At the Third Rail Party, we believe it is the duty of all Americans to protect and preserve the American Way of Life so that it may be passed on, intact, to future generations.

What does that even mean, though? What is the "American way of life?" How do we define that? To be sure, some people respond to this with images of baseball, apple pie and a certain company that sells a lot of trucks. Indeed, these things are part of the American lexicon and their ubiquity has made them iconic. However, part of being American is having the freedom to say "Bah! football, cherry pie and that other company that sells a lot of trucks!" When we talk about what actually defines the American way of life, we cannot just reduce it to cliches from a Norman Rockwell painting. What defines our way of life are concepts that surround the freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution and the expectations we should be able to have of our government in light of those freedoms and rights.

We think that the concepts defining the American way of life are those things that constitute political and economic rights that preserve the dignity and freedom of the individual. These cornerstones of our republic are and must remain based on our constitutional form of government that is, at its heart and in its spirit, designed to serve the people.

We would like to submit the idea for your approval that we might at least begin to define the American way of life by the following 17 things:

1. Right to worship God in one's own way, or not worship if you so choose.
2. Right to free speech and press.
3. Right to peaceably assemble.
4. Right to petition for redress of grievances.
5. Right to privacy in our own homes.
6. Right of Habeus Corpus - no excessive bail.
7. Right to trial by jury - innocent until proven guilty.
8. Right to move about freely at home and abroad.
9. Right to own private property.
10. Right to free elections and personal secret ballot.
11. Right to work in callings and localities of our choice.
12. Right to bargain with our employees and employers.
13. Right to go into business, compete, make a profit.
14. Right to bargain for goods and services in a free market.
15. Right to contract about our affairs.
16. Right to the service of government as protector and referee.
17. Right to freedom from arbitrary government regulation and control.

Stay tuned for a multi part video and article series where we explore each of these things in depth and establish why they are important with real world examples. Let's get the discussion started now in the comments below! What do you think?