The Wild Man of the Desert...

Civilization had fallen. The wickedness of Cain had spread throughout the land. Perdition was upon the face of the whole earth. But few of the righteous patriarchs remained. The majority of people had forgotten their relationship to the divine.So few generations separated the people from our first parents, but knowledge of Adam’s teachings had gone from the land. However word went round the land of a wild man who would speak from high places. A man who anointed his eyes with clay to see spirits. He brought a message that offended many men. He was a seer. He was said to have walked with God.

 Though many feared this man some sought him out. There was one man in particular named Mahijah, who sought out this wild man and said unto him: Tell us plainly who thou art, and from whence thou comest? He was answered and told by Enoch, the wild man, that he was from Cainan. Enoch told him that he was taught in the ways of God by his father and that he had seen a vision. In that vision he was commanded by God to share a message with all people.

The message Enoch was to share was a message proclaiming mankind's relationship with our Heavenly Father, including our fallen state and our need for a Savior and the importance and symbolism of baptism in God’s plan of salvation for his children. He begins by speaking of the fact that God is the God of all. This realization solidifies the fact that all mankind are brothers and members of the same earthly family. He further illustrates this point by recalling our first parents. He uses Adam as an example in the rest of his teaching.

Enoch then goes into the fact that due to our fallen nature we have no ability to return one day to the presence on our own. He teaches of the necessity of a Savior.He teaches that it is through his Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth, which is Jesus Christ, which is the only name which shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come unto the children of men.

The next idea Enoch teaches is to teach us how we can lay claim on this salvation. He teaches that all men must repent and be born again through baptism. He also speaks of the need for the atonement. The most interesting aspect of what he taught was the symbolism of baptism. I think the primary symbolism of baptism is quite obvious. You must be buried under the water and come back out symbolizing the resurrection. Enoch gives us great insight into the more complex  symbolism of baptism. Not only is it a great symbol of death and rebirth but it is also a symbol of physical birth.  Inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; For by the water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified. This symbolism teaches us that: all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of Him, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, all things bear record of Him.

This amazing symbolism shows us that God really does love his children. Childbirth is no curse but it is a type of the atonement of Christ. We are fallen yes, but we can repent. God loves his children so much he put reminders of his love everywhere. The sun the moon and the stars representing the glory awaiting us in the life to come. The cleansing waters of baptism and the flood, The sanctifying blood of the sacrificial lamb and the Lamb of God, and finally the justifying spirit of promise that seals our unity with God forever. Enoch truly taught things that made the children of men tremble and stand in awe in his presence.

Accursed Eve

Eve has been blamed for many things throughout history. The common belief held by most people is that she was tricked and now we must live with the curse placed on Adam and Eve. Many people of other faiths view the curse placed upon humanity during the fall of Adam as some kind of punishment for disobedience. Adam’s transgression is seen as the cause of all hardship and suffering. I would argue that all the good things of this life came as a result of this “curse”. Through the consequences of the fall we actually gained all the skills and abilities to be free and prosperous.

It is common for people to think we are cursed due to the original sin of Adam and Eve. They sinned and we must pay for it. This line of thought is even present in the LDS church though our scriptures and prophets teach otherwise. This idea creeps in when we try to justify the actions of Adam and Eve as ‘transgression’ and not as ‘sin’. I will say: I don’t care about the distinction between transgression and sin. These words are essentially synonyms and linguistically the same word in English. One is Latinate. One is Germanic. In Hebrew they were the same word. Now I do not deny a distinction exists. I think the distinction is very clear. A sin is something inherently and inviolately evil. Something that has been evil since the beginning that will remain so throughout time. Whereas transgression would be acting in contrary to any commandment that has been expressly forbidden. So, Adam transgressed and through that transgression all mankind will be blessed. Well what if he had sinned? The outcome would be the same. We would just be using a shorter word and we could skip this conversation every time these nitpicking distinctions raise their head in a Sunday school class. The consequences of sin and transgression are the same. Adam still would have fallen, we would have been separated from the presence of God, and no matter what we label our actions we would still need a saviour to bring us back from our spiritual death.

By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. As fallen beings we must work for our own food. This is no curse but a blessing to be able to keep what we earn. The sad trend that held from the time we first gathered together in cities until essentially the American Revolution Most of mankind was in servitude to other men. Whether king magistrate or Caesar, most of humanity was forced to work for the benefit of others. However our first parents were blessed with the freedom to provide for their own needs whereas they had previously received fruit brought forth from the garden. We are also blessed with the ability to provide for our own lives and be free. Agents unto our selves. We were given not only a freedom to choose righteousness or wickedness but also we were given the ability to choose to be free or to choose captivity and servitude. This freedom was quickly put into jeopardy by Cain who sought to get gain from the work of his brother Abel. So began this trend of man ruling over one another and rulers getting gain off of their subjects. There were only a few glimpses of exceptions to this reality. The free society of Abraham, the liberation of the israelites from the tyranny of the Egyptians, and Christ himself expelling the money changers from the temple as the sought to take the hard earned profits of the pilgrims to the temple through the wicked practice of usury. From the genesis story available to the LDS church we learn that this is not God’s way to get gain off the works of others and we gain the added knowledge that this really is no curse but an amazing blessing and divine right to provide for our own life.

It is also common for people to lament the fact that our first parents lost access to a paradise on earth. Many say Eve was “cursed” with childbirth and the associated pains and difficulties for her decision. I say the crowning creative achievement that women have the privilege to participating in and carrying out, the creation of human life, is no curse. It is the greatest blessing God has bestowed to man. In the garden we truly were cursed. We were cursed without the ability to progress and learn. Had we remained in the garden how cursed would we have been. We had no ability to care for our own life. We could not participate in the creative power of the almighty. None of us would have even been born without Eve’s courageous and wise decision. Now, in this world, we are truly blessed. We are free men with the ability to grow to be more like He who created us. How wonderful that our first parents made this life possible for us all.

Learn How to Learn

     I never really understood the point of school as a child. I never liked going there. I tended to stay home a lot, even in kindergarten. I voiced my concerns to my parents and other authority figures. They explained to me that school is a place to learn. I believed them. I believed them and that frustrated me. Why was I so frustrated by the idea that school is a place where you learn? I was frustrated because I had never learned anything in school. Years of attending school, Years of worksheets, years of teachers asking questions that are answered with complete silence, years of heads up seven up, years of national and state standardized tests, and I could not recall one thing that I had learned in school. I became disenchanted with the whole Idea of school. School was a complete failure in my mind. A place that exists for teach had failed to teach me a single thing. “What a joke!”, I said to myself. Now I’m not so sure that school is a place for learning. It took me a bit to come the realization that school was just glorified daycare, and a great place to gain social skills. I desperately seek knowledge, but was school the wrong place to look?

I had high hopes for college. Hopes that were immediately crushed. College was exactly like high school. Even the desks were the same. My first college class was held in a portable classroom. I hadn’t seen that since elementary. The main difference between my useless K through 12 experience and college was that I had to pay for my classes. The children had only grown in size. It was the same. Plenty of those poorly worded questions that are so embarrassingly obvious no one dares answer. This was just a community college, so maybe a university was better. After transferring to ASU I found the only change was the price. It costs a lot, and student loans aren’t much help.
There are big problems with student loans in the USA. These problems make it difficult to get an education. I have seen many of these problems first hand. I will share with you a few stories illustrating some of the problems I have seen in the modern education system:

Theresa was as dumb as a stone. School was never her thing. She was barely literate. Surprisingly she found herself enrolled in an institute of higher education after all. She really had no interest in school but she heard from her friends that you can get free money from the government if you go to school. Theresa was a single mother of five who knew a lot about free money from the government. She lived in a spacious section 8 apartment, had the newest iPhone and a late model car, and had not worked in years thanks to a combination of welfare, unemployment, EBT, WIC, EIC, and any other monetarily beneficial acronym that was out there. Luckily she qualified for a hefty loan from uncle Sam.

I met her in a communications class. She was very friendly. I noticed she struggled somewhat with the assignments. I tried to help her, but it eventually led to her copying my work or her asking me to do it for her. When she learned that I didn’t feel comfortable with that kind of arrangement she actually hired someone to write her term paper for $20.00. She got a C. The professor also took her under his wing and tried to give her as much one on one attention as possible. That didn’t help either.
Sadly, college was not a place for her. It couldn’t benefit her. She didn’t need a communication degree to better her life. She would be better off learning some trade or just getting on the job experience. She suffered through more semesters at college seeking out more free money and sinking further and further in debt. A debt that might never be repaid. This money was not a blessing to the poor seeking to improve their life but instead an irresistible shackle that binds the student to their education at the expense of their productivity and happiness. Theresa and those like her have become modern day slaves giving away their financial freedom voluntarily to an all powerful monolith with limitless free money.

So if it is not the poor that benefit from grants and loans, who does:
     I walked into a large lecture hall and sat in the front row. I like the front because my stature leaves me little leg room if i sit anywhere else. I was there early. Soon, 2 freshman came in and sat directly behind me. I heard one of them inquire to the other, “Have you ever heard of FASFA?” The other responded in the negative. This exchange peaked my interest. I had been dealing with many student aid issues the entire semester. You see, before I applied to BYU, I had taken a year off of school to work. After getting married the reality of bills and paychecks set in. I decided to go back to school after that year so i could have better career prospects. I was denied any student aid for my first year back at BYU because I had made too much money in my year long hiatus. I was denied aid even though I had to move to a new state with no job lined up. Suffice it to say, money was tight that semester.

I found it funny that he had mixed up the letters of FAFSA. The freshman behind me continued to explain to his classmate that Fasfa was a thing he filled out online. He said his parents told him to do it. He said it took all of 5 minutes and at the end he qualified for something called a Pell Grant. A Pell Grant of $5,000. He exclaimed how great this was because his parents already pay for his tuition, car, room and board.

Audible groans of discontent escaped my mouth as I listened to this travesty of justice. I was scrounging to survive feeding my wife and I a diet of year old ramen packets that we could only cook when the unstable power was on in our basement apartment. Then there was this child who evidently had been declared independent from his parents and had his taxes calculated from whatever minimum wage summer job he had the previous year. Somehow he was deemed to have more need of assistance going to school than me. I mulled over this sad situation for many moons. How could it be desirable that the poor subsidize the rich. I finally realized what the root of the problem was. This realization also helped form my philosophy on modern day education.

     And who benefits from this money in both these situations. The schools:
The schools get paid regardless. This is glaringly obvious and evidenced by the entire industry of for profit schools. These schools specifically target the working poor. They offer classes at night or online and stress how easy it is to do. For profit schools look to enroll people who had previously never thought of school as an option. It also helps out that the older and poorer you are the more educational welfare you qualified to receive. This assistance removes the cost of education further from the student's pocketbook. The result is tuition goes up. Who cares if it is $1,500 a semester or $15,000 if the government pays the bill. Schools raise their tuition as high as the government will pay. Tuition has gone up dramatically in recent years.

So who is to blame? Is it the for profit schools that are the scourge of the education system? No. Is it the wealthy taking advantage of poorer taxpayers? They are the only ones who can afford the rising tuition costs, but they are not the ones to blame. So it must be the poor leaching off the welfare system unnecessarily driving up tuition costs. Well, no, let’s not find fault with them either. After all, these groups are only acting out of their own self interest. Theresa was only doing what she thought was best for her family. The freshman behind me in class would have to be insane to turn down that kind of money. The same could be said for the colleges across the nation. How is all this plunder possible. The United States Government has promoted it.  The government has driven up prices and increased the debt of millions of people. The government has stripped the dignity of what I can only imagine was real education. Institutes of higher learning are now just herding cattle one step closer to the workplace.

What was once seen as noble work fit to support a family is now work only fit for illegals, outcasts, and subhuman. A formal education is no longer regarded as a luxury available only to the wealthy. A formal education is something that should be given to anyone who wants it. No matter your academic prowess or your choice of career you should be able to go to college.  The prevailing philosophy of today is that college education is a “human right”. Pell Grants and massive student loans are given to students without taking into account their intended major. It doesn't matter if you are entering the most prestigious petroleum engineering school with expected starting salaries in six figures or if you choose social work and can look forward to making a whopping $0.48 above the proposed minimum wage of Seattle. Every 26 year old child has the right their degree in bolivian feminist studies. To each according to his want.

Having laid out the problems with the modern day formal education, I will now succinctly explain my personal educational philosophy. School, in the broad sense, is nothing more than an obligatory song and dance required before seeking gainful employment. If you learn at school that is great, but that is not the purpose of school. An education can be gained anywhere other than school. My education has been gained through a combination of reading, watching TV, mentors, life experience and the internet. The internet is perhaps the most useful educational tool in my arsenal. I have every book ever written and access to the greatest minds in history accessible on a device in my pocket. I honestly do try to learn at school. If I learn something it’s great. I now know that if I want an education I must look for it anywhere but a school.

know thy enemy... Trans Activists

There are legitimate enemies to freedom. I have seen them and I have heard them. These are not the enemies you see featured in the news in far away desert lands. These are enemies closer to home. They do not dress in black and carry AK's. Instead, these enemies fight you in word, philosophy and in the voting booth. These enemies are seeking to take your freedom. If they cannot take your freedom they want your life. They may not own guns but they seek a monopoly on violence. They wield the mighty cudgel of government force and coercion. I seek to document these enemies so that their violence is exposed. Below is the enemy. Know them...

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP3mSamRbYA

The above video shows Jordan B. Peterson, a tenured research and clinical PhD psychologist who currently teaches at the University of Toronto. He is being confronted by some students on account of his fight against the cultural cancer of political correctness. (See his speech that angered these students here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4R0bWC41g4) He is alarmed at how quickly it is metastasizing into laws that seek to punish any and all self-expression. Such legislation—in his case, Canada’s bill C-16, which would amend the Canadian Human Rights Code and Criminal Code to add “gender identity and expression” as a special category for anti-discrimination—is tailor-made to program people into conformity of thought. As with all things politically correct, such legislation always comes disguised in the language of “equality.”

The main complaint these Trans Activists have is the fact that Peterson doesn't see the need to force others to use 'preferred pronouns'. Preferred pronouns would be whatever words an individual selects that others must use when speaking to them (or about them). The new Canadian law would make it illegal to 'misgender', or use standard pronouns for, any trans person.

As Peterson correctly points out, pronouns are a closed linguistic category. This means, pronouns rarely if ever change. Pronouns almost never get added to. The only recent change is the decline of the use of the accusative 'whom', a vestige of the case system we once had in English. (Historical Corpora show that the use of 'whom' is steadily on the decline, and most people who use 'whom' don't actually know when to use it (Once again English has lost its case system).)

The only other recent change in pronouns was the loss of thee/thou (the second person singular formal pronouns). Which most people are familiar with due to their heavy use in the bible. So as you can see, pronouns are rarely added. In the last 500 years or more, we have only lost pronouns. Adding new words to this category (like ze, zim, zer, xe, hum, etc...) goes against everything we know about language. Any government led language planning should be resisted by all free men.

While we're at it, I may as well address the idea of problematic 'gendered pronouns' and other words. Grammatical gender has very little, almost nothing, to do with physical gender/sex. It just so happens that English has two grammatical genders (though we used to have three). There are some African languages with dozens. Now this may seem to prove the trans-activists dream of unlimited number of genders, but sadly for them, these have nothing to do with physical gender. They are just arbitrary categories of words (and sometimes the words for males and females end up in separate categories).

Throughout the video, the trans-activists state multiple times that Peterson must use their preferred pronouns or else he is oppressing them or harming them in some way. Towards the end of the video, one activist asks, "Who gives you the authority to decide what our pronouns are?" Somehow suggesting that Peterson is exerting some sort of control over their lives with his refusal to placate their demands on his speech. The question is then restated in its proper terms by the professor “Are you asking, Who gives me the authority to think and say what I choose?”

This question is truly a dangerous one. It is dangerous because the most basic aspect of freedom, is freedom of thought. It is the first freedom. It is the hardest freedom to deny someone… even if you throw someone in prison they could still think their own thoughts.

This is why freedom of speech is so important, because it is the most closely related to thought. As a man thinketh so is he. A thought first forms in the mind and then is translated into an utterance which then becomes an action. A man should be free to think, speak, and act as he pleases. If we allow speech to be regulated, we are in turn allowing our thoughts to be regulated. If our thoughts can be governed we have no freedom at all.

The harmful potential these trans-activist have is immense. The idea that speech can harm and therefore must be limited , is the most dangerous idea in recent history. Made even more dangerous by the fact that these trans-activists think they are protecting people from harm. They will protect us into bondage. Their demands of safety will imprison us all.

...the official church stance on Bernie Sanders' democratic socialism

Some have suggested that the practice of the law of consecration and the system of the united order are only a religious kind of socialism or communism. Others assert that it was a development either from the economic philosophies of Joseph Smith’s day or from communal experiments within the new religion. Such assumptions are false. The Prophet Joseph Smith attended a presentation on socialism in September 1843 at Nauvoo. His response was to declare that he “did not believe the doctrine” (History of the Church, 6:33). In more recent times Elder Marion G. Romney outlined the differences between the revealed system of the united order and the socialistic programs:

“(1) The cornerstone of the United Order is belief in God and acceptance of him as Lord of the earth and the author of the United Order.

“Socialism, wholly materialistic, is founded in the wisdom of men and not of God. Although all socialists may not be atheists, none of them in theory or practice seek the Lord to establish his righteousness.

“(2) The United Order is implemented by the voluntary free-will actions of men, evidenced by a consecration of all their property to the Church of God.

“… Socialism is implemented by external force, the power of the state.

“(3) … The United Order is operated upon the principle of private ownership and individual management.

“Thus in both implementation and ownership and management of property, the United Order preserves to men their God-given agency, while socialism deprives them of it.

“(4) The United Order is non-political.

“Socialism is political, both in theory and practice. It is thus exposed to, and riddled by, the corruption that plagues and finally destroys all political governments that undertake to abridge man’s agency.

“(5) A righteous people is a prerequisite to the United Order.

“Socialism argues that it as a system will eliminate the evils of the profit motive.

“The United Order exalts the poor and humbles the rich. In the process both are sanctified. The poor, released from the bondage and humiliating limitations of poverty, are enabled as free men to rise to their full potential, both temporally and spiritually. The rich, by consecration and by imparting of their surplus for the benefit of the poor, not by constraint but willingly as an act of free will, evidence that charity for their fellowmen characterized by Mormon as ‘the pure love of Christ.’ [Moroni 7:47.]” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1966, p. 97.)

President J. Reuben Clark Jr. said: “The United Order has not been generally understood. … [It] was not a communal system. … The United Order and communism are not synonymous. Communism is Satan’s counterfeit for the United Order. There is no mistake about this and those who go about telling us otherwise either do not know or have failed to understand or are wilfully misrepresenting.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1943, p. 11.)

President Marion G. Romney warned about the continuing imitations of the adversary: “In this modern world plagued with counterfeits for the Lord’s plan, we must not be misled into supposing that we can discharge our obligations to the poor and the needy by shifting the responsibility to some governmental or other public agency. Only by voluntarily giving out of an abundant love for our neighbors can we develop that charity characterized by Mormon as ‘the pure love of Christ.’ [Moroni 7:47.]” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1972, p. 115; or Ensign, Jan. 1973, p. 98.)

President Romney noted:

“I suggest we consider what has happened to our agency with respect to … government welfare services. …

“The difference between having the means with which to administer welfare assistance taken from us and voluntarily contributing it out of our love of God and fellowman is the difference between freedom and slavery. …

“When we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, might, mind, and strength, we will love our brothers as ourselves, and we will voluntarily, in the exercise of our free agency, impart of our substance for their support. …

http://acalltoarmz.blogspot.com/2015/03/is-united-order-christian-communism.html
https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual/enrichments/enrichment-l-the-law-of-consecration-and-stewardship?lang=eng&query=communism

Mitt Romney is not a conservative...

Trump is not a conservative. He is an entertainer. Mitt Romney took to denouncing the current GOP front runner today.

Trump may indeed merit many of the charges thrown at him by Romney, but, in politics, it is always smart to consider the motivations of anyone who goes after a successful candidate. While it is impossible to determine from Romney’s speech what his motivations may be, we must consider that Trump, despite his faults, has challenged the Republican Party’s establishment. We must ask if Romney’s condemnation of Trump was made of his own volition, or if he is serving the interests of the GOP establishment.

While he wisely avoided endorsing anyone else, and even included Cruz, another supposed anti-establishmentarian, among his suggestions as an acceptable alternative to Trump, might Romney’s real purpose be to weaken Trump just enough to produce a brokered convention that might turn to Romney as the GOP’s savior? It may be impossible to answer this question at the present time, but it must be considered.

But there is something Romney said in his speech that must be challenged. It is this:

Ronald Reagan used to quote a Scottish philosopher who predicted that democracies and civilizations couldn’t last more than about 200 years. John Adams wrote this: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” I believe that America has proven these dire predictions wrong for two reasons.

First, we have been blessed with great presidents, with giants among us. Men of character, integrity and selflessness have led our nation from its very beginning. None were perfect: each surely made mistakes. But in every case, they acted out of the desire to do what was right for America and for freedom.

The second reason is because we are blessed with a great people, people who at every critical moment of choosing have put the interests of the country above their own.

The Adams quote has long been a favorite among constitutionalists. However, Adams was not expressing pessimism concerning an American “democracy,” because, as a Founding Father, he was well aware that he and his contemporaries had not established a democracy, but a constitutional republic.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when asked as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a Republic or a Monarchy?” Benjamin Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

The word “democracy” never appears in the Constitution — however, Article IV, Section 4 of the document reads: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”

Therefore, Romney’s explanations for why our nation has not “committed suicide” are wrong. Although we have had great presidents, we have also had some who were not only not great, but bad presidents. Likewise, we have had many great people among our populace who have chosen the interests of the country above their own, but we have also had majorities of voters on many occasions who — whether by being misinformed or through self interest — have elected demagogues and socialists who would feed them from the public trough.

It has only been the restraints imposed by our Constitution that have prevented our nation from “committing suicide,” and by definition, a country governed by constitutional laws is not a democracy, but a republic. If Romney were a true constitutional conservative, he would know that.

Tyranny Violates Agency: An LDS Perspective on the US. Constitution

     A choice land and a free nation, the United States America is deeply intrinsic to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many leaders of the LDS Church have been very clear on the correlation between the founding of the United States and the restoration of the Gospel some decades later. This correlation is even evidenced LDS scripture including the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 13) and the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C 101:77, 80). Many leaders of the church see that the grand implementation and protection of liberty contained within the U.S. Constitution coincide with God’s will, and that ideas that run in contrary to those freedoms protected by constitution are not only legally unconscionable but contrary to divine law. “The Constitution is divinely inspired… [T]he great fundamentals must not be changed.” (J. Rueben Clark)

     Agency, the freedom of choice, is in my opinion the most important power that exists in the universe. I also believe that free exercise of agency is synonymous with liberty and freedom. Agency is the power that allows a human being to act freely from their own conscience, meaning that inanimate objects may not act but can only be acted upon, and animate objects other than human beings, such as animals, may act, but not of their own free choice. Animals act on instinct alone. A dog does not decide to act like a dog. A dog is a dog by instinct. Whereas human beings may at any point decide to act in any way at any moment, even if it is contrary to their natural instinct. Thus we see that agency that is the power that separates God’s children from his other creations. Agency is the precious gift that is only shared with God. Individual liberty is not just a political luxury, but part of God’s plan for his children.

     According to LDS belief, before this life two plans were proposed. “Shall the children of God have… agency to choose… or shall they be coerced and forced to be obedient? Christ and all who followed him stood for… freedom of choice; Satan stood for… coercion and force.” (Ezra Taft Benson) It is evident that Satan lost his proposition. Since that time, one of his major strategies has been to restrict the agency or liberty of men with the powers of earthly governments. For thousands of years Satan has used tyrants, despots, and monarchs to infringe on humanity’s sacred liberty. Totalitarianism reigned with only flickers of liberty arising only to be trampled once again by despotic regimes. It wasn’t until the 18th century that an enlightenment of thought prevailed over tyranny, and liberty was secured by the framers of the Constitution. The inspired portion of the Constitution consists of: The separation of powers in the three branches of government; the Bill of Rights; the division of powers between the states and the federal government; and the application of popular sovereignty, the rule of law and not of men. Some modern political philosophies consider these divinely inspired principles, “outmoded”. They are not. In fact they originate from the divine, and protect divine rights. Modern totalitarian forms of government (Communism, Fascism, and Socialism) that attempt to usurp the agency of man are in violation of constitution law and the sacred power of agency.
Agency, a key tenet of LDS religion is tantamount to freedom. Any force, party, or political system that attempts to infringe on the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution is not only violating the laws of the United States of America, but also acting in contrary to the will of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. “No true Latter-day Saint and no true American can be a socialist or a communist or support programs leading in that direction. These evil philosophies are incompatible with Mormonism, the true gospel of Jesus Christ.” (Ezra Taft Benson)

Bernie Sanders was right: global warming causes terrorism...

I have made it a ritual to watch all the presidential debates. I like to stay informed. In a recent democratic debate Bernie Sanders claimed that climate change is directly related to terrorism. Yes, he said that:

Such an absurd idea is obviously false, yet so many still agreed with the idea. Somehow a little warmer climate makes an otherwise peaceful religious sect start beheading, drowning, and lighting innocent civilians on fire. Such a notion was laughable, until a former CIA director confirmed that it was true.

Yes, Bernie was right. In a way…

You see ISIS is one of the most well funded terrorist organizations. Where do they get their funding? That question has had a known answer for some time now. OIL:

“Everyone tacitly knows where said funding is coming from (as we have revealed in an ongoing series of posts "Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President", "How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence" and "ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection") few on the US-led Western Alliance have done anything to stop the hundreds of millions in oil sale proceeds from funding the world's best organized terrorist group.”

In fact, the only party that actually did something to halt ISIS' oil infrastructure was Russia, whose bombing raids of Islamic State oil routes may not only have contributed to the fatal attack by Turkey of the Russian Su-24 (as the curtailment of ISIS' oil flows led to a big hit in the funds collected by the biggest middleman in the region, Turkey, its president and his son, Bilal not to mention Israel which may have been actively buying ISIS oil over the past year) but prompted questions why the bombing campaign by the US-led alliance had been so woefully incapable of hitting ISIS where it truly hurts: its funding.”

So, ISIS has been growing and expanding due to the fact that the US will not halt the flow of ISIS oil to Turkey. ISIS terrorism is directly related to fossil fuels. Now Bernie’s words are making more sense.

In an interview on PBS' Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Rose pointed out that before the terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. had not bombed ISIS-controlled oil tankers, to which the former CIA deputy director Michael Morell responded that Barack Obama didn’t order the bombing of ISIS’s oil transportation infrastructure until recently because he was concerned about environmental damage.

Yes, he really said that:

“We didn’t go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn’t want to do environmental damage, and we didn’t want to destroy that infrastructure.”

In other words, one can blame such recent outbreaks of deadly terrorist activity as the Paris bombings and the explosion of the Russian passenger airplane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Obama's hard line stance to not pollute the atmosphere with the toxic aftermath of destroyed ISIS infrastructure.

If you don’t believe that this is possible, here is the clip:

So yes ISIS has gone unimpeded in its terror due to climate change. Obama detests CO2 so vehemently that he would rather see ISIS continue beheading and committing acts of terror in France, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere than see a slight rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. This is obviously not what was meant by Sanders’ words at the debate but his words were eerily prophetic.

Yes, Climate Change, or better Climate Change Hysteria, is directly related to the rise of the Islamic State terrorism. Bernie was right...

...is the united order "christian communism"? ...the official church stance.

     “They had all things common.” The phrase “they had all things common” (Acts 4:32; see also Acts 2:44; 3 Nephi 26:19; 4 Nephi 1:3) is used to characterize those who lived the law of consecration in ancient times. Some have speculated that the term common suggests a type of communalism or “Christian Communism.” This interpretation is in error. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught the true nature of having all things common: “I preached on the stand about one hour on the 2nd chapter of Acts, designing to show the folly of common stock [holding property in common]. In Nauvoo every one is steward over his own [property].” (History of the Church, 6:37–38.)

     Each stewardship is considered private property (see Reading L-4), and the residues and surpluses consecrated for the storehouse became the “common property of the whole church” (D&C 82:18). It is referred to as the “common property” because the covenant members of the order had access to it, according to their just “wants” and “needs,” including the need to improve their stewardship (see D&C 82:17–18).

    The word equal is frequently used in the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants: “In … temporal things you shall be equal” (D&C 70:14); “for if ye are not equal in earthly things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things” (D&C 78:6); “appoint unto this people their portions, every man equal according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs” (D&C 51:3). The Lord gave His definition of the term equal: “And you are to be equal, or in other words, you are to have equal claims on the properties, for the benefit of managing the concerns of your stewardships, every man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his wants are just” (D&C 82:17).

    Equal claims by all members in the covenant were upon the common property or resources for the administering of stewardships. Through these mutually shared rights or claims all became “alike” (D&C 51:9) or, in other words, had equal standing. The procedure for determining whose claim should be satisfied was established through the approval and consent of all who participated in the order (see D&C 104:70–71).

Source: https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual/enrichments/enrichment-l-the-law-of-consecration-and-stewardship?lang=eng&query=communism

...what the prophets say about war, welfare and politics.

CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS
Office of the First President
Salt Lake City, Utah

October 11, 1941

The Honorable
William C. FitzGibbon,
Defense Savings Staff,
Treasury Department,
Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. FitzGibbon:

Your more than gracious letter of September 30, 1941 has been received. Your generous commendation of the Church, its membership, and the achievements of the Church and its members is most gratefully appreciated.

You are kind enough to say: “Help us now to teach our citizens everywhere how to preserve and perpetuate our freedom,—freedom to govern ourselves, freedom of speech, and freedom to worship God according to our own light.”

It would be our dearest joy if we might be able to help (!) to the ends you name. But as we go over the field we are aware of the difficulties involved, and are persuaded that for now at least perhaps the best we can do is to tell you briefly what lies back of our own achievement, however modest it may be.

The Church has a very complete and in some respects intricate organization through which it works, and no organization which is not equally well set up would be likely to be even as effective as the Church is, and that is not completely effective. There are numbers of the Mormon people who have not fully responded to the teachings of the Church nor to be [sic] tenets of its organizations, and who are, therefore, lukewarm in the support of the Church, its policies, principles, and doctrines.

But behind the Church organization there are spiritual values without which the organization would be ineffectively operative. The Mormon people as a rule have deep religious convictions. Certain of their beliefs are fundamental in guiding their conduct and attitudes. It would probably not be advisable to go into the details of all these beliefs nor would that be essentially helpful or useful to you. (We may say parenthetically that we have been trying for practically a century now to convert the people of this country and of the world to our religious beliefs and tenets, with the result that even now, with our increase by births, we have only something over 800,000 members—men, women, and children—in all the world.)

Perhaps the fundamental principle that gives unity and direction to the action of the people is this: One of our Articles of Faith (which are more or less equivalent to the creeds of other denominations) declares:

“We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands, by those who are in authority to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.”

Another Article of Faith declares:

“We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”

The people therefore believe that the President of the Church, his counselors, and the Council of the Twelve Apostles have a right to the revelations of the Lord as to the conduct of the Church and the members thereof; that the Lord actually speaks through them as the result of the revelations which He gives them; and that therefore the members are under obligation, when the President of the Church speaks, to follow his advice and counsel. With the great bulk of the people this is not merely a lip loyalty; it is a thoroughly engrained belief. The result is that when the President of the Church speaks, those who are faithful in the Church accept his words as divinely inspired and seek to guide their lives accordingly.

You will readily perceive the force and effectiveness of such a concept as applied to the organization of the Church and the conduct of its members, and you will also easily see that the unity of action and aim and purpose of the Mormon people could hardly be duplicated in any society which did not have such a conception.

In the first place, we should tell you that it is a part of the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, as much a part as any other tenet of their religion, that the Lord Himself “established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood”, and that this Constitution “should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles.”

Our people believe that they have a special relationship to the Constitution and its preservation.

The revelation from which the foregoing is quoted was given in 1833, and two years thereafter the Church issued a Declaration of Belief regarding governments and laws, the three opening paragraphs of which read as follows:

“We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society.

“We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.

“We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign.”

The balance of this Declaration deals in major part with the relationship between religious societies and the government and the respective fields of each.

In a revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1831, among other things the following principles were announced:

“Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and the judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!

“Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands!”

In another revelation given in 1842, the Lord said:

“Let every man be diligent in all things. And the idler shall not have place in the church, except he repent and mend his ways.”

At another time Joseph Smith received a revelation (1831) which said:

“Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness.

“These things ought not to be, and must be done away from among them.”

Brigham Young in the early days said:

“My experience has taught me, and it has become a principle with me, that it is never of any benefit to give out and out to man or woman money, food, clothing, or anything else if they are able-bodied and can work and earn what they need when there is anything on earth for them to do. This is my principle and I try to act upon it. To pursue a contrary course would ruin any community in the world and make them idlers.

“To give to the idler is as wicked as anything else. Never give anything to the idler.”

Along side of these principles the Lord gave Joseph Smith several revelations regarding the care of the widow, the orphan, and the poor. One of the most direct and brief statements that have been given on the duty of the Church towards such people reads as follows:

“All children have claim upon their parents for their maintenance until they are of age.

“And after that, they have claim upon the church, or in other words upon the Lord’s storehouse, if their parents have not wherewith to given them inheritances.

“And the storehouse shall be kept by the consecrations of the church; and widows and orphans shall be provided for, as also the poor.”

Thus according to the Gospel plan under which the Church is established and operates, the care of the widow, the orphan, and the poor, is a Church function, it is a part of the brotherhood of man which underlies our whole social and religious life. As God’s children all, and as brothers and sisters in Christ, we must as a matter of spiritual responsibility and pursuant to positive divine command care for the helpless, the unfortunate, and the needy. Furthermore it is essentially a neighbor to neighbor obligation. It is not a function of civil government. This is fundamental.

Furthermore, in 1833 Joseph Smith received a revelation which we know as the Word of Wisdom and which taught the people that they should not use alcoholic beverages, tobacco, hot drinks, (which has been interpreted to mean tea, coffee, and other drinks containing habit-forming drugs) that meat should be eaten sparingly, and gave other health suggestions.

The Mormon people as they are today are the result of a century of teaching and practicing of the foregoing principles. It has only been by the urgent insistence upon these principles by the Church leaders during this whole period that the people have been brought to the place they are today. Their achievements have been the result of their ordering their lives, albeit more or less imperfectly, in accordance with these principles. A result of this sort cannot be achieved in a day, a week, a year, nor in many years, and could not be achieved except for the fundamental belief that the leaders who are directing the people are inspired of the Lord.

You also should understand, as you probably do, that the leaders of the Church consider it within their province, and the people have the same view, to advise the people generally and as individuals, not alone on matters purely religious but in their temporal affairs. The lowest ecclesiastical unit in the Church is called a “Ward” and the presiding officer in that Ward is a “Bishop,” who has to assist him two counselors. The Bishop is considered to be the “Father” of the Ward, and a good Bishop (and we consistently try to pick the best men in the Wards to be Bishops) is consulted by the people of his Ward regarding their personal matters, their business affairs, their spiritual problems and relations, and all of the problems of life.

As to the office of Bishop, the Lord has declared that “the office of a bishop is in administering all temporal things”, “having a knowledge of them by the Spirit of truth”. Bishops are “to have it given unto them to discern all those gifts lest there shall be any among you professing and yet be not of God”; they are “to keep the Lord’s storehouse; to receive the funds of the church. . . to take an account of the elders as before has been commanded; and to administer their wants, who shall pay for that which they receive, inasmuch as they have wherewith to pay; that this also may be consecrated to the good of the church, to the poor and needy. And he who hath not wherewith to pay, an account shall be taken and handed over to the bishop of Zion, who shall pay the debt out of that which the Lord shall put into his hands.” The Bishop “should travel round about and among all the churches, searching after the poor to administer to their wants by humbling the rich and the proud.”

It may be observed in passing that the whole male body of the Mormon Church from twelve years of age and up bears some degree of the Priesthood. We have no regular ministry. Any good man may be called, and practically all good men are at one time or another in their lives called to do work for the Church. All such serve gratuitously. There are fewer than twenty-five offices in the Church that might be regarded as life offices, and these compose what are known as the General Authorities of the Church.

The offices other than General Authorities are changed at intervals so as to give more men the opportunity to serve. There are women’s organizations also. Of the total body of the Church there are perhaps as many as 25% who are constantly in active gratuitous Church service, and since the bulk of these may be replaced, it is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that as many as 60% to 70% of the whole membership of the Church, men and women, have at some time during their lives an opportunity to have a position of office or trust in the Church government. Thus the great bulk of the people, men and women, have opportunity both to serve and to direct, to be ruled and to rule. This is a priceless experience for many people.

You ought also to have in mind that the Church is supported principally by the tithes of the people. Every man and woman earning money is supposed to pay a tenth of his annual income into the Church. As stated above, our total Church membership is not in excess of between eight hundred and nine hundred thousand people. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of seven hundred and fifty thousand in the United States. Our annual budget for building church edifices of various kinds, for schools, hospitals, the maintenance of houses of worship, maintenance of temples, Church Welfare Plan, missionary service, etc., etc., totals about five millions of dollars.

In addition to the tithing we have fast offerings. On the first Sunday of each month, each member is expected to fast for two meals and to give the cost of these meals to the Bishop of the Ward for his use in taking care of the poor. The people make other contributions for building their chapels and maintaining the General Welfare Plan.

When our people first came to Utah under the leadership of Brigham Young, they came as refugees from mob drivings, plunderings, and outrages first from Ohio to Missouri, then from Missouri to Illinois, and then out of Illinois to the West. They traveled to Utah from the Missouri River by ox-team. There was no railroad west of the Mississippi River when they came here. For many years, indeed until after the Civil War, such food, clothing, etc. as they brought from the outside had to be brought by ox-team more than a thousand miles over plains, mountains, rivers, and deserts. Of necessity the people had to become self-supporting and produce practically everything which they consumed. The hardship of pioneer life thus built into the warp and woof of the grandparents and parents of the present generation the sterling qualities of thrift, industry, honesty, integrity, sobriety, independence, love of liberty, and all the sterling virtues that go to make up a great people. The support of “home industry” was one of the cardinal principles of the great commonwealth they were founding. We were to be essentially self sustaining and self contained.

From their earliest days here Brigham Young sent out colonies to build up communities all over this intermountain area. Each of these communities had first to be practically fully self supporting, and they did not cease, for very many years, to be interdependent among themselves.

Brigham Young established in those early days many industries—some of which afterwards disappeared: the silk industry, the iron industry, woolen factories, the raising of cotton in the southern part of the state, and many other things. President Grant as a boy carried a surveyor’s chain in surveying the ditch for diverting water from the Virgin River to irrigate the first cotton in Utah’s “Dixie.”

Later, under President Woodruff the sugar industry was established. The Church fathered and built, with the help of some private Mormon capital, the best sugar industry in the West. They built the first beet sugar factory that used sugar machinery wholly built in the United States. In the effort to set up this industry President Heber J. Grant lost over a hundred thousand dollars of his own personal funds at a time when the purchasing power of the dollar was very much greater than now. (?) This beet sugar industry was established in order that the farmers might be helped through raising a cash crop.

Moved by the instructions quoted above as to the duty and responsibility of the Church to care for the widow, the orphan, and the poor, we recently intensified our efforts in this direction, though under plans which have, in fact, been in the Church for a hundred years, by setting up what we have called our General Welfare Program. The primary aim of this program is to provide for the material wants of faithful members of the Church who find themselves now in difficulty, to rebuild them spiritually, and to restore to them the proper concept, pride, and appreciation of American citizenship. (!) This plan has as a fundamental concept on the material side that no one shall receive help who, being able to work, does not work. We are trying (check mark) to provide work for the needy to do. This has not always been easy, but the effort has been and is continuous to bring this about. The great bulk of the material used in this work of caring for the poor is produced by the Welfare Plan itself, and in greatest part by the gratuitous labors of Church members—both those who receive the help and those who do not need help. The distributions which we shall make during the remainder of this year, and until harvest time next year, will have been gratuitously produced by the Welfare Plan up to as much as perhaps between 70% and 80%. All the Church organizations collaborate in this Plan. As we said to you in an earlier letter, we have, through this Plan, been able to help tens of thousands of our people all over the western part of the United States, and indeed in the East. We visualize, if present tendencies continue, that our problem may be immeasurably intensified when the World War ends and the nations sink back into the depression which seems certainly to follow. (?) It is our earnest hope, and indeed belief, that we shall be able so to stabilize our people under those circumstances by mutual helpfulness (X), by the building up of an actual sense of brotherhood among men, that our people will be able to stand the test which then comes, without slipping too far back in all those humanitarian principles and sterling virtues upon which our present civilization is based.

No effort has been spared to teach the people to be self reliant, independent, to take a humble, righteous pride in being, individually and as communities, fully self supporting. They have been taught the principles of uncorrupted government through their activities in a gratuitous Church service. They have learned to love liberty and they have been taught by dire tragedies what all the freedoms mean, especially freedom of conscience. Through everything that has been done and behind everything that has been accomplished by the people were the great spiritual principles to which we have alluded above.

We have spoken above largely of the material matters, but along culture and spiritual lines the people have been equally devoted. Within three years from the time of their coming here they set up what was called the University of Deseret. From that time until this the Church has encouraged education and culture. Of their musical culture the present Tabernacle Choir stands as the best known and outstanding example, but in art, in literature, and in science they are equally proficient. Some of our early buildings are noted among architects the world over as constituting some of the most beautiful architecture in all America. Today practically one-fifth of our annual budget is devoted to education, music, and the cultivation of the fine arts. The Brigham Young University doing regular college work has more than three thousand students. In addition to that the Church has established at college centers in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, California, Arizona, a series of Institutes where religion is taught and cultural activities engaged in. It has established Seminaries where the same sort of instruction is given adjacent to high schools all over the State of Utah and in some parts of the adjoining states. More than thirty thousand students attend these Institutes and Seminaries. The result of this attitude towards education is that Utah stands practically at the head of the list of all the States for literacy, although it is still in many respects a frontier community and statistics available indicate that there are proportionately more men and women who have obtained sufficient national prominence to be included in Who’s Who than any other State in the Union, and the great bulk of these persons are members of the Mormon Church. (!)

These things have been told in order that you may have a background and understanding of what we are now to say.

Viewing all of these things it will be easy for you to understand that the Church has not found it possible to follow along the lines of the present general tendency in the matter of property rights, taxes, the curtailment of rights and liberties of the people, nor in general the economic policies of what is termed the “New Deal”. The great bulk of what these people are trying to do is, in final analysis, absolutely contrary to the fundamental principles of which we have spoken. It is the considered, long considered opinion of President Grant and those who are associated with him, that our nation cannot be preserved if the present governmental policies shall continue. We do not believe that any other great nation or great civilization can be built up or maintained by the use of such policies. As we see one liberty after another encroached upon, we look with deepest anxiety toward the possibility of an attempt to take away religious freedom from the American people. We went through this experience in our early days. We know from the stories of our fathers and our grandfathers what it means to be deprived of the right to worship God according to the dictates of our consciences, and of the hardships and tragedy that accompany such a denial. We face this situation and this possibility, we repeat, with deepest apprehension.

As we see it, there is no way in which we can, to use your own words, “preserve and perpetuate our freedom—freedom to govern ourselves, freedom of speech, and freedom to worship God according to our own light,” except we shall turn away from our present course and resume the normal course along which this great country traveled to its present high eminence of prosperity, of culture, of universal education, and of the peace and contentment which we enjoyed prior to the inauguration of the “New Deal”. (1932-3)

These things are not matters of partisan politics with us. We care nothing as Church leaders about partisan politics as such, nor about the dominance of one party or the other. We grant to every man the right to vote as he wishes, and we would not control his vote even if we could. But we do reserve to ourselves the right to tell our people what we think is right regarding politics as affecting the fundamentals of our government system, to warn them of the dangers that lie under the present course, and to try to persuade them that their peace, their happiness, and their security do not lie along the path of the present trends of government.

Truly, we do not believe that—again to quote your own words—we can “preserve and perpetuate our freedom—freedom to govern ourselves, freedom of speech, and freedom to worship God according to our own light” unless we turn squarely about and return to the old-time virtues, and reenthrone our liberties and free institutions.

We have done in the past, we are doing now, and we shall continue in the future to do everything within our power to secure this turning about of which we speak. We confess to you that it has not been possible for us to unify our own people even upon the necessity of such a turning about, and therefore we cannot, unfortunately, and we say it regretfully, make any practical suggestion to you as to how the nation can be turned about. But the President of the United States could do it in good part if he were willing to exert his effort along that line, but this he appears not to be willing to do. (!)

We pray—and when we say we pray, we mean we offer a supplication to our God and your God who we believe can hear and answer prayers and does do so—that wisdom will be given to our national leaders to the end that we may face about and return to the old virtues. We shall continue our supplication and to our supplication we shall add such works as we are able to do, to bring this about.

Now we have said all of the foregoing with a complete understanding in our own minds that we have said nothing or little of anything that may now be of practical value, but this much we feel we can definitely say, that unless the people of America forsake the sins and the errors, political and otherwise, of which they are now guilty and return to the practice of the great fundamental principles of Christianity, and of Constitutional government, there will be no exaltation for them spiritually, and politically we shall lose our liberty and free institutions.

Returning to our your original letter and our reply thereto regarding the selling of Defense Bonds. The Church as a Church does not believe in war and yet since its organization whenever war has come we have done our part. Our members served in the war with Mexico, not such much in the Civil War because we were so far away, but our members went into the Spanish-American War and they went into the World War, and the records will show that they acquitted themselves honorably. But, nevertheless, we repeat, we are against war. We believe that international difficulties can and should be settled by peaceful means, and that America’s great mission in the world is to bring this about. We believe that our entry into this present war by sending our men abroad (and this seems now to be deliberately planned) would constitute not only a mistake but a tragedy. We believe that the present war is merely a breaking out again of the old spirit of hatred and envy that has afflicted Europe for a period of a thousand years at least. We do not believe that this war will settle anything when it is over because we believe that the peace, whoever dictates it, will be primarily the outgrowth of hate, and hate never settled anything righteously.

However, we do thoroughly believe in building up our home defenses to the maximum extent necessary, but we do not believe that aggression should be carried on in the name and under the false cloak of defense. (!) We therefore look with sorrowing eyes at the present use to which a great part of the funds being raised by taxes and by borrowing is being put. We are much impressed with the views of those military and naval men who say we are not militarily threatened (Lindberg). We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from that underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely, the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe. We feel that our defenses should be built against this danger even more than the touted danger of foreign military invasion which many responsible military men tell us cannot come.

Perhaps we might close with a statement that should be unnecessary to make. We love America; we love the Constitution; we love the Government that has been established under it; we love our liberties and our free institutions; we believe in them; we believe that God actually ordained this in order that we, the Mormon people might be set up and established, for our revelations declare we hold the true plan of life and salvation.We wish to do all that is humanly possible to do to preserve our free institutions and this Constitution and the Government as it was set up under it; we do not wish knowingly to do one act or to say one thing that will tend to destroy these divinely given privileges and blessings.

We trust you will pardon this long letter, but we feel we must say that you invited it.

Trusting that the Lord will point out some way, will somehow bring about a rejuvenation of the American spirit along with a true love of freedom and of our free institutions, and for Constitutional government, we are,

Faithfully yours,

Heber J. Grant
J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
David O. McKay
The First Presidency

Emphasis added.

Original document available at: http://www.connorboyack.com/blog/images/fp_1941.pdf