Topic: Freedom, Loss of, Matches 54 quotes.

George Washington on the Evils of Faction

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.

Source: George Washington

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Politics

Compelling Concepts

Among these elemental concepts is the love of freedom; it is found in man not only, but even in the brutes. Man and beast rebel against slavery. They yield to it only under compelling force.

Another elemental eternal concept is belief in God, which may ripen into a knowledge of God. Normal man ultimately demands this belief to make mortality tolerable.

Modern communism as explained by communists who are in places where they speak their real minds, deny God, declare that other men are beasts that must be tamed and worked as beasts. This is an enemy that threatens us within and without. This is not a Godless world.

But men cannot be led indefinitely, nor driven by a savage despotism, down this road to an intellectual and moral abyss. They may follow along for a generation or two. But they will one day rebel against the rule of liquidation. No group can permanently maintain itself by murder, as history proves from the days of the hideous proscription lists of Sulla till now. Fear and ruthless cruelty can rule for a time, but the spirit of liberty ultimately breaks forth and sweeps away everything that lies in its path.

So it will be with communism, which now on a world scale may well be only doing the work of the Paris mobs in the French Revolution, for there are fields of human endeavor where the power of birth and station still afflict man’s growth and development.

Source: J. Reuben Clark
Stand Fast by Our Constitution, p 79-80.

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

Something is weakening the moral fiber of the American people. We have always had couples live together without marriage, but we have not honored it as an acceptable lifestyle. We have always had children born out of wedlock, but we have never made it to be respectable. And we have never before regarded babies, conceived in wedlock or out, to be an inconvenience and destroyed them by the thousands through abortion. And this while barren couples yearn for a child to raise.

We have always had some who followed a life of perversion, but we have never before pushed through legislation to protect that way of life lest we offend the rights of an individual. We have never been this liberated before.

We have always had those who were guilty of criminal acts, but we have not put the rights of the accused above the rights of the victim.

If one single soul does not wish to listen for a moment to a public prayer, one which does not offend, even pleases the majority, we are told we must now eliminate prayer completely from all of public life.

We have always had addictive drugs, but not in the varieties we have now and not widely sold near public schools, even elementary schools. When perversion and addiction are justified as the expression of individual rights and call up a pestilence which threatens even the innocent, must the right of privacy preclude even testing to find where it is moving? What kind of individual freedom is this, anyway?

Did our young men die for this? We have always held the rights of the individual to be sovereign. But we have never before placed the collective rights of the majority in subjugation to the individual rights of any single citizen.

Any virtue, pressed to an extreme, becomes a vice; thrift becomes stinginess, generosity becomes wastefulness, self-confidence becomes pride, humility becomes weakness—and on and on. Individual rights as an ideal cannot endure except there be respect for the agency of others. There is no true freedom without responsibility. Freedom without restraint becomes tyranny of a new and fatal kind.

Source: Elder Boyd K. Packer
Address given 25 June 1989 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Morality

Freedom certainly cannot exist under a system where the citizens are stripped of individuality and pressed into the classless society by a despotic state, where men and women are compelled to exist as faceless worker bees. That is slavery!

Neither can freedom long survive in a society where the rights of the individual are fanatically promoted regardless of what happens to society itself. The rights of the individual, the ideal, the virtue, when pressed to the extreme, like other virtues, will presently become a vice. Without some balance, activists, lawyers, legislators, judges, and courts who think they are protecting individual freedom are in fact fabricating a new and subtle and sinister kind of dictatorship.

Source: Elder Boyd K. Packer
Address given 25 June 1989 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Virtue

What would Washington have thought if he could have foreseen our day? Would he have signed the document?

I believe he would have been troubled to see a time when citizens are forbidden to pray in public meetings; when people claim that “you can’t legislate morality,” as if any law ever passed did not have at its heart some notion of right and wrong; when churches are called intruders when they speak out against public policy that is contrary to the commandments of God; when many people reject the correcting influence of churches if it infringes on daily living; when religion is accepted as a social organization but not as an integral part of national culture; when people bristle if churches speak in any forum except from the pulpit.

Indeed, some people now claim that the founding fathers’ worst fear in connection with religion has been realized; that we have, in fact, a state-sponsored religion in America today. This new religion, adopted by many, does not have an identifiable name, but it operates just like a church. It exists in the form of doctrines and beliefs, where morality is whatever a person wants it to be, and where freedom is derived from the ideas of man and not from the laws of God. Many people adhere to this concept of morality with religious zeal and fervor, and courts and legislatures tend to support it.

While you may think I am stretching the point a bit to say that amorality could be a new state-sponsored religion, I believe you would agree that we do not have to look far to find horrifying evidence of rampant immorality that is permitted if not encouraged by our laws. From the plague of pornography to the devastation caused by addiction to drugs, illicit sex, and gambling, wickedness rears its ugly head everywhere, often gaining its foothold in society by invoking the powers of constitutional privilege.

We see a sad reality of contemporary life when many of the same people who defend the right of a pornographer to distribute exploitive films and photos would deny freedom of expression to people of faith because of an alleged fear of what might happen from religious influence on government or public meetings. While much of society has allowed gambling to wash over its communities, leaving broken families and individuals in its soul-destroying wake, it reserves its harshest ridicule for those who advocate obedience to God’s commandments and to uniform, inspired standards of right and wrong.

Source: Elder M. Russell Ballard
Address given 5 July 1992 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

The constitutional provisions relating to government and religion were not intended to control the religious rights of people. Rather, they were intended to expand them and eliminate the fear of government intrusion. These provisions were meant to separate religion and government so that religion would be independent. The experiences of Roger Williams and other reformers provided our constitutional fathers with important facts to help them deal with the potential risks of a state religion corrupted by politics. Consequently, they drafted an article in the Bill of Rights to guarantee religious freedom from government as opposed to government freedom from religion.

In fact, the framers of the Constitution probably assumed that religious freedom would establish religion as a watchdog over government, and believed that free churches would inevitably stand and speak against immoral or corrupt legislation. To do so, all churches not only have the right to speak out on public moral issues but they also have the solemn obligation to do so. Religion represents society’s conscience, and must speak out when govern ment chooses a course that is contrary to the laws of God. To remove the influence of religion from public policy simply because some are uncomfortable with any degree of moral restraint is like the passenger on a sinking ship who removes his life jacket because it is restrictive and uncomfortable.

We live in a day of political and social unrest. People are beginning to understand that more money and new government programs do not solve the problems of disintegrating morality in our homes and communities. People in the land have a feeling that things are not right. Voters everywhere are looking for a great leader to come along and straighten everything out.

Source: Elder M. Russell Ballard
Address given 5 July 1992 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Bill of Rights; Freedom, Loss of

As we sing, for instance, of a “patriot dream that sees beyond the years,” it reminds us of the special perspective that patriotism possesses. True patriotism takes a long view of this nation’s needs. For instance, what does this reminding lyric tell us about our consistent and collective refusal, regardless of party, to face America’s mounting national debt and our destabilizing budget deficits? The national debt increases one billion dollars every 24 hours—or in other words, during the few minutes I occupy this pulpit, America’s national debt will grow by $694,444 per minute—approximately $21 million dollars! By this persistent lack of national resolve in our time we are robbing our children and grandchildren, however silently, of their economic freedom and future. We cannot seem to see beyond the political moment, let alone “beyond the years.” Indeed, if certain conditions remain uncorrected in a lasting way, the “patriots’ dream” may be replaced by some nightmares!

Source: Elder Neal A. Maxwell
Address given 4 July 1993 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Debt; Freedom, Loss of

In “America the Beautiful” we also sing about establishing a “thoroughfare of freedom.” Many of our streets, instead of being a “thoroughfare of freedom,” are unsafe. Ironically, drugs and pornography often have staked out their own well-worn “thoroughfares” or corridors, and “free” zones. Surely it is one of the first duties of government to protect its citizens. Nevertheless, however beefed up, law enforcement cannot realistically be expected to compensate fully for widespread lack of individual self-control.

We rightly sing about how a “good” America should be crowned “with brotherhood.” But instead of increasing brotherhood there is increasing separatism. There is even rising racism. Among our citizens there is also decreasing respect for each other. Engulfing gangs remind us soberingly of failing families and neighborhoods.

We sing, too, about how our “alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.” Yet our cities don’t gleam. Many are decaying, covered with graffiti. They are dimmed with human tears of desperation by those who feel left out of the American dream.

Source: Neal A. Maxwell
Address given 4 July 1993 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Morality; Responsibility

We cannot close our eyes to the fact that the world is ripening in iniquity. The present-day turmoil and bitter strivings threaten to undermine the basic foundations of Christian relationship. Liberty, freedom of speech, self-government, faith in God, and, particularly, faith in the efficacy of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ are facing a bombardment from the ranks of error such as the world has seldom if ever witnessed.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1969

Topics: Christianity; Freedom, Loss of

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