Topic: Government, Downfall, Matches 12 quotes.

Now these wise men that the Lord raised up during the days of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Robert Morris, and Hamilton, provided a pattern of government for us to follow, a pattern of government which has brought to us numerous blessings, a form of government that has made us the strongest, and, may I say, the richest nation in all the world, because it has been founded upon the principle of free agency. Every individual has had the right to do the thing that he has wanted to do in the fields of industry, agriculture, or whatnot. He has had the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. He has had the right to own property. He has had the right to speak as he sees fit, and he has enjoyed the privilege of a great and free press. But, on the other hand, we find that the philosophy of the evil one would teach us that, after all, our government should be centralized in the hands of one or two men. Some advocate changing the form of our government. They advocate regimentation of industry and labor. They advocate that deficit spending is the sure way to prosperity. They would pervert the Constitution. They have endeavored through the various educational systems of this great country to teach us doctrines that are contrary to the doctrines and the principles upon which this great republic is founded. They would restrict us in our religious worship. They would disrupt family relationships. And so as we compare these two great systems, we can readily see that they are but a carry-over from that great battle which took place in the spirit world.

Source: Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
General Conference, October 1946

Topics: America, Heritage; Free Agency; Government, Downfall

An Apostasy From True Democracy

And as I view conditions today in the light of Jefferson’s prophecy, a great apostasy has taken place from “the law and the testimony” of American democracy, or the Constitution of the United States. Just as there has been an apostasy from the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, there has been an apostasy from those divinely given principles of Government which have been transmitted to us by the inspired’ men who founded this great nation.

What is apostasy? Webster defines apostasy as being: “Abandonment of what one has voluntarily professed; total desertion of principles or faith.”

Stop and think for a moment if you will, of the statement of Jefferson and then of what is transpiring today. “A single zealot may become persecutor.” And a situation of this kind is evidenced in our Government today wherein bureaucrats call free men before them, try them, and sentence them. In addition thereto, bureaucrats have assumed the right or taken the privilege of enacting law, depriving the national assembly and representatives of the people of the sole right to legislate, and have deprived the judiciary of its right to try offenders of the law.

Source: Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Downfall

Upholding The Constitution

Finally, if we would make the world better, let us foster a keener appreciation of the freedom and liberty guaranteed by the government of the United States as framed by the founders of this nation. Here again self-proclaimed progressives cry that such old-time adherence is out of date. But there are some fundamental principles of this Republic which, like eternal truths, never get out of date, and which are applicable at all times to liberty-loving peoples. Such are the underlying principles of the Constitution, a document framed by patriotic, freedom-loving men, who Latter-day Saints declare were inspired by the Lord.

This date, October 6, has been set apart by churches as “Loyalty Day.” It is highly fitting, therefore, as a means of making the world better, not only to urge loyalty to the Constitution and to threatened fundamentals of the United States government, but to warn the people that there is evidence in the United States of disloyalty to tried and true fundamentals in government. There are unsound economic theories; there are European “isms,” which, termite like, secretly and, recently, quite openly, and defiantly, are threatening to undermine our democratic institutions.

Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined—liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Government, Downfall; Responsibility

Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what has worked with what sounded good. In area after area—crime, education, housing, race relations—the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.

Source: Thomas Sowell
Is Reality Optional?, 1993

Topics: Central Planning; Government, Domestic Policy; Government, Downfall

Peace will come and be maintained only through the triumph of the principles of peace, and by the consequent subjugation of the enemies of peace, which are hatred, envy, ill-gotten gain, the exercise of unrighteous dominion of men. Yielding to these evils brings misery to the individual, unhappiness to the home, war among nations, with resultant misery and death.

Two thousand years ago Jesus wept over Jerusalem, the inhabitants of which were blind to the things which pertained to their peace. Today contention, strife and hatred are manifest between capital and labor unions, and bitterness among advocates of Nazism, Fascism, Communism, and Capitalism. No matter how excellent any of these may seem in the minds of their advocates, none will ameliorate the ills of mankind unless its operation in government be impregnated with the basic principles promulgated by the Savior of men. On the contrary, even a defective economic system will produce good results if the men who direct it will be guided by the spirit of Christ.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference October 1944

Topics: Christianity; Free Agency; Government, Downfall; Peace

When I think of these wise men, George Washington and Jefferson and Franklin, I think of men who were servants of God, raised up for the purpose of establishing the Constitution and establishing this great government. Thomas Jefferson was endowed from on high with prophetic power. If you will study the Doctrines of Democracy as advocated by Thomas Jefferson one hundred thirty years ago, you will find that in many respects we have departed from the principles that made us a great and powerful nation.

Source: Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
General Conference, October 1946

Topics: America, Heritage; Christianity; Government, Downfall

The Church is little, if at all, injured by persecution and calumnies from ignorant, misinformed, or malicious enemies. A greater hindrance to its progress comes from faultfinders, shirkers, commandment-breakers, and apostate cliques within its own ecclesiastical and quorum groups.

So it is with any government. It is the enemy from within that is most menacing, especially when it threatens to disintegrate established forms of good government.

Today, there are in this country enemies in the form of “isms.” I call them anti-Americanisms, and what is true in America is true in other countries. Only a few of the leaders fight openly; most of the army carry on as termites, secretly sowing discord and undermining stable government.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1967

Topics: Government, Downfall

The people have been forgotten by the administrators of their Government. There is no question about it. Many Governmental policies now in operation are being imposed upon the people without their consent or knowledge. In contemplation of these conditions, it can readily be seen that a great apostasy from “the law and the testimony” of the American democracy, the Constitution, is taking shape and form.

Furthermore, the people are being lulled to sleep by an opiate called “borrowed prosperity.” As Jefferson indicated, the people are so inclined toward the gaining of wealth they are forsaking the fundamental law of this great republic.

A new danger—American being arrayed against American in a new line of class demarkation which will divide this great nation, and, as has been said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

One of these groups in the face of a national emergency is literally lying down on the job, while our boys are in the military camps without proper weapons in their hands to learn the science of war. In the days of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln such a situation would have been handled as rebellion, and it should be handled as such today if America and American institutions are to continue.

Source: Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Government, Downfall

No Man Sees End

No thinking person doubts that our people, our nation, and the world are now passing through one of the great crises of the world’s history. We are in the midst of a world-wide revolution, which is wholly alien to our free institutions and is foreign in birth, concept, and directing head. No man, of his own power, sees the end. But the end the revolutionists seek is fairly clear; it is the overturning of the whole existing order, political, financial, economic, social, religious, the complete destruction of our Constitution and the government established under it, and then the setting up of some sort of despotism that shall destroy, in all these fields, the free agency which the Lord gave to man. The revolutionists plan that this is to be largely done during the war, under the plea of war necessity; it is to be continued after the war under the excuse—if we are not then too cowed to require an excuse—that this new political order is necessary that we may rehabilitate the world. They count that then, after a little time, the revolution will be secure. There seems no doubt that this is their conscious, deliberate, planned end. We have gone a long way already down this road.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Downfall

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