Topic: Freedom, Loss of, Matches 54 quotes.

It is true the world is passing through a period of transition, of sorrow, and to many of despair. Nations are being subjected to tyranny. The four devastating Horsemen—War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death—are galloping seemingly unchecked. The daily press announced recently—“The greatest battle of annihilation in all history.” Freedom of the individual to speak, to act, and to work is being shackled. Systems of government heretofore advocated as the best and safest for mankind are being questioned. Religious truths, once held sacred, are now doubted, ridiculed, or rejected. In some parts of the world, even hell itself seems to have broken loose, spreading hatred, terror and death in its wake. Now as never before we should put our trust in God, “stand fast in the faith, quit ourselves like men, be strong.”

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

With God denied there is none to whom man owes reverence. With reverence gone man is adrift. Each one’s notions have equal status with every other one’s notions, and no one knows what he ought to believe; respect for authority dies out because there is nothing authoritative left; veneration for parental authority breaks down and reverence for law ceases to command allegiance.

All these consequences are clearly revealed in the course of events, even in our own land. We of this generation received this great government of ours from the generations which had gone before sound in its principles, Its Constitution was everywhere held in reverence: Its laws were obeyed. No one doubted its superiority over every other form of government on earth. Every one had unshaken faith in its perpetuity. We pass it on with that faith terribly shaken. Its people are torn by dissension. They do not trust each other. They are not sure that after all our system of government is better than any other. They have grown cynical and doubt if good is to be found anywhere.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

In September, 1923, eighteen years ago, at a religious service in this Tabernacle, I mentioned certain trends I then saw. They were: a spirit of revolution that threatened the very foundations of government everywhere, indeed the destruction of the existing bodies politic of the world; the unrestricted immigration of aliens who were foreign and in tradition hostile to our systems of government; the enhancement of the power of the Federal Executive; the breaking down of the mutual independence of the three branches of government,—executive, judicial, and legislative; the disappearance of local self government and the assumption of control by the Federal Government of the very details of our lives; the curtailment of our constitutional guarantees under the Bill of Rights; the building of class in our nation and of class conflict and hatred; the spread of Bolshevism, we call it Communism now, working for the overthrow of our government, the doing away with religion, even the overturning of our family relationshps.

During the eighteen years passed since then, I have on all opportunities repeated these observations.

I will leave you to make up your own minds how far these trends have become realities.

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

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Loss of Freedom

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

We have used our freedom to renounce all discipline, and in the marvelous achievements of this industrial and scientific age we have grown arrogant and have discarded our ancient faith. The iconoclasts have been at work. Those egotists who cannot rest happy so long as an unsullied name, eclipsing their own, is allowed to stand untarnished, have been busy with their smear pots. They are called by the very ugly but very appropriate name de-bunkers. Nothing so much needs de-bunking as they themselves. Because they cannot dissect God and examine His parts they have denied that He is; they have scoffed at the divinity of Jesus and because His benignity and purity and unselfishness and all-embracing compassion so far transcend their cynical powers of comprehension, they have characterized Him a pretender and notoriety-seeking rabble rouser. The Ten Commandments are ridiculed as a defenseless and untrue imposition upon a primitive, uncultured and migrant people. Washington and Lincoln and the other great characters of history they have with profane hands dragged down from their high pedestals and have dissected bit by bit, searched out and with malicious glee thrown upon the screen the distorted and magnified image of their every foible and blemish. The founders of our government, the framers of our Constitution are converted into self-seeking aristocrats bent only on preserving their advantages of station, while that great instrument itself is made the embodiment of palpably absurd and now outmoded eighteenth century philosophy. They are determined that nothing shall remain sacred or be revered. They have succeeded only too well. To maintain itself strong in the present a people must be sustained by the consciousness of a noble past and the hope of a glorious future. Too much of the nobility of the past and the hope for the future has gone into eclipse.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

All Latter-day Saints and all thoughtful Americans feel that our last defense as a great democracy is righteous behavior, that the peace and perpetuity of this government depend upon the lives of its citizens, and no other people have a cleaner and deeper appreciation of the privileges and blessings of the great government that shelters us than have we.

Source: Elder Bryant S. Hinckley
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Morality; Peace

Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government.

Source: Henry Kissinger
speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992
Bilderburgers meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, his speech was taped by a Swiss delegate to the meeting.

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

The facts are, it is said, unemployment in this country was never so great, amiable relations between capital and labor were never so poor, taxes were never so high, amounts paid for relief under one title or another were never so vast, the debts of the government never so enormous, struggles for place and power never so fierce, in short, the future outlook for a united, prosperous and happy country, governed along the lines indicated by our Constitution, was never so dark.

But at best the situation is extremely complex. Certainly authors of panaceas that assume the situation is readily solvable must be classed as amiable cranks. But as I see it, in all the confusion, in all the struggles there stand out certain things when stripped of all their subterfuges and camouflages as clearly as a noon-day sun. What are they? My answer is greed and selfishness. Yes, I know there will be many, denials of this harsh conclusion. But I believe the conclusion is correct just the same.

Source: Elder Joseph F. Merrill
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

[I]t is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Source: Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

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