Topic: Rights, Matches 35 quotes.

Constitutional rights

Thus, under the guidance of the Lord was established a government based upon a written constitution in which were set forth the laws whereby its citizens were to maintain their freedom, freedom for us–

To live,

To pray and worship,

To work,

To own property,

To keep and bear arms,

To educate our children,

To assemble together,

To be tried by a jury,

To speak without fear of being cast into jail,

To go where we choose and do as we wish, so long as we do not jeopardize the rights, the welfare, and the safety of others.

Doubtless in all the world there is no document to compare with this “heavenly banner,” this “glorious standard,” the Constitution of the United States!

Source: Elder ElRay L. Christiansen
General Conference, October 1967

Topics: Rights; US Constitution

Thus, today, brethren, we are in danger of actually surrendering our personal and property rights. This development, if it does occur in full form, will be a sad tragedy for our people. We must recognize that property rights are essential to human liberty.

Former United States Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland, from our own State [Utah], carefully stated it as follows: “It is not the right of property which is protected, but the right to property. Property, per se has no rights; but the individual—the man—has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his life, the right to his liberty, and the right to his property. The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life, but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes life worth living. To give him liberty, but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to still leave him a slave.” (From George Sutherland’s speech before the New York State Bar Association, January 21, 1921.)

The bond of our secular covenant is the principle of constitutional government. That principle is, in itself, eternal and everlasting, despite the pretensions of temporary tyrannies. The principle of tyranny maintains that human beings are incurably selfish and therefore cannot govern themselves. This concept flies in the face of the wonderful declaration of the Prophet Joseph Smith that the people are to be taught correct principles, and then they are to govern themselves. Dictatorship, however, argues that the people should be governed by the individual or a clique who can seize power through subversion or outright bloodshed. Further, the people are declared to be without guarantees or rights, and the regime is claimed to exist beholden only to the plans and whims of the ruling tyrant.

Our founding fathers, despite some natural fears, clearly regarded the promulgation of the Constitution of the United States as their greatest triumph.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1962

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Rights

One of the great fundamentals advocated by the founders of this American nation was that of frugal administration of government affairs. Never before in the history of the world has there been such an extravagant expenditure of the people’s money.

Someone made reference to four or five freedoms. We have had more than four or five freedoms, for I think of at least the sixth one—the right under the Constitution of the United States for every man to work how, when, or where he will—and that right has disappeared. It is gone and now lies in the hands of a group who rule the laboring class of the United States.

I point out these few facts to you in substantiation of the point that as a people and a government we are on the high road of apostasy from that inspired Bill of Rights bequeathed to us by the founders of this great republic.

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

Topics: Bill of Rights; Free Agency; Rights

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God?

Source: Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia

Topics: Rights

As the state’s steady growth over the last 70 years indicates, once the government becomes the supplier of people’s needs, there is no limit to the needs that will be claimed as a basic right.

Source: Lawrence Auster

Topics: Government, Tyranny; Rights

From the scorching fires of every persecution there has arisen some leader with a tongue of fire who has been inspired by the love of Jesus Christ to call men to a higher, a purer and a better life. Jesus promoted the rights of mankind. He is the Creator, he is the Architect of the republican form of government.

Source: Clarence True Wilson
As quoted by Elder Richard R. Lyman in General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Rights

Rights for Robots

Millions of our people now look to the government much in the same fashion that their fathers of Victorian times looked to God. Political authority has taken the place of heavenly guidance.

Herbert Spencer in that wonderful prophecy, The Man Versus the State, explained in detail what would happen. He foretold with exactitude the present rush of the weaklings for jobs as planners and permitters, telling other people what not to do.

You will have noticed that while we are all under the thumb of authority, authority becomes composed of those who, lacking the courage to stand on their own feet and accept their share of personal responsibility, seek the safety of official positions where they escape the consequences of error and failure. Active, energetic, and progressive persons, instead of leading the rest, are allowed to move only by the grace and favor of that section of the population which from its very nature lacks all the qualities needed to produce the desired results. Authority is the power to say no, which requires little or no ability.

On a broad view, the all-important issue in the world today is individualism versus collectivism.

The Individualist thinks of millions of single human souls, each with a spark of divine genius, and visualizes that genius applied to the solution of his own problems. His conception is infinitely higher than that of the politician or planner who at best regards these millions as material for social or political experiment or, at worst, cannon fodder.

Source: Sir Ernest Benn
As quoted in The Freeman, December 1992, p.480

Topics: Rights; Socialism

To the founders, a “right” was a moral imperative by which each person exercises the freedom to be what his qualities and potentials make of him, secure in his person and property, and without transgressing that same right of others. His “rights” thus impose no obligation on others except that they abstain from violating them.

Source: Lawrence W. Reed
Clichés of Politics, p13

Topics: Rights

Men may succeed, by devious means, in taking property that does not belong to them, but such practices will destroy the moral fiber of their being. Right of property is guaranteed to us under the constitution. It is true we are subject to the government and to its regulations; and it is true also that we must cooperate in sustaining the government, but at the same time the rights of property can not be made null and void without destroying the spirit and appreciation of fairness among mankind.

Source: Elder Sylvester Q. Cannon
General Conference, October 1934

Topics: Rights

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