THE SHARON STATEMENT

M. Stanton Evans

Written by M. Stanton Evans with the assistance of Annette Kirk, wife of Russell Kirk, and adopted on September 11, 1960, the statement is named for the location of the inaugural meeting of Young Americans for Freedom, held at William F. Buckley, Jr.’s home in Sharon, Connecticut.

The statement is every bit as on-point and relevant today as it was in 1960.  The Cold War reference to "international Communism" was aimed at the Soviet Union.  Obviously, thanks to the leadership of Republicans, most notably President Ronald Reagan, the Soviet Union went down to defeat.  For this reason, "international Communism" is not quite the monolithic threat that it once was.  

And yet we still have Russians supporting rogue states such as Iran and Syria.  We still have China, part Communist, part Capitalist but 100% totalitarian, supporting the rogue Communist nation of North Korea.  Moreover, we are still dealing with the poisonous fruit of approximately 70 years of Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist machinations around the world, including the cultural Marxism and Left-wing anti-Americanism that is so prevalent right here in the United States.  The ideology is still threatening our way of life and our liberties.  But I digress...  

IN THIS TIME of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths WE, as young conservatives believe:

THAT foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

THAT liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

THAT the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

THAT when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

THAT the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

THAT the genius of the Constitution - the division of powers - is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

THAT the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

THAT when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation, that when it takes from one to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

THAT we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies…

THAT the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;

THAT the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with this menace; and

THAT American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?"