means not stealing from our descendants' futures in order to indulge our own misguided or self-indulgent desires in the present.

To summarize, then, America's Mission Statement proclaims that:

• Government's purpose is to be a servant to its citizens, not to a political or religious ideology, to businesses, or to any other type of special interests; and
• Government's mandate is to function at the intersection of preserving individual freedom and promoting the common good.

True Patriotism

Think about the full meaning of America's Mission Statement. How do you think are we doing? When citizens, politicians, business leaders, or special interest groups do not understand, or selectively ignore, America's Mission Statement, they damage the fundamental fabric of our democracy-centered republic. Can you see why the time has come for all of us to commit to a more informed and mature version of patriotism? True patriotism means holding as sacred your responsibility as an individual or business citizen to support America’s democracy-centered mission statement (or, if you live elsewhere, to find effective ways to demand that your country move toward being democracy-centered). True patriotism also means requiring that our government and all segments of society live in integrity with America’s Mission Statement too. Mature patriotism means ending political polarization in which one political group advocates individual freedom over the common good or vice versa, or makes a special interest more important than either.

• Government Responsibility: Political patriotism means preserving, protecting and promoting America's Mission Statement. Elected officials must engage in spirited but collaboration-oriented discussions about how to best uphold the mission's mandate to be a servant to its citizens that functions at the intersection of preserving individual freedom and promoting the common good. They must be willing to repeatedly demonstrate the courage to function at that intersection, even when special interests (including some of their own constituents) seek to tilt the mission statement out of balance or threaten to stop supporting them in remaining in office.

• Citizen Responsibility: True citizen patriotism means being a Freesponsible Everyday Steward of the common good. "Freesponsibility" means living your life at the intersection of individual freedom and personal responsibility by embodying this Integrity Stimulus Plan through your Integrity Pledge. Living as an Everyday Steward means being someone who promotes the common good as an act of enlightened self-interest: in your interactions with others, in fulfilling your responsibilities as a citizen, and in caring for our environment. Citizen responsibility includes becoming less easily manipulated by political, media and special interest spin. It means requiring your elected officials and government employees to uphold America's Mission Statement. It means demanding that the media continually educate the public about America's Mission Statement and that they aggressively report violations of it. It calls upon us to support businesses that are good corporate citizens and shun those that are not.

• Corporate/Special Interest Responsibility: It is time for all companies to step into being integrity-centered corporate citizens. Just as individual citizens are entitled to the pursuit of happiness, companies are entitled to the pursuit of profit. Just as America’s Mission Statement calls upon individual citizens to be Freesponsible Everyday Stewards, the same is true of corporate citizens. Just as individual citizens have a responsibility to live at the intersection of pursuit of happiness and being stewards of the common good, so are companies responsible for doing business at the intersection of pursuit of profit and being stewards of the common good. Citizen responsibility includes making sure that the companies and special interest groups you are connected with become better at generating profitability in ways that align with the common good rather than compete against it.

• Media Responsibility: Journalistic integrity includes objectively and vigorously educating the public about how the rhetoric and the actions of elected officials and other government employees are aligned with -- or out of integrity with -- America's Mission Statement. It is time for citizens to demand journalistic integrity by supporting media that uphold it and challenging media that erode it.

For more about being a Freesponsible Citizen, go to www.TheNewIQ.com/freesponsible

What Will You Include in Your Integrity Pledge About Citizen Integrity?

1. Becoming the Change

Do you tend to downplay or over-emphasize individual freedom or the common good?

How clear are you about the difference between self-centeredness and enlightened self-interest, and to which are you devoted?

What specific commitment will you make as a Freesponsible Everyday Steward, for your own sake as an individual citizen, as a corporate citizen, as a special interests advocate, as a member of the media, or as someone in government, so you can live in more alignment with ALL of America's Mission Statement?

2. Impacting Your World

Select a specific action you will take to help our society shift into fuller integrity with America's Mission Statement. Here are some possibilities:

• Family: I will teach my children America’s Mission Statement and how to be Freesponsible Everyday Stewards.
• Media: I will lobby the media to more aggressively report news from the perspective of constitutional integrity. I will lobby the media to provide more complete international news coverage so citizens of our country have a more accurate and complete grasp of the interconnection between our country and the rest of the world. I will impact the media by writing letters to the editor, contacting show producers, calling in to talk shows, etc.
• Schools: I will lobby schools in my community, that I work at, or that I am otherwise connected with, to include full-spectrum citizen integrity education in their curriculum.
• Places of Worship: I will get mine to provide citizen integrity training
• Service Organizations: I will get the organization I am affiliated with to function in alignment citizen integrity, and to more vigorously champion these qualities
• Businesses: I will get the businesses with which I am connected as an owner, executive, employee, vendor, stakeholder or customer to develop a commitment statement articulating their action plan for becoming better corporate citizens
• Government: I will vote first and foremost for candidates with the greatest devotion to America's Mission Statement. I will then hold them accountable for educating the public about it, and for writing and voting for legislation that preserves and protects it.
• Internet: I will use the internet to increase people’s understanding of citizen integrity and its importance. (You can do this by e-mailing people you know, providing information on your website, blogging on other websites, and/or posting information on social networking sites to which you belong).
• Other: You specify.

Decide who you will contact, what you will say or do, how this will happen, and when you will do this. Then do it.

Revisit your commitments every six months to decide whether it's time to modify them.

Click on this link when you are ready to go on to Integrity Stimulus Plan Key #5: Problem-Solving Integrity.