About Principles And Government
The Center for National Opinion has been formed to create the Principles And Government website in order to increase awareness of the major issues that face our nation and its people, and to stimulate the development of informed public opinion.
CNO will not employ its editorial reach or function on behalf of any special political beliefs or parties — i.e., conservative/liberal; Republican/Democrat; right/left, etc. Its analysis will be independent and its editorial comment will be objective and presented in clear and readily comprehensible language.
It will fill the growing need for information in the spaces between government, the mainstream media and the American public so that we can identify and encourage a body of opinion that will call for government to better serve the nation's interest.
Our government and those we have elected to conduct it have lost sight of important principles that motivated our Founders, and our political “leaders” have now reached an advanced stage of dysfunction. Throughout our system of election, of legislation and of the management and/or enforcement of resulting law, the opportunities for human nature to express itself in terms of ideology have increased spectacularly, thereby ensuring that our government stays deeply divided. The result has been a broad acceptance of special interests within our political system that best serve themselves, not the nation.
This process has transferred power away from the declared purposes of our Founders and, over the last half century, has significantly compromised the sense of national unity which was critical to the success of our past policies and practices.
This shift expanded to our cultural dimensions, most notably the failure of our educational system and the growing reach of our mainstream media’s (MSM) dominance of entertainment, news, political, athletic, social and economic events.
These two elements — the decline of our educational system and the loss of our once treasured independent media — have been primary contributors to the distortion of our electoral system which for over two centuries has made possible the regular and peaceful transfer of political authority. It has faults, but has served as the lifeline of our democratic government.
CNO’s comments and analyis will appear under the title Principles And Government. They will be balanced and will provide an objective base on which to form opinion.
This website’s function is to present in clear language important legislation and policy discussions as they develop in the media and in government, and to explain their major intent and possible consequences. Whenever the website sees fit to express its opinion, it will always be framed in the national interest.
Today, political parties and issues are presented to the voting public in capsule form supported by slogans, quick quotes and other forms of communication shorthand. Consider the recent “debates”, both for nomination and election, with their endless repetition of “stump” positions. This low level of political intellectual engagement created an unusual and profitable opportunity for our MSM to fill the vacuum with paid advertising messages and the normal hoopla, noise and entertainment of political campaigns.
More and more, as our political, social and economic stakes are raised, we will find that, unless we fully and fairly inform ourselves, our democracy will continue to degrade by yielding more control to our new, increasingly permanent, political class.
Founders:
Bromwell Ault
Fred Elbel
Frosty Wooldridge