Since the beginning of my U.S. Senate campaign on Lexington-Concord Day (April 19) this past year, my message of reform was grounded in the firm belief that our nation was reaching a crisis point and something needed to be done. Much as it took the generation that fought the Revolutionary War about ten years to reach its decision point, there has been a growing concern among the public during the last decade that our nation is heading down the wrong path.

We watched federal domestic spending go up 36 percent under President Bush and the last Republican Congress, the highest rate of growth since the Great Society years, with the overall federal budget increasing from $2 trillion at the beginning of the decade to $3 trillion by 2008. It was clear to me that the Republican party had strayed from its platform of limited government, and that the nation overall had drifted away from its constitutional moorings. Of course, things only became worse when the Democrats took over.

With deficits coming in at nearly $1.5 trillion during the last two years, I saw we were heading in the exact same direction as Greece, Great Britain, and other nations that are experiencing severe budget crises. Just this last week, our national debt broke the $14 trillion mark, a $1 trillion increase from only six months ago and close to the yearly output of the entire U.S. economy. This was unacceptable to me as a husband, a father, and someone who served my country in time of war. Far too great a price had been paid to get us to this point in our nation’s history to have us blow it.

Much as the Revolutionary generation really didn’t see themselves as radicals, but rather as upholding certain basic principles of sound and trustworthy government, I certainly saw our campaign and the Tea Party in general as a back-to-basics movement.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are our back-to-basics documents. We, as a nation, are all about securing our God-given, inalienable rights. The Declaration essentially says, “You know what, King and Parliament, we have certain basic rights as Englishmen and members of God’s creation, and you have been violating them for a while. Since you have not listened to our repeated attempts to exhort you to follow the law, you’ve lost the right to govern and we’re taking over.”

Several of the grievances listed in the Declaration are economic in nature, because if government deprives you of the ability to provide for yourself and your family, you’ve lost your God-given right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To place trillions of dollars in debt on ourselves and future generations is a form of tyranny. As we’re told in Proverbs, “The borrower is the lender’s slave.”

I spoke plainly about where we were as a nation and what I felt we needed to do to avoid the fate of Greece and others. I also argued that we, as Alaskans, were going to have to do our part. Refusing to look to the future and avoid the coming train wreck was a dereliction of duty. The people of Alaska responded to my message and turned out in record numbers for the primary, and our campaign prevailed.

Then came the general election. Entrenched special interests trained their guns on the campaign. Federal no-bid contractors (correctly) saw danger in our message; these multi-billion-dollar corporations backed Lisa Murkowski to the tune of millions, including in-kind efforts, dwarfing all other expenditures in the general election. And in the end, those opposed to reform won by a few points here in Alaska.

John Adams, after the Revolutionary War, estimated that about one-third of the country supported the cause of independence whole-heartedly, while the rest were neutral or loyal to the crown. I would say the same holds true in our day. If one-third of the population was able to found the greatest nation on earth in their day, one-third can be the impetus to save it in ours.

— Joe Miller, a combat veteran and graduate of West Point and Yale Law School, was the 2010 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Alaska.