Society is indeed an Agreement

CONSERVATIVE AGREEMENT^*

Society is indeed an Agreement... It is a partnership in all research, in all the arts, partnership in every virtue and every expertise... it comprises a partnership not only among the living, but also among the dead as well as those not born as yet.

Edmund Burke

Although we are of different life experience and of different approaches toward searching for a political order, we are well aware, that

each community is dependent upon the respect which it holds towards itself, upon the respect of a citizen towards the system of which he himself is a part, and upon the respect towards himself as towards a part of a common order; that

the gift of freedom is primarily an obligation to spread good and that fighting for the freedom of others is in fact exercising a freedom of one's own; that

the greatest danger to just relations between individuals are the attempts to influence the society from above according to someone's ideas of a "social justice", and that regardless whether these are promulgated by authoritarian or democratic means;

we have concluded, that it is necessary to join together in a political party the calling of which would be caring for well-proven values of our inherited social order. We are presenting here our conservative creed, and we pledge ourselves to transfer this creed into reality. We offer our support and give opportunity to all who wish, in their lives as well as in the cause of freedom for all, to develop as well as put in practice the values of conservatism.

Respect for truth and for human dignity

We consider Judeo-Christian traditions, which we came to know from Revelation, which are fortified by our experiences and provable by reason, the roots from which the Western civilisation grew, and we maintain that they express the basic truths about the nature of man and of being, namely truth.

We maintain, that every human being has its own and inherently greater than any single human being, value and dignity, and that to respect this dignity is a duty of every man.

We maintain that an objective moral order does exist; that objective moral criteria of good and bad, truth and falsehood do exist, and that it is a duty of individuals, their communities and institutions to understand these and to act in accordance with them in practice.

We maintain, that human beings and institutions they comprise are, as of their essence, not perfect, which means that it is not possible to create a paradise on Earth, and that the utopian attempts to do so are in violation of human nature. Furthermore, they are always being forced upon society at the cost of violence and bloodletting and they inevitably result in mass suffering and misery of mankind.

We maintain that human beings are, since time immemorial, a part of an existing social order, and that they should search for and find their complement in community, that a human being should regard itself se a part of a whole larger than itself; that this reality should be of utmost importance in all the decisions a human being makes, because only such realisation will enable it to discover not only its own individual freedom, but also the freedom of a whole community to which it belongs.

We maintain, that even if man is not perfect by nature, he has a duty to aspire towards an objective ideal of truth and goodness, and that he has a duty to do so even in spite of the fact, that - on the basis of him not being perfect himself - he can never fully reach this ideal in the conditions of this life. However, if he does observe an objective moral order, he will be able to minimise the negative consequences of his imperfection. It is a duty of a state, in spite of all imperfections of a man, to protect his freedom and dignity and to respect his justified claims towards a state.

Political order

From the view at an imperfect, but free and respect-deserving man and from the place he has in society we derive these basic goals of a state:

State is an institution established, primarily, for the enforcement of law and order: when we say LAW, we mean a natural law based on objective moral order, natural law that enables human beings to live their lives in peace and security.

From the duty of the state to respect the dignity of human beings flows directly their moral right to live in freedom. The mission of state institutions is to establish, preserve and defend free order; to secure for its citizens a greatest possible measure of personal, religious, political and economic freedom, as far as it is possible within imperfect conditions within which imperfect people live, and as far as it is in agreement with the imperatives of order, law and justice.

Experience and common sense prove, that in order to achieve and preserve these two goals on the level of state institutions, the following pre-requisites are necessary:

Respect for the Constitution, loyalty and unconditional observance of the basic precepts of its articles. Experience, especially that of the XX. century, teaches that the state is a potential enemy of all peace-loving, hard-working, creative and decent people. A state, which oversteps its Constitution-delineated limits, continues to expand its power and scope, until it begins to terrorize individual people as well as the society as a whole. This danger can be averted only by constitutional delimitation of state power, of limits imposed upon this power and by dividing this power among several centres and institutions. It is the basic duty of all state institutions to respect the constitutional limits to their power; this is the basic condition of state's ability to carry out its functions in a legitimate manner; only when functioning in this manner can state become a necessary, beneficial and irreplaceable institution.

Rejection of legal positivism, which ignores objective moral order, and, to the contrary, strives to divorce laws from imperatives of natural justice. Deadly danger of such an approach - aside from the fact that it is immoral - is that the state institutions will wilfully usurp power, which will ultimately result in their arrogance in attitude towards dignity of human beings, leading, finally, to disintegration of civilization, dissolution of order, and loss of freedom.

Strong but precisely defined state. Modern states are enormous, they consume a considerable part of wealth of all citizens; they meddle in everything and regulate everything; however, within the framework of their legitimate powers they are weak and incapable of fulfilling even their own most essential functions. Inability of a state to effectively perform the duties it is supposed to perform is given by its omnipresent appetite to regulate even those areas that need not to be regulated at all, or which it should not, even must not regulate. We therefore strive for a limited state, limited only to its legitimate function: establishing the rule of law, enforcing the law and order, fighting crime and protecting property and freedom from domestic as well as foreign aggressors; within these limitations we strive for a state that would be strong and effective.

Free market economy, which, in its own essence, is an expression of a free activity of people and utilization of a principle of freedom in the sphere of economy. Confining the state power within appropriate limits is - as experience teaches us - the best known source of prosperity and good life for all segments of society. Pre-requisite and guarantee of a free market economy is a strict, and at the same time clear legal order which will clearly delineate the limits to legal enterprise, will strictly enforce respect for these, and which will keep the bureaucratic and tax burdens of citizens low enough not to stifle their free activity and creativity.

Stable and strong family. Family is the primary, natural and most important community, within which moral values are perfected, strengthened and passed on to future generations. Family is the basic building block of society, a place, where living together and mutual solidarity contribute to existential as well as economic independence from the state and strengthen self-esteem of individuals as free citizens of a free society. We deem it unavoidable that a progressive disintegration of a traditional family and the loss of its prestige in society would inevitable lead towards the loss of freedom as a societal trait.

Appropriate civic structures, comprised of a rich plethora of municipal, interest, self-help, charitable, religious, educational, cultural and other organizations that guarantee natural diversification and multi-faceted character of a society and that furnish an opportunity for realization of individual goals of citizens. These structures comprise a natural defensive barrier against the state power, a balancing element against a steadily growing state power, false egalitarianism and against disintegration of society into a multitude of isolated individuals.

Solidarity with other countries of Western civilization, which still is the most free civilization in mankind's history and at the same time remains the bearer of the basic truths about man, the same truths in which our own political convictions are rooted. We consider all and any attempts to separate and isolate us from other countries of Western civilization a betrayal of our existential identity in universal history.

We are conservatives

We count ourselves among the conservatives of the Western Christian Civilization rooted in Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. We identify with its truths about man and man's institutions that are valid not because they own us or because we own them, but because their validity is universal.

We maintain that the totalitarisms of the XX. century - Nazism and Communism - constitute a direct revolt against truth, against human nature, dignity and freedom, and that it is one's moral duty to resist both of these movements up to their total annihilation. We oppose socialism in all its forms, on the basis of its false illusion that happiness and prosperity of citizens may be secured by the means of a widespread state - administrated power, and the basis of its futile attempts to achieve artificial equality of all citizens at the cost of abridgement of individual freedom and dignity of a citizen. We disagree with the liberals on the basis of liberals- proclaimed unbridled individualism that has no respect for natural and traditional ties of man, and no respect for the truth concerning the existence of an objective moral order that transcends each one of us.

We inherited the truths we hold on to from our ancestors, we benefit from their handed-down wisdom and experience, and we wish to enrich with these the creativity and inventiveness of our descendants. We wish to be a part of the contract between the generations past and the generations of the future. We accept this contract, and we declare so by our signature.

On................................

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Chairman

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Member's Signature