Maintaining our Freedom

What is our position today? Take, for example, public affairs. I read recently a comment of one of our national statesmen, Adlai Stevenson, “Our condition has nothing to do with any deficiency of technology or resources. It is a matter of people forgetting that political freedom can be sustained only by continuing individual commitment.” As he continues: “The great German poet Goethe, who also lived through a crisis of freedom, said to his generation ‘What you have inherited from your fathers, earn over again for yourselves or it will not be yours.’ We inherited freedom. We seem unaware that it has to be remade and re-earned in each generation of man.”

Source: Elder Henry D. Moyle
April 1959 General Conference

Topics: Freedom

The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be, liberty.

Source: Fisher Ames
a framer of the bill of rights

Topics: Democracy

We have seen the tumults of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.

Source: Gouverneur Morris
signer and penman of the constitution

Topics: Democracy

Peace - A triumph of Principles

Peace must be a triumph of principles. Selfishness and lack of patience seem to block the way. We cry out today with urgency, “Have mercy, O Lord, upon all the nations of the earth; have mercy upon the rulers of our land; may those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever.” (D&C 109:54.) The respected Winston Churchill once said, “The day will come when...victorious nations will plan and build in justice and freedom a house of many mansions, where there will be room for all.

Source: Marvin J. Ashton
General Conference, October 1985

Topics: Peace

No Place for Fear

So among the Latter-day Saints, particularly, there should be no fears, even in a world where many people are concerned about atom bombs, the hydrogen bomb; where many are fearing Communism and some are talking fearfully of a depression. There need be no fear in the hearts of Latter-day Saints. People who live the gospel, who keep the commandments, who trust in God and do that which is right, need never fear because God speaks peace to the honest in heart through his Spirit. Said the Lord in the 11th section of the Doctrine and Covenants:

And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good—yea, to do justly . . to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit. (D&C 11:12.)

Source: Elder Ezra Taft Benson
General Conference, April 1954

Topics: Fear

True Freedom

Someone has said, “There are two freedoms; the false freedom where one is free to do what he likes, and the true freedom where one is free to do what he ought to do.”

I think it is appropriate and timely to discuss some things as they are and can be, as well as to consider the difference between loyalty and disloyalty as pertains to the true and false freedoms.

First, loyalty to true freedom principles or causes embraces love, dedication, faith, allegiance, willingness to sacrifice, and many other qualities that contribute to achievement and happiness.

Disloyalty to true freedom principles or causes embraces betrayal, unfaithfulness, disaffection, sedition, infidelity, and other qualities that contribute to failure, destruction, and unhappiness.

Loyalty to false freedom principles can only bring delusion, a counterfeit happiness, and eventual destruction. False freedom principles include such things as the abuse of one’s body by the use of drugs, liquor, and tobacco, as well as sexual immoralities. False freedom principles likewise include the spread of communistic doctrine and protest by force.

In reality, true freedom can only exist in doing what is right, in being loyal—yes, in doing what we ought to do.

Source: Elder Franklin D. Richards
General Conference, April 1969

Topics: Freedom

Capital vs. Labor?

Obviously both capital and labor should be controlled in the interest of the public welfare and human freedom, which certainly includes the “right to work.” To secure this right why not let every one opposed to the tyranny and evils of the “closed shop” join a right-to-work league which shall secure through suitable legislative action an opening of the gates of opportunity to every one who is able and willing to work, independent of membership in any labor union or other organization. In other words, let us unite without delay to secure the laws and regulations necessary to insure to every worker the “right to work” without which the noble declaration that each of us has the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness becomes an idle mockery.

But a far better, much quicker, more desirable and vastly simpler plan is, under existing conditions, apparently in the realm of the ideal and therefore it must await the coming of better days. I refer to the Golden Rule plan.

There is a disagreement between employer and employee. In the light of Christ’s teachings what is the right thing to do? Obviously these two parties should sit down and talk things over, each strongly motivated to treat the other as he would like to be treated, if all the circumstances were reversed. Let each one try hard to put himself in the other’s shoes. To do this each one would have to recognize the other as a brother, and both should keep in mind their obligations to the public. Love and right, not hate and force must be the means employed to determine what is fair, honest, just and humane. Neither will ask for nor expect anything the Golden Rule could not award.

Source: Elder Joseph F. Merrill
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Capitalism

The Constitution was not the work of cloistered, fanatical theorists, but of sober, seasoned, distinguished men of affairs, drawn from various walks of life. They included students of wide reading and great learning in all matters of government. They were among those who had successfully guided the Colonists through a long Revolutionary War, beset not only with grave problems of military necessity and strategy against one of the most powerful nations of the world, but also burdened with vital local problems of co-ordination and co-operation among and between a loosely knit confederation of thirteen different political entities, each jealous beyond measure of its own political independence and sovereignty, none with great financial strength, and all hesitant, at times to the point of unwillingness, to contribute the necessary funds for the common defense and for waging their war for independence.

Source: J. Reuben Clark
Stand Fast by Our Constitution, p135-136.

Topics: America, History; US Constitution; War, Revolutionary War

Slavery will not Prevail

In conclusion, I will hazard one suggestion:

Unless all history is reversed and its lessons and principles all blotted out, it is inconceivable that any system can be set up by a personal despot or by an oligarchy either of intellectuals or of cruel, heartless, ambitious men, that can permanently rob men of their freedom and put them in slavery. This never has been done. Sooner or later such a system has always broken down; it always will break down, because, despite what atheists and scoffers say or think, man is the child of God, who planted in man’s soul certain eternal concepts and urges that are stronger than mortal life or any of the intellectual or physical incidents of mortality.

Source: J. Reuben Clark
“Stand Fast by Our Constitution”, Page 79

Topics: Free Agency

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