Totally Engaged Americans is a group of active citizens in Lorain County (Ohio) who are dedicated to the pursuit of liberty. We formed in 2009 during the rise of the tea party movement and have been meeting since.
Our core values are Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets.
We welcome citizens to join us regardless of political party affiliation.
Our Core Values:
Fiscal Responsibility
Honors and respects the freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of their own labor. A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it must subject its citizenry to high levels of taxation that unjustly restricts the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. The runaway deficit spending of Congress in Washington D.C. compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.
Government officials must act as caretakers and fiduciaries for the taxpayer’s money and always spend it carefully. Elected officials must make the same tough decisions that citizens make every day with their family budgets and government budgets should always be balanced.
Constitutionally Limited Government
The LCTP members are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is important to know the original intent of the government our Founders set forth and stand in support of that intent. Like the Founders, we support states’ rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law.
Use the Constitution as a guide to limit the size and scope and burden of government. Use government to “secure the blessings of liberty” for individual citizens. Govern only with the consent of the citizens from which all government power and authority originates.
Free Markets
A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The Founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our government’s interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. Therefore, we actively promote a return to the free market principles on which this nation was founded and oppose government intervention into the operations of private business.
Private property ownership must be protected inviolate. Individual citizens should be able to buy, sell and exchange their private property with minimum government involvement. Business and corporate welfare favoritism and subsidies should be eliminated.
Our Philosophy
LCTP is a non-partisan grassroots organization of individuals united by our core values derived from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill Of Rights and the Federalist Papers. We recognize and support the strength of grassroots organization empowered by activism and civic responsibility at a local level. We hold that the United States is a republic conceived by its architects as a nation whose people were granted “unalienable rights” by our Creator. Chiefly among these are the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The LCTP stands with our Founders, as heirs to the republic, to claim our rights and duties which preserve their legacy and our own. We hold, as did the Founders, that there exists an inherent benefit to our country when private property and prosperity are secured by natural law and the rights of the individual.
Mission
Our mission is to educate, organize, and mobilize our members to influence and secure public policy that is consistent with our core values.
- Identify, recruit and support candidates for elected office.
- Formulate positions on ballot issues affecting our membership.
- Support educational opportunities for the next generation.
- Defend items of constitutional concern.
CLICK HERE to view the BYLAWS of TEA, formerly known as Lorain County Tea Party.