Principles

The Streit Council seeks effective democratic government, nationally and internationally, on the basis of the following principles:

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1. Government is a means to freedom and solidarity, not an end in itself.

Excessive, insufficient and inefficient government have historically impaired the human aspiration to freedom and solidarity with others. Democracy mitigates these shortcomings to the benefit of the individual. People in democracies have the right and responsibility to hold their governments’ domestic and foreign policies to this standard.

2. Democracies still hold the keys to their future.

In domestic and foreign policy, democracies hold the greatest ability to preserve, and responsibility for, the democratic way of life. They possess a unique capacity for reform, cooperation and integration.

3. Solidarity over fracture.

The contractual foundations of democratic societies erode when their common challenges are addressed by circumventing citizens. Domestic and foreign policies that pit democratic peoples against one another have historically exacerbated this disconnect.  

4. Freedom and solidarity through union.

Relations between democracies should further develop on the basis of federal principles to fully empower individual citizens. A fully developed union of democracies can serve as a lodestar for this approach.

5. Democracies have a responsibility to their citizenry and the wider world.

Any qualitative step toward a more just and peaceful international order must be centered on the individual. This can be achieved through the application of democratic and federal principles to international institutions. The degree to which democracies can serve as an example of this model’s success – and drive the wider adoption needed to transform the international system to the benefit of all people – largely depends on the extent to which they work together.