Mission: To prepare Waukesha County citizens for civic engagement through education about how school boards and the three branches of government function at the city, county, and state levels. Government exists to protect our natural liberties, and citizen virtue and vigilance are necessary for safeguarding these liberties. 

Why  CITIZEN INFORMATION FORUM? 

American citizens living today are the beneficiaries of our Founding Fathers’ sacrifices, fortunes, and honorable lives.  Citizen Information Forum is an expression of gratitude and seeks to inspire Waukesha citizens with a renewed appreciation for our unique American citizenship. 

What’s special about citizenship? 

Citizenship refers to legally belonging to a country and having all the rights and responsibilities that come with it. Dating back to ancient times when most people were serfs or slaves, citizenship was and remains the unique political structure to determine who can vote, who can serve in the military, who pays taxes, who can run for elected office, and who can own property! 

All ancient civilizations had laws about property rights. The Ten Commandments states ‘Thou shalt not steal’; Athens and Rome had civil laws about stealing; and of course the Barons who wrote the Magna Carta resisted King John from confiscating their property.  To put it more bluntly: Nobody can steal your stuff!  It was wrong in ancient civilizations and it’s still wrong. Property rights are fundamental to citizenship. It also allows for a nation’s borders. Citizenship carries with it a military obligation to protect those borders, so there was an element of loyalty and community further safeguarding one’s property. 

What’s unique about American citizenship? 

In America, anyone who officially takes the citizenship test and the oath of allegiance to the United States is a citizen. Good luck asking to be a citizen in China.  If you speak fluent French and live in France for decades, you would still never be French, but a Frenchman can come here, take the citizenship test, and becomes an American!  That’s because America is still based on ideas not ethnicity. These ideas are the four pillars of Western Civilization:  biblical truths, democracy and logical discourse, rule of law, human and property rights. American government exists to protect the natural, God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all who are citizens, who reside here, and who visit here.  

Political rights are a distinct and separate issue.  Political rights belong exclusively to citizens. 

What are the political rights of citizens? 

Citizenship is what affords someone the proper authority with which they can vote, hold elected office, sit on a jury and decide another citizen’s or non-citizens’ fate. Citizens, have both power and authority! 

How do we exercise this authority? 

Citizens must vote, be virtuous, and vigilant. Many Americans have unwittingly abdicated the practice of good citizenship.  In a typical local spring election a mere 20% of registered voters bother to vote. These local elected officials are being determined by less than 20% of the voting-eligible citizens! Thomas Jefferson wrote, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience and virtue to remain silent.” 

A word about ‘global citizenship’. 

Being a ‘world citizen’ is no different than being a ‘world resident’. It offers no rights and privileges, only responsibilities and the expectation of following the rules. Globalists are not accountable to world citizens and no structure exists for that accountability. Globalism reduces people to consumers and faceless members of a collective not active citizens of a community. 

ABOUT CITIZEN INFORMATION FORUM 

• To promote the importance of rights and responsibilities unique to citizens
• To provide local civics education to high school/college students, young professionals and adults seeking to understand how government works
• To alert citizens about what the opponents of freedom are doing to undermine local autonomy. This includes the federalization of what should be local control based on the Constitution and the Principle of Subsidiarity.
• To encourage citizens to increase their civic engagement particularly to vote in local elections and not just every four years in a Presidential election.