Read Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America for Free Online

taking power in the history of the Republic. Because they use an open-source meta-brand that they all share, they wrote their document as a wiki, and they’re based on a principle and a value. 29
    Jones’s new political initiative, called Rebuild the Dream, is attempting to re-create the Contract from America with his own ten-point policy platform, called the Contract for the American Dream. 30 The idea for the Tea Party’s Contract from America was simple: create a web-based social media forum where anyone could submit and debate ideas. Despite a tip of the hat to the 1994 Republican Contract with America, this contract was fundamentally different. This document originated bottom-up rather than top-down, created and vetted by the people in a decentralized and transparent marketplace of ideas. Rather than being crafted by a few powerful politicians in a conference room, the planks of this political manifesto were crowdsourced—generated—by hundreds of thousands of Americans. The Contract fit perfectly within the mindset of a decentralized movement.
    Between September 2009 and January 2010, hundreds of thousands of people submitted and debated more than 1,000 ideas. By February, a final online vote culled the list down to the top ten ideas. Candidates for federal office were asked to sign the Contract, just like the 1994 Republican Contract, and Mike Lee, then a little-known challenger running against incumbent senator Robert Bennett, Republican of Utah, was the first candidate to sign in April. The Contract from America ultimately played a defining role in electing a massive class of freshman legislators. A team of Brigham Young University political science professors, after conducting a statistical analysis, determined that “candidates who adopted the Tea Party label themselves by signing the Contract from America [saw] their vote shares increasing by more than 20 points” in the 2010 Republican primaries. 31
    Jones’s Contract, on the other hand, is a predictably progressive wish list of big government initiatives that “fix” problems by spending more money we don’t have, taxing the rich, and giving bureaucrats more control of our lives:
“INVEST IN AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE.” (Translation: Spend money we don’t have on projects we may or may not need.)
“CREATE 21ST-CENTURY ENERGY JOBS.” (Translation: Spend money we don’t have on so-called “green jobs;” subsidize alternative energy that is less reliable and more costly.)
“INVEST IN PUBLIC EDUCATION.” (Translation: Spend even more money on education, even though evidence shows declining performance from increased funding in government schools.)
“OFFER MEDICARE FOR ALL.” (Translation: Finish the job Obamacare started; socialize all healthcare provisions.)
“MAKE WORK PAY.” (Translation: Give labor unions more power and force businesses to pay union workers more than everyone else.)
“SECURE SOCIAL SECURITY.” (Translation: Make future retirees pay more and more today for less and less retirement security in old age.)
“RETURN TO FAIRER TAX RATES.” (Translation: Punish wealth and job creators by imposing higher taxes on them, even though the top 1 percent currently pay close to 40 percent of all income taxes.)
“END THE WARS AND INVEST AT HOME.” (Translation: Savings from lower defense spending should be spent on expanding government programs. Don’t even think about reducing the national debt or giving the money back to the taxpayers who earned it.)
“TAX WALL STREET SPECULATION.” (Translation: Keep taxing investors until they fail. Then, bail them out.)
“STRENGTHEN DEMOCRACY.” (Translation: Impose further campaign finance regulations that limit the free speech of individuals, but not special interests like public employee unions.) 32
    Jones thinks that he can out-Tea–Party the Tea Party because collectivists, like those drum circle protesters, are naturally drawn to a collective strategy, community-based action and,