Topic: Politics, Matches 42 quotes.

Few of us seem to want to keep government out of our personal affairs and responsibilities. Many of us seem to favor various types of government-guaranteed and compulsory “security.” We say that we want personal freedom, but we demand government housing, government price controls, government-guaranteed jobs and wages. We boast that we are responsible persons, but we vote for candidates who promise us special privileges, government pensions, and government subsidies.

Many of us are drifting back to that old concept of government that our forefathers feared and rejected. Many of us are now looking to government for security. Many of us are no longer willing to accept individual responsibility for our own welfare. Yet personal freedom cannot exist without individual responsibility.

Source: Dean Russell
Personal Freedom and Individual Responsibility

Topics: Free Agency; Politics

“Wherefore, honest men, and wise men, should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.”

The question in my mind is this: Who is to judge who are the good men and the wise men? If you leave me to judge, I say one man; if you leave Brother Brigham to judge, he may say another man; or, if we leave it to the people to judge, one says this is the wise man, and another says that is the wise man. The question with me is: Am I in a frame of mind, that when I get the word of the Lord as to who is the right man, will I obey it, no matter if it does come contrary to my convictions or predilections? If I feel that I can obey the word of God on this matter, then I am in harmony with the spirit of the work of God. If I cannot do it, I am not in harmony with that spirit.”

Source: President Joseph F. Smith
General Conferece, October 1900

Topics: Politics; Voting

True Statesmen

We have had Democratic Presidents, Whig Presidents, a pseudo-Democratic-Whig President, and now it is time to have a President of the United States; and let the people of the whole Union, like the inflexible Romans, whenever they find a promise made by a candidate that is not practiced as an officer, hurl the miserable sycophant from his exaltation, as God did Nebuchadnezzar, to crop the grass of the field with a beast’s heart among the cattle.

Source: Joseph Smith
1844, Documentary History of Church, Vol 6:207

Topics: Politics; Statesmanship

The Political Approach

When a politician views society from the seclusion of his office, he is struck by the spectacle of the inequality that he sees. He deplores the deprivations which are the lot of so many of our brothers, deprivations which appear to be even sadder when contrasted with luxury and wealth.

Perhaps the politician should ask himself whether this state of affairs has not been caused by old conquests and lootings, and by more recent legal plunder. Perhaps he should consider this proposition: Since all persons seek well-being and perfection, would not a condition of justice be sufficient to cause the greatest efforts toward progress, and the greatest possible equality that is compatible with individual responsibility? Would not this be in accord with the concept of individual responsibility which God has willed in order that mankind may have the choice between vice and virtue, and the resulting punishment and reward?

But the politician never gives this a thought. His mind turns to organizations, combinations, and arrangements—legal or apparently legal. He attempts to remedy the evil by increasing and perpetuating the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder. We have seen that justice is a negative concept. Is there even one of these positive legal actions that does not contain the principle of plunder?

Source: Frederic Bastiat
The Law

Topics: Justice; Politics

They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community, and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.

Source: George Washington
Farewell Address

Topics: Politics

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

Party Passions

Speaking of the rancor of party spirit and the results which flow from it, Washington said:

“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasional riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”

Source: J. Reuben Clark
“Stand Fast by Our Constitution”

Topics: Politics

Party Above Country?

Why do men place party above country? One of the answers is obvious, namely, for selfish personal interest and the emoluments of office. The other answer is not quite so apparent. It is, so it seems to me, a lack of an adequate concept of the place and function of government in human affairs. Now the only remedy I know for the eradication of the misconception is in the inculcation of the Savior’s doctrine of altruistic service. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matt. 16:25.) This unselfish doctrine is the true foundation for neighborliness and friendliness among men and for the great principles of charity and love. Contraction of the heart is perhaps the most malignant malady afflicting the world. I know of no prescription nearly so effective as that of giving—giving one’s substance and giving one’s self. You may well measure the patriotism and real devotion of citizens of this country to its institutions and lofty ideals by the extent to which selfish ends are subordinated to the common good. It is a very definite perversion of the rightful place and concept of party organization and procedure in our government to subordinate the nation’s prestige and welfare to partisan preferment and personal aggrandizement. I am pleased to observe that there are indications which point to better conditions in this respect.

Source: Elder Stephen L. Richards
Where is Wisdom?, p. 283 - 284

Topics: Politics

I am pro-Constitution, pro-Government, as it was established under the Constitution, pro-free institutions, as they have been developed under and through the Constitution, pro-liberty, pro-freedom, pro-full and complete independence and sovereignty, pro-local self-government, and pro-everything else that has made us the free country we had grown to be in the first 130 years of our national existence.

It necessarily follows that I am anti-internationalist, anti-interventionist, anti-meddlesome-busybodiness in our international affairs. In the domestic field, I am anti-socialist, anti-Communist, anti-Welfare State. I am what the kindlier ones of all these latter people with whom I am denying any association or sympathy, would call a rabid reactionary (I am not, in fact, that). Some of the unkindly ones will shrug their shoulders and say, “He is just a doddering ‘old fogy.’” I admit the age, but deny the rest of the allegation—the doddering and fogyness. Some will join issue with me on this personal estimate and conclusion; but so be it.

As I proceed, some will say, “Oh, he is talking about the past; but this is a new world, new conditions, new problems,” and so on. To this I will content myself with answering—human nature does not change; in its basic elements it now is as it was at the dawn of history, as our present tragic plight shows. Even savages inflict no greater inhumanities than are going on in the world today.

In the mad thrusting of ourselves, with a batch of curative political nostrums, into the turmoil and tragedy of today’s world, we are like a physician called in to treat a virulent case of smallpox, and whose treatment consists in getting into bed with his patient. That is not the way to cure smallpox.

Source: J. Reuben Clark
Stand Fast by Our Constitution, pp. 96-7

Topics: Politics

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