The rapidly expanding Alliance for Responsible Citizenship is only in its third year – but the ideas it extols draw from the ages, and its policies provide compelling, comprehensive antidotes for much that ails western industrialized democracies.
Start with its first principles. ARC makes no apologies for our historic Judeo-Christian values, reconfirming that all men and women have been endowed by their divine creator with inalienable rights. Knowing every human being is uniquely endowed with dignity, and understanding how we all yearn for familial, communal, spiritual and economic fulfillment, ARC proudly embraces integral development. ARC supporters believe moral societies can only be forged from the bottom up, not the top down, meaning family and faith are paramount. ARC envisions a hopeful, economically robust, energy abundant, artistically and spiritually vibrant world free from existential fear, moral relativism and debilitating doubt.
And that’s only the beginning.
As responsible citizens, members of the growing ARC community don’t think in terms of right and left, or red and blue. We prize right versus wrong and common sense, especially as it relates to the common good. We are fierce warriors for justice. We abhor the negation of women’s rights and the emasculation of masculinity; antisemitism and excessive civilian casualties in Gaza and Lebanon; unmet human potential and failing public schools; and indefensible fiscal policies that are saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt they never endorsed but must somehow repay.
Responsible citizens neither demonize success nor exempt those who have achieved it from promoting those who have not. Responsible citizens know free markets are imperfect, but we unapologetically embrace them anyway. Why? Because their negative externalities – things like environmental degradation and growing wealth inequality – are more easily remedied than the chronic inefficiencies and gross injustices of socialist systems and negated property rights. Responsible citizens believe capitalism must work better for all. Too many youth have only seen capitalism’s failures, not socialism’s forgotten miseries. Responsible citizens work to solve the former so we don’t revisit the latter.
Responsible citizens know that helping others find meaning, purpose, and worth in their lives is essential for achieving meaning, purpose, and worth in our own. Responsible citizens accept accountability for our actions, vowing to be the change we want to see in the world. Everyone has agency and is called to exercise it, whether they believe it or not. We are more than advocates for subsidiarity, however. Responsible citizens are equally committed to helping all those who are truly unable to take care of themselves. And we are equally mindful caretakers of our divinely-designed ecosystems. We think in terms of generations, not general elections. We actively solve tomorrow’s problems with smarter policies and wiser investments today.
Responsible citizens don’t hope that AI will serve humanity’s needs: We insist upon it. Many understood globalization could undermine their vibrant, industrial communities, then stood idly by as they did. There is no need to learn this same lesson twice. AI’s disruptions are real, pervasive, and predictable, as are its many gifts and efficiencies. Responsible citizens won’t allow AI’s advances to blind us from anticipating and ameliorating its costs.
Promoting solidarity is self-fulfilling. In a society of responsible citizens, no one’s work is done until everyone’s work is done. Respectful, free speech is understood as the best antidote for conquering bad ideas. Censorship magnifies irresponsibility by preventing discerning citizens from knowing the full truth. Racism, prejudice, and legacy elitism are real and lamentable – but destroying meritocracy in an attempt to reverse them substitutes one injustice for another. Responsible citizens want everyone to realize their God-given talents, regardless of race, gender, political beliefs, or religious and/or sexual preferences.
As American colonists were breaking away from British rule some 250 years ago in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, Benjamin Franklin quipped, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” This sentiment encapsulates how a society of responsible citizens would most dramatically differ from the world we inhabit today: Factionalizing and fragmentation would be energetically quelled rather than actively encouraged. Responsible citizens understand there is no “we-them.” There is only us.
By forging vibrant, free, wholesome communities, responsible citizens would create stronger, more unified nation states. Stronger, happier and more secure nation states would help fashion a globe free from military conflict, injustice, and want. Responsible citizens seek stronger communities, more content nation states, and a more just world – in that order.
In his opening address to the annual gathering of the ARC community in London last week, Artemis astronaut Victor Glover spoke passionately about what he and his three space travelers saw from the far side of the moon: One human family, divinely created and entrusted with the care of a precious planet teeming with life, the only such planet within twenty-six trillion miles, some 4.2 light years.
Captain Glover marveled at how ubiquitous, responsible citizenship could bring us together, in service to one another and our precious planet, a perfect reflection of the infinite love source that once willed us all into being. He took special comfort in knowing that such a journey once undertaken would be as rewarding as the destination it nobly intends.
So should we all.
