This month marks the two-year anniversary of the launch of Freedom Conservatism, a movement founded to reaffirm and reapply the timeless principles of liberty, limited government, and human dignity to the challenges of our time.
During the past two years, hundreds of conservative leaders and policymakers have signed the Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles. America is at a critical inflection point in the effort to arrest, and ultimately reverse, the shared excesses of the Progressive Left and the “National Conservative” Right, which undermine economic prosperity and civil society institutions.
As we reflect on the milestone, some may ask: What is Freedom Conservatism?
Freedom Conservatism is a principle-based response to the rising threats of progressivism and National Conservatism, both of which seek to centralize power in the federal bureaucracy and use it to punish enemies and reward friends through the heavy hand of government.
Origin and purpose
Freedom Conservatism re-centers America around the ideals that made our nation exceptional: individual liberty, free enterprise, the rule of law, personal responsibility, and a strong civil society.
It began life as a conversation among a small group of conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals about the rise of National Conservatism, its manifestations in contemporary American politics, and related debates about the past, present, and future of the American conservative movement. We formed a working group, led by Avik Roy and John Hood; drafted the Statement of Principles; invited other leaders to help edit and refine it; and then recruited signatories from across the movement.
Modeled in the tradition of the 1960 Sharon Statement, the Freedom Conservatism Statement affirms the foundational ideals of the American experiment — freedom under law, limited government, and moral responsibility — while adapting them for the realities of the modern age. The statement outlines ten core principles, emphasizing:
The moral and constitutional centrality of individual liberty
The imperative of limited, transparent, and fiscally responsible government
The preservation of the free enterprise system
The protection of civil society and voluntary institutions
The equality of all Americans under law
Commitments to reduce Americans’ cost of living, achieve fiscal sustainability, and expand opportunity, including for those affected by the legacies of slavery and segregation
“We call ourselves Freedom Conservatives not because freedom is our sole interest but because without it, our other fundamental values and institutions will prove impossible to sustain,” said co-founder John Hood, president of the John William Pope Foundation. “We are FreeCons because we are Americans — and what we seek to conserve is that which has and will always make America great.”
Commitments for the future
Today, as our project reaches the two-year mark, we are announcing some thoughtful revisions to the FreeCon Statement to enhance clarity and resonance, grouped around three themes:
Property Rights: Adding an explicit reference to property rights, complementing the existing commitment to freedom of contract.
Faith and Transcendence: Including language from the Declaration of Independence referencing “the laws of nature and nature’s God,” reinforcing the movement’s moral foundations.
Civil Society: Acknowledging the indispensable role of voluntary institutions to sustain liberty and human flourishing by working to “inculcate virtue, deter corruption, foster community, comfort the afflicted, and nourish the soul.”
The FreeCon movement offers a clear, optimistic, and unifying vision grounded in first principles and adapted to modern realities.
“The greatest difference between Freedom Conservatives and National Conservatives is not about policy details,” said Avik Roy, founder and chairman of FREOPP. “It’s about their differing assessments of the character of America. FreeCons believe, as Reagan did, that Americans can always meet the crises of their time with courage and ingenuity, building a stronger, better, and more prosperous country.”
“Freedom Conservatism brings people together by starting with the immutable truths found in the American experience,” said signatory Kent Lassman, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Working together, FreeCons are a dynamic force building the next great American century ordered around liberty, pluralism, and tolerance.”
Networked for liberty
As of today, there are 336 signatories to the FreeCon Statement. They include:
Former governors, members of Congress, state legislators, mayors, and top White House and Capitol Hill staffers.
Editors, staff writers, or regular columnists at major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Washington Examiner, National Review, Forbes, The Dispatch, The Hill, and The Bulwark.
Policy experts at the American Enterprise Institute, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Economic Policy Innovation Center, Advancing American Freedom, the Manhattan Institute, the Hoover Institution, the American Institute for Economic Research, the Tax Foundation, the R Street Institute, the Paragon Health Institute, and other national think tanks and policy nonprofits.
Key staffers at State Policy Network as well as CEOs at dozens of state-based think tanks, litigation centers, activist groups, and other policy nonprofits across the country.
And professors and administrators at major institutions of higher education including Stanford, Duke, Cornell, Princeton, Pepperdine, Hillsdale, Grove City, George Mason, Texas A&M, Michigan State, N.C. State, Florida State, Southern Methodist, Catholic, Tulane, Clemson, George Washington, Texas Tech, William & Mary, the University of Virginia, the University of Alabama, the University of Arkansas, and University of Texas at Austin.
In the mix
• At City Journal, FreeCon signatory Randy Hicks praised Utah’s “One Door” strategy for getting welfare recipients back to work and urged other states to emulate it.
As state governments attempt to implement the new work requirements imposed by the reconciliation bill, they will quickly discover “their administrative systems are ill-equipped to move recipients from welfare to work,” wrote Hicks, CEO of the Georgia Center for Opportunity.
“To succeed, states should adopt a more integrated approach — one that provides access to both benefits and job training in a single location.”
Utah has seen impressive results since adopting its One Door system, including consistently low poverty and unemployment rates. It also has the nation’s lowest shares of residents on food stamps and Medicaid.
• At National Review Online, FreeCon signatory Benjamin Rothove took the Massachusetts Teachers Association and its political allies to task for sacrificing the Bay State’s traditionally high academic standards on the altar of DEI.
“Until the political power of teachers’ unions is diminished, the left is bound to continue advocating for abysmal education policies,” wrote Rothove, a University of Wisconsin student and editor-in-chief of The Madison Federalist.
“Fortunately, as progressive states willingly destroy their school systems, conservatives have stepped up their game on reform. School choice programs have been enacted or expanded in more than 20 states since 2020, allowing parents to have greater say in where their children attend school.”
• At Civitas Outlook, FreeCon signatory Thomas Howes reflected on the death of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, whom some call “the reluctant godfather of postliberalism.”
Implied in MacIntyre’s work is that “the modern world stinks because it fails to measure up” to the theoretical constructs of Greek thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. “But if MacIntyre or [Patrick] Deneen instead compared the modern world to any of those ancient societies, it is difficult to see how the latter could possibly measure up to what we have now,” wrote Howes, a lecturer in politics at Princeton University, pointing to increases in living standards, longevity, education, and personal freedom.
“This is easy enough to see if we compare apples to apples, rather than concrete realities with abstract ideals.”