Achieving Equal Treatment Through the Ballot Box. (Twenty-Seventh Annual National Federalist Society Student Symposium‪)‬

Since the founding of the United States, the relationship between the citizens and their government has been central to the definition of our nation. We were established as a nation of individuals who rely on certain "self-evident truths" (1) to guide how we conduct our official business. Personal liberty, maximum individual freedom, and a God-given endowment of equality form the centerpiece of our system. (2) These gifts from our Creator are inalienable--they cannot be detached from us as individuals--and the government must operate within a framework that acknowledges and protects the supremacy of these individual rights. (3) The proposition that the best form of government is that which is closest to the people is central to the relationship between the government and its citizens. There is no form of government that is closer to the people than direct democracy, namely citizens governing themselves by way of such measures as citizen-sponsored initiatives. Sometimes direct democracy is crucial to protecting individual freedoms in the face of abuses perpetrated by representative democracy.