Readily and, I trust, feelingly acknowledge the duty incumbent on us all . . . to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want and to disease of body or mind; but I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States . . . .

Source: President Franklin Pierce
From a veto message in 1854

Topics: Welfare

Rights for Robots

Millions of our people now look to the government much in the same fashion that their fathers of Victorian times looked to God. Political authority has taken the place of heavenly guidance.

Herbert Spencer in that wonderful prophecy, The Man Versus the State, explained in detail what would happen. He foretold with exactitude the present rush of the weaklings for jobs as planners and permitters, telling other people what not to do.

You will have noticed that while we are all under the thumb of authority, authority becomes composed of those who, lacking the courage to stand on their own feet and accept their share of personal responsibility, seek the safety of official positions where they escape the consequences of error and failure. Active, energetic, and progressive persons, instead of leading the rest, are allowed to move only by the grace and favor of that section of the population which from its very nature lacks all the qualities needed to produce the desired results. Authority is the power to say no, which requires little or no ability.

On a broad view, the all-important issue in the world today is individualism versus collectivism.

The Individualist thinks of millions of single human souls, each with a spark of divine genius, and visualizes that genius applied to the solution of his own problems. His conception is infinitely higher than that of the politician or planner who at best regards these millions as material for social or political experiment or, at worst, cannon fodder.

Source: Sir Ernest Benn
As quoted in The Freeman, December 1992, p.480

Topics: Rights; Socialism

Discrimination

Many of the leading problems of our day, I believe, stem from a thought-disease about discrimination. It is well known that discrimination has come to be widely scorned. And politicians have teamed up with those who scorn it, to pass laws against it—as though morals can be manufactured by the pen of a legislator and the gun of a policeman . . . .

If a man is to continue his self-improvement, he must be free to exercise the powers of choice with which he has been endowed. When discrimination is not allowed according to one’s wisdom and conscience, both discrimination and conscience will atrophy in the same manner as an unused muscle. Since man was given these faculties, it necessarily follows that he should use them and be personally responsible for the consequences of his choices. He must be free to either enjoy or endure the consequences of each decision, because the lesson it teaches is the sole purpose of experience—the best of all teachers.

Source: F. A. Harper
As quoted in The Freeman, March 1991, p.85

Topics: Free Agency

Free Markets, Free People

The proper aim of economic life is an over-all aim: the use of limited human and material resources in such a way as to serve most effectively the needs and desires of all the people. This aim tends to be achieved automatically in a regime of free markets where the people’s needs and desires can express themselves in price offers to which producers are forced by economic necessity to conform.

When political authority, even with the best of intentions, interferes with this self-regulating flow of goods and services, it sets up chains of cause and effect which it can neither foresee nor control except by constantly widening its authority. The final outcome is a regimented society from which all objective and valid guides to human effort have vanished, along with human freedom.

Source: The Guaranty Survey, March 1956

Topics: Capitalism; Free Market

The Only Route to Personal Security

If the less productive members of a society truly seek security, let them rally to the defense of the freedom of choice and freedom of action of those who work for a living and who are personally productive. Let them voluntarily deal with one another in a marketplace kept free of compulsion. Such voluntary trading directs the instruments of production and the means of economic security into the hands of those most capable of serving all mankind. It promotes mutual respect for life and property. It stimulates every individual to develop his own talents to their maximum productivity. It encourages saving instead of squandering. The free market, and not its displacement by governmental controls, is the only route to the kind of personal security which makes for harmonious social relationships.

Source: Paul L. Poirot

Topics: Free Agency; Free Market

Children and youth today, as they have always been, are precious in the sight of God. Can they be led to anything of richer spiritual value than the proper observance of the Sabbath day, to keep it holy and sacred? The laws of ancient Israel taught that it is wrong to steal, wrong to bear false witness against our neighbor. Are not these truths the deep and underlying principles of living? They are. The youth of today needs them as much as any other time in all history. Such truths lie at the root of all good government—both religiously and politically.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1935

Topics: Government, Ideal

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Thus the very first thing which our fathers sought to secure for themselves and for their posterity was freedom to worship as they wished. I do not need to call to your minds the trials and persecution which this people have suffered in the past, in order to bring home to you the conviction that nothing else in the great document, the Constitution, is so important to this people as is this guarantee of religious freedom, because underneath and behind all that lies in our lives, all that we do in our lives, is our religion, our worship, our belief and faith in God. We need the Constitution and its guarantees of liberty and freedom more than any other people in the world, for, few and weak as we are, we stand naked and helpless except when clothed with its benign provisions.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1935

Topics: Freedom, Religious

Fundamentals Of Constitution God-given

One of the most important things that we can do for the Church is to stand behind the Constitution of the United States. That does not mean, and no reasoning person would suppose that it meant, that that Constitution may not from time to time be changed as the needs of the people would seem to require. But it does mean that that Constitution should be changed only under the urge of great necessity, and then only in accordance with its great underlying concepts. It does mean that the great fundamental elements of the Constitution are God-given, for he said so. It does mean to me as an individual that the Constitution of the United States and my adherence to it and support of it is a part of my religion.

I have about the Constitution that same sort of conviction that I have about the other doctrines that we are taught, for I believe its precepts are among the doctrines of the Church, and I believe that the Lord will change and modify from time to time those details of its provisions which are ancilliary to its great principles; he will cause us—those who live under it—to modify it in accordance with our needs; but the fundamental principles of it we may not sacrifice.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1935

Topics: US Constitution, Amendments; US Constitution, Defend; US Constitution, Inspired

Fundamental Things Enduring

Now, I would not for a moment have it understood that anything that I have in mind to say will be in conflict with anything that we have heard at this conference. I have no such intention, no such thought, nor do I believe that to be the case, for I believe that the fundamental things in our government, in the Constitution of the United States, are here to endure. Moreover, I believe that it is the business and responsibility of Latter-day Saints to uphold and sustain these sacred principles which bear the stamp of approval of God himself, and we should be loyal unto them. I am, however, going to say this, boldly—The present world civilization shall not endure, for God has said it. It is bound to pass away. May I also say I care not how soon that comes.

The Decree of The Lord Concerning the Wicked

When I say this, do not misunderstand me. I do not say nor believe that things which are good will pass away, but because man has become sensual, devilish and fallen man, and because he will not hearken to the voice of inspiration and revelation from God, and walk in righteousness, keeping his commandments, the decree has gone forth that all man-made covenants, obligations and governments shall be changed and come to an end.

Source: Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
General Conference, April 1935

Topics: US Constitution

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