Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own. Our circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct. The principles of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with that quarter of the globe should be avoided if we mean that peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American societies.

Source: Thomas Jefferson to J. Correa de Serra, 1820. ME 15:285

Topics: Politics, International

Our first and fundamental maxim should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe and peculiarly her own. She should therefore have a system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe. While the last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism, our endeavor should surely be to make our hemisphere that of freedom.

Source: Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1823. ME 15:477

Topics: Politics, International

The assassination of President Kennedy, the daily slaughter of our boys in Vietnam, the communist control of the Berkeley riots and communist-inspired demonstrations from coast to coast should serve as a shock therapy to that segment of our population who like to call themselves “liberals.” America is big enough to make room for many different kinds of thinking, but many liberals have claimed to see virtues in socialism and communism which I, for one, have not been able to find. To promote their ideas, American liberals have become a highly organized, hard-core establishment in the United States, and they have been excusing their appeasement and coddling of communism on the ground that they were being “tolerant,” “broadminded,” and “working for peace.”

Source: Ezra Taft Benson
An Enemy Hath Done This, Ch. 3, p.32

Topics: Liberals; Socialism; Tolerance

The state is called the government, but it cannot actually govern the individual acts of any person because of the nature of human energy. Men in public office are only men, and no man can control another’s thoughts, speech, or creative actions. No possible use of physical force can compel anyone to think, speak, or act. It can only limit, hinder, and prevent.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, p. 57.

Topics: Free Agency; Government, Power

Some of the responsible personal conduct that is necessary to save America is the kind of conduct that is enforceable by law and legal process, but much of it can only be encouraged. In the end, many of our most important personal, family, civic, and church responsibilities are entirely voluntary. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell said in his address at this Freedom Festival last year, “Our whole society really rests on the capacity of its citizens to give ‘obedience to the unenforceable.’”

Source: Elder Dallin H. Oaks
“Some Responsibilities of Citizenship”
America’s Freedom Festival at Provo, Utah, July 3, 1994

Topics: Law; Responsibility

At a clear and extreme level, violations of inalienable rights by a government might excuse citizens from the performance of some obligations of citizenship. But the history of Latter-day Saints’ relations to their governments shows that any such exceptions would have to be far more extreme than anything we have experienced in this country.

Source: Elder Dallin H. Oaks
“Some Responsibilities of Citizenship”

Topics: Citizenship; Government, Loss of Freedom; Responsibility

Every human act is preceded by a decision to act, and that decision is based on faith. One cannot even think without a deep-seated faith that he exists and that there is a supreme standard of good in the universe. This is true of every living personwhether his god is the God of Abraham and Christ, Zeus or Isis, reason or fate, history or astrology, or any other god, whether it be true or false.

When the belief is false, the result will be different from what was expected. But the fact remains that every action of every human being springs from the desire to attain something which he considers to be good or from the desire to avoid something which he thinks is evil or undesirable.

Since the actions of any individual are determined by his beliefs, it follows that the underlying control of the energies of any group of persons is the religious faith prevailing among them.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, p. 21

Topics: Praxeology

In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed . . . . No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.

Source: Noah Webster
Reply to a Letter of David McClure on the Subject of the Proper
Course of Study in the Girard College, Philadelphia. New Haven
October 25, 1836

Topics: Christianity; Education

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

Source: Thomas Sowell

Topics: Politics

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