In celebrating America's 250th birthday, we've reflected on the remarkable legacy our founders provided – one built on the foundational principles of liberty, the rule of law, private property, economic freedom, individual rights, personal virtue, civic virtue and republican limited government. Together, these principles form a single architecture – one the founders built not foradmiration, but for continual use. 

Let's not miss the point. Principles unused are ornaments. James Madison did not write of separated powers so that we might quote him at dinner parties; he wrote so that citizens and officials would test every act of government against a standard higher than convenience.

So how do we do that – practically, on a Tuesday, when a new bill or regulation is proposed? Begin by resolving, in fact and not merely in sentiment, to live by our founding principles.

Thatresolution is the hinge on which everything else turns. Without it, the following questions thatshould be asked of every government proposal become rhetorical exercises rather than tests withteeth. Fittingly, they can spell the very word at the heart of our reflection: LIBERTY.

1. (L)egitimate – Is this something government should be doing – and does it respect constitutional boundaries and apply equally to all, now and given its inevitable growth?

2. (I)ndependence – Will it expand freedom and personal responsibility, or deepen government dependency?

3. (B)etter elsewhere – Could family, church, community or private enterprise do this better – and would this needlessly replace what's already working?

4. (E)xchange – Does it burden free exchange with new taxes or regulation, taking from one citizen to give to another who hasn't earned it?

5. (R)ights – Does it protect the unalienable rights our founders recognized rather than granted, or manufacture new ones at someone else's expense?

6. (T)raditional family – Does it strengthen the marriage-based, two-parent family, or weakenit?

7. (Y)ield – What are the honest long-term costs – track record, unintended effects, and the cumulative burden of one more "reasonable" exception?

While this approach does not guarantee an easy answer, it does guarantee an honest one. The founders did not design a government of experts arriving at frictionless solutions. They designed a government of citizens willing to ask hard questions – the most basic of which asks if each government action is legitimate and honors our God-given rights – and live with principled answers.

That habit of mind – not any single policy – is the inheritance I've tried to describe. It is ours to keep only if we use it. Freedom has rarely been lost in a single moment, and it will not be preserved in a single vote. It is preserved one question, asked in good faith, at a time.

Tina J. Benkiser, J.D. for Hamilton County Republican Party