The Musings of Civitas: Part One

Written by William T. Wallace, DINO Supporter & Liberty Enthusiast

This is the first in a multi-part series dedicated to exploring some of the theory behind the DINO Movement. It's really erudite, and probably not "for everyone" but if you're curious what a lot of the background beliefs are in what DINO is trying to restore from our founding principles as a state and nation, and what a DINO world looks like when it's done, this is a great place to start.

Please note that this was written by a supporter, not by Gabriel Green. As Gabriel likes to say, "this cannot be a movement of one man," so when he received this piece through our dinowyo@gmail.com address he was downright giddy to have such a kindred spirit in liberty-oriented nerdiness.

If you'd like to write something yourself or otherwise contribute content to the DINO movement, please feel free to reach out to us directly as William did.

Civitas - Part One

A modern synthesis of Principled Republicanism, Social Justice, Federalist-Libertarianism, and Neo-Rerum Novarum

The Bedrock of the DINO Party (this is a Flintstones joke) 

We stand in a tradition that understands liberty as something earned and sustained, not merely asserted.

From Locke and Jefferson, we inherit the conviction that government exists to secure freedom without making personal responsibility arbitrary or irrelevant. From Madison and Montesquieu, we learn the hard truth that liberty collapses when power exceeds its proper scale. From Tocqueville we learn why: free societies endure only when citizens govern themselves locally, forming habits of responsibility that no centralized authority can manufacture. As Lord Acton famously warns: power, once concentrated and insulated, inevitably corrupts. Hayek and Oakeshott expose the arrogance of managerial systems that confuse administration with wisdom. Indeed, the very concept of continued federal managerialism inevitably results in cycles of Red/Blue Bureaucratic Creep, championed by those benefitting but intolerable to the opposition. Yuval Levin reminds us that institutions decay when they drift from their formative purposes, resulting in a system neither side wants but both cannot imagine existing without. Scruton insists that culture, tradition, and place are the very preconditions of freedom.

Taken together, these thinkers point toward a simple but demanding truth: a free society depends on strong local stewardship, limited central authority, and a shared moral order grounded in truth.

Self-government does not begin in distant capitals or abstract theory. It begins in towns, cities, associations, and institutions where responsibility is personally accountable and most importantly, is visible. Civic life is sustained by people who participate, tell the truth, and accept stewardship over their communities through local councils, cultural institutions, churches, schools, media, and voluntary associations. Within a healthy democracy they are foundational principles not ornamental features. When civic competence is cultivated locally, freedom is stable. When the enforcement of laws is the responsibility of our neighbors, freedom is maintained. When it is imposed by a federal authority neither condition remains salient, and federal dependence and subsequent management erode the identity of liberty to being nothing more than a personality quirk of a people. The tribe supersedes decency and all things become permissible to those same neighbors we once cooperated with. 

This is the root of modern Federal centralization. Bureaucracy expands predatorily to fill a vacuum we ourselves sacrificed for convenience. The Federal circus is not wise, it is calculating. Realizing that through atomization, our interpersonal understandings can be co-opted by continually maximalist partisan rhetoric. This centralized administration does not restore responsibility; it displaces it in favor of overreaching management. This same authority becomes abstract, unaccountable, and morally detached purposely to continue feeding off of ever more bombastic partisan engagement. Uniformity is imposed through shared grievance appeals and that is the true weapon of an oppressive bureaucracy. The continued fight between the red team and the blue team is perpetuated where judgment is needed. Efficiency in prolonged internal conflict is prized where legitimate conclusion should matter. In this resulting order of chaos, the dependence becomes a social addiction.

A healthy constitutional order, therefore, distinguishes sharply between what must be handled nationally by an overall authority and what should remain closer to the people. Higher functional authority has real and necessary purpose: coordination, defense, arbitration, and the preservation of constitutional order. But when it extends beyond those purposes into the daily bureaucratic management of social and civic life, it undermines the very liberty it was designed to protect. This bastardized power that cannot be clearly challenged or reformed will remain, inexorably feeding upon We the People’s fear.

Federalism is not about weakening national law or dissolving order. It is about localizing authority where accountability is real. Functions that require proximity, discretion, and moral judgment cannot be safely administered by distant, permanent bureaucracies. Indeed, variation among communities is not a failure of law, in fact it is a clear sign of rightly experienced freedom. Different places will govern differently, reflecting their histories, cultures, and moral commitments. This diversity is a strength and must be treated as a more perfect form of unity so long as the rule of law and constitutional boundaries are preserved. Liberty does not require identical outcomes; it requires responsible, personal governance.

Economic life follows the same logic. Markets are indispensable engines of innovation and prosperity, but growth is not an end in itself. Progress must be tethered to truth, competence, and moral seriousness. Fear-driven politics, ideological panic, and contempt for expertise undermine both trust and development. Facts matter. Science matters. Engineering realities matter. A society can champion industry, energy, and technological advancement while insisting on honesty, safety, and human flourishing rather than profit alone.

Culture and tradition provide the moral ecology in which liberty survives. A free society does not float above history; it inherits meaning before it invents policy. Family life, religious tradition, productive heritage, local pride, and shared narratives bind generations together and give people reasons to care for the future. To defend tradition is to ensure continuity amid change. In this matter, this shared continuity, a federal authority is utterly blind. Thus, local municipalities and states are the only lighthouses of reason that can fulfill this need. How often do we see a ruling made a continent away that has no bearing on the reality experienced on a daily basis by those of us actually living our lives? When federal law is passed it MUST be the absolute broadest strokes allowing for local color to determine more nuanced approaches. Reform severed from inherited wisdom becomes reckless. Tradition disciplines innovation and humanizes progress.

All of this rests on a commitment to truth. Civic life cannot endure where truth is treated as negotiable. Moral relativism hollows out institutions. Ideological abstraction cannot be substituted to replace sound judgment. Conspiratorial thinking promoted by influences entirely unrelated to the local issues absolutely corrodes the public trust. Ordered liberty presupposes moral realism: that some things are actually true, some actions are genuinely right or wrong, and some choices are required to be made by those who possess the experience to make them. Though we live in an age where everyone can interface with knowledge, knowledge ungrounded in real experience and truth are words on a page, distant from the reality we live in. 

This is not a call for utopia, nor a defense of stagnation. It is a call for principled, local pragmatism: reform that is real but restrained, authority that is strong where necessary and limited where dangerous, debate that is reasoned rather than tribal. Extremes – whether ideological, conspiratorial, or manufactured – offer certainty at the cost of responsibility. A republic demands harder work.

Liberty without law dissolves into a license to anarchism. Law without moral grounding hardens into coercion and abuse. The rule of law depends on constitutional limits, institutional integrity, and citizens willing to bear the burdens of self-government. This means engaging with those you don’t agree with respectfully. This means electing to divorce our ability to reason from the radicalizing elements that stir our passions. This means being the citizens our republic was built to serve. Centralization promises comfort, ease and efficiency. What it actually delivers is passivity. Decentralization from a dependence on a federal authority demands effort but cultivates freedom.

The choice before us is not between order and freedom, but between managed, bureaucratic dependence and robust, ordered liberty. Power that is accountable locally can be petitioned and reformed. Power that is insulated and creeping deeper into our lives while having no connection to us will always oppress. A free society survives by virtuous citizens capable of governing themselves locally, truthfully, and with restraint. A properly ordered Federal Authority possesses minimal bureaucracy and a commitment to cooperation with stronger local authorities. 

The Shining City is standing resplendent upon a hill. That city is built by its citizens, not by career political administrators who’ve never visited.