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

Hemispheric Solidarity

When our government shall be sufficiently strong, pure, and honorable, islands, states, and dynasties will seek shelter under its wings; the Canadas, the Central American States, Mexico, . . . . Bolivia, Peru, Chili, Brazil, and all of South America will naturally follow. They will need no coercion. They will seek to be one with us.

Source: John Taylor
The Mormon, October 6, 1855, Vol. 1, No. 33.

Topics: America, Destiny

The prospect now before us in America ought . . . to engage the attention of every man of learning to matters of power and of right, that we may be neither led nor driven blindfolded to irretrievable destruction.

Source: John Adams
1765, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

Topics: Responsibility

Three generations—grandfather to grandson—have created these wonders which surpass the utmost imaginings of all previous time. How did it come about? How can it be explained? Just what has been responsible for this unprecedented burst of progress, which has so quickly transformed a hostile wilderness into the most prosperous and advanced country that the world has ever known?

Perhaps the best way to find the answer is first to rule out some of the factors that were not responsible.

To say that it is because of our natural resources is hardly enough. The same rich resources were here when the mound builders held forth. Americans have had no monopoly on iron, coal, copper, aluminum, zinc, lead, or other materials. Such things have always been available to human beings. China, India, Russia, Africa—all have great natural resources. Crude oil oozed from the earth in Baku 4,000 years ago; and when Julius Caesar marched west into Gaul, Europe was a rich and virgin wilderness inhabited by a few roving savages, much as America was when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth.*

Is it because we work harder? Again the answer is “No” because in most countries the people work much harder, on the average, than we do.

Can it be that we are a people of inherent superiority? That sounds fine in after-dinner oratory and goes over big at election time, but the argument is difficult to support. Our own ancestors, including the Anglo-Saxons, have starved right along with everyone else.

Can it be that we have more energy than other peoples of the world? That’s not the answer either, but it’s getting pretty close. We are not endowed with any superior energy—mental or physical—but it is a fact that we, in the United States of America, have made more effective use of our human energies than have any other people on the face of the globe—anywhere or at any time.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, pp. 5-7.

Topics: America, Heritage; Praxeology

Insects and animals follow certain patterns of action. Honeybees, for example, all make the same hexagonal cells of wax. Beavers all build the same form of dam, and the same kinds of birds make the same kinds of nests. Generation after generation, they continue to follow their changeless routines—always doing the same things in the same ways.

But a man is different because he is a human being; and as a human being, he has the power of reason, the power of imagination, the ability to capitalize on the experiences of the past and the present as bearing on the problems of the future. He has the ability to change himself as well as his environment. He has the ability to progress and to keep on progressing.

Plants occupy space and contend with each other for it. Animals defend their possession of places and things. But man has enormous powers, of unknown extent, to make new things and to change old things into new forms. He not only owns property, but he also actually creates property.

In the last analysis, a thing is not property unless it is owned; and without ownership, there is little incentive to improve it.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, p. 11-12

Topics: Praxeology; Private Property

Through foresight, imagination, and individual initiative, man develops tools and facilities which expand his efforts and enable him to produce things which would not otherwise be possible. This is an outstanding difference between man and animal, just as it is an outstanding difference between civilization and barbarism.

Progress toward better living would never have been possible, except through the development of tools to extend the uses of human energy—tools that harness the forces of nature as a substitute for muscular effort.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, p. 13

Topics: Praxeology

Life is a continuous series of conflicts and compromises; and, generally speaking, the cooperative actions growing out of such conflicts and compromises are sounder than if each one of us were able to carry out his own ideas, in his own way and without regard for anyone else.

But from the viewpoint of the individual, it sometimes appears that the efforts of others are unnecessary obstacles to his own direct action in achieving his own personal desires. Thus, it occurs to him that maybe there should be some centralized control or overriding authority to govern all human energies as a unit. This concept has a strong appeal because lurking beneath it is the alluring assumption that the right kind of authority would direct the affairs of all mankind in harmony with the individuals own personal views—thus relieving him of the trouble and responsibility of making his own ideas work.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, p. 17-18

Topics: Government

Unrestrained Government

History books most often say the war was fought to free the slaves. But that idea is brought into serious question by Abraham Lincoln’s repeated disclaimer: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” The real causes had more to do with problems similar to those the nation faces today—a federal government that has escaped the limits of the Constitution.

John C. Calhoun expressed that concern in his famous Fort Hill Address of July 26, 1831, when he was Andrew Jackson’s vice president. Calhoun, who later became a senator from South Carolina, said, “Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.”

Calhoun, like Jefferson, feared Washington, D.C.‘s usurpation of powers constitutionally held by the people and the states (“consolidation”). For example, of the tariffs enacted to protect Northern manufacturers, Calhoun said that “an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed on the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North.”

Import duties extracted far more from the South than from the North, and Southerners complained of having to pay either high prices for northern-made goods or high tariffs on foreign-made goods. They also complained about federal laws not dissimilar to the Navigation Acts that helped bring on the War for Independence.

Source: Walter E. Williams
The Freeman, January 1999, pp. 63-64

Topics: Civil War; Government, Loss of Freedom; Slavery; Taxes

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