Leadership for America: First Principles

Other Heritage Sites | Blog | Bookstore | About Us | Contact Us

Introduction

American Leadership

Education

Energy and Environment

First Principles

The future of liberty depends on reclaiming America’s first principles.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization,” as Thomas Jefferson warned, “it expects what never was and never will be.” Widespread ignorance of American history is but the most recognized symptom of the troubling decline in popular knowledge of fundamental principles. We face an education system that upholds mediocrity in the name of relativism; an ever-expanding and centralized government, unmoored from constitutional limits; judges openly making laws and shaping society based on pop-philosophy rather than serious jurisprudence; and growing confusion over America’s legitimate role in the world, made all the more apparent by the fundamental threat posed by radical Islamists. At the root of all these problems is a pervasive doubt about the core principles that define America and ought to inform our politics and policy.

As the leading public policy institution focused on American liberty, The Heritage Foundation must lead the call to awaken our country and get it back on course. We must recall the nation to its first principles, reinvigorate American constitutionalism, and revive the sturdy virtues required for self-government. We must restore the principles of America’s Founders to their proper role in the public and political discourse, influencing public policy and reforming government to reflect constitutional limits. We must rebuild and unify a robust conservatism around, and in defense of, these core principles, and identify and develop current and future policymakers, opinionmakers, and leaders who understand, articulate, and will promote these principles. In short, our vision, building on the great successes of the modern conservative movement, must now be to save America by reclaiming its truths and its promises and conserving its liberating principles for ourselves and our posterity.

Related Heritage Research

American Political Thought

Experts

Matthew Spalding, Ph.D.

Director, B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies

Edwin Meese

Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies

Lee Edwards

Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought, B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies

Contact An Expert

MEDIA INFORMATION LINE:

Phone: 202.675.1761

Fax: 202.544.6979

Debugging Information

ColdFusion Server Enterprise	7,0,2,142559
Template	/about/lfa/FirstPrinciples.cfm
Time Stamp	13-May-08 07:56 PM
Locale	English (US)
User Agent	CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)
Remote IP	10.10.41.254
Host Name	10.10.41.254

Execution Time

Total Time	Avg Time	Count	Template
16 ms	16 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\site-application.cfm
16 ms	16 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\startup\site-application-meat.cfm
16 ms	16 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\About\Application.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\metadata\init-cache.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\security\session-user-approvals.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\startup\core-application-meat.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\startup\handle-head-request.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\startup\handle-request-timeout.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\startup\session-first-global.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\startup\session-first-site.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\utilities\build-user-struct.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\utilities\cp-setencoding.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\commonspot\utilities\validation\render-info.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\FirstPrinciples.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\LFAfooter.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\rightColumnLFA.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\custom-application.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\customcf\RD06\box-standard-media-contacts.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\customcf\searchform-header-greyblue.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\templates\basepageheader980.cfm
0 ms	0 ms	1	D:\websites\heritage.org\ui\redesign\nav\LFANav.cfm
0 ms			STARTUP, PARSING, COMPILING, LOADING, & SHUTDOWN
16 ms			TOTAL EXECUTION TIME

red = over 250 ms average execution time

Scope Variables

Application Variables:
activesubsites=1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,61,62,63,64,66,68,69,70,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144
anonitemsecurity=Struct (8)
anonrights=Struct (7)
anonsubsiteperms=Struct (135)
anonsubsitesecurity=Struct (135)
applicationname=site2
cachedimages=Struct (62)
cacheinfo=Struct (14743)
cachevalid=1
confidentiality=Array (5)
controlinstance_toplevel=Struct (2)
cs=Struct (11)
cs_element_cache=Struct (0)
defaultconfidentiality=5
defaultstructs=Struct (6)
docsdump=Complex type
dodump=Complex type
dolog=Complex type
getid=Struct (4)
gettaxonomyannotlookup=Complex type
imagegallerylists=Struct (0)
languages=Struct (11)
lastknownchange=Struct (19)
lastupdate=Struct (15)
lookuptaxonomyannot=Complex type
masterrendersequence=39681
metadatacache=Struct (0)
nextcheck=Struct (1)
serverclockcheck=2008-05-13 17:06:17
servervalidationcode=1029RTN7H3C5C265DONPR3CT2
site=Struct (47)
styleids=Struct (206)
stylenames=Struct (206)
subsitecache=Struct (135)
templaterenderoptions=Struct (69)
translations=Struct (4)

CGI Variables:
AUTH_PASSWORD=
AUTH_TYPE=
AUTH_USER=
CERT_COOKIE=
CERT_FLAGS=
CERT_ISSUER=
CERT_KEYSIZE=
CERT_SECRETKEYSIZE=
CERT_SERIALNUMBER=
CERT_SERVER_ISSUER=
CERT_SERVER_SUBJECT=
CERT_SUBJECT=
CF_TEMPLATE_PATH=D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\FirstPrinciples.cfm
CONTENT_LENGTH=
CONTENT_TYPE=
CONTEXT_PATH=
GATEWAY_INTERFACE=CGI/1.1
HTTPS=off
HTTPS_KEYSIZE=
HTTPS_SECRETKEYSIZE=
HTTPS_SERVER_ISSUER=
HTTPS_SERVER_SUBJECT=
HTTP_ACCEPT=Accept: application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING=gzip
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE=en-us,en;q=0.5
HTTP_CONNECTION=close
HTTP_COOKIE=
HTTP_HOST=author.heritage.org
HTTP_REFERER=
HTTP_USER_AGENT=CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)
PATH_INFO=/about/lfa/FirstPrinciples.cfm
PATH_TRANSLATED=D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\FirstPrinciples.cfm
QUERY_STRING=
REMOTE_ADDR=10.10.41.254
REMOTE_HOST=10.10.41.254
REMOTE_USER=
REQUEST_METHOD=GET
SCRIPT_NAME=/about/lfa/FirstPrinciples.cfm
SERVER_NAME=author.heritage.org
SERVER_PORT=80
SERVER_PORT_SECURE=0
SERVER_PROTOCOL=HTTP/1.1
SERVER_SOFTWARE=Microsoft-IIS/6.0
WEB_SERVER_API=

Cookie Variables:
CFID=7779602
CFTOKEN=53154296

Request Parameters:
applockname=CS_App_Site2_1
authormode=0
authorok=1
basehref=/
browser=Struct (9)
constants=Struct (185)
cp=Struct (110)
customerinfo=Struct (25)
debugmode=0
disablehideformenus=0
editmode=0
formattedtimestamp=2008-05-13 19:56:46
ignoreauthuser=0
initialsiteid=2
initialsubsiteid=5
itemsecurity=Struct (8)
jswarnmessage=
lockid=0
openelements=
pagedata=
previewon=1
renderelementdata=Struct (0)
renderstate=Struct (2)
requestedversiontimestamp=
sequenceid=209302
sessionlockname=Session_1_7779602_53154296
sessionstring=1_7779602_53154296
site=Struct (47)
siteid=2
styleids=Struct (206)
stylenames=Struct (206)
subsite=Struct (56)
subsitecache=Struct (135)
subsiteid=5
subsiteperms=Struct (135)
subsiterights=Struct (14)
subsitesecurity=Struct (2)
subsitesecuritycache=Struct (135)
timestamp={ts '2008-05-13 19:56:46'}
udslockname=CS_Customer_commonspot-users
uipath=/ui/
updatingschemas=0
user=Struct (18)
usersdatasource=commonspot-users
wanterrorsrethrown=0
warnmessage=

Server Variables:
COLDFUSION=Struct (8)
COMMONSPOT=Struct (2)
OS=Struct (5)

Session Variables:
authormode=0
browser=Struct (9)
cfid=7779602
cftoken=53154296
currentpageid=0
debugmode=0
debugmode_control=0
editmode=0
hasusertempfiles=0
lastupdate=Struct (6)
lastuserupdate=1210723006343
lockid=0
logintime=
pagedata=
pendingapprovalpages=
pendingapprovals=
previewon=1
requestedversiontimestamp=
sessionid=SITE2_7779602_53154296
urltoken=CFID=7779602&CFTOKEN=53154296
usagelist=
user=Struct (18)

Debug Rendering Time: 16 ms