About Us

Yes, we believe in an armed Citizenry and will fight to maintain our Second Amendment rights, but we also don't believe in single-issue voting. As our banner says, we support ALL the amendments and we discuss a wide range of public policy and constitutional issues.

For example, we don't believe any one group's religious beliefs should be forced on the rest of us. We don't believe that a corporation or any other organization has the same rights as a Citizen. We don't believe that tax cuts for the well-off are the way to grow the economy. We don't believe the President can send U.S. troops to war without Congressional authorization. We don't believe in attempts by government officials to muzzle or intimidate a free press. We don't believe that any given Citizen, including the President, can pick and choose the laws they follow, without facing the appropriate consequences.

Perhaps most importantly, though, we also are small-d democrats who believe in promoting freedom and democracy at home and around the world. Consequently, we believe in defending, not attacking, America's democratic institutions. We also believe in supporting our pro-freedom allies around the world, not the dictators that some on the far right have cozied up to and refused to criticize.

We also are extremely concerned that too many Republican politicians have become beholden either to a given individual or to a small group of big money donors, none of whom care about the economic interests of the rest of us, and whose primary goal is to achieve political power by actively working to gerrymander legislative and Congressional districts, to eliminate campaign finance laws, to enact voter suppression measures, and (we never thought we would say this) to encourage or turn a blind eye to mob violence. This is America, by God, not some third-world dictatorship.

These basic American values and ideals that we stand for are also the values and ideals our nation's founders fought for. Unfortunately, we no longer see that same concern for the Constitution or for the average Citizen in today's Republican leadership or in most of the candidates who run under its banner.

Now, that doesn't mean we'll always vote a straight Democratic ticket. There are times in the big cities you'll find some Democrats who are almost as silly as the far right fringe. But the majority of the time we'll stick with the Dems.

That's because we also believe in political leaders who try to bring us together, not those who deliberately try to split us apart. Too many politicians today focus on "hot-button" issues as a means of "energizing the base" and demonizing large segments of the population. We believe in the old saying that politics is the art of compromise. For much of the 20th Century that was the case. But today we see conservative Republicans being more intent on trashing their opponents, promoting "alternative facts", and getting nothing done, rather than finding common sense solutions that both sides can live with.

One final related thought: All of us who work on this website have lived in both small towns and big cities. We recognize that there are some intrinsic differences in those kinds of environments, which give rise to different perspectives on many issues. Not because people are inherently different, but because some solutions work well in rural and small town America, while other solutions work better in more densely populated urban areas. We need to make sure our politicians and courts recognize this and account for it when possible.

So, for all of these reasons, we decided to document our thoughts in a website and to share them with friends, acquaintances, and, more recently, strangers, many of whom are becoming our friends. We try to keep the dialogue civil, give credit where credit is due, but don't avoid being critical when necessary, especially when our basic rights or the country's future are being threatened.

We hope you'll spend some time with us, send us your feedback, and eventually join us as we work to get our country back on track.

Alex Fortner

T.D. "Bunker" Hill

Joe Mason