I usually do not post on political themes, but I could not pass up sharing these words of a prophet of God, particularly when they are so in tune with current political ideologies.
Below is a YouTube video of President Ezra Taft Benson speaking about socialism on April 12, 1977. (post continues below)
Since President Benson’s words are so pertinent today, I have included them below:
Socialism–a Philosophy Incompatible with Man’s Liberty
Another notable counterfeit system to the Lord’s plan is collectivized socialism. Socialism derives its philosophy from the founders of communism, Marx and Engels. Communism in practice is socialism. Its purpose is world socialism, which the communists seek to achieve by revolution, and which the socialists seek to achieve by evolution. Both communism and socialism have the same effect upon the individual–a loss of personal liberty. As was said so well by President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., “The two are as two peas in a pod in their ultimate effect upon our liberties.”
Why is socialism incompatible with man’s liberty? Socialism cannot work except through an all-powerful state. The state has to be supreme in everything. When individuals begin to exert their God-given rights, the state has to suppress that freedom. So belief in God must be suppressed, and with that gone freedom of conscience and religion must also go. Those are the first of our liberties mentioned in the Bill of Rights.
There are some among us who would confuse the united order with socialism. That is a serious misunderstanding. It is significant to me that the Prophet Joseph Smith, after attending lectures on socialism in his day, made this official entry in the Church history: “I said I did not believe the doctrine” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church 6:33).
Socialism Disguised under Welfare State Measures
As citizens of this noble land, we have marched a long way down the soul-destroying road of socialism. If you question that statement, consider the recent testimonial from the Nobel prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman. He indicated that government spending in the United States at all levels amounts to over forty percent of today’s total national income. If we continue to follow the trend in which we are heading today, two things will inevitably result: first, a loss of our personal freedom, and second, financial bankruptcy. This is the price we pay when we turn away from God and the principles which he has taught and turn to government to do everything for us. It is the formula by which nations become enslaved.
This nation was established by the God of heaven as a citadel of liberty. A constitution guaranteeing those liberties was designed under the superintending influence of heaven. I have recounted here before what took place in the St. George Temple when the Founding Fathers of this nation visited President Wilford Woodruff, who was then a member of the Twelve and not president of the Church. The republic which was established was the most nearly perfect system which could have been devised to lead men toward celestial principles. We may liken our system to the law of Moses which leads men to the higher law of Christ.
Today, two hundred years later, we must sadly observe that we have significantly departed from the principles established by the founders of our country. James Madison opposed the proposal to put Congress in the role of promoting the general welfare according to its whims in these words:
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasure; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor. . . . Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for [and it was an issue then], it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America. [quoted in Donald L. Newquist, Prophets, Principles, and National Survival, p. 342]
That statement, given as a warning, has proved prophetic. Today Congress is doing what Madison warned about. Many are now advocating that which has become a general practice since the early 1930s: a redistribution of wealth through the federal tax system. That, by definition, is socialism!
Americans have always been committed to taking care of the poor, aged, and unemployed. We have done this on the basis of Judaic-Christian beliefs and humanitarian principles. It has been fundamental to our way of life that charity must be voluntary if it is to be charity. Compulsory benevolence is not charity. Today’s socialists–who call themselves egalitarians–are using the federal government to redistribute wealth in our society, not as a matter of voluntary charity, but as a so-called matter of right. One HEW official said recently, “In this country, welfare is no longer charity, it is a right. More and more Americans feel that their government owes them something” (U.S. News and World Report, April 21, 1975, p. 49). President Grover Cleveland said–and we believe as a people–that though the people support the government the government should not support the people.
The chief weapon used by the federal government to achieve this “equality” is the system of transfer payments. This means that the federal governments collects from one income group and transfer payments to another by the tax system. These payments are made in the form of social security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, and food stamps, to name a few. Today the cost of such programs has been going in the hole at the rate of 12 billion dollars a year; and, with increased benefits and greater numbers of recipients, even though the tax base has been increased we will have larger deficits in the future.
Today the party now in power is advocating and has support, apparently in both major parties, for a comprehensive national health insurance program–a euphemism for socialized medicine. Our major danger is that we are currently (and have been for forty years) transferring responsibility from the individual, local, and state governments to the federal government–precisely the same course that led to the economic collapse in Great Britain and New York City. We cannot long pursue the present trend without its bringing us to national insolvency.
Edmund Burke, the great British political philosopher, warned of the threat of economic equality. He said,
A perfect equality will indeed be produced–that is to say, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and on the part of the petitioners, a woeful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all compulsory equalizations. They pull down what is above; they never raise what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest.
Are we part of the problem or part of the solution?
Recently a letter came to my office, accompanied by an article from your Daily Universe, on the matter of BYU students taking food stamps. The query of the letter was: “What is the attitude of the Church on taking food stamps?” The Church’s view on this is well known. We stand for independence, thrift, and abolition of the dole. This was emphasized in the Saturday morning welfare meeting of general conference. “The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership” (Heber J. Grant, Conference Report, October 1936, p. 3).
When you accept food stamps, you accept an unearned handout that other working people are paying for. You do not earn food stamps or welfare payments. Every individual who accepts an unearned government gratuity is just as morally culpable as the individual who takes a handout from taxpayers’ money to pay his heat, electricity, or rent. There is no difference in principle between them. You did not come to this University to become a welfare recipient. You came here to be a light to the world, a light to society–to save society and to help to save this nation, the Lord’s base of operations in these latter days, to ameliorate man’s social conditions. You are not here to be a parasite or freeloader. The price you pay for “something for nothing” may be more than you can afford. Do not rationalize your acceptance of government gratuities by saying, “I am a contributing taxpayer too.” By doing this you contribute to the problem which is leading this nation to financial insolvency.
Society may rationalize immorality, but God cannot condone it. Society sponsors Sabbathbreaking, but the Church counsels otherwise. Society profanes the name of Deity, but Latter-day Saints cannot countenance it. Because society condones a dole, which demoralizes man and weakens his God-given initiative and character, can we?
I know what it is, as many of your faculty members do, to work my way through school, taking classes only during winter quarters. If you don’t have the finances to complete your education, drop out a semester and go to work and save. You’ll be a better man or woman for so doing. You will have preserved your self-respect and initiative. Wisdom comes with experience and struggle, not just with going through a university matriculation. I hope you will not be deceived by current philosophies which will rob you of your godly dignity, self-respect, and initiative, those attributes that make a celestial inheritance possible. It is in that interest, and that only, that I have spoken so plainly to you. ((“A Vision and Hope for the Youth of Zion,” BYU Devotional, April 12, 1977; emphasis added.))
In a few short days we will choose whether we are part of the problem or part of the solution. Compare these words of a prophet with things that have been said by Barack Obama. In recent days Obama had a conversation with a plumber, in which the plumber asked, “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” Obama responded in part:
It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too … My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody. (See the YouTube video)
In other words, Obama wants to redistribute wealth through forced legislation in the tax system, precisely what President Benson warned of.
Now, in case you think this was a misspeak, in times past Obama has expounded on this ideology of government-mandated redistribution of wealth. In a 2001 radio interview, embedded below, Obama strongly laments the fact that the civil rights movement didn’t do enough through the courts to set up a system of “economic justice” through redistributed wealth in the nation, and that it will probably have to now come through legislation, even at the expense of the principles set up by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. These philosophies are clearly not in harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ, as delivered by the prophets of God. If elected president, Obama will legislate socialist programs in our country aimed at redistribution of wealth, and try to rewrite the constraints on government as outlined by the Constitution to determine how the government “must” support the people, precisely what prophets of God have declared will lead to our nation’s downfall:
How do you think ETB feels about a tax system that “redistributes the wealth” from the middle class to the wealthy? It strikes me that any tax system at all is a “redistribution,” and the only world in which there is no redistribution is a world where there are no taxes. I think that the ethical and economic choice that one has to make is whether to redistribute wealth away from the middle class by keeping their taxes high while lowering the taxes on the wealthy, or toward the middle class by reducing their taxes and raising taxes on the wealthy. Neither can honestly claim to not be a redistribution.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re saying that any member of the church in good standing should not vote for Barack Obama. That seems to go against the words of the prophets today, who say that both major political parties are compatible with the gospel. Elder Marlin K. Jensen even gave an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune (with the blessing of Neal A. Maxwell, among other church leaders) talking about how being a Democrat and a good member of the church are perfectly compatible.
Ezra Taft Benson was not speaking as a prophet in any of those talks you address. And he was wrong.
I agree with TT that taxes (specifically the income tax) forcibly redistribute the wealth. Some argue that the bulk of said wealth is removed from the middle class and non-elite wealthy and distributed to the elite and well-connected, by way of the Federal Reserve System (see http://www.paradise-paradigm.com/res/GrandTheft.html). Personally, I would love to see the Sixteenth Amendment repealed and the Federal Reserve system dismantled, but I’m not holding my breath.
Obama does indeed appear poised to accelerate the push toward socialism in this country, but I’ve seen no indication that John McCain intends to slow this push, let alone stop it. This is only one reason I refuse to vote for either of them.
On the other side of things, we have Elder Dallin Oaks discourse at the 1994 Freedom Festival in Provo: http://www.ldsinfobase.net/liberty/DHO_citizenship.htm
quote:
I come now to the first two fundamental citizen responsibilities that have been compromised in my lifetime in the United States: serving in the military and paying taxes.
Modern opponents of compulsory military service and of enforced payment of taxes have this common objection. Both claim that the government compulsion to do these unpopular things interferes with freedom. The issue, they say, is freedom versus slavery.
The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. It would take us back to the toothless Articles of Confederation from which our inspired Constitution rescued us. A government that cannot compel military service or a government that cannot compel the payment of taxes is not much of a government.
At root, these objections to government compulsion are objections to the whole idea of government. Such objections are contrary to Christian doctrine. Jesus did not preach sedition. He taught his followers to “Render… unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” (Matt. 22:21). His apostles taught the same, as I have already noted.
….
Today there is a comparable objection to the payment of taxes, but this objection comes primarily from the political Right. People who object to some of the ways the government spends its tax revenues contend that they should not be forced to pay taxes to support activities they condemn. This picking and choosing which laws to support is the same legal approach the young men of the political Left used to try to avoid military service during the war in Vietnam.
….
The first legal objection is that the basic law is unconstitutional. I do not remember such arguments being made against the draft law during the Vietnam War. However, for reasons I cannot explain, some persons are now arguing that the federal income tax is unconstitutional.
Church members involved in various forms of tax protest have sent me many legal memoranda that purport to justify their positions. For the first several years of my service as a General Authority, I did a good deal of personal research to evaluate these legal theories in view of the principles I had learned during a quarter of a century in the legal profession, including several years teaching tax law in a major law school. In not one single instance have I found any merit in the legal theories asserted as a basis for these tax protests. Yet, some good people are still being misled by them, and their mistaken reliance on false theories is wrecking havoc with their financial prospects and even their spiritual lives.
….
One of the most important of the great fundamentals of our inspired Constitution is the principle that the sovereign power is in the people, not in a state or nation just because it has the power that comes from force of arms. Along with many other religious people, Latter-day Saints affirm that God gave the power to the people, and the people consented to a Constitution that delegated certain powers to the federal and state governments and reserved the rest to the people.
However, it does not follow from this principle that each citizen is free to determine which laws he will obey or that one or more citizens are free to redefine the concept of sovereignty. That would result in anarchy, a system in which the only source of power is the sword. In that system, no person is free. The United States Constitution and the constitutions of the several states have defined the powers citizens have granted to their governments, the procedures for amending those grants, and the means by which controversies over the exercise of those powers can be resolved.
….
One recent letter to Church headquarters (concerning state citizenship) even suggested that such persons have no legal need to get a marriage license, and therefore should be able to have a temple marriage without one. Persons who claim the right to pick and choose which laws of the land they will observe are not far from claiming to choose which laws of God they must observe.
I feel sad that persons can be so misled. The wise will beware of teachings on the Constitution that are based on peephole history and selective readings of historic documents. They should also beware of the related advice of persons who advocate private armies or the collection of heavy weapons or extraordinary quantities of private arms. Responsible citizenship has no shortcuts when the going gets tough–not draft avoidance, not tax evasion and not eccentric theories that purport to free us from the obligation to be subject to t constitutions and laws of our states and our nation.
….
The solution to many of the major problems in our nation is for more citizens to participate more actively and more effectively in democratic government, by their votes and by their letters and other communications to elected representatives. This fundamental responsibility of citizenship is a prerequisite for the perpetuation of freedom.
I will cite three major national problems that I believe would yield, long-term. increased citizen participation.
1. The budget deficit….
2. The allocation of power between federal and state governments….
3. We need to reestablish the constitutional principle that our federal government is a government of limited powers
….
Even as I call for greater citizen participation to resolve national problems, I must voice one caution about citizen participation. I believe that citizen participation in single-interest groups is actually weakening representative government.
Interest groups are inevitable and desirable in a democratic government. For example, political parties are interest groups, comprised of persons with many different specific interests. Political parties blunt the extreme effects of their constituent special-interest groups as those parties compel the internal compromises necessary to mold their constituencies into a working coalition. In contrast, single-interest groups confront government directly with uncompromised demands on a narrow spectrum of issues. These groups are so specialized that they lack the perspective to move against the large problems, and they also lack the incentive to make the pragmatic compromises that are the enabling force of democratic government in a pluralistic society.
Some of the most powerful influences in the government of our nation in this last decade of the twentieth century are the multitude of single-interest groups. Whether the subject is gun control, medical care, criminal punishment, welfare reform, government aid to this or that, or whatever, these single-interest groups are a formidable force in lobbying, in fund-raising, and in citizen involvement. None of these groups is powerful enough to steer the ship of state by itself, but many have sufficient power to prevent the vessel from being steered toward the solution of more general problems. In other words, single-interest groups are not able to lead toward the solution of general problems, but they are commonly able to block such solutions. And what they block can be the solution of the large general problems that affect the entire body politic, such as deficit-spending or others I have mentioned.
Contrast the example of the founding fathers. The United States Constitution could never have been drafted or ratified if each of the delegates to the convention had focused on his own special interest and had demanded full satisfaction as the price of his support. The history of our Constitution is replete with examples of far-sighted statesmen who were willing to support a document that failed to implement many of their personal preferences. For example, influential Thomas Jefferson, who did not serve as a delegate because he was in Paris negotiating a treaty, felt strongly that a bill of rights should have been included in the original Constitution. But Jefferson still supported the Constitution because he felt it was the best available at the time. Benjamin Franklin described that same approach when he said: “The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good.” (Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787. Reported by James Madison, p. 653.)
end of quote
Sometimes we need to make sure we do more than quote an apostle from 1977. Had you given us excerpts from Pres Hugh B Brown or N. Eldon Tanner or James E. Faust, perhaps the story line would have changed some.
I agree with Steve. Also, socialism does call for a redistribution of wealth. So does any decent moral conception of political economy. Ezra Taft Benson was in government because of his knowledge about crops, not economics or politics.
Legislation is not forced, let alone by the President. It is enacted by the two bodies of Congress and signed (or not) by the President. It is not government mandatated, it mandated by the people (of course, I believe in a Constitutional process). Democratic socialism in no way is a violation of Constitutional principle or liberty.
So, it’s possible for a good Mormon to be a Democrat, so long as he doesn’t vote that way in this election. Bravo, Bryce.
Explain to me how it is a violation of liberty first, since I do not see it that way. To say it over and over (as Pres. Benson and Skousen do) does not make it so. Remember, I am talking about socialism which is implemented by legislatures in democratic republics.
Nibley also believe din the redistribution of wealth. You should read Approaching Zion.
Bryce,
“Taxes were never meant to take from from one group of people to give to another.”
Are you familiar with the history of taxation in the U.S.? Redistributive effects have been built into our tax law since at least 1914 or so. It may be (and, in fact, probably is) the case that it was built in earlier than that, but the income tax as we know it was instituted around 1914. Redistributive taxation may well be socialism, if you define “socialism” as “redistributive taxation,” but otherwise, no.
Plus, what Steve said: President Benson didn’t make any of those statements qua prophet, and he was factually wrong. (He also denounced Pres. Eisenhower as a communist. He was wrong then, too. That’s just fine–there’s nothing wrong with a prophet’s being wrong, or my being wrong, or your being wrong, but there’s also no evil empire awaiting us on the other side of Obama’s presidential victory.)
“Beware of those who would pit the dead prophets against the living prophets, for the living prophets always take precedence. ”
–Ezra Taft Benson, 26 February 1980
First: even if you go into Deseret Book today buy a book by a current Apostle published by DB or Covenant or somebody, it will have a statement in the front making clear that the words in the book represent opinion rather than canon. There are apostate groups that, because they didn’t understand this, use selective quotes by President Benson to advocate for not paying taxes at all.
But let’s just say that your selective reading of ETB is totally correct and doctrinally sound. Where exactly, then, does his counsel kick in? Presumably somewhere between the current top tax rate of 36% and Obama’s proposed top tax rate of 39%?
Finally, for what it’s worth: when Benson was Eisenhower’s Secretary of Agriculture, the tax rate for the richest Americans was 51.6%
Bryce, I never criticized the Lord’s anointed. Rather, I simply asked if you believe everything ETB taught during his tenure as an apostle and member of the Quorum of the Twelve. I think that it is a fair question given that you accuse so many other commenters of not believing or buying what ETB taught concerning socialism. Do you believe everything Elder Benson taught during his time as an apostle.
Bryce, Nibley was a liberal democrat who fervently supported the New Deal and other redistribution regimes. You’re wrong. I know you think you’re right, but you’re not. You’re wrong.
And you’re wrong about other prophets and apostles. They uniformly criticized Soviet Communism, but ETB departed from the crowd by equating (as you do here) government administered social programs funded by taxation in democratic societies with socialism. Again, you’re wrong. And ETB was wrong.
Bryce, it’s clear that you believe what ETB taught concerning socialism.
But do you believe everything Elder Benson taught during his time as an apostle and prophet? I’m talking specifically about what I mentioned in the comment you deleted, which was repeated time and time again by the prophets and apostles for decades.
“the redistribution that we are likely to see in the near future will fulfill his words.”
Like it did during the 1930s? Like it has ever since? Virtually all discretionary spending is tied to some form or another of wealth redistribution. Social security, medicare, and medicaid do as well. My student loans are subsidized by wealth appropriated by the government through taxes, and my family receives WIC food in the same fashion.
As for Nibley, if you’d like I could get any number of his kids to come on the site and correct your belief that he agreed with ETB on the relationship between government funded social programs and the evils of socialism. If Nibley came back and read what you are saying in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.
Brad,
It is not worth the energy.
Bryce,
“As for Nibley, if you’d like I could get any number of his kids to come on the site and correct your belief that he agreed with ETB on the relationship between government funded social programs and the evils of socialism. ”
I am calling your bluff.
But Bryce, LOTS of things aren’t part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Militaries. Hospitals. Roads. The gospel of Jesus Christ gives us basic principles; it is not a substitute for a system of government or infrastructure on any level. Unless you are currently living completely off the grid, you’re already a beneficiary of government-administered social programs.
Or is the problem that some money is going to the poor?
I hate to recycle the same questions I peppered my high school friend with when he was going through his fervent Atlas Shrugged phase, but:
Bryce, you avoided the question. You keep restating a vague general principle rather than telling us how it should be applied in real life. Is the current 36% top tax rate socialism? Was Eisenhower’s 51.6% top tax rate socialism? Is the fire department socialism?
Is this socialism?:
“…collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” That’s Sarah Palin’s description of her state’s system of wealth-sharing from the oil industry — a system they chose over privatization.
I guess what I’m asking is: how is an upstanding believing Mormon supposed to apply your simplistic reading of ETB to the complexities of the real world?
Here, I’ll help you out (by reposting them):
in 1966 FP member Hugh B. Brown stood before the BYU student body and praised liberal Democrat Hubert Humphrey for his efforts in the Civil Rights movement and for the Great Society program. At that point, HBB was a senior to ETB as well as a FP member.
Joseph Smith redistributed wealth, within a context where the Church acted as a de-facto civil government (Kirtland), calling on the saints through revelation to consecrate their properties to the support of the poor.
In Utah territory, communally held property and resource redistribution figured to varying degrees in the implementation of various local governments and united orders. Additionally, right after the saints’ arrival in the territory, Albert Carrington was appointed assessor and tax collector for the new government, vested with the power to “pin down upon the rich & penurious, and when he comes to a poor man or a widow that is honest, instead of taxing them, give them a few dollars.”
Why quote Edmund Burke when we have available to us multiple passages in the Book of Mormon promoting equality and castigating Nephite society in their treatment of the poor?
From reading through these comments it has become apparent to me that while religion and politics can overlap in some areas, they are largely independent of each other. They exist to serve different categories. Thus, when we discuss those areas in which they do overlap we tend to be conservative or liberal first, and LDS second.
I’m not sure if the gospel can strongly comment on the pros and cons of socialism, but I know my personal view is that socialism is a terrible way to run a country.
The saints have a long tradition of proud self-sufficiency and of humble charitable giving. Neither of those goals need a government to help.
Bryce,
There is something profoundly unAmerican about your political philosophy that would undue not only medicare/medicaid, welfare, public education, and infrastructure in poor areas of the country, but you should know that your critique of government also precludes you from voting for McCain as well.
If you don’t want to accept the political philosophy that guides this great, prosperous and generous nation, I invite you respectfully to move to another country. Russia is a good option for you since they have a 13% income tax.
See, James has it right (even if I disagree with his conclusions).
Bryce,
I’m not sure how many other ways anyone can say it. Taxes in a democracy are not forced charity. All taxation bills must originate in the House of Representatives, and when the government taxes the citizenry, it is because the citizenry has collectively elected to impose taxes on itself (through majority vote) and distribute that wealth (as it has since the beginning of the republic) how it sees fit. Just because you can find a quote from Nibley where he describes the freewill offering as non compulsory, that is no more a sweeping denouncement of redistributive economic policies than the fact that fast offerings are non-compulsory is. Until you can demonstrate an even pedestrian understanding of how governments work, of the political theory behind taxation, or of basic American history, you’d be better off just keeping quiet and cutting your losses.
While I do tend to agree with the Republican side of things in that the welfare state that has been corrupted desparetly needs to change, I *strongly* will have to disagree with your statement that says Obama’s tax plan is socialistic.
If Obama’s plan is socialistic, then we were living under socialism in the ’90’s. Because the increase in taxes for those 5% making more than a 1/4 million a year will simply go back to the exact same tax paid by the rich during the ’90’s. And the poor and middle-class will similarly be taxed less in keeping with similar tax percentages in the last century.
In short, it is a more fair tax to almost everyone whereas the existing tax is highly favorable to the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class. A fairer tax existed in America in the past with no socialism ties.
However, and let me make this point clear, there are decidedly many “welfare state” programs that are misused, misunderstood, and mishandled to the detriment of the country. These, I believe, should be eliminated or retooled to be much less of a free hand-out and much more of a helping hand. Similar in nature to the LDS church’s welfare program that lifts people from poverty by teaching them how to work instead of simply throwing money at the problem and hoping it will go away.
If you’ll look closely at Obama’s plans, you will notice that there are many programs he illustrates that look on the surface to be free givaways. But look deeper. For example, his plan for college education makes sure that the recipient of education *must* also give back to the community by committing themselves to significant public service. It’s not a free gift. And this is not the only example.
And since there is no direct correlation between a tax plan and social welfare, I truly do not see how anyone can call Obama’s plan socialism unless they are listening to only Right-wing propaganda at the expense of all other views. Please, those who are opposing programs from either the Republicans or the Democrats, do not rely only and completely upon your platform’s sound bites. Both sides distort and manipulate. Look at the facts. Dig underneath the media’s ten second attention span and look at what the truth is before you attack someone else’s opinion as being anti or pro Mormon.
Because, believe me: it is very painful to be called anti-Mormon by other Mormons simply because I happen to vote for a Democrat.
“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion. ”
–Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“When we are taxed, we should be sure to vote for candidates who will use that tax money responsibly, for the express administration of government, not to take upon itself the economic welfare of the people.”
I hereby call for us to remove the “promote the general welfare” from the preamble of the Constitution because Bryce does not agree that we should look out for the well-being of people. Madison…what a socialist.
“No candidate is perfect, but we can vote for that candidate whose views most closely agree with ours.”
I emphatically agree with you! Very well said. That’s exactly why I’m voting for Obama.
Actually Brad, saying that Government-run welfare systems will always fail is a truism I agree with. We are talking about failed human systems; everything we do will fail, sooner or later.
Except Charity never faileth. Which is why all other human activity is evil, and all politicians who advocate any human activity other than charity should not be supported by righteous Mormons like Bryce!
I don’t know who there is left for you to vote for, Bryce. John McCain, Oct. 12, 2000, speaking at Michigan State University: “Look, here’s what I really believe: That when you are, when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.”
Am I to assume, then, that you and all of the brethren will be going third-party?
@Brad Kramer
The government derives its powers from the people. The people can only delegate to the government powers that they have. Nobody has the right to forcibly take property from one person and give it to another. So the government cannot have the power to do so either. So while the citizenry can collectively impose taxes on itself and then use those funds to provide services to everyone in the population, they cannot justly impose a tax on themselves and then use those funds to provide services to only a portion of the population. Libraries, Fire Departments, Public Parks, etc. are available to all citizens. But when the government starts to use the taxes to give only certain groups of citizens benefits that are not equally available to others, while funding those services using money taken from the excluded others, we have to ask from where its power to do so comes? Does the ends justify the means?
This discussion reminds me of a friend who showed me to G.A. quotes from the early 1900’s about how public schools are bad because we need inspired and righteous teachers. That is all well and good for the members of the church, but what about educating the other 90% of the American children? Voluntary, private charities do great work and we should support them, but they have never and will never have the resources to address the degree of poverty in the world. I have no doubt that the poor in our country are far better off because of controlled government welfare programs than they would be without them.
Just because an Apostle made a statement does not mean it was inspired. Did ETB ever claim that his opinions were revelation? Apostles have personal opinions, just like everyone else, and they can be wrong, just like everyone else. Unless a prophet says that it was revealed by the Lord, it is (usually) good advice, but obedience to that statement is NOT binding on anyone.
I didn’t say that majority approvalof something in a democratic society makes it virtuous; just non-compulsory.
Bryce,
Will you be voting for McCain/Palin, then? If so, how do you reconcile the statements you’ve been using from ETB with McCain’s initial opposition to the Bush tax cuts, Alaska’s socialized natural resources, etc. (not to mention the numerous other matters in their private lives and public positions that could arguably fall “in direct opposition to God-given truths” in other areas)?
I like how the libs from BCC not only ban conservatives from BCC, but they come to their conservative blogs and try to silence them here.
You’re not a fool Bryce, you see through their misdirection. Keep it up.
Bryce,
I never argued that forced charity is charity. What thread are you reading. I argued that taxation for social programs is not forced charity. That doesn’t mean it’s authentic charity either. Just good policy in moderation. Definitely not socialism, your absurd (il)logic notwithstanding.
“As soon as the government socializes economic welfare, we are running into the same trap Lucifer gave in the beginning.”
sigh…
The reason you can’t convince anyone that you understand what you’re talking about is that you keep talking.
Bryce,
Your comment at 1:34 did not explain how you reconciled the positions I mentioned, but simply stated that you had.
You said at 1:55: “Charity can’t be forced or it is not charity! ”
Okay, fine. Let’s not call it charity. I don’t have a problem with not calling it charity. Let’s call it “social infrastructure.”
No one’s saying that should replace charity. Goodness.
“I for one believe his views are in direct opposition to God-given truths”
I’ll admit that I don’t agree with Obama on all of his policies. In fact I’m directly opposed to a few of them. I just happen to be directly opposed to quite a few more of McCain’s policies than Obama’s.
I used to vote for both Republicans and Democrats and never ascribed to any platform; I voted for the person, not the platform. That was before W. Because of the extreme, flagrant and abhorrent policies of the Bush administration I’ve been forced to vote against the Republicans simply to get things back to where they were. I would LOVE to be able to vote for a Republican again. But until I see one that isn’t planning to continue the same failed policies of Bush, I’ll be voting against them.
“Why doesn’t the government advocate setting up donation banks where people may voluntarily donate money for the care of the poor and needy? Why hasn’t that crossed their minds? That would be closer to the Lord’s way.”
Uh, take a look around you. That has crossed their minds. But the notion that the only proper thing a government can spend tax money on is its own administrative costs is a logical impossibility — what would it administer if it could only spend tax revenue on administrative costs? Your ridiculous assertions that social security, medicaid, medicare, public education, government subsidization of student loans, urban infrastructure are all luciferian evils that will end civilization are utterly disconnected from reality (as is your belief that Hugh Nibley was a democrat despite sharing your logically absurd ideas about taxation and social programs). All they illuminate is your own intelligence.
New Book of Mormon Text Discovered! « The Sunday Page
[…] is authentic. Supporters of SBoM have postulated that perhaps President Ezra Taft Benson (given his anti-socialist persuasion) has edited these key passages to produce what we now know as BoM. Detractors from SBoM argue that […]
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