Sovereign Citizen

The Legislative Branch

Sovereign CitizenThis country was founded on basic democratic principles which, from time to time, come under attack from misguided forces that reside not only outside our borders, but too often live among us. These forces pose a threat to our survival because quite often, We the People do not understand and appreciate the liberties we currently enjoy under our own Constitution. Sovereign Citizen is an attempt to help the People understand and appreciate those liberties.

Many Americans, regardless of political ideology or party affiliation, are concerned that we may be losing the spirit of the democratic process bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers. A growing lack of trust in our public institutions and our elected representatives is reflected in decreasing participation in the electoral process by millions of the enfranchised. This perception that government today is more a handmaiden of the powerful few than a defender of the rights and protections of the many, may be the greatest threat to the survival of our noble experiment in self-government.

Sovereign Citizen provides an exciting new way for Americans to gain information and a sense of self-empowerment. Participants are asked to campaign for the senate and the house of representatives. They may upload campaign videos to forumfordemocracy.com. By using the vast resources available online, such as YouTube and Wikipedia, students can bring a dynamic visual experience to any debate on the floor of congress.


Purpose:

Sovereign Citizen is designed to engage the participants in a variety of discussions on governance based on the Legislative Branch of the U.S. Constitution. The Forum then moves into the community to do service-learning projects to practice participatory democracy and affect positive public policy change at the centers of governmental power.

The purpose of Sovereign Citizen is to:

  • Create a forum in which each participant can role-play a member of congress in order to better understand the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution in relation to democracy and the role it plays in self-governance.

  • Provide an opportunity for citizens to compete in the marketplace of ideas withPhoto full confidence that in this contest truth will most often trump error. We the People can rely on this principle to form a truly democratic nation we can all be proud of.

  • Provide the participants an opportunity to discover and develop moral values clarification by using critical thinking to engage and challenge each other on ethical positions they hold relative to various Constitutional and contemporary issues.

  • Provide a forum where participants can develop their public speaking, debating, written and technical communication skills after researching their topics using search engines, interviews, scholarly research, libraries and community resources to obtain as much information as possible to defend their positions.

  • Teach the participants to use the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights as a moral compass.